Justia U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Mosby-Meachem, an in-house attorney for Memphis Light, Gas & Water, was denied a request to work from home for 10 weeks while she was on bedrest due to complications from pregnancy. MLG&W unsuccessfully argued that precedent precluded any reasonable jury from determining that Mosby-Meachem was a qualified individual while on bedrest because in-person attendance was an essential function of her job. A jury found in favor of Mosby-Meachem on her claim for disability discrimination under the Americans With Disabilities Act and awarded her compensatory damages. The district court also granted Mosby-Meachem’s motion for equitable relief and awarded her backpay for the period in which MLG&W did not permit her to telework. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. Mosby-Meachem produced sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to conclude that in-person attendance was not an essential function of her job for the 10-week period in which she requested to telework. View "Mosby-Meachem v. Memphis Light, Gas & Water Division" on Justia Law

Michael, a licensed pharmacist at Chapmanville's Aracoma Pharmacy, separately co-owns another West Virginia pharmacy and one in Pennsylvania. The government suspected that Michael used the pharmacies to distribute on-demand prescription drugs, worth more than $4 million, over the Internet. A grand jury returned a multi-count indictment. Count 7 charged Michael with fraudulently submitting a claim for payment to Humana for dispensing medication that was never dispensed (18 U.S.C. 1347). Count 8 charged him with committing aggravated identity theft by using the “identifying information” of a doctor and a patient “in relation to the [health care fraud] offense” (18 U.S.C. 1028A(a)(1), (c)(11)). Michael had submitted a claim to Humana indicating that A.S. (doctor) had prescribed Lovaza for P.R., including the doctor’s National Provider Identifier and the patient’s name and birth date. A.S. was not P.R.’s doctor and did not issue the prescription. Section 1028A requires a person to “assume the identity” of someone else; the district court held that the statute covered only “impersonation,” and dismissed Count 8. The Sixth Circuit reversed. To “use” a means of identification is to “convert to one’s service” or “employ” the means of identification. Michael used A.S. and P.R.’s identifying information to fashion a fraudulent submission, making the misuse of these means of identification “during and in relation to” healthcare fraud. View "United States v. Michael" on Justia Law

Michael, a licensed pharmacist at Chapmanville's Aracoma Pharmacy, separately co-owns another West Virginia pharmacy and one in Pennsylvania. The government suspected that Michael used the pharmacies to distribute on-demand prescription drugs, worth more than $4 million, over the Internet. A grand jury returned a multi-count indictment. Count 7 charged Michael with fraudulently submitting a claim for payment to Humana for dispensing medication that was never dispensed (18 U.S.C. 1347). Count 8 charged him with committing aggravated identity theft by using the “identifying information” of a doctor and a patient “in relation to the [health care fraud] offense” (18 U.S.C. 1028A(a)(1), (c)(11)). Michael had submitted a claim to Humana indicating that A.S. (doctor) had prescribed Lovaza for P.R., including the doctor’s National Provider Identifier and the patient’s name and birth date. A.S. was not P.R.’s doctor and did not issue the prescription. Section 1028A requires a person to “assume the identity” of someone else; the district court held that the statute covered only “impersonation,” and dismissed Count 8. The Sixth Circuit reversed. To “use” a means of identification is to “convert to one’s service” or “employ” the means of identification. Michael used A.S. and P.R.’s identifying information to fashion a fraudulent submission, making the misuse of these means of identification “during and in relation to” healthcare fraud. View "United States v. Michael" on Justia Law

The Hagys took a loan to purchase a mobile home and property on which to park it. In 2010, they defaulted. Green Tree initiated foreclosure. Hagy called Green Tree’s law firm, Demers & Adams, wanting to settling the claim. Demers sent a letter containing a Warranty Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure, stating, “In return for [the Hagys] executing the Deed … Green Tree has advised me that it will waive any deficiency balance.” The Hagys executed the Deed. Demers wrote to the Hagys’ attorney, confirming receipt of the executed Deed and reaffirming that “Green Tree will not attempt to collect any deficiency balance.” Green Tree dismissed the foreclosure complaint but began calling the Hagys to collect the debt that they no longer owed. Green Tree realized its mistake and agreed that the Hagys owed nothing. In 2011, the Hagys sued, citing the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the Ohio Consumer Sales Practices Act. Green Tree resolved the dispute through arbitration. The court granted the Hagys summary judgment, reasoning that Demers’ letter “fail[ed] to disclose” that it was “from a debt collector” under 15 U.S.C. 1692e(11). The court awarded them $1,800 in statutory damages and $74,196 in attorney’s fees. The Sixth Circuit dismissed an appeal and the underlying suit. The complaint failed to identify a cognizable injury traceable to Demers; Congress cannot override Article III of the Constitution by labeling the violation of any statutory requirement a cognizable injury. View "Hagy v. Demers & Adams" on Justia Law

The Hagys took a loan to purchase a mobile home and property on which to park it. In 2010, they defaulted. Green Tree initiated foreclosure. Hagy called Green Tree’s law firm, Demers & Adams, wanting to settling the claim. Demers sent a letter containing a Warranty Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure, stating, “In return for [the Hagys] executing the Deed … Green Tree has advised me that it will waive any deficiency balance.” The Hagys executed the Deed. Demers wrote to the Hagys’ attorney, confirming receipt of the executed Deed and reaffirming that “Green Tree will not attempt to collect any deficiency balance.” Green Tree dismissed the foreclosure complaint but began calling the Hagys to collect the debt that they no longer owed. Green Tree realized its mistake and agreed that the Hagys owed nothing. In 2011, the Hagys sued, citing the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the Ohio Consumer Sales Practices Act. Green Tree resolved the dispute through arbitration. The court granted the Hagys summary judgment, reasoning that Demers’ letter “fail[ed] to disclose” that it was “from a debt collector” under 15 U.S.C. 1692e(11). The court awarded them $1,800 in statutory damages and $74,196 in attorney’s fees. The Sixth Circuit dismissed an appeal and the underlying suit. The complaint failed to identify a cognizable injury traceable to Demers; Congress cannot override Article III of the Constitution by labeling the violation of any statutory requirement a cognizable injury. View "Hagy v. Demers & Adams" on Justia Law

Medical personnel treated three infants, between 19-days old and six-months-old, in the emergency room of Nationwide Children’s Hospital for serious injuries, including skull fractures and a broken leg. Nationwide’s physicians suspected child abuse. They conducted testing to identify additional injuries, then alerted Franklin County Children Services of their concerns. One family did not appeal the finding that the suspicion of child abuse was “substantiated’ or the designation of their case for “ongoing supportive services.” In another case, the county found no evidence of abuse. The parents of the infants filed a 42 U.S.C. 1983 claim against Nationwide and the County, alleging that the medical testing violated their children’s right to be free from unreasonable searches and their own right to familial association. The district court granted the defendants summary judgment. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. State action did not prompt Nationwide, a private hospital, to perform the diagnostic tests, and the county had nothing to do with the tests. The court noted that the parents consented to the tests. View "Thomas v. Nationwide Children's Hospital" on Justia Law

Higdon pled guilty as a felon in possession of a firearm and was sentenced to 15 years in prison as an armed career criminal based in part on a 1984 North Carolina conviction for discharging a firearm into an occupied structure. The offense requires an application of force to an occupied structure, but not to the occupants themselves. Higdon did not appeal but moved to set aside his sentence after the Supreme Court invalidated the Armed Career Criminal Act’s residual clause. The Sixth Circuit reversed, finding that the offense was not a “violent felony” under the Act's remaining provisions because it does not involve the use “of physical force against the person of another,” 18 U.S.C. 924(e)(2)(B)(i). Under the North Carolina statute, the projectile can miss the structure’s occupants altogether—with no physical force applied to the person of anyone—and yet the shooting can satisfy all the elements of the offense. The elements might satisfy a requirement that the defendant act recklessly, but that requirement is separate from the one that the force be used “against the person of another.” View "Higdon v. United States" on Justia Law

John attended a party, drank six beers, then proceeded to a bar and drank more beer and alcohol. He left the bar in the early morning, sufficiently intoxicated that he cannot remember what happened for the remainder of the night. Based on text messages he later found on his cellphone, John knows that he called Jane. The two had engaged in several prior physical encounters. Jane, who had also been drinking, joined John in his bed. According to Jane’s subsequent statement, the two engaged in some consensual sexual acts, but Jane stopped consenting and John continued to engage in non-consensual sexual acts. John was found responsible for violating Miami University’s sexual assault policy and was suspended for four months. John sued Jane, Miami University, and individual University employees. John and Jane reached a settlement. The court dismissed John’s remaining claims. The Sixth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of John’s Title IX hostile-environment claim, Title IX deliberate-indifference claim, and 42 U.S.C. 1983 substantive-due-process claim. The court reversed, in part, finding that John sufficiently pleaded procedural-due-process and equal protection claims against one employee based on the claims that she was not an impartial adjudicator and did not fully disclose the evidence against him. The court also reversed a finding of qualified immunity as to that employee and held that John sufficiently pled his Title IX erroneous-outcome claim. View "Doe v. Miami University" on Justia Law

Following a spate of home-invasion robberies around Dallas, police interrupted a robbery attempt that fit the pattern. The robbers fled on foot. Later that day, police arrested Olaya after finding him in a stolen vehicle with a suspected accomplice. The police inventoried the vehicle’s contents, took custody of a cell phone, and obtained a warrant to search the phone. An officer reviewed the phone's contents by hand, found potentially incriminating evidence, took screenshots, then stored the phone in an evidence storage facility. Texas officials then merged their investigation with a federal investigation focused on a multistate criminal enterprise and transferred the phone to the FBI for analysis. The Bureau searched the phone based on the state warrant. Meanwhile, Texas officers came to suspect that Castro had organized the robberies. They followed a signal coming from a stolen cell phone to a house where Castro lived. Officers watched the home, searched it twice, and conducted a brief search of Castro’s cell phones after obtaining her consent. Based on this evidence, a different Texas judge issued search warrants for Castro’s two phones. Officers searched each phone and found incriminating evidence about the robberies. The federal government charged Castro and Olaya with violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. The defendants successfully moved to suppress the cell-phone evidence. The Sixth Circuit reversed, finding that each search complied with the Fourth Amendment. View "United States v. Castro" on Justia Law

In 2013, Smith pleaded guilty to three federal counts stemming from his armed robbery of a Sevierville, Tennessee pharmacy. He was sentenced to 262 months in prison, the bottom of the Guidelines range, as a career offender based in part on his prior North Carolina state conviction for common-law robbery. He also had a South Carolina drug-trafficking conviction. A defendant qualifies as a career offender if he was at least 18 years old at the time of the instant offense; the instant offense of conviction is a felony that is either a crime of violence or a controlled substance offense; and the defendant has at least two prior felony convictions of either a crime of violence or a controlled substance offense. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court subsequently vacated the sentence in light of its 2015 "Johnson" decision, which cast the constitutionality of the Guidelines’ residual clause into doubt. On remand, the Sixth Circuit again held that North Carolina common-law robbery does qualify as a “crime of violence” within the meaning of U.S.S.G. 4B1.1(a). The court cited the Supreme Court’s 2017 decision, Beckles v. United States, clarifying that the Guidelines’ residual clause remains valid after Johnson. View "United States v. Smith" on Justia Law