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

Harris went to the store, argued with a clerk, left the store, and entered the laundromat next door where his friend, Henderson, worked. Harris asserts that while he was between the buildings, the clerk came out, pointed a gun, and taunted him with racial slurs. Following Harris’s 911 call, four officers arrived. As shown on bodycams, they expressed disbelief in Harris’s report. The store clerk denied having a gun. The store had at least three surveillance cameras but the officers watched footage from only the front door, although Harris had reported that the incident occurred near the back door. Harris wanted to move forward with his report, believing the footage would corroborate his account. The officers indicated that the video revealed Harris had lied and arrested Harris. No officer took Henderson’s statement. Detective Busch reviewed the police report and passed it to the prosecutor for charging.Harris spent 18 days in jail before being released on bond. Weeks later, the state dropped Harris’s false felony report charge; the store clerks failed to appear. Harris sued the City of Saginaw, the officers, and Busch. The Sixth Circuit affirmed the denial of qualified immunity summary judgment to the officers, the grant of qualified immunity to Busch, and the dismissal of Harris’s failure-to-train and failure-to-supervise claims against the city. There is a genuine dispute of material fact regarding whether the officers arrested Harris without probable cause. View "Harris v. City of Saginaw, Michigan" on Justia Law

M.Q., a student attending public school in Knox County, Tennessee, was diagnosed with autism. M.Q. is largely nonverbal and has developmental delays in communication skills, social/emotional behavior, and pre-vocational skills. A suit under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 20 U.S.C. 1400, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. 794; and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12101, alleged that M.Q. was improperly excluded from the general education classroom setting and placed him in a self-contained classroom for students with disabilities for nearly all his kindergarten academic instruction.The district court held that this placement violated the IDEA but rejected claims that also it also violated Section 504 and the ADA. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. The district court correctly found that the district complied with the statutory requirements with respect to including a general education teacher on M.Q.’s individual education plan (IEP) team— albeit under their most literal interpretation. The IEP cannot stand because it placed M.Q. in a more restrictive educational setting than his disability required. View "Knox County, Tennessee v. M.Q." on Justia Law

Following the Flint Water Crisis, thousands of cases were brought for the various harms minors, adults, property owners, and business owners endured as a result of lead-contaminated water. Putative class action lawsuits and individual lawsuits were consolidated in the Eastern District of Michigan, where Co-Lead Class Counsel and Co-Liaison Counsel were appointed to represent the putative class and individual plaintiffs. After years of negotiation, Co-Lead Class Counsel and Co-Liaison Counsel, together with the Settling Defendants, reached a record-breaking settlement. The court approved the settlement and awarded attorneys’ fees and reimbursement for expenses. Three Objector groups appealed that award.The Sixth Circuit affirmed. The Objectors are not entitled to detailed discovery of billing and cost records; assertions that those records would have shown excessive billing or revealed the inclusion of time not performed for the common benefit are entirely speculative. The Objectors lack standing to appeal the structure of the fee award; they would fare no better with or without the Common Benefit Assessments applicable to their claims. Were they to have standing, they did not demonstrate that the court abused its discretion in awarding Common Benefit Assessments, particularly when those assessments achieve parity among settlement beneficiaries and are reasonable under the circumstance. The court upheld an award of $500 for bone scans. View "Waid v. Snyder" on Justia Law

Cash died when a hammermill shredder exploded at his workplace. The Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration (TOSHA) determined that the explosion was primarily caused by the accumulation of combustible aluminum dust produced by the shredding process. The personal representative of his estate sued REI, the company that assembled and sold the shredder to LR, Cash’s employer, asserting four product-liability claims. The district court granted REI summary judgment, because it “did not design the hammermill system at issue, and instead assisted LR with locating primarily used components that LR requested based on the design of LR’s existing system, REI is not legally responsible for any alleged defect in the system as a whole.”The Sixth Circuit reversed. A key requirement of the contract-specification defense is that the customer provided the manufacturer with detailed plans or specifications directing how the product should be built. The district court erred in holding that no genuine dispute of material fact exists as to whether REI followed LR’s design specifications. There was evidence to suggest that REI contemplated incorporating a dust-collection bin in the design, one that had not been requested. View "Cash-Darling v. Recycling Equipment, Inc." on Justia Law

Moss purchased cocaine from a DEA informant and was charged with possession with intent to deliver 1,000 or more grams of cocaine and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. Moss’s first attorney moved for an entrapment hearing. Steingold then began representing Moss. At the entrapment hearing, 10 days later, Steingold attested to minimal pre-trial preparation. Moss was the only witness he presented. Steingold requested a continuance to contact witnesses he learned about during Moss’s direct and cross-examination. The court permitted Steingold to contact one witness but denied a continuance. The prosecution presented five witnesses and multiple exhibits. The court denied Moss’s motion to dismiss based on entrapment.At trial, Steingold waived his opening argument, presented no witnesses, and stipulated to the admission of the transcript from the entrapment hearing as substantive evidence. For one of the government’s two witnesses, Steingold did not object during his testimony or conduct any cross-examination. Steingold waived his closing argument. On appeal, Moss unsuccessfully argued that Steingold provided constitutionally ineffective assistance by waiving Moss’s right to a jury trial and stipulating to the admission of the evidence from the entrapment hearing.The Sixth Circuit reversed the district court’s order of habeas relief. The state court’s denial of Moss’s ineffective assistance claims under Strickland was not contrary to nor an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law. View "Moss v. Miniard" on Justia Law

Simmonds ran a drug-trafficking conspiracy. During traffic stops, officers seized large quantities of fentanyl from co-conspirators acting under Simmonds’s instructions. Investigators also searched an apartment and four storage units associated with Simmonds, where they seized cash, cell phones, fentanyl, methamphetamine, cocaine, xylazine, and suspected marijuana, plus shipping and packaging supplies. At one unit, investigators seized a firearm, ammunition, and Simmonds’s passport and birth certificate.Simmonds pled guilty to conspiring to distribute drugs, possessing a controlled substance with intent to distribute, and using a cell phone to facilitate a felony drug offense. In the plea agreement, Simmonds agreed that “sentencing rests within the discretion of the Court,” that the guideline range would be determined by the court after a PSR was prepared, and to a base offense level 32. The government would seek two-level enhancements for possession of a firearm, and for being an organizer or leader of a criminal activity but “no other specific offense characteristics, Guideline adjustments or Guideline departures.” The PSR departed from that recommendation. The district court followed the PSR, set the base offense level at 36, and accepted four recommended enhancements, bringing the offense level to 43. Simmonds’ Guideline range was life imprisonment. The court sentenced Simmonds to 250 months. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. Simmonds cannot show that the prosecution breached the plea agreement nor can he show that the court committed reversible error by failing to notice and rectify a breach of the agreement. View "United States v. Simmonds" on Justia Law

The Debtor filed a chapter 13 bankruptcy petition. The chapter 13 trustee moved to convert the Debtor’s case to chapter 7 or to dismiss the case with a bar to refiling. The Debtor requested that the motion be denied. After the Conversion Hearing, while the matter was still pending, the Debtor filed chapter 13 plan amendments, amended schedules, and an amended bankruptcy petition, all seeking relief under chapter 13. The bankruptcy court entered a Conversion Order. The Debtor subsequently unsuccessfully sought reconsideration, dismissal, withdrawal, suspension, abstention, or other relief and did not cooperate with the Trustee as required (11 U.S.C. 521), resulting in civil contempt, sanctions, and default judgments.Two years after conversion, the Debtor filed a “Motion to Withdraw Pursuant to [sic] U.S.C. 1307(b) and Debtor’s Request to Dismiss Prior to Conversion,” claiming for the first time that she had orally moved to dismiss her case during the Conversion Hearing. Instead of filing a brief or other information as requested by the court, the Debtor sought various forms of relief. The bankruptcy court denied the Debtor’s Motion for Injunctive and Other Relief as a “delay tactic.” The Debtor continued to seek various relief. The Sixth Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel affirmed; the Debtor’s assertion that she requested dismissal of the chapter 13 case before conversion is false and 11 U.S.C. 1307 does not grant a debtor an absolute right to dismiss a case post-conversion. View "In re: Skandis" on Justia Law

Rodriguez filed a purported class action, alleging that Hirshberg violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Because a pending Sixth Circuit case (VanderKodde) would likely resolve the issues, the parties jointly requested a stay. The district court, however, administratively closed the case in November 2018, instructing that within 14 days of the VanderKodde decision, either party could move to reopen the case and that the motion would be granted. In February 2020, the Sixth Circuit decided VanderKodde. Neither party moved to reopen until June. Rodriguez then explained that counsel had mistakenly confused the court’s deadline and noted the onset of the pandemic. The district court denied Rodriguez’s motion without issuing a separate judgment.Rodriguez filed a notice of appeal more than 30 days after the order. Hirshberg moved to dismiss the appeal as untimely. The Sixth Circuit denied the motion because the district court did not enter a separate judgment. Rodriguez also filed a new complaint in state court. Hirshberg removed this second case to the federal district court, where it was dismissed on res judicata grounds.Consolidating the issues, the Sixth Circuit reversed. Using an “administrative closure” to suspend and ultimately dismiss the suit arose from judicial fiat, not the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which articulate different procedures for dispensing with a case. In this instance, the district court’s deployment of local practices is irreconcilable with the requirements set forth in the Rules. View "Rodriguez v. Hirshberg Acceptance Corp." on Justia Law

Smucker’s is a federal contractor that supplies food items to the federal government. In 2021, by Executive Order, President Biden directed all federal contractors to “ensure that all [their] employees [were] fully vaccinated for COVID-19,” unless such employees were “legally entitled” to health or religious accommodations. The order made contractors “responsible for considering, and dispositioning, such requests for accommodations.” In September 2021, Smucker’s notified its U.S. employees that it would “ask and expect” them to “be fully vaccinated.” A month later, in the face of “deadlines in the federal order,” Smucker’s announced a formal vaccine mandate with exemptions based on “sincerely held religious beliefs.”The plaintiffs unsuccessfully sought religious exemptions, then sued Smucker's under the First Amendment's free-exercise guarantee. The Sixth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the suit. When Smucker’s denied the exemption requests, it was not a state actor. Smucker’s does not perform a traditional, exclusive public function; it has not acted jointly with the government or entwined itself with it; and the government did not compel it to deny anyone an exemption. That Smucker’s acted in compliance with federal law and that Smucker’s served as a federal contractor, do not by themselves make the company a government actor. View "Ciraci v. J.M. Smucker Co." on Justia Law

A government informant arranged to buy meth at Kilbourne’s home. When the informant arrived, Kilbourne was not there. The informant purchased meth from Reinberg and asked Reinberg about purchasing a gun. Reinberg stated she would “have [Kilbourne] hit you up on that.” Later, Kilbourne sold the gun to the informant. Kilbourne was arrested. Reinberg pled guilty, without an agreement, to drug offenses. Reinberg’s attorney stopped her from answering questions about the gun because she was not charged with any gun offenses. The government opposed Reinberg’s for safety-valve relief at sentencing. Reinberg later claimed “she was aware of the gun” but was not involved in its sale. The government opposed her safety-valve request again, claiming that a video of the meth sale showed Reinberg knew more.The Sixth Circuit affirmed the denial of safety-valve relief and a 60-month sentence. The safety-valve provision allows a court to impose a sentence shorter than the statutory minimum, 18 U.S.C. 3553(f), if the defendant proves by a preponderance of the evidence that she meets "every criterion,” including telling the government all information she has concerning the offenses that were part of the same course of conduct or of a common scheme. The district court found the conversation with the informant indicated that the gun was present. Reinberg withheld information. That finding was not clearly erroneous. Reinberg identified the gun by name, twice remarked “it’s pretty,” and facilitated its later sale. View "United States v. Reinberg" on Justia Law