Short Circuit: A Roundup of Recent Federal Court Decisions
New on the Short Circuit podcast: A dive into IJ’s research report Unaccountable, which examines how qualified immunity really works in the federal circuit courts of appeals. The interview with its authors includes a special look at the methodology used by the team to comb through over 7,000 opinions issued over 11 years.
- USPS products include those over which it has a monopoly, like first-class mail, and competitive products, like package delivery. The rates it charges for competitive products are supposed to be high enough to cover the costs attributable to those products, though its brown-attired competitor takes issue with its package-delivery ratemaking. D.C. Circuit: The ratemaking gets our stamp of approval.
- If you ever wanted to read a “bench slap” of the National Labor Relations Board, this humdinger from the D.C. Circuit would be the place to go. Number of times the court calls NLRB’s arguments “nonsense”: 2. Number of unfair labor practices found: zero.
- Man is seized as an unlawful immigrant and charged criminally with “illegal re-entry.” District court: You can be released on bail. ICE: Great, but we also have power to detain him pending his removal, so we’re going to go ahead and keep him in custody. District court (2017): You can’t do that. ICE: Yes we can. Second Circuit (2018): As a general matter, ICE certainly has the authority to detain people pending removal, but it might not be OK if the detention is a pretext for circumventing the district court’s bail decision in the criminal case. We remand for the district court to clarify if it thinks ICE is acting pretextually. District court (2023): Yeah, definitely pretextual. Second Circuit (2024): You … didn’t conduct any evidentiary hearing or consider any facts. The ICE detention stands, and the criminal indictment for illegal re-entry is reinstated. Concurrence: But just to be clear, pretextual ICE detentions are not OK. It just so happens there’s no reason to think this particular ICE detention was in fact pretextual.
- Allegation: Manhattanites’ home is damaged due to faulty renovations in the building next door. Construction has been going on for years, and unresolved complaints to the city have led to tens of thousands of dollars in fines! Homeowners: Hey neighbors, pay us lots of damages. Neighbors: Too bad for you, we’re the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Sierra Leone to the U.N. Sovereign immunity! Second Circuit: Often that is a get-out-of-jail-free card, but not here. The commercial activity and tortious activity exceptions apply. Case can move forward.
- Grocery store supervisor tells female subordinate that women are “too sensitive to be managers.” Also says a lot of other jerky and sexist things. Subordinate is fired for allegedly falsifying food logs. She sues, claiming gender-based discrimination. But does she have what it takes to satisfy her third-stage burden under the McDonnell Douglas test? Second Circuit: She does, because while a plaintiff may satisfy Stage 3 by demonstrating that the employer’s stated reason is a pretext, she can instead just prove that an impermissible purpose was a motivating factor.
- If you’re a Pennsylvania voter and chose mail-in voting, you must sign and date the outside of the envelope before mailing your ballot in. Turns out, the date doesn’t matter for establishing whether it’s mailed on time. So if you forget to date it, does your vote still count? Pennsylvania Supreme Court (2023): The law’s the law. Toss that vote away. Third Circuit (2024): And that’s okeydokey under the Materiality Provision of the Voting Rights Act. Dissent: Really?
- Pennsylvania man is arrested following a drug deal gone bad. In exchange for a sentence of 20-40 years, he pleads guilty to third-degree murder, conspiracy, and carrying an unlicensed gun. But wait! He alleges that his lawyer told him he’d be eligible for parole after 10 years. He wouldn’t have pleaded guilty if he’d known the truth: that he wouldn’t be eligible for parole until he’d served 20 years. Ineffective assistance of counsel? Third Circuit: Possibly. He deserves at least an evidentiary hearing on whether his lawyer misadvised him.
- Are the latest lines for state senate districts in the North Carolina General Assembly gonna be redrawn again due to the latest Voting Rights Act opinion in the Fourth Circuit? Dozens of pages of language extolling judicial restraint (over an almost-as-long dissent) will tell you “no.”
- Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in educational programs receiving “Federal financial assistance.” Does that include the tax benefits that come with being a 501(c)(3)? District Court: Yes. Fourth Circuit: So every private school in the country has been subject to Title IX for the last 50 years, and nobody realized it until now? Seems unlikely. (IJ did an amicus brief in this case, discussing the implications of the district court’s ruling for educational-choice programs.)
- Texas prisoner gets at most 3.5 hours of sleep per night. For 10 years. Bedtime is 10:30 p.m., with breakfast at 2 a.m., plus a “bed count” that requires him to wake up at 1 a.m. Cruel and unusual punishment? District court: I’m not convinced your health problems are related to this sleep stuff. Fifth Circuit: How about you check that analysis again?
- Remember all the hubbub last week about temporary administrative stays vs. stays pending appeal? Well, the Fifth Circui
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