Justia U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Articles Posted in April, 2012
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Police, believing the car to be stolen and the driver intoxicated, stopped plaintiff's car and implemented high-risk procedures. Officers, equipped with body shields, identified themselves and loudly commanded the driver to show her hands and get out of the car. The driver did not comply, but reached for a compartment in the vehicle and lit a cigarette. She put her feet out of the driver-side window onto the door, while she leaned back toward the console. She picked up a water bottle and set it on the ground beside the car. Officers repeated the order for about 10 minutes before using an SL6 baton launcher to fire a warning shot that hit the vehicle. They continued to issue commands for five minutes, then fired four shots, hitting her legs. Plaintiff, who was highly intoxicated, required stitches and was unable to walk for a week. Her suit claiming excessive force resulted in a verdict in the officers' favor. The Seventh Circuit reversed. The officers had reason to know that they should mitigate the force being used in light of plaintiff’s lack of resistance and were not entitled to qualified immunity.

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Campus police officers observed defendant using public computer terminals to download sexually explicit photos of young girls. He pleaded guilty to accessing an Internet website for the purpose of viewing child pornography, 18 U.S.C. 2252A(a)(5)(b) and was sentenced to 45 months. He filed notice of appeal, but his appointed lawyer sought to withdraw on the ground that all possible arguments are frivolous. The Seventh Circuit granted the motion, noting that the within-guidelines sentence is presumed valid.

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Eilman, a college student, was arrested outside an airport after behaving so badly that agents had called police. Eilman had developed bipolar disorder following an auto accident the previous year. She had not taken her medication and did not tell the police about her mental-health condition. By phone, her mother and stepfather told officers about her disorder. They did not believe the stepfather and the officer who talked to her mother did not share the information. Officers thought that Eilman was being difficult or was on drugs. In custody, Eilman alternated between calm and manic. Officers released her into a neighborhood she did not know, near a public-housing project with an exceptionally high crime rate without returning her cell phone. She was raped and either jumped or was thrown out a seventh-story window. She suffered permanent, serious brain damage. In a suit by her guardian under 42 U.S.C. 1983, the district court denied some of defendants’ claims of qualified immunity. The Seventh Circuit reversed in part, noting that whether police should have understood Eilman’s need for medical care is a factual issue and that police may have made her situation worse by releasing her far from where she was arrested.Easterbrook

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The attorney, purporting to represent the guardian of Cristina’s financial interests, filed suit in state court, alleging that Cristina, a minor, had been abused by six defendants. Her general guardian had discharged the attorney. The attorney dismissed the suit. The defendants sought sanctions. The attorney filed a notice of removal to federal court. Within a month, and following a "deluge of motions" from the attorney, the federal court remanded the proceeding to state court. The defendants requested an award of attorneys' fees for wrongful removal, 28 U.S.C. 1447(c). The district judge concluded that the attorney had vexatiously multiplied the proceedings, 28 U.S.C. 1927 and ordered him to pay $10,155 to one defendant and $2,432 to another. The Seventh Circuit affirmed under 1447(c). The removal "was worse than unreasonable; it was preposterous."

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Following criminal convictions involving controlled substances and a firearm, defendant, an illegal immigrant, was deported to Mexico in 2004. He unlawfully returned to the U.S. in 2008. Less than one year later, he was arrested for domestic violence and obstruction of justice and pled guilty in state court. He was charged with reentry by a previously deported alien, 8 U.S.C. 1326(a). The district court rejected an attempt to enter a conditional guilty plea, because he was unwilling to knowingly and voluntarily waive certain trial rights. Convicted, he was sentenced to 41 months. The Seventh Circuit affirmed stating that the court did not coerce defendant into proceeding to trial. The plea colloquy transcript suggests that the court diligently and patiently questioned him about his willingness to waive his trial rights.

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A former part-time police officer for a town of just over 400 people filed a complaint under 28 U.S.C. 1983 and 1988 against defendants who allegedly conspired to prosecute him for sexual offenses involving dancers at a strip club in retaliation for his cooperation with an FBI investigation. The defendants, characterized by the court as "a truly unique web of characters," were the first assistant state’s attorney, a deputy sheriff/investigator, the former owner of the now-defunct strip club, and plaintiff's brother, an occasional patron of the strip club. The district court dismissed for lack of evidence. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The prosecutor "was far from a saint," but the evidence did not show that he deviated from his prosecutorial role, so he was entitled to absolute prosecutorial immunity. Noting that plaintiff pled guilty to the sex offense charges, the court found no evidence of conspiracy.

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After discovering that she had lung cancer that had spread to her brain, Killian underwent aggressive treatment on the advice of her doctor. The treatment was unsuccessful and she died months later. Her husband submitted medical bills for the cost of the treatments to her health insurance company. The company denied coverage on most of the expenses because the provider was not covered by the insurance plan network. The husband filed suit, seeking benefits for incurred medical expenses, relief for breach of fiduciary duty, and statutory damages for failure to produce plan documents. The district court dismissed denial-of-benefits and breach-of-fiduciary-duty claims, but awarded minimal statutory damages against the plan administrator. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissals, rejecting an argument that the plan documents were in conflict, but remanded for recalculation of the statutory damages award.

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Defendant attempted to murder his ex-wife by beating her with a baseball bat, sealing her in a garbage can filled with snow, and leaving her in an unheated storage facility. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. The victim suffered severe injuries that resulted in her suffering a miscarriage and the amputation of all her toes. A Wisconsin state court awarded her $3.4 million for battery, false imprisonment, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and her husband and daughters $300,000 for loss of consortium. Defendant filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 7. The bankruptcy judge ruled that his debts were nondischargeable as debts "for willful and malicious injury," 11 U.S.C. 523(a)(6). The district court affirmed. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, noting that the purpose of bankruptcy law is to provide a fresh start for the honest, but unfortunate, debtor.

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Hicks worked as a mechanic for the Forest Preserve District for two years and received 28 disciplinary action forms from his supervisor. Hicks, who is black, participated in an investigation of his supervisor for discrimination, and later filed his own discrimination complaint. Eventually the FPD offered Hicks a choice: either accept a demotion to a non-mechanic position and take a significant pay cut, or face further disciplinary action up to and including termination. On advice of his union, Hicks took the demotion, but then brought suit for retaliation. He was awarded $30,000 and reinstated to his former position as a mechanic. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence and to a jury instruction on retaliation.

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The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, 15 U.S.C. 1681c(g), requires that electronically printed receipts not display more than the last 5 digits of the card number, but does not define "card number." A Shell card designates nine digits as the "account number" and five as the "card number" and has 14 digits embossed on the front and 18 digits encoded on the magnetic stripe. Shell printed receipts at its gas pumps with the last four digits of the account number. Plaintiffs contend that it should have printed the final four numbers that are electronically encoded on the magnetic stripe, which the industry calls the "primary account number." Plaintiffs did not claim risk of identity theft or any actual injury, but sought a penalty of $100 per card user for willful failure to comply. The district court denied Shell summary judgment. The Seventh Circuit reversed, holding that Shell did not willfully violate the Act.