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

Visteon, a worldwide manufacturer headquartered in Michigan, sued National Union, from which it had purchased liability insurance between 2000 and 2002. The policy excluded liability resulting from pollution caused by Visteon, except liability arising from a “Completed Operations Hazard.” In 2001, the toxic solvent TCE that was used to clean machinery in Visteon’s Connersville, Indiana plant was discovered to have leaked into the soil and groundwater. Neighboring landowners sued Visteon. National Union has refused to indemnify or defend. Indiana does not enforce standard pollution-exclusion clauses. Michigan law does enforce the more general kind of pollution-exclusion clause found in the policy. The district court ruled that Michigan law governed and held that Visteon was not entitled to coverage under the Completed Operations Hazard clause. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The risk materialized in Indiana, but that could not have been foreseen. The Indiana victims were compensated by Visteon, and it is unclear what benefit the state would have derived from reimbursement of Visteon’s costs by National Union.” The court rejected Visteon’s argument that its “work” was “completed” each time a contract to supply products made at the plant was performed and concluded that the exception did not apply. View "Visteon Corp. v. Nat'l Union Fire Ins. Co. of Pittsburgh" on Justia Law

Inmates Sorrentino and Neal purchased several items from Stateville’s commissary, but the prison later forbade inmates to possess those items (fans and a typewriter) in their cells. Their property was removed. They filed a proposed class action, alleging that the confiscation of their property was an unconstitutional taking and a breach of contract. The Seventh Circuit affirmed dismissal, noting that the plaintiffs filed their takings claim in federal court before seeking compensation in an Illinois tribunal. View "Sorrentino v. Godinez" on Justia Law

The Association of Administrative Law Judges, a union, represents the Social Security Administration’s administrative law judges in collective bargaining pursuant to the Federal Labor-Management Relations Act, 5 U.S.C. 7101. The Association and ALJs employed by the SSA sued, claiming that, by setting a goal that its ALJs decide 500-700 social security disability cases a year, the Administration has interfered with their decisional independence, in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 554(d)(2), 3105. The district court dismissed the complaint for want of subject-matter jurisdiction, holding that the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 precluded resort to the APA by creating remedies for “prohibited personnel practices” taken against federal employees, including “significant change in duties, responsibilities, or working conditions,” 5 U.S.C. 2302(a)(1), (2)(A)(xii), (b). The Seventh Circuit affirmed, holding that the remedy under the Administrative Procedure Act for interference with decisional independence does not extend to the incidental consequences of a bona fide production quota. View "Ass'n of Admin. Law Judges v. Colvin" on Justia Law

A jury convicted Garten of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud in the conduct of telemarketing, 18 U.S.C. 1349, 2326(1). The district court then sentenced her to 168 months in prison and a five-year term of supervised release, and ordered Garten to pay $909,278 in restitution. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence supporting conviction, the admission of testimony that a non-testifying co-conspirator had pleaded guilty to the same offense, the court’s statement, “that’s accurate” in overruling Garten’s objection to testimony that the “gross amount” on an exhibit was the amount “stolen from the consumer,” and that the evidence was insufficient to support the district court’s finding that the loss involved totaled nearly $6 million. View "United States v. Garten" on Justia Law

Lawson’s business, Evangel Capital, held itself out as a lender with $250 million in assets available to churches and other religious institutions. It issued firm commitment financing letters for multi-million-dollar projects but never closed a single loan and never had more than $10,000 in its bank accounts. Potential borrowers paid fees totaling $270,000, which they were told would be used to pay for appraisals and required documents. The fees were used for personal expenses. A jury convicted Lawson of wire fraud, 18 U.S.C. 1343, and he was sentenced to 52 months’ imprisonment. The judge had allowed the prosecutor to show that Lawson failed to report his income, but not that he failed to file tax returns, telling the jury that the evidence was admitted for the purpose of showing whether Lawson acted with knowledge or fraudulent intent, but not how it illuminated those issues. Lawson did not object. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The tax evidence could not have affected a rational jury’s verdict, even if taken as propensity evidence, given the undisputed proof that Lawson converted the fees to his personal use and did not spend the money for the purposes he told clients it was needed. View "United States v. Lawson" on Justia Law

On August 20, 2012, Butler was detained following a traffic stop and arrested after the police detected marijuana. Upon searching Butler, the officers discovered several counterfeit federal reserve notes of varying denominations in Butler’s pockets. A subsequent investigation by the Secret Service revealed that Butler and others had been manufacturing counterfeit notes earlier that day in a Milwaukee residence. Agents searched the residence and found a color printer along with a bag contain-ing numerous misprints of counterfeit notes. Butler admitted to agents that he had purchased resume paper earlier that day to manufacture counterfeit currency and had sold the counterfeit notes to others. However, he was released from custody and not charged. In January 2013, Butler became a suspect in a series of transactions involving vehicle purchases using counterfeit cash. Convicted on two counts of violating 18 U.S.C. 472 and sentenced to 24 months’ imprisonment, he argued that the district court erred in calculating his sentence by improperly assigning two criminal history points to a prior state conviction for forgery. Butler claimed that the conduct underlying this prior conviction was part of the charged offense and should be considered relevant conduct under U.S.S.G. 1B1.3 instead. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. View "United States v. Butler" on Justia Law

Sergeant Schwomeyer received a tip that Taylor possessed cocaine and firearms, checked Taylor’s criminal history, and learned that he had been convicted for possessing cocaine. A confidential informant reported that Taylor was trafficking kilogram quantities of cocaine, and another officer told Schwomeyer that Taylor associated with cocaine traffickers. Taylor’s phone records reflected that his most frequent contact had been convicted of dealing cocaine. A judge granted a petition and a GPS unit was attached to Taylor’s car, which revealed that Taylor had traveled to a storage facility. A drug-detection dog alerted to Taylor’s locker. Schwomeyer obtained a warrant. In his affidavit, Schwomeyer did not mention that surveillance of Taylor involved GPS tracking. The locker contained 752.61 grams of cocaine, four firearms, and digital scales. Taylor moved to suppress, arguing that GPS tracking of his car violated the Fourth Amendment and that the warrant was invalid for failure to refer to GPS tracking. The court denied Taylor’s motion, finding that officers reasonably relied on judicial authorization when using the GPS. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, noting that the events occurred before the Supreme Court held that attaching a GPS to a car to gather information was a search under the Fourth Amendment (Jones, 2012); the officers used the GPS in objectively reasonable reliance on appellate precedent then in effect. View "United States v. Taylor" on Justia Law

In 1995, Beaman was convicted of the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Lockmiller. The Illinois Supreme Court overturned his conviction 13 years later, finding that the state violated his due process rights under Brady v. Maryland, by failure to disclose material information about a viable alternative suspect. After release from prison, Beaman filed a 42 U.S.C. 1983 lawsuit against the police officers and prosecutors involved in the investigation and prosecution, claiming that the defendants deliberately conspired to suppress materially exculpatory evidence during the pendency of his criminal case. Several defendants were dismissed. The court entered summary judgment in favor of the remaining defendants, three former police officers and the town of Normal, Illinois. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Beaman did not present enough evidence from which a reasonable jury could infer the existence of a conspiracy to conceal the Brady material. One piece of evidence, the report on alternative suspect Gates’s polygraph test, was not Brady material and its non-disclosure could not form the basis of a complaint. As to the other Brady material (the report on alternative suspect Murray’s polygraph test) which the defendants did not turn over, the defendants were entitled to qualified immunity. View "Beaman v. Warner" on Justia Law

Four defendants objected to their conditions of supervised release i. The Seventh Circuit vacated and remanded for resentencing, first exploring the differences between parole and supervised release. Parole is release before the expiration of the prison term, subject to restrictions effective between release and when, without parole, the inmate would have been released upon the expiration of his sentence. Supervised release conditions continue for a specified term (which can be life). Parole shortens prison time; supervised release does not. Parole mitigates punishment; supervised release augments it, especially when the defendant, having violated a condition, is given a fresh term of imprisonment, 18 U.S.C. 3583(e)(3). Supervised release is statutorily required in fewer than half of cases subject to the sentencing guidelines. In other cases the judge has discretion, but almost always orders it. The court noted misunderstandings, by judges, of the statute; that judges often fail to explain or justify the conditions; that, because conditions do not take effect until the defendant is released, defendants with long prison sentences often have little interest in contesting conditions at sentencing; that often a defendant is given no advance notice of the conditions that the judge is considering; vague wording; and procedural errors by the individual judges. View "United States v. Blount" on Justia Law

Gilbert was convicted of sexual assault in 1992 and sentenced to prison. In 2006, the state sought Gilbert’s commitment under Wisconsin Stat. 980.02 as a “sexually violent person.” The court found probable cause. Gilbert completed his sentence and was transferred, on parole, to a DHS facility because of the pending commitment proceeding. Gilbert violated parole and was returned to a Corrections facility. Gilbert was again paroled and transferred to the DHS Center. Gilbert violated his second parole and was reincarcerated. A jury found him a “sexually violent person.” the court entered a commitment order. Gilbert was not transferred to a DHS facility until months later because he was serving his sentence for his second parole violation. Gilbert filed a post-conviction motion asserting that his parole revocation meant that the commitment petition must be dismissed. State courts rejected the claim. The Seventh Circuit affirmed denial of his federal habeas petition, rejecting Gilbert’s claim that there was not a “current” determination that he was a sexually violent person when he entered DHS care. The delay between the commitment verdict and Gilbert’s entry into DHS care was caused by Gilbert’s actions and he has continued to be evaluated without any indication that his condition has improved. View "Gilbert v. McCulloch" on Justia Law