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

Life Spine makes and sells a spinal implant device called the ProLift Expandable Spacer System. Aegis contracted with Life Spine to distribute the ProLift to hospitals and surgeons. Aegis promised to protect Life Spine’s confidential information, act as a fiduciary for Life Spine’s property, and refrain from reverse-engineering the ProLift. Aegis nonetheless funneled information about the ProLift to its parent company, L&K Biomed to help L&K develop a competing spinal implant device. Shortly after L&K’s competing product hit the market, Life Spine sued Aegis for trade secret misappropriation and breach of the distribution agreement. The district court granted Life Spine a preliminary injunction barring Aegis and its business partners from marketing the competing product. Aegis argues that the injunction rested on a flawed legal conclusion—that a company can have trade secret protection in a device that it publicly discloses through patents, displays, and sales.The Seventh Circuit affirmed. While public domain information cannot be a trade secret, a limited disclosure does not destroy all trade secret protection. Life Spine did not publicly disclose the specific information that it seeks to protect by patenting, displaying, and selling the ProLift. Life Spine’s trade secrets are not in the public domain but are accessible only to third parties who sign confidentiality agreements. View "Life Spine, Inc. v. Aegis Spine, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, descendants of Jews rounded up in France after it signed an armistice with Germany in 1940, alleged that persons being sent to death camps were loaded on trains operated by the French national railroad, SNCF. Their belongings were stolen by railroad workers and given to the Nazis. They sought compensation for those thefts. They cited the expropriation exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), which applies when the allegations concern “rights in property taken in violation of international law,” 28 U.S.C. 1605(a)(3).The Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the suit. Plaintiffs must seek their remedy under a French administrative-claims system for compensating victims of the Nazi occupation and the Vichy regime. The court cited “comity-based abstention, calling this a “triple-foreign suit”: plaintiffs allege that nationals of a country other than the U.S. were injured by a foreign entity in a foreign nation. Although the plaintiffs claim that one of them is a U.S. citizen, they are heirs of the victims. The fact that a foreign national’s claim has been transferred to a U.S. citizen does not make it less a foreign claim. The proper location of a suit depends on the original acts, not on the plaintiff’s current residence. Their complaint mentions conversion and unjust enrichment but does not identify a source of law, and federal common law, state law, and section 1350 all fall short in a triple-foreign suit. View "Scalin v. Societe Nationale SNCF SA" on Justia Law

Two female students brought claims under Title IX, 20 U.S.C. 1681–88, alleging that the School District failed to prevent and inappropriately responded to sexual misconduct by a male student. The incidents occurred while the District did not have insurance coverage for sexual misconduct and molestation. After the District settled the suit for $1.5 million, its insurers sought a declaration of their rights and obligations under the District’s errors-and-omissions coverage. The district court held that the errors and omissions coverage applies although the policy contains a sexual misconduct exclusion. The judge stated that the exclusion was ambiguous and could be read to exclude only sexual misconduct by a school employee and might not bar coverage for “reactions to” a student’s sexual misconduct.The Seventh Circuit reversed. The sexual-misconduct exclusion is not ambiguous in precluding coverage for “[a]ny” sexual misconduct or molestation of “any person” and related allegations. Even if the sexual-misconduct exclusion barred only coverage for employees’ actions, the exclusion still applies. The District is not directly liable for misconduct by students. A school district can be liable for discrimination in cases of student-on-student sexual misconduct under Title IX only if the district has notice and is deliberately indifferent. By excluding coverage for “allegations relating” to sexual misconduct, the exclusion necessarily bars coverage for “reactions to” sexual misconduct. View "Netherlands Insurance Co. v. Macomb Community Unit School District" on Justia Law

DHS Agent Goehring obtained a warrant for Calligan's girlfriend's Fort Wayne house. His supporting affidavit reported that, 10 days earlier, customs agents had intercepted a package containing one kilogram of a synthetic cannabinoid controlled substance (5F‐ADB), addressed to that house, with Calligan as the addressee. Calligan had received more than 50 international shipments there. Calligan had Indiana convictions for attempted murder, criminal recklessness, and unlawfully resisting police, and a pending gun possession charge. Although police delivered the package, agents had replaced the controlled substance with sugar. After Calligan accepted the package, the officers executed the warrant and found money, a gun, and a notebook that contained the package’s tracking number and a recipe for making 5F‐ADB into a consumable product. In the warrant return, Goehring inaccurately reported that police had also recovered 5F‐ADB, the package’s original contents.The Seventh Circuit affirmed Calligan’s convictions for possessing a firearm as a felon, importing a controlled substance, and attempting to distribute a controlled substance. The court rejected arguments that because the warrant application said police would deliver actual drugs, the agent’s replacement of the drugs with sugar took the search outside the warrant’s scope and that Goehring’s warrant application relied on materially false representations that police would deliver drugs to the home before the search. The warrant was supported by probable cause and had no triggering condition and, in any event, police relied on it in good faith. View "United States v. Calligan" on Justia Law

Love sold crack to a confidential informant. Officers searched his apartment and found crack in the kitchen and found two guns and ammunition in an adjoining room, about 15 feet from the drugs. Love pleaded guilty to three drug counts and one felon-in-possession count (18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1)). A violation of section 922(g)(1) causes a default sentencing range of up to 10 years but the Armed Career Criminal Act increases the penalty to a 15-year mandatory minimum if the defendant had three previous convictions for violent felonies or serious drug offenses, 18 U.S.C. 924(e)(1). Love’s prior convictions included Illinois armed robbery (1994), federal distribution of crack cocaine (2009), and Indiana Class D battery resulting in bodily injury (2015). Love argued that he received a “restoration of rights” letter without an express reference to guns after he was released on the 1994 Illinois armed robbery conviction and that his Indiana Class D battery-resulting-in-bodily-injury conviction was not a crime of violence. The judge held the armed robbery conviction was an ACCA predicate but that the battery-resulting-in-bodily-injury conviction was not, as a categorical matter, a “violent felony,” so Love was not an armed career criminal. The judge sentenced Love to 96 months’ imprisonment. The Seventh Circuit reversed. Love committed three ACCA-predicate offenses. View "United States v. Love" on Justia Law

Herrera, an Illinois state prisoner, filed a 42 U.S.C. 1983 action against three correctional officers of the Cook County Jail for failing to protect him from assault and denying him prompt medical care. In his timely filed original complaint, Herrera named each of the defendants “John Doe” as a nominal placeholder until he could ascertain the proper identities of the officers. Herrera then twice amended his complaint to include their actual names—but did so outside of the two-year limitations period set by Illinois law.The district court denied a motion to dismiss, reasoning that suing “John Doe” defendants constituted a “mistake” under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(c)(1)(C)(ii), so that Herrera’s amended complaint “related back” to his original complaint. The Seventh Circuit reversed. Knowingly suing a John Doe defendant is not a “mistake” within the meaning of Rule 15(c). Whether Herrer satisfies the factual test for equitable tolling is beyond the scope of an interlocutory appeal and should be considered on remand. View "Herrera v. Cleveland" on Justia Law

In 2009, Brown, then 13 years old, was tried as an adult, convicted of murder, and sentenced to 60 years' imprisonment. Brown unsuccessfully sought post-conviction relief in Indiana state courts, alleging ineffective assistance of counsel.On remand the federal district court granted Brown a conditional writ of habeas corpus, noting that the court had admitted an out-of-court statement (a jailhouse confession to another detainee) by the co-defendant. The statement was hearsay as to Brown but implicated him in the shooting. Brown could not cross-examine his co-defendant. Brown’s lawyer failed even to ask for a limiting instruction. The conditional writ ordered Indiana to vacate Brown’s conviction and release him from custody unless it elected to retry Brown within 120 days. The state appealed. Brown filed a cross-appeal, challenging the denial of his motions to authorize discovery and expand the record in light of statements made by the elected county prosecutor in a 2018 campaign debate that Brown asserts contradicted the prosecution’s theory at trial. Within 120 days, the state moved to vacate Brown’s murder conviction, to initiate retrial proceedings in a new criminal case, and to transfer Brown to pretrial custody. In March 2021, the state court vacated Brown’s conviction. The Seventh Circuit dismissed the state’s appeal. The state court’s vacatur of the conviction ended its jurisdiction under both 28 U.S.C. 2254 and Article III of the U.S. Constitution. View "Brown v. Vanihel" on Justia Law

Brooks, an African American police officer, made statements on multiple occasions complaining that his employer, the Kankakee, Illinois, favored white officers. The City issued a reprimand letter, ordering Brooks to stop making such statements and warning him that he faced discipline up to and including termination should he engage in further public disparagement. Brooks filed a complaint, alleging that Kankakee had retaliated against him, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. 2000e-3(a), by failing to promote him and by issuing to him a reprimand letter after he had engaged in protected activity. In response to a motion for summary judgment, Brooks attempted to introduce a new claim alleging that the City’s promotional policies had a disparate impact on minority officers.The district court dismissed Brooks’s disparate impact claim and granted the City summary judgment on his failure-to-promote retaliation claim. The court denied summary judgment on Brooks’s retaliation-by-reprimand claim, concluding that a genuine issue of material fact remained as to whether Brooks’s statements constituted protected activity. The Seventh Circuit affirmed a judgment in favor of the City. The jury was entitled to conclude that each of Brooks’s statements included varying degrees of factual falsehoods. While the district court instructed the jury to find more than legally required (three acts of retaliation), a proper jury instruction would not have made a difference in the outcome. View "Brooks v. City of Kankakee" on Justia Law

ATF agents and Chicago police officers went to the “Back of the Yards” neighborhood to replace court‐approved global positioning system trackers on cars belonging to members of the Latin Saints gang. Shortly after the officers arrived, they came under gunfire. A federal agent was shot and seriously injured. Godinez, a member of the gang, was charged with the shooting. In the government’s view, Godinez, tasked with guarding the neighborhood, mistook federal agents for rival gang members and shot the agent.The Seventh Circuit affirmed Godinez’s convictions for forcibly assaulting a federal officer while using a deadly weapon, 18 U.S.C. 111(a) and (b), and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence, 18 U.S.C. 924(c)(1)(A)(iii). The district court properly admitted ballistics evidence concerning the shots fired. Although the gun was not recovered, that does not render inadmissible the physical evidence (casings) that was recovered. The chain of custody need not be perfect. Testimony about a gunshot detection system— ShotSpotter—should have been handled differently. The court did not adequately explore ShotSpotter’s methodology before admitting the evidence. A rational jury, even without the improperly admitted evidence, could have found beyond a reasonable doubt that Godinez shot the agent. View "United States v. Godinez" on Justia Law

In 2016, the Seventh Circuit affirmed Resnick’s conviction and life sentence for sexually abusing two young boys, brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, and being a felon in possession of a firearm. Resnick had entered a plea of guilty to charges brought in Florida with respect to one boy. Plea negotiations broke down with respect to charges brought in Indiana with respect to the other boy.The Seventh Circuit affirmed the denial of Resnick’s motion under 28 U.S.C. 2255 to vacate his conviction and sentence, rejecting an argument that his defense counsel provided ineffective assistance during the plea process, throughout the pretrial and trial proceedings, and at sentencing. Resnick’s rejection of the amended offer means that he, not trial counsel, is responsible for the sentence he ultimately received. The court rejected challenges to counsel’s handling of evidence. Dueling experts on the correlation between child pornography possession and contact offenses was highly unlikely to sway the verdict, given that there was substantial evidence that directly showed Resnick sexually abused the boys. Any expert testimony on Resnick’s behalf would have been considerably undermined by his plea agreement from the Florida proceedings, in which he admitted he deleted child pornography from the computer. The law surrounding the admission of his refusal to take a polygraph was far from clearly established at the time of his trial. View "Resnick v. United States" on Justia Law