In an appeal from a district court order striking plaintiff’s attorney as counsel of record and terminating his status as an appellant from a bankruptcy court order, the order is affirmed where: 1) counsel was not a licensed attorney; and 2) he lacked prudential standing to appeal from the bankruptcy court’s order. Read In the [...]
In a Privacy Act action against the Bureau of Prisons concerning the loss of plaintiff-prisoner’s good-time credits, dismissal of the complaint is affirmed where: 1) inmate records were exempt from the relevant provisions of the Privacy Act; and 2) plaintiff’s damages claim was not cognizable unless plaintiff first secured relief through a writ of habeas [...]
(U.S. 11th Cir., Contracts, Insurance Law) In an action against an insurer claiming that the insurer was estopped from contesting that a judgment against plaintiff was covered by the policy, the court of appeals certified the following questions to the Georgia Supreme Court: 1) does an insurer effectively reserve its right to deny coverage if [...]
(U.S. 4th Cir., Administrative Law, Immigration Law) Petition for review of the BIA’s order denying a citizen of Cameroon’s motion to reopen his removal proceedings is granted and the BIA’s decision vacated and remanded as the BIA did not explain why petitioner’s new evidence failed to demonstrate a change of country conditions.
(U.S. 2d Cir., Administrative Law, Evidence, Immigration Law) In a petition for review of the BIA’s denial of petitioner’s application for relief under the Convention Against Torture, the petition is denied where: 1) an agency may consider the record of a “credible fear” interview when evaluating an alien’s credibility; and 2) substantial evidence supported the [...]
In an action to recover payment for medical care provided to prisoners, the removal of the action to the district court is affirmed where the suit was against a federally-appointed receiver and the district court thus had clear jurisdiction over the matter. However, the order dismissing the action is vacated where: 1) plaintiff was not [...]
In a drug possession prosecution, denial of petitioner’s habeas petition is affirmed where, in view of the relatively low number of peremptory challenges that the prosecutor exercised against African-American jurors, the prosecutor’s ability to justify her other peremptory challenges with specificity and to the state court trial judge’s satisfaction, as well as the fact that [...]
In defendant’s appeal from a denial of his motion to dismiss his indictment for illegal reentry into the U.S. by a deported alien, the district court’s order is affirmed where: 1) an Immigration Judge (IJ) is not required to act creatively to advise an immigrant of ways in which his legal prospects at forestalling deportation [...]
In an action claiming that a state’s practice of disapproving insurance policies with clauses vesting discretion in insurers violated the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), summary judgment for defendant-state insurance commissioner is affirmed where: 1) the state’s bar on discretionary clauses addresses an insurance-specific problem, because discretionary clauses generally do not exist outside of [...]
In a class action claiming that a telephone company’s offer of a “free” phone to anyone who signed up for its service was fraudulent to the extent the phone company charged the new subscriber sales tax on the retail value of each “free” phone, denial of defendant’s motion to compel arbitration is affirmed where an [...]