Justia U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs William B. Elliott, Tommy J. Evaro, and Andria J. Hernandez were all targets of investigations by a Dona Ana County grand jury. Under New Mexico law they were entitled to target notices that advised them of the right to testify before the grand jury. But the notices they received may not have complied with state law. They filed a civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. 1983 in federal district court alleging that District Attorney Susana Martinez violated their due-process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The district court granted the District Attorney’s motion to dismiss on the ground that the New Mexico statute did not establish a liberty interest protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. Plaintiffs appealed. Upon review the Tenth Circuit affirmed, finding the statutory right to particular procedures was not a liberty interest under the Fourteenth Amendment. View "Elliott v. Martinez" on Justia Law

Plaintiff-Appellant Michael Sabourin sued the University of Utah in the United States District Court for the District of Utah, claiming, among other things, that it had violated the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) by deciding to eliminate his position and then fire him for cause while he was on leave for childcare in 2006. The district court granted the University summary judgment. Plaintiff appealed the dismissal of his FMLA claims. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit affirmed: all of Plaintiff’s claims failed because the undisputed facts showed that the University’s adverse decisions were not based on Plaintiff’s taking FMLA leave. The decision to eliminate his position was made before he sought FMLA leave; and he was fired for engaging in a course of insubordination. View "Sabourin v. University of Utah" on Justia Law

Pro se prisoner Defendant Joe Viera filed a motion to vacate, set aside or correct the sentence he received for conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, distribution and use of a communication facility to facilitate the distribution of the methamphetamine. Defendant alleged ineffective assistance of counsel. The district court denied the motion but granted a Certificate of Appealability (COA) on the claim that counsel was ineffective for failing to file an appeal despite Defendant’s specific instructions to do so (the appeal issue). The district court denied COA as to other claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. On appeal to the Tenth Circuit, Defendant appealed the appeal issue and requested a COA on several other issues. Finding that many of the issues raised in his appeal to the Tenth Circuit were raised for the first time, and finding that the evidence for his ineffective assistance of counsel claim was insufficient to support an appeal, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of Defendant's case the denial of the COA. View "United States v. Viera" on Justia Law

Defendant-Appellant Shannon Keith Hunt was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment for violating the conditions of his supervised release. On appeal, he argued the district court failed to apply 18 U.S.C. 3583(e)(3) to give him credit for prison time served on two prior sentences for revocation of his supervised release. Taken together, Defendant claimed these sentences exceed the maximum amount of supervised release authorized for his original offense, which federal law prohibits. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit disagreed and held that the district court was not required to credit Defendant for his previous terms of revocation imprisonment. The court was only required to consider Defendant's previous revocation imprisonment when setting a new term of supervised release. View "United States v. Hunt" on Justia Law

Plaintiff-Appellee Jose Antonio-Agusta appealed a district court’s application of U.S.S.G. 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(ii)'s sixteen-level sentence enhancement in calculating his advisory Guidelines range. He argued the district court erred in relying on the indictment underlying his prior Arizona convictions to conclude those convictions constitute felony crimes of violence, warranting the enhancement. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit concluded the district court did not err because the indictment was incorporated by reference in the judgment and is therefore reliable evidence of the elements of Plaintiff's prior convictions. Furthermore, the indictment, plea agreement, and judgment revealed Plaintiff was convicted under parts of Arizona's aggravated assault statutes that constitute crimes of violence. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the sentence imposed by the district court. View "United States v. Antonio-Agusta" on Justia Law

San Juan Coal Company and the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 953 entered into binding arbitration to determine whether union members on a certain schedule were entitled to holdover pay. The arbitrator concluded that the union members were entitled to the extra pay, but on review, the district court overturned the arbitral award. Because the arbitrator’s interpretation was colorable, the Tenth Circuit held that the district court improperly substituted its interpretation of the agreement: "[a]n arbitrator's interpretation of an agreement, even one that is flawed or based on questionable findings of fact, is due the utmost judicial deference. It matters not that a reviewing court might offer a more cogent reading of the agreement; the arbitrator's interpretation must be upheld wholly unless it is without any textual basis." View "San Juan Coal Co. v. Int'l Union of Operating Engineers Local 953" on Justia Law

Defendant-Appellant Andre Haymond was convicted of one count of possession or attempted possession of child pornography after federal agents discovered Defendant had downloaded the child pornography from a filesharing website. The government based its case at trial on seven images found after the FBI's investigation. Before trial, Defendant unsuccessfully moved to suppress evidence and statements obtained during the search of his home and the related forensic search of his computer on the grounds that the underlying search warrant was issued without probable cause. Following trial, Defendant moved for acquittal on grounds of insufficient evidence. Ultimately Defendant was sentenced to thirty-eight months in prison and ten years of supervised release. Defendant appealed his conviction. Finding that the search warrant was supported by probable cause, that the evidence presented at trial was sufficient to support the verdict against him, and that alleged procedural errors at trial were harmless, the Tenth Circuit affirmed Defendant's conviction and sentence. View "United States v. Haymond" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Arnold Oil Properties, LLC hired Defendant Schlumberger Technology Corp. to perform a specialized cement job on its deep-zone gas well. After Schlumberger poured too much cement into the well, Arnold sued for breach of contract and negligence. The district court concluded as a matter of law that an alleged exculpatory provision in the parties' contract was an indemnification provision and therefore did not bar Arnold's recovery. After a jury found the parties were in unequal bargaining positions, the district court denied Schlumberger's request to enforce the contractual limitation-of-liability provision. Schlumberger appealed the district court's denial of summary judgment and its denial of judgment as a matter of law. Finding that the evidence supported the jury's finding, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Arnold. View "Arnold Oil Properties LLC v. Schlumberger Technology Corp." on Justia Law

Plaintiff-Appellant Anne George wanted to corral her horse on her property with a fence. The United States Forest Service held an easement across Plaintiff's land. Plaintiff offered to leave a gate across the road unlocked, but the Service rejected this option, arguing that the public needs unfettered access to the adjacent Gila National Forest. The parties' wrangling dragged on for years but led nowhere until Plaintiff filed suit to quiet title in 2009. In the end, the Tenth Circuit ruled against her. "Whatever legal entitlement she might have had to build a fence across the Forest Service's road she lost years ago thanks to an even less permeable barrier to entry: the statute of limitations." Plaintiff's predecessor-in-interest to the land granted the government an easement for access to the forest, and each time Plaintiff attempted to fence her property, the government promptly removed it. That, she argued, was inadequate for the government to assert its claim to the easement as being fence-free. Under the plain terms of the Quiet Title Act, the statute of limitations began to run whenever a plaintiff or her predecessor-in-interest knew or should have known of the government’s claim: "[o]ne can be on notice of a claim even if that claim lacks any legal merit. . . . [o]ur precedent does not allow plaintiffs to wait until the adverse claims of the title asserted by them and the United States crystallize into well-defined and open disagreements before commencing a quiet-title action."View "George v. United States, et al" on Justia Law

In 1997, environmental and recreational groups began seeking to limit the daily number of snowmobiles permitted in Wyoming national parks. In several consolidated cases, Petitioners the State of Wyoming and Park County, Wyoming filed petitions for review of agency action, challenging the 2009 rules governing snowmobile use in the parks. The district court dismissed the petitions for review, holding Petitioners lacked standing to pursue their claims. Snowmobile proponents filed suit in a Wyoming district court to challenge a 2001 National Park Service (NPS) rule limiting snowmobiles in the parks. That suit was settled, but ultimately the resolution of the suit brought the promulgation of another rule (the 2003 rule) that set limits on snowmobiles allowed in the parks. A Washington, D.C. district court invalidated the 2003 rule and reinstated the 2001 rule. Another lawsuit was filed in Wyoming district court, the result of which invalidated the D.C. court's ruling. NPS then promulgated a series of rules which contained "sunset clauses" set to expire at end of each subsequent winter season. "Unsuprisingly," the proponents and opponents filed simultaneous challenges in both Wyoming and D.C. to challenge the rules. While the two courts fought on jurisdiction, NPS formulated another new rule (2009 rule). Upon review, the Tenth Circuit found that Petitioners' argument was moot: "Even if [the Court] were to conclude Petitioners had standing to challenge the procedure and analysis used to adopt the 2009 rule, and if the district court then found NPS had violated NEPA or the APA in promulgating that rule, [the Court's] decision would still have no effect. [The Court] reach[ed] this conclusion because the analytical and procedural aspects of the 2009 rule have been superseded by the new analysis and procedure underlying the new one-year rule. Because the procedural challenge in this case[was] to the analysis underlying the 2009 temporary rule and that analysis has been redone, [the Court held] that the procedural challenge to the 2009 temporary rule [was] moot." View "Wyoming v. NPCA, et al" on Justia Law