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

A federal grand jury indicted Defendant Melvin Bailey, III, on four counts of Hobbs Act robbery, four counts of brandishing a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, and one count of Hobbs Act conspiracy. At trial, the jury acquitted Defendant on one count of Hobbs Act robbery and one count of brandishing a firearm. The jury convicted Defendant on the remaining seven counts, which stemmed from three robberies of a Walgreens in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Of these three robberies, the parties agreed Defendant personally committed two of them (those that occurred on April 28, 2015, and July 20, 2017). Based on these robberies, Defendant was convicted of two counts of Hobbs Act robbery and two counts of brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence. Those convictions were not at issue in this appeal. With respect to the third robbery on January 6, 2018, the parties agreed Defendant did not personally commit the offense. Rather, Defendant enlisted the help of a juvenile accomplice. For his part, Defendant instructed the juvenile on the execution of the robbery, provided him with a firearm and a mask, and acted as the getaway driver. The parties agreed Defendant’s participation made him an aider and abettor. In relation to this robbery, Defendant was convicted of Hobbs Act conspiracy, Hobbs Act robbery, and brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence. Before the Tenth Circuit, Defendant argued the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to convict him of brandishing a firearm during the 2018 robbery. Specifically, Defendant contended this conviction had to be vacated because the evidence showed he did not personally commit the charged offense. The Tenth Circuit found this argument "unavailing," and affirmed conviction. View "United States v. Bailey" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Kansas Natural Resource Coalition (“KNRC”) sought an order to enjoin the United States Department of the Interior (“DOI”) to submit its rules to Congress, pursuant to the Congressional Review Act (“CRA”), before those rules “take effect.” The district court dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because the CRA contained a provision prohibiting judicial review of any “omission under this chapter.” The Tenth Circuit affirmed based on KNRC’s lack of Article III standing. Furthermore, the Court declined to remand the case so that KNRC could amend its complaint because, in any event, the district court was correct that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction. View "Kansas Natural Resource v. United States Dept of Interior" on Justia Law

Eric Wagenknecht and his wife, Susan Colbert, filed for relief under Chapter 13 of the Bankruptcy Code in January 2016 (the “Petition Date”). The case was converted to Chapter 7 in April 2017. Jared Walters was appointed as the Chapter 7 trustee for the estate (the “Trustee”). Prior to the Petition Date, the Law Firm provided legal services to Eric. By the end of 2015, Eric owed the law firm of Stevens, Littman, Biddison, Tharp & Weinberg, LLC (the “Law Firm”) over $20,000. Eric borrowed money from his mother to pay the Law Firm, and executed a promissory note to repay her. In January 2018, the Trustee initiated an adversary proceeding against the Law Firm. The Trustee alleged that the payment to the Law Firm was a preferential transfer under 11 U.S.C. 547. The Trustee therefore sought to avoid and recover the payment under 11 U.S.C. sections 547 and 550. The parties cross-moved for summary judgment, and the bankruptcy court entered an order denying the Law Firm’s motion for summary judgment and granting the Trustee’s cross-motion for summary judgment. The Tenth Circuit reversed, finding that because Eric did not exercise control or dominion over the payment to the Law Firm, and because the payment did not diminish Eric’s bankruptcy estate, the payment did not constitute a “transfer of an interest of the debtor in property” under section 547(b). Therefore, the bankruptcy court erred in entering summary judgment in favor of the Trustee. View "Walters v. Stevens, Littman, Biddison" on Justia Law

In April 2014, a pregnant Bogdana Alexandrovna Osipova took her young son and daughter to Russia, leaving behind ongoing divorce proceedings in Kansas. By doing so, Osipova deprived Brian Mobley, her soon-to-be ex-husband and the father of her daughter and unborn child, of his joint-custody rights under the Kansas court’s temporary custodial order. In Russia, Osipova gave birth to a girl and instituted her own divorce proceedings. The Russian court ordered Mobley to pay monthly child support. But by then the Kansas court had already awarded Mobley full custody of their two daughters, and he steadfastly refused Osipova’s requests that he pay the Russian court-ordered child support. Eventually, in September 2017, Osipova returned alone to the United States on an ill-fated quest to modify the Kansas order. The FBI promptly arrested Osipova, and she was incarcerated for international parental kidnapping and extortionate interstate communications. A jury sentenced Osipova to the statutory maximum three years on the parental-kidnapping conviction, and to seven years on each extortionate-communications convictions, all to run concurrently. On appeal, Osipova argued the federal district judge should have dismissed the indictment and recused himself from her sentencing. Osipova also argued that insufficient evidence supports her 18 U.S.C. 875(b) convictions and that the court erred by awarding Mobley restitution for attorney’s fees he incurred attempting to obtain physical custody of their two daughters. The Tenth Circuit rejected Osipova's dismissal and recusal arguments, but concurred that insufficient evidence supported the extortionate communications charges. Further, the restitution order was unauthorized by law. The latter part of the trial court's judgment was vacated and the matter remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Mobley" on Justia Law

Plaintiff-Appellees David Millard, Eugene Knight, and Arturo Vega challenged the constitutionality of Colorado’s Sex Offender Registration Act (CSORA). The district court held CSORA was unconstitutional as applied to the Appellees because the statute inflicted cruel and unusual punishment and violated substantive due process guarantees. Additionally, the district court held that the state courts’ application of CSORA’s deregistration procedures to Vega violated his procedural due process rights. Defendant-Appellant, the State of Colorado, appealed the entirety of the district court’s decision. The Tenth Circuit determined the district court’s ruling contravened binding Supreme Court and Tenth Circuit precedent, and reversed. View "Millard v. Rankin" on Justia Law

To alleviate some of the impacts caused by the statutory sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine offenses, Congress passed the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 (“2010 FSA”). In 2018, Congress passed the First Step Act (“2018 FSA”), which, inter alia, made the Fair Sentencing Act’s benefits retroactively applicable to offenders who committed offenses prior to the 2010 FSA’s effective date of August 3, 2010. Arthur Mannie, Jr., and Michael Maytubby moved the district court for reductions in their sentences pursuant to the 2018 FSA. In 2009, Mannie pleaded guilty to one count of possession with intent to distribute 50g or more of crack cocaine; Mannie's was ultimately sentenced to 262 months, the bottom of the guideline range. Because the 2010 FSA reduced the statutory maximum sentence for Mannie’s offense from life to forty years imprisonment, his alternate offense level was 34, rather than 37. This reduction, combined with a reduction for acceptance of responsibility, resulted in a new advisory guideline range of 188 months to 235 months. Mannie requested a below-guidelines sentence of 120 months or, in the alternative, a sentence at the bottom of the range, 188 months. In 2006, a jury convicted Maytubby of eight counts relating to his participation in a drug trafficking organization, including one count of conspiracy to distribute cocaine base. In 2007, Maytubby’s three original 235-month sentences were each reduced to 188 months, pursuant to Amendment 706. Seven years later, pursuant to Amendment 782, each of Maytubby’s three, modified, 188-month sentences was further reduced to 151 months. The district court declined to reduce either sentence under the FSAs; both Mannie and Maytubby appealed. After review, the Tenth Circuit concluded that in Mannie's case, the sentencing court presented a "thorough and reasonably articulated basis" for denying relief, and thus did not abuse its discretion in denying Mannie's request. With regard to Maytubby, the Tenth Circuit found his original sentences were not below the guideline range, and had been reduced to the bottom of the then-current guideline range. The court had no authority to reduce Maytubby's drug offense sentences further. Maytubby's appeal was dismissed for lack of standing. View "United States v. Mannie" on Justia Law

Kimberly Meadows appealed a district court’s denial of her motion to suppress evidence obtained during a traffic stop, arguing that the officer’s stop was unreasonable because it was based on probable cause of a Utah equipment violation, and the state decriminalized such violations. On December 4, 2017, a Utah highway-patrol officer pulled Meadows over after he observed that tinted glass obscured the brake light inside the rear window of her car, which he believed violated Utah law. He issued Meadows a warning citation for an equipment violation. During the stop, he found drugs and drug paraphernalia. The Tenth Circuit rejected Meadows' argument, concluding that the officer’s stop was reasonable regardless of whether Utah has decriminalized such violations. Accordingly, the district court was affirmed. View "United States v. Meadows" on Justia Law

The parties to this appeal were a Bolivian company, Compania de Inversiones Mercantiles S.A. (“CIMSA”), and Mexican companies known as Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua, S.A.B. de C.V. and GCC Latinoamerica, S.A. de C.V. (collectively “GCC”). Plaintiff-appellant CIMSA brought a district court action pursuant to the Federal Arbitration Act to confirm a foreign arbitral award issued in Bolivia against Defendant-appellee GCC. The underlying dispute stemmed from an agreement under which CIMSA and GCC arranged to give each other a right of first refusal if either party decided to sell its shares in a Bolivian cement company known as Sociedad Boliviana de Cemento, S.A. (“SOBOCE”). GCC sold its SOBOCE shares to a third party after taking the position that CIMSA failed to properly exercise its right of first refusal. In 2011, CIMSA initiated an arbitration proceeding in Bolivia. The arbitration tribunal determined that GCC violated the contract and the parties’ expectations. GCC then initiated Bolivian and Mexican court actions to challenge the arbitration tribunal’s decisions. A Bolivian trial judge rejected GCC’s challenge to the arbitration tribunal’s decision on the merits. A Bolivian appellate court reversed and remanded. During the pendency of the remand proceedings, Bolivia’s highest court reversed the appellate court and affirmed the original trial judge. But as a result of the simultaneous remand proceedings, the high court also issued arguably contradictory orders suggesting the second trial judge’s ruling on the merits remained in effect. GCC filed a separate Bolivian court action challenging the arbitration tribunal’s damages award. That case made its way to Bolivia’s highest court too, which reversed an intermediate appellate court’s nullification of the award and remanded for further proceedings. Invoking the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, CIMSA filed a confirmation action in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado. After encountering difficulties with conventional service of process in Mexico under the Hague Convention on Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents, CIMSA sought and received permission from the district court to serve GCC through its American counsel pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(f)(3). The district court then rejected GCC’s challenges to personal jurisdiction, holding (among other things) that: (1) it was appropriate to aggregate GCC’s contacts with the United States; (2) CIMSA’s injury arose out of GCC’s contacts; (3) exercising jurisdiction was consistent with fair play and substantial justice; and (4) alternative service was proper. The district court rejected GCC's defenses to CIMSA's claim under the New York Convention. Before the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Court affirmed the district court: the district court properly determined that CIMSA’s injury arose out of or related to GCC’s nationwide contacts. "The district court correctly decided that exercising personal jurisdiction over GCC comported with fair play and substantial justice because CIMSA established minimum contacts and GCC did not make a compelling case to the contrary." The Court also affirmed the district court's confirmation of the arbitration tribunal's decisions. View "Compania De Inversiones v. Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua" on Justia Law

Jane Doe appealed the dismissal of her Title IX claim against School District No. 1, Denver, Colorado (the District or DPS) for failure to state a claim. According to the complaint, a group of students began sexually harassing Ms. Doe after she was sexually assaulted by another student in March of her freshman year at East High School (EHS). She alleged that despite her numerous reports of the harassment to school personnel, as well as reports from teachers and a counselor, the school administration never investigated her complaints and little if anything was done to prevent the harassment from continuing. She stopped attending regularly scheduled classes about 14 months after the assault, and she transferred to a different school after completing her sophomore year. The Tenth Circuit reversed and remanded, finding Ms. Doe's complaint contained sufficient allegations to support an inference of deliberate indifference. View "Doe v. School District Number 1" on Justia Law

In 2013, a fire caused the Sinclair Wyoming Refining Company to restrict operations for several months. It filed a claim with its eighteen insurers, including Infrassure, Ltd., which collectively provided Sinclair coverage for business interruption losses under an all-risk insurance policy. In 2015, after twenty months of claim adjustment, Sinclair and the other seventeen insurers settled the claim. But Infrassure did not agree with the settlement value and eventually exercised its right under the policy to have Sinclair’s covered loss calculated by a panel of three appraisers. The panel valued the loss at $60,365,508, with Infrassure liable for $4,527,413. Infrassure, still unsatisfied, sought to invalidate the award in district court, arguing that the appraisers relied improperly on the settlement amount rather than independently valuing the loss. The district court rejected this theory and confirmed the award, holding Infrassure failed to show any actionable misconduct on behalf of the appraisers. After review, the Tenth Circuit agreed the record revealed nothing warranting setting aside the appraisal award, and therefore affirmed. View "Sinclair Wyoming v. Infrassure" on Justia Law