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

Plaintiff Homaidan Al-Turki was a citizen of Saudi Arabia, sentenced by a Colorado state court to a term of eight years to life. He wished to serve the remainder of his time in prison in his home country. A treaty permitted this, but required approval of the State, the federal government, and the foreign nation. Plaintiff alleged he received approval from the proper state official but Defendants (several state and federal officials) then provided false derogatory information to the State that caused it to revoke its approval. He filed suit in the federal district court contending Defendants had violated his right to procedural due process under the federal Constitution by not providing him a hearing to clear his name before revoking the approval. He sought an injunction requiring he be granted a judicial hearing to clear his name and that Defendants not repeat the false allegations against him. Defendants moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim, and the district court granted the motion. After review, the Tenth Circuit concurred: “The stigma that results from defamation by public officials is alone insufficient to implicate procedural due process; the defamation must also have caused an alteration in the plaintiff’s legal status—that is, there must be ‘stigma plus.’ But Plaintiff has not adequately alleged a plus factor here, because he suffered no change in legal status as a result of Defendants’ alleged stigmatizing comments. Therefore, constitutional due process did not require that he be granted a hearing before the State’s final decision against his transfer to a prison in Saudi Arabia.” View "Al-Turki v. Tomsic" on Justia Law

Big Horn Coal Company petitioned the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals for review of a Department of Labor Benefits Review Board (“Board”) decision awarding benefits to Edgar Sadler, a then-living miner, under the Black Lung Benefits Act (BLBA or “the Act”). The BLBA’s statute of limitations required miners to file claims for benefits within three years of receiving a medical determination of total disability due to pneumoconiosis. In interpreting this statute of limitations, the Secretary of the Department of Labor issued 20 C.F.R. 725.308(c) (2010), which provided that the time limits in section 932(f) “are mandatory and may not be waived or tolled except upon a showing of extraordinary circumstances.” The issue this appeal presented turned on the validity of the Secretary’s regulation in section 725.308(c) and the interpretation and application of the “extraordinary circumstances” test contained therein. Sadler received a total disability diagnosis in 2005, but he did not file the claim at issue here until 2010. Despite that delay, an administrative law judge (ALJ) awarded benefits to Sadler upon finding that “extraordinary circumstances” existed to warrant tolling the statute of limitations. Big Horn Coal argued there were no "extraordinary circumstances" sufficient here to justify tolling the statute of limitations. The Tenth Circuit concluded it lacked jurisdiction because Big Horn Coal failed to exhaust that issue before the Board. View "Big Horn Coal Company v. Sadler" on Justia Law

Defendant Storm Michael Bellamy was under investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ("ATF") for suspected methamphetamine distribution. Defendant's housemate ordered him out of the house; twelve hours later, ATF agents executed a search warrant on the premises. In Bellamy’s former bedroom, agents discovered his personal effects, a rifle with a loaded large-capacity magazine attached, and a second large-capacity magazine nearby. Defendant pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. The district court applied United States Sentencing Guidelines 2K2.1(a)(4)(B), which established a base offense level of 20 when a convicted felon possessed a semiautomatic firearm with a large-capacity magazine that was either attached or in close proximity to the firearm. Defendant was sentenced to 40 months in prison. On appeal, defendant challenged the procedural reasonableness of his sentence: because he was ejected from the house, he argues he did not possess the rifle when agents seized. He also claimed there was insufficient evidence to show that the rifle he possessed earlier that morning had a large-capacity magazine attached or in close proximity to it. The Tenth Circuit found ample support in the district court record to support the finding defendant possessed the rifle and the large-capacity magazines. Accordingly, the court did not abuse its discretion in sentencing him. View "United States v. Bellamy" on Justia Law

Troy Kell sought habeas relief, but he had not exhausted two of his claims in state court. The unexhausted claims created what the Tenth Circuit characterized as a Catch-22 for Kell: risking a dismissal of all of his claims without an opportunity to timely refile. The district court entered a limited stay, halting proceedings on one of the unexhausted claims while Kell returned to state court to exhaust the claim. For the remaining habeas claims, however, the district court continued with the proceedings. In the midst of the ongoing habeas proceedings in district court, Utah appealed the grant of a stay, arguing that the district court should have declined to grant a stay. To establish jurisdiction, Utah relied on the collateral-order doctrine, which allowed appeals from some decisions before the entry of a final judgment. But the Tenth Circuit found the district court’s issuance of a stay did not satisfy the collateral-order doctrine’s requirements, so it dismissed the appeal for lack of appellate jurisdiction. View "Kell v. Benzon" on Justia Law

Defendant-Appellant Harrison School District No. 2 asks us to reverse the district court’s ruling that it violated the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) by failing to provide Plaintiff-Appellee Steven R.F. with a free appropriate public education. The Tenth Circuit concluded this case was moot “[b]ecause the status quo remained in effect from the time [the parents] challenged the school district’s attempt to modify the IEP, they de facto received the relief they originally sought . . . ; the modified IEP never took effect.” And there was no evidence that the asserted IDEA violation was likely to occur again. View "R.F. v. Harrison School District No. 2" on Justia Law

Wendy and Daryl Yurek were charged with tax evasion and bankruptcy fraud. After a joint jury trial, the Yureks were convicted on both offenses. The district court then sentenced Mrs. Yurek to a prison term of 27 months, leading her to appeal the conviction and sentence. On appeal, Mrs. Yurek challenged the sufficiency of the evidence presented against her, and claimed the district court erred in denying her motions for severance and a new trial. The Tenth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part: affirming Mrs. Yurek’s conviction, but vacated her sentence. The Court determined the district court applied the wrong test when deciding whether to grant a mitigating-role adjustment. View "United States v. Yurek (Wendy)" on Justia Law

Charles Farrar, a Colorado state prisoner, appealed the district court’s denial of his petition for habeas relief. Farrar’s convictions stemmed from complaints of sexual abuse. The victim was Farrar’s stepdaughter, who complained of the alleged abuse when she was in the eighth grade. Based on the girl’s account, state officials charged Farrar with over twenty counts. Farrar denied the allegations. At the trial, the girl’s testimony supplied the prosecution’s only direct evidence of Farrar’s guilt. The jury found Mr. Farrar guilty of numerous counts of sexual assault and one count of child abuse, and the state trial court sentenced Mr. Farrar to prison for a minimum of 145 years and a maximum of life. In district court, Farrar claimed: actual innocence, deprivation of due process based on the recantation of a key prosecution witness, and deprivation of due process based on a state appellate decision establishing an overly restrictive standard for a new trial. The district court denied relief, and the Tenth Circuit affirmed based on three conclusions: (1) actual innocence did not supply a freestanding basis for habeas relief; (2) a private citizen’s false testimony did not violate the Constitution unless the government knew that the testimony is false; (3) the alleged error in the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision did not justify habeas relief. View "Farrar v. Raemisch" on Justia Law

Defendant Armando Mendez appealed his sentence after he pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. He argued his sentence was improperly inflated because the district court held that a prior conviction for attempted robbery in Colorado qualified as a "crime of violence" under the Sentencing Guidelines. Finding no reversible error in the trial court's classification of defendant's Colorado crime, the Tenth Circuit affirmed. View "United States v. Mendez" on Justia Law

This appeal concerns the propriety of the timing of deductions by a Subchapter S corporation for expenses paid to employees who participate in the corporation’s employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). Taxpayers Stephen and Pauline Petersen and John and Larue Johnstun were majority shareholders in Petersen Inc. (the Corporation), a Subchapter S corporation. The disputed liabilities arose from Taxpayers’ income-tax returns for 2009 (offset in small part by corrections in their favor for their 2010 returns). Because the Corporation was a Subchapter S corporation, it was a pass-through entity for income-tax purposes; taxable income, deductions, and losses were passed through to its shareholders. Taxpayers appealed the United States Tax Court’s decision holding them liable for past-due taxes arising out of errors in their income-tax returns caused by premature deductions for expenses paid to their Corporation’s ESOP. Taxpayers contended the Tax Court misinterpreted the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) and, even if its interpretation was correct, miscalculated the amounts of alleged deficiencies. The Commissioner agreed a recalculation was necessary. The Tenth Circuit affirmed Taxpayers’ liability but remanded for recalculation of the deficiencies. View "Petersen v. CIR" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Stephen Hamer resided in Trinidad, Colorado, confined to a motorized wheelchair, and a qualified individual with a disability under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (“RA”). He did not own a car or otherwise use public transportation. Instead, he primarily used the City’s public sidewalks to move about town. Plaintiff contended many of the City’s sidewalks and the curb cuts allowing access onto those sidewalks did not comply with Title II of the ADA and section 504 of the RA. Plaintiff filed an ADA complaint with the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) informing the government about the state of the City’s sidewalks, and continued to lodge informal ADA and RA complaints at City Council meetings over several months. Apparently in response to Plaintiff’s multiple complaints and the results of a DOJ audit, City officials actively began repairing and amassing funding to further repair non-compliant sidewalks and curb cuts. Even so, Plaintiff nonetheless filed suit against the City for violations of Title II of the ADA and section 504 of the RA, seeking a declaratory judgment that the City’s sidewalks and curb cuts violated the ADA and RA, injunctive relief requiring City officials to remedy the City’s non-compliant sidewalks and curb cuts, monetary damages, attorneys’ fees, and costs. The district court granted summary judgment to the City on statute-of-limitations grounds, finding the applicable “statute of limitations begins to run when the plaintiff knows or has reason to know of the existence and cause of the injury which is the basis of his action.” The Tenth Circuit held a public entity violates Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act each day that it fails to remedy a noncompliant service, program, or activity. As a result, the applicable statute of limitations did not operate in its usual capacity as a firm bar to an untimely lawsuit. “Instead, it constrains a plaintiff’s right to relief to injuries sustained during the limitations period counting backwards from the day he or she files the lawsuit and injuries sustained while the lawsuit is pending.” Because the district court applied a different and incorrect standard, the Tenth Circuit reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Hamer v. City of Trinidad" on Justia Law