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

Sue Ann Apolinar hired a guide for a family adventure in the Colorado Rockies, which included an overnight rafting and camping excursion on a popular stretch of the Arkansas River running through Brown’s Canyon. While maneuvering around a rapid known locally as "Seidel’s Suck Hole," the raft capsized. Apolinar was swept into a logjam and drowned. Her son, plaintiff-appellant Jesus Espinoza, Jr., brought a lawsuit against the rafting company alleging negligence per se and fraud (and other claims no longer in dispute). The company moved for summary judgment, arguing that the release Apolinar signed shielded it from liability. The district court agreed and entered judgment in favor of the company. Plaintiff appealed, arguing summary judgment was granted in error. Finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court's decision. View "Espinoza v. Arkansas Valley Adventures" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Savant Home, Inc., a custom home designer and builder, held a registered copyright to a floor plan of a three-bedroom ranch house (“Anders Plan”). Savant built a model house embodying that plan in Windsor, Colorado (“Savant house”). In June 2009, Ron and Tammie Wagner toured the Savant house and hired builder Douglas Collins and his firm, Douglas Consulting, LLC (jointly, “Collins”) to build a house. Collins, in turn, contracted with Stewart King to design the house. After Collins and Mr. King completed the Wagners’ house, Ms. Wagner hired them to build a second house. Savant sued Collins for copyright infringement, contributory copyright infringement, civil conspiracy, trade dress infringement, and other claims, alleging defendants copied the Anders Plan by building the two houses. The district court granted Defendants summary judgment on two grounds: (1) Savant failed to offer evidence of inherent distinctiveness or secondary meaning and (2) no reasonable jury could find a likelihood of confusion. Savant appealed. After review, the Tenth Circuit agreed with the district court as to the first ground and therefore did not address the second. View "Savant Homes v. Collins" on Justia Law

Ute Tribe member Todd Murray died on April 1, 2007, after a police pursuit. Murray’s parents Debra Jones and Arden Post, on behalf of themselves and Murray’s estate, brought a 13-count complaint in the district court alleging various constitutional violations under 42 U.S.C. 1983, conspiracy to violate civil rights under 42 U.S.C. 1985, and state tort claims. Claims were brought in varying permutations against nine individual law enforcement officers, their employers, and a private mortuary (collectively, “Defendants”). Plaintiffs also sought sanctions against Defendants for alleged spoliation of evidence. The district court granted summary judgment to the mortuary on Plaintiffs’ emotional distress claim, and to all remaining Defendants on all federal claims. The court also dismissed as moot Plaintiffs’ motion for partial summary judgment on the status of Indian lands, and denied Plaintiffs’ motion for spoliation sanctions. The district court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state law torts after disposing of the emotional distress claim and the federal claims. Plaintiffs appealed all of these rulings in two appeals. The Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court, but dismissed an appeal of the taxation of costs because it lacked appellate jurisdiction. View "Jones v. Norton" on Justia Law

During Daniel Tenorio’s jury trial, the district court permitted the government to cross-examine Tenorio regarding whether he took a polygraph examination after he testified his confession was coerced. Tenorio challenged that line of questioning on appeal to the Tenth Circuit, contending the district court abused its discretion in allowing examination regarding the polygraph test. He also claimed that the district court’s limiting instruction about the polygraph test to the jury was improper. After review, the Tenth Circuit concluded that under established precedent, Tenorio opened the door to evidence regarding his polygraph examination by claiming his confession was coerced. In those circumstances, the court can allow limited examination about the facts surrounding a polygraph test to rebut claims of coercion. The Court also found the district court properly instructed the jurors to consider polygraph evidence only as explanation of the government’s interrogation and not the guilt of the defendant. View "United States v. Tenorio" on Justia Law

Tsutomu Shimomura was arrested shortly after going through the TSA checkpoint at Denver International Airport. Shimomura was carrying medication with him that a TSA agent selected for testing. Shimomura was afraid that the test would contaminate his medication. Based on this fear, he asked about the sterility and toxicity of the sampling strip. A discussion over the sterility of the testing strip ended with claims that Denver Police officer Wade Davis and TSA agent Kendra Carlson made an arrest without probable cause and conspired to fabricate grounds for the arrest. For these claims, Shimomura invoked 42 U.S.C. 1983 and "Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, (403 U.S. 388 (1971)), alleging that Davis and Carlson violated the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments. On the Fourth Amendment claims, the district court granted two motions: (1) Officer Davis’s motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity and (2) Agent Carlson’s motion to dismiss based on failure to state a valid claim. On the causes of action involving the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, the court granted the defendants’ motions to dismiss for failure to state a valid claim. Shimomura appealed, but finding no reversible error in the district court's judgment, the Tenth Circuit affirmed. View "Shimomura v. Carlson" on Justia Law

Abraham Hagos was incarcerated in Colorado State prison for multiple convictions. In the first case, he was convicted of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and two counts of retaliation against a witness. In the second, he was convicted of first-degree kidnapping, first-degree burglary, felony menacing, and conspiracy. He was serving two consecutive life sentences, one from each case. In a separate pending state court proceeding, Hagos challenged his murder and related convictions from his first case. He sought federal habeas review of his kidnapping and related convictions from his second case. The federal court dismissed his application for lack of a case or controversy and granted Hagos a certificate of appealability (“COA”) to appeal this ruling, which he then took to the Tenth Circuit. Finding that his petition indeed presented a case or controversy, the Tenth Circuit reversed and remanded Hagos' case for consideration of his habeas claims. View "Hagos v. Raemisch" on Justia Law

Defendant Paul D. Edwards entered a conditional guilty plea to possession of child pornography, reserving the right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress thousands of images and videos of child pornography recovered at his home pursuant to a search warrant. The district court sentenced Edwards to sixty-three months in prison followed by seven years of supervised release. Edwards appealed the denial of his motion to suppress, claiming the affidavit underlying the search warrant lacked sufficient indicia of probable cause, and no reasonable officer could have in good faith relied on the search warrant as issued. After review, the Tenth Circuit concluded that the search warrant affidavit failed to establish probable cause that child pornography would be found at Edwards’s home, but affirmed the district court’s denial of the motion to suppress based on the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule. View "United States v. Edwards" on Justia Law

Inmate Aleshia Henderson was handcuffed and in leg restraints in a holding cell in the medical unit of the David L. Moss Criminal Justice Center in Tulsa. Detention Officers Dalean Johnson and Michael Thomas were on duty at the medical unit, but they left to assist with a medical emergency elsewhere. In their absence, Inmate Jessie Johnson entered Henderson’s unlocked holding cell and allegedly raped her. Henderson sued the officers in their individual capacities and Tulsa County Sheriff Stanley Glanz in his individual and official capacities2 (collectively, “Defendants”) under 42 U.S.C. 1983. She alleged an Eighth Amendment violation for deliberate indifference to the risk of assault. Defendants moved for summary judgment based on qualified immunity. The district court denied the motion because Henderson raised genuine issues of material fact regarding Defendants’ awareness of the risk of assault. Defendants petitioned the Tenth Circuit for interlocutory appeal of the district court’s decision. After review, the Court dismissed the appeals of DO Johnson and Sheriff Glanz for lack of jurisdiction because they asked the Court to resolve issues of fact and did not turn on discrete questions of law. The Court concluded DO Thomas was entitled to qualified immunity because Henderson could not show he violated a clearly established constitutional right. View "Henderson v. Glanz" on Justia Law

Virl Birch died when the off-road vehicle in which he was riding flipped over and pinned him to the ground. His surviving family members sued Polaris Industries, the vehicle manufacturer, for strict products liability, negligence, and breach of warranty. Polaris argued there was no evidence Birch’s vehicle was defective at the time of sale, and moved for summary judgment. Well after the deadlines for amending the pleadings and for discovery had passed, Birch’s survivors filed motions: (1) to add new theories to their complaint; and (2) for additional discovery. A magistrate judge denied both motions as untimely, and the district court affirmed the magistrate’s ruling. Based on the allegations in the unamended complaint, the district court then granted summary judgment to Polaris on all claims. The survivors appealed the district court’s denial of their two motions and the grant of summary judgment. But finding no reversible error in the district court's judgment, the Tenth Circuit affirmed. View "Birch v. Polaris Industries" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs were descendants of the victims of the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre and brought suit for an accounting of the amounts they alleged the U.S. government held in trust for payment of reparations to their ancestors. Because the United States had not waived its sovereign immunity, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of this case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. View "Flute v. United States" on Justia Law