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

After a prior remand to the district court, the Tenth Circuit reviewed the propriety of that court’s revised award of attorney fees under 28 U.S.C. § 1927, which permitted monetary sanction when an attorney has unreasonably and vexatiously multiplied the proceedings. Appellant Karen Hammer claimed the district court failed to make the findings necessary to support an award under § 1927, failed to abide by the statutory requirement that a court award only excess fees incurred because of the sanctioned attorney’s multiplication of proceedings, and failed to apply the law of the case. She also argued the court erred in striking a surreply that she filed without leave. With one exception, the Tenth Circuit found no merit in these arguments. The Court affirmed except to remand for one reduction in the fee award. View "Chung v. Lamb, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff-appellee Baker Hughes Services International, LLC, after winning an Ecuadorian arbitration against the Ecuador-based Pesago Consortium, secured an arbitral award enforceable jointly and severally against the Consortium’s two members: Defendant and third-party Campo Puma Oriente S.A. Plaintiff then brought its award to Oklahoma and sued Defendant to confirm the award in the United States. Plaintiff again prevailed, and the district court entered judgment against Defendant for the award’s amount, prejudgment interest, and attorney’s fees. Defendant challenged the enforcement of the arbitration award, arguing: (1) the U.S. district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to confirm the award; (2) the district court should not have confirmed the award because the parties never agreed to arbitrate their dispute; and (3) the district court improperly awarded attorney’s fees and incorrectly calculated prejudgment interest. After its review, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed affirm everything except the district court’s award of prejudgment interest, which was vacated and remanded for the district court to reconsider. View "Baker Hughes Services International v. Joshi Technologies International" on Justia Law

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System brought an enforcement action against Petitioners Frank Smith and Mark Kiolbasa, who were employees at Farmers State Bank at the time, after finding they committed misconduct at Central Bank & Trust where they had previously worked. This resulted in their removal as officers and directors of Farmers Bank and the imposition of restrictions on their abilities to serve as officers, directors, or employees of other banks in the future. Petitioners sought review from the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that the Board did not have authority to bring this enforcement action against them because the Board was not the “appropriate Federal banking agency,” as defined by 12 U.S.C. § 1813(q)(3), with authority over the bank where the misconduct took place. After review, the Tenth Circuit concluded that, because the Board had authority over Petitioners at the time the action commenced, the Board was an appropriate federal banking agency and had authority to initiate the proceeding. The appellate court also declined to review Petitioners’ Appointments Clause challenge because they did not raise it at trial. View "Smith, et al. v. FRS" on Justia Law

While plaintiff-appellee Jesse Wise was a pretrial detainee at Creek County Jail in Oklahoma, Officer Don Caffey performed a knee strike on Wise when he was seated on the ground and handcuffed. Officer Caffey subsequently resigned his employment at Creek County Jail as a result of an investigation into the incident. Wise sued Officer Caffey and Creek County Sheriff Bret Bowling under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging excessive-force and supervisory-liability claims against Officer Caffey and Sheriff Bowling, respectively. At the summary-judgment stage, the court held Officer Caffey’s knee strike was excessive as a matter of law and that he and Sheriff Bowling were not entitled to qualified immunity. The Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of summary judgment as to Officer Caffey’s qualified-immunity defense because the “facts that the district court ruled a reasonable jury could find would suffice to show a legal violation.” View "Wise v. Caffey, et al." on Justia Law

This case arose from the Bureau of Reclamation’s ("Reclamation") Environmental Analysis of a proposed water contract between it and Utah involving water in the Green River Basin. The Green River Block Exchange contract allowed Utah to draw water from releases from Flaming Gorge Reservoir instead of depleting water from the Green River and its tributary flows to which Utah was entitled under Article XV(b) of the Upper Colorado River Basin Compact of 1948. Conservation groups sued Reclamation and the U.S. Department of the Interior alleging violations of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedure Act. The district court found that Reclamation’s NEPA analysis was not arbitrary and capricious, that the agency took a “hard look” at cumulative impacts, and that it properly determined that an Environmental Impact Statement was not required. The Tenth Circuit affirmed: the record adequately demonstrated that Reclamation took a hard look at the proposed action and provided a reasoned explanation of its decision. View "Center for Biological, et al. v. US Department of the Interior, et al." on Justia Law

Defendant Nathan Russell Cates appeals the denial of his motion to suppress evidence following his entry of a conditional guilty plea. Cates was initially indicted on one count of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine (Count 1), and one count of possession with intent to distribute tetrahydrocannabinol (Count 2). These charges arose from a traffic stop by a Wyoming Highway Patrol (WHP) Trooper, which was followed by a drug-detection dog alerting to the presence of drugs in Cates’s rental vehicle. After the district court denied his motions, Cates pleaded guilty to Count 1 of the indictment. Under the terms of his conditional plea agreement, Cates reserved the right to appeal the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress. The Tenth Circuit rejected Cates' arguments made on appeal and affirmed the denial of Carts' motion to suppress. View "United States v. Cates" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Isaiah Redbird, a member of the Kiowa Nation, was convicted by jury of first-degree murder and assault resulting in serious bodily injury. On appeal. he argued the district court improperly admitted character evidence about his propensity for violence under Federal Rule of Evidence 404(a)(2)(B). The Tenth Circuit found Redbird did not raise that specific objection at trial. Because Redbird did not argue plain error on appeal, the Tenth Circuit concluded he waived his evidentiary challenge and therefore affirm his convictions. View "United States v. Redbird" on Justia Law

Sinclair Wyoming Refining Company petitioned the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals under the Clean Air Act and the Administrative Procedure Act to challenge an email from an Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) official denying the return of its Renewable Identification Numbers (“RINs”) that it had deposited with EPA when it was not exempted from the Renewable Fuel Standard program for the year 2018. Because the email was not a final agency action, the Court dismissed the petition for lack of jurisdiction. View "Sinclair Wyoming v. EPA" on Justia Law

This case arose from events involving Defendant-appellant David Bradshaw, a sheriff’s deputy who was off duty, out of uniform, and driving his personal vehicle with his child in the front passenger seat. After a vehicle being driven by Plaintiff-appellant Mario Rosales legally passed Bradshaw, Bradshaw decided to follow Rosales. He then declined backup assistance from another deputy, followed Rosales all the way home, blocked Rosales in his driveway, and began shouting and yelling at Rosales, all before identifying himself as law enforcement. In response, Rosales became afraid and exited his vehicle with a legal and openly carried gun in his pants pocket, intending to protect himself and his property but also to deescalate the situation. Bradshaw, however, continued to shout and pointed his gun at Rosales. Though Rosales feared being shot, he remained calm and nonthreatening throughout the encounter. When Bradshaw eventually identified himself as law enforcement and told Rosales to put his gun back in his vehicle, Rosales complied, and the encounter wound down from there. As a result of this incident, Bradshaw’s employment was terminated, and he was convicted in state court of aggravated assault and child endangerment. Rosales then filed this suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging in part that Bradshaw violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures. The district court granted Bradshaw’s motion to dismiss, ruling that he was entitled to qualified immunity because he did not violate clearly established law when he unreasonably pointed his gun at Rosales. The critical distinguishing fact, for the district court, was that Rosales was armed. The Tenth Circuit reversed: Bradshaw violated Rosales’s constitutional right to be free from unreasonable seizures, and his "egregious and unlawful conduct was obviously unconstitutional. Bradshaw is therefore not entitled to qualified immunity, and Rosales’s § 1983 claim against him may proceed." View "Rosales v. Bradshaw, et al." on Justia Law

congressional mandate to compensate the Wyandotte Tribe for its loss of millions of acres in the Ohio River Valley morphed into a thirty-year dispute over ten acres in a Wichita, Kansas suburb. In 1992, eight years after Congress’s enacted remedy, the Tribe used $25,000 of that compensation to buy a ten-acre lot in Kansas called the Park City Parcel. The next year, the Tribe applied for trust status on the Park City Parcel under Congress’s 1984 enactment, but the Secretary of the Interior denied the application. The Tribe tried again in 2008, reapplying for trust status on the Park City Parcel to set up gaming operations. Since then, the State of Kansas opposed the Tribe’s efforts to conduct gaming on the Parcel. The State disputed the Tribe’s claim that its purchase came from the allocated $100,000 in congressional funds. And the State argued that no exception to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) authorized the Tribe to operate gaming on the lot. In 2020, the Secretary rejected the State’s arguments, approving the Tribe’s trust application and ruling that the Tribe could conduct gaming operations on the Park City Parcel. The district court agreed. And so did the Tenth Circuit. The Court affirmed the ruling that the Secretary was statutorily bound to take the Park City Parcel into trust and to allow a gaming operation there under IGRA’s settlement-of-a-land-claim exception. View "Kansas ex rel Kobach, et al. v. U.S. Department of Interior, et al." on Justia Law