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Consumer Protection – Medical Records Costs – Third-Party Contractor – Statutory Limits
The plaintiff-patients complain that they were required to pay more for copies of their medical records than S.C. Code Ann. § 44-115-80 allows healthcare providers to charge. However, plaintiffs have not sued their healthcare providers; instead, they have sued the defendant-“information management companies” that retrieve medical records from healthcare providers and transmit them to requesti[...]
Labor & Employment – Racial Discrimination – Hostile Work Environment – Employer’s Knowledge – Prior Incidents
On three occasions in two months, a six-year-old – the grandson of the defendant-employer’s owners and son of a supervisor being groomed to take over the family business – called plaintiff the n-word in her workplace. While the district court read plaintiff’s EEOC charge to mean she had not reported the first incident at all, […]
Criminal Practice – Sentencing Enhancement – Maintaining Premises – Cousin’s House
Even though defendant did not own or live at his cousin’s Calvary Street house, (1) defendant claimed ownership of the bulk drugs stored inside the house alongside the accoutrements of drug trafficking; (2) he frequented the Calvary Street house, apparently for the primary – if not sole – purpose of accessing the drugs he stored […]
Criminal Practice – Habeas Corpus Review – Prior Collateral Attack – Procedural Bar
After petitioner was sentenced under the Armed Career Criminal Act and after Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. 591 (2015), declared the residual clause of the ACCA unconstitutional, petitioner was allowed a second collateral attack under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 to review his sentence, and a district court determined that his prior convictions remained valid […]
Criminal Practice – Sentencing – Prior Convictions – Strangulation – Intent – Categorical Approach
Under North Carolina law, the intent element of assault may be proven by showing culpable negligence, which is insufficient to qualify an assault as a “crime of violence” under U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. However, North Carolina’s crime of assault by strangulation also requires proof of strangulation and infliction of physical injury. Since neither of these may […]
Tort/Negligence – Libel Per Se – Public Figures – Actual Malice
Where the plaintiff-police officers showed that the defendant-director of public safety (1) fired the officers, (2) prepared separation affidavits falsely stating that claims had been filed against the officers for creating a hostile work environment when no such claims had been made, and (3) submitted those separation affidavits to the North Carolina Criminal Justice Education […]
Tort/Negligence – Schools & School Boards – Administrators – Public Official Immunity – Abusive Teacher
Where the teacher of a special education class abused plaintiff’s autistic son by, for two examples, putting him and keeping him in a trash can and spilling hot grease on his head, public official immunity protects the defendant-school administrators from liability for failing to report the child abuse. We reverse the district court’s denial of […]
Criminal Practice — Sentencing – Harmless Error – Firearm Purchase – No Rogers Error
Defendant, a convicted felon, used counterfeit bills to buy a handgun. Even if it were error for the district court to increase defendant’s offense level based on his possession of a firearm “in connection with another felony offense,” any such error was harmless because the district court adequately explained defendant’s sentence and its relation to […]
Immigration – Applicant fails to show likelihood of torture in El Salvador
Where the immigration judge or IJ, found that the threat of torture from MS-13, police and vigilante groups in El Salvador was less than 50%, both separately and in the aggregate, an applicant’s bid for protection under the Convention Against Torture or CAT, was denied. Background Miguel Angel Ibarra Chevez petitions for review of the […]
Bankruptcy – Standard for Chapter 11 contempt is clarified
Where the Supreme Court previously addressed the proper standard for holding a creditor in civil contempt for attempting to collect a debt that a Chapter 7 discharge order has immunized from collection, that rule also applied in a Chapter 11 case. The analysis was not limited to violations of Chapter 7 discharge orders and did […]
Criminal Practice – ‘Bright-line’ rule for compassionate release motions rejected
Where a detainee files a motion for compassionate release, it would be error for the district court to use a bright-line rule that accepts only the CDC’s highest risk conditions as a basis for grating the motion. Such a holding might fail to account for the complexities that may be presented in certain cases. Background […]
Immigration – Board erred by imposing ‘living parent’ requirement in statute
Where the attorney general has discretion to waive removal for an alien who is the son of a U.S. citizen, the board erred by concluding that a deceased parent is not a qualifying relative for waiver eligibility. Nothing in the statute contains the living parent requirement. Background Congress allocates a certain number of immigrant visas […]
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Commentary
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