Justia U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

In 2015, Mitchell was convicted of drug-and gun-related offenses, including two counts of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime, and aiding and abetting such possession, 18 U.S.C. 924(c)(1). After the enactment of the 2018 First Step Act, the Third Circuit vacated Mitchell’s 1,020-month sentence, finding that the sentencing court violated his due process rights.The Third Circuit held that the provisions of the First Step Act do apply to Mitchell’s resentencing. The Act is ambiguous; it applies, prospectively, to all offenses committed after the Act’s enactment but, retroactively, “to any offense that was committed before the date of enactment of this Act, if a sentence for the offense has not been imposed as of [that] date.” The court chose to interpret it broadly to allow the Act’s provisions to apply to a defendant whose pre-Act-unconstitutional sentence was vacated after the Act’s enactment. Because Mitchell’s sentence was fully vacated, he was an unsentenced defendant after the enactment of the Act and entitled to benefit from it. View "United States v. Mitchell" on Justia Law

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Port Authority, a municipal bus and light-rail operator, required its uniformed employees to wear face masks. Initially, Port Authority was unable to procure masks for all its employees, so they were required to provide their own. Some employees wore masks bearing political or social-protest messages. Port Authority has long prohibited its uniformed employees from wearing buttons “of a political or social protest nature.” Concerned that such masks would disrupt its workplace, Port Authority prohibited them in July 2020. When several employees wore masks expressing support for Black Lives Matter, Port Authority disciplined them. In September 2020, Port Authority imposed additional restrictions, confining employees to a narrow range of masks. The employees sued, alleging that Port Authority had violated their First Amendment rights.The district court entered a preliminary injunction rescinding discipline imposed under the July policy and preventing Port Authority from enforcing its policy against “Black Lives Matter” masks. The Third Circuit affirmed. The government may limit the speech of its employees more than it may limit the speech of the public, but those limits must still comport with the protections of the First Amendment. Port Authority bears the burden of showing that its policy is constitutional. It has not made that showing. View "Amalgamated Transit Union Local 85 v. Port Authority of Allegheny County" on Justia Law

Pyrotechnics manufactures and sells hardware (a control panel and a field module) and software that control fireworks displays under the “FireOne” brand. Since around 1995, Pyrotechnics’s hardware has used a proprietary protocol. Pyrotechnics’s Romanian competitor, fireTEK, reverse-engineered Pyrotechnics’s hardware to learn its communication protocol. In 2018, fireTEK developed a router that could send analog signals to Pyrotechnics’s field module just like those sent by Pyrotechnics’s control panel.; fireTEK promoted its router as a replacement for Pyrotechnics’s control panel. Pyrotechnics filed a seven-page document describing its protocol (Deposit Copy) with the U.S. Copyright Office and received a Certificate of Registration, indicating the copyrighted work is “text.” Pyrotechnics asserts that it submitted the Deposit Copy as “identifying material” for its protocol under 37 C.F.R. 202.20(c)(2)(viii). Pyrotechnics claims the protocol was first published when it was embedded inside its hardware in 1995.Pyrotechnics sued fireTEK for copyright infringement, tortious interference with prospective contractual relations, and unfair competition, 17 U.S.C. 411(a). The district court entered an injunction. The Third Circuit vacated, finding the copyright invalid. Pyrotechnics’s digital message format is an uncopyrightable idea and the individual digital messages described in the Deposit Copy are insufficiently original to qualify for copyright protection. View "Pyrotechnics Management Inc v. XFX Pyrotechnics LLC" on Justia Law

El-Battouty was a leader of a large-scale online child pornography ring for almost two years. Using an alias, El-Battouty posted several thousand times on the internet chat platform, Discord's servers, which were organized into text channels that functioned as chatrooms. They operated as hierarchical distribution networks for sexually explicit images and videos of minors. Users shared methods to coerce children into producing pornography. El-Battouty used a fictional online persona to deceive minors into believing they were playing a “game” of progressively lewder sex acts with a fellow minor, surreptitiously recorded and then distributed this content to other users on the Discord servers. An undercover FBI agent monitored and preserved content. A search of El-Battouty’s residence pursuant to a warrant recovered digital devices containing thousands of archived sexually explicit images and videos of minors. The devices and El-Battouty’s own statements established his access and use of the servers.Convicted of engaging in a child exploitation enterprise, 18 U.S.C. 2252A(g), he was sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment, a life term of supervised release, and restitution. The Third Circuit affirmed. The central issue was whether El-Battouty acted alone or conspired with other users on the Discord servers. The statute presents common words and phrases, which the district court explained to the jury in a straightforward way. View "United States v. El-Battouty" on Justia Law

Allen and Mullen are disabled and need wheelchairs to move about. They shopped at two different "Ollie's" bargain stores, where they encountered an obstacle course: pillars, clothing racks, and boxes blocked their way. They filed a putative class action against Ollie’s under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12182(a). The district court certified a class under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(2): All persons with qualified mobility disabilities who have attempted, or will attempt, to access the interior of any store owned or operated by [Ollie’s] within the United States and have, or will have, experienced access barriers in interior paths of travel.The Third Circuit vacated and remanded. The district court abused its discretion by certifying an overly broad class based on inadequate evidence of numerosity and commonality. On remand, the district court must address the differing ADA standards and rules to determine whether common proof and common relief would be available for each distinct claim raised by the putative class. View "Allen v. Ollie's Bargain Outlet, Inc" on Justia Law

Marsalis is a nursing-school dropout but on dating websites, he was “Dr. Jeff,” a high-flying physician at the University of Pennsylvania and also a NASA astronaut. When an unsuspecting woman fell for Marsalis’s ruse, he drugged her drink, then offered to let her recover at his apartment. As the woman blacked out, he sexually assaulted her. In total, 10 women accused Marsalis of rape, each telling a version of that same story. A jury acquitted him of rape, convicting him only of two sexual assaults. The judge found that he was a sexually violent predator and sentenced him to the maximum: up to 21 years in prison. On state habeas review, Marsalis argued that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to present an alibi defense and investigate a victim’s medical condition. The court dismissed his petition, and the Superior Court affirmed.Marsalis filed this federal habeas petition, arguing that trial counsel should have objected to a doctor’s expert testimony. The district court rejected the ineffective-counsel claim because Marsalis had not raised it during state habeas. The Third Circuit affirmed. Marsalis’s federal habeas challenge was untimely and a jury would have convicted him even if his lawyer had been adequate. View "Marsalis v. Pennsylvania Department of Corrections" on Justia Law

Inmate Rivera was temporarily transferred in order to represent himself in a trial challenging his conditions of confinement. He was assigned to the Restricted Housing Unit (RHU) from which inmates may access a “mini law library.” Rivera’s trial was scheduled to begin on a Monday. On Friday, his request for continuing access to the library throughout his trial was approved. The library, however, did not contain any physical books, only two computers. Both were inoperable. Rivera had no way to access the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Rules of Evidence, and the court rules. Rivera’s request to borrow paper copies from the main law library was summarily denied. The judge refused to admit his evidence on hearsay grounds. The jury entered a defense verdict. According to Rivera, access to the Rules would likely have changed the outcome of his trial.The Third Circuit affirmed the dismissal of Rivera’s 42 U.S.C. 1983 suit on qualified immunity grounds. At the time of the alleged violation, Supreme Court and Third Circuit precedents had not clearly established a prisoner’s right to access the material after he filed a complaint. “Going forward, however, there should be no doubt that such a right exists. The ability of a prisoner to access basic legal materials in a law library … does not stop once a prisoner has taken the first step towards the courthouse’s door.” View "Rivera v. Monko" on Justia Law

Navient serviced the student loans of Matthew Panzarella. Matthew listed his mother (Elizabeth) and brother (Joshua) as references on student loan applications and promissory notes and provided their cell phone numbers. He became delinquent on his loans and failed to respond to Navient’s attempts to communicate with him. Call logs show that over five months, Navient called Elizabeth's phone number four times (three calls were unanswered) and Joshua's number 15 times (all unanswered), using “interaction dialer” telephone dialing software developed by ININ.The Panzarellas filed a putative class action, alleging violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. 227, by calling their cellphones without their prior express consent using an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS). Navient argued that its ININ System did not qualify as an ATDS because the system lacked the capacity to generate and call random or sequential telephone numbers. The Third Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Navient, without deciding whether Navient’s dialing equipment qualified as an ATDS. Despite the text’s lack of clarity, Section 227(b)(1)(A)’s context and legislative history establish it was intended to prohibit making calls that use an ATDS’s auto-dialing functionalities; the record establishes that Navient did not rely on random- or sequential number generation when it called the Panzarellas. View "Panzarella v. Navient Solutions Inc" on Justia Law

Georgetown Law invited Yung to interview an alumnus. Yung thought his interviewer was rude. Georgetown rejected Yung's application. Yung launched a cyber-campaign, creating fake obituaries for the interviewer’s wife and son, social-media profiles and blogs in the interviewer's name, containing KKK content and bragging about child rape. A Google search of the interviewer’s name revealed thousands of similar posts. In reports to the Better Business Bureau, Yung accused the interviewer of sexually assaulting a female associate and berating prospective employees. Impersonating the interviewer’s wife, he published an online ad seeking a sex slave. The interviewer’s family got hundreds of phone calls from men seeking sex. Strange men went to the interviewer’s home. The interviewer hired cyber-investigators, who, working with the FBI, traced the harassment to Yung.Yung, charged with cyberstalking, 18 U.S.C. 2261A(2)(B) & 2261(b) unsuccessfully challenged the law as overbroad under the First Amendment. Yung was sentenced to prison, probation, and to pay restitution for the interviewer’s investigative costs ($70,000) and Georgetown’s security measures ($130,000). The Third Circuit affirmed the conviction. A narrow reading of the statute’s intent element is possible so it is not overbroad--limiting intent to harass to “criminal harassment, which is unprotected because it constitutes true threats or speech that is integral to proscribable criminal conduct.” The court vacated in part. Yung could not waive his claim that the restitution order exceeds the statute and Georgetown suffered no damage to any property right. View "United States v. Yung" on Justia Law

At the end of 2018, the longest government shutdown in history began because Congress had not passed a budget. For more than a month, FBI employees, like other federal workers, were not paid. Nor did they get payments into their Thrift Savings Plan retirement accounts. Once the government reopened, the FBI sent them their missed paychecks and contributed to their Thrift accounts. But, while the government was shut down, the market had risen. If the government had made its Thrift contributions on time, that money would have bought more shares than the late payments did.The employees filed a class-action suit under the Federal Employees’ Retirement System Act (FERSA), 5 U.S.C. 8401–80, which allows “any participant or beneficiary” of a Thrift plan to sue “to recover benefits.” The government agreed that section 8477(e)(3)(C)(i) waives sovereign immunity but moved to dismiss, arguing that this suit falls outside the waiver and was an effort to recover consequential damages from the government’s late payment, which are not a “benefit” within the waiver. On interlocutory appeal, the Third Circuit reversed the denial of that motion. Congress does not waive federal sovereign immunity unless it speaks clearly. FERSA does not clearly waive the federal government’s immunity for the employees’ claims. View "John Doe 1 v. United States" on Justia Law