Justia Civil Procedure Opinion Summaries

Holmes filed a claim for damages with the Court Supervised Settlement Program and alleged that it qualified as a "Start Up Business." On appeal, Holmes challenges the district court's decision declining to review the Claims Administrator's reclassification of Holmes as a general business claimant. The court concluded that the Claims Administrator’s decision did not misapply the Settlement Agreement, and that Holmes’s argument that the district court was required to grant review of its particular claim is unpersuasive. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Holmes Motors v. BP Exploration" on Justia Law

Texas filed suit seeking a declaration that an Enforcement Guidance document from the EEOC regarding the hiring of persons with criminal backgrounds violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 701–06. On appeal, the State challenged the district court’s order dismissing the action under FRCP 12(b)(1) for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The court concluded that Texas has constitutional standing to challenge the Enforcement Guidance under the APA where Texas is an object of the Guidance and, taking the complaint’s allegations as true, has alleged a sufficient injury in fact - the Guidance forces Texas to alter its hiring policies or incur significant costs; the “flexible” and “pragmatic” approach to assessing the finality of agency action, leads to the conclusion that the Guidance is “final agency action” under section 704 of the APA; the EEOC erred in relying on AT&T Co. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to suggest that agency actions are “final” under the APA only when federal courts are later bound to give deference to the agency’s interpretation of the statute at issue; and it is also sufficient that the Enforcement Guidance has the immediate effect of altering the rights and obligations of the “regulated community” by offering them a detailed and conclusive means to avoid an adverse EEOC finding, and, by extension, agency referral and a government-backed enforcement action. The Guidance is an agency determination in its final form and is applicable to all employers nation-wide; it is not an intermediate step in a specific enforcement action that may or may not lead to concrete injury. Because the district court erred in dismissing this action on justiciability and subject matter jurisdiction grounds, the court reversed and remanded. View "State of Texas v. EEOC" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit alleging that they were injured in a vehicle collision with Thomas Lee Atkinson, an employee of CFC. The district court granted summary judgment for CFC and its insurer, Amerisure. However, Atkinson remains in the litigation. The court held that, absent Rule 54(b) certification, either service or appearance by a named party will defeat appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1291 if the claims involving that party are not addressed in the final judgment or prior order. Accordingly, although Atkinson has never appeared in this litigation, if he has been served, this court would lack jurisdiction under section 1291. Because it is unclear from the record whether Atkinson was ever served, the court remanded to the district court for the limited purpose of determining whether Atkinson has been served and entering an order stating its findings and conclusions as to service. View "Charles v. Atkinson" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a U.S. citizen working for Blue Offshore, allegedly sustained a knee injury while working on board a Luxembourg-flagged vessel that was located off the coast of Russia. Plaintiff filed suit against Blue Offshore and two other companies, Aker Solutions and FMC Technologies, alleging negligence. Plaintiff later amended his complaint and added more defendants, including FMC Kongsberg and FMC Eurasia. After completion of the jurisdictional discovery, the district court found that neither specific nor general personal jurisdiction existed over Aker Subsea or FMC Kongsberg. Therefore, the district court dismissed these parties from the suit. At issue in this appeal is whether the district court erred in dismissing Aker Subsea under Rule 12(b)(2). The court concluded that exercising general personal jurisdiction over Aker Subsea would be inappropriate where Aker Subsea’s limited contacts with the United States - eleven secondment agreements - are insufficient to satisfy due process concerns. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Patterson v. Aker Solutions Inc." on Justia Law

This case stems from an investigation into improprieties in the Court-Supervised Settlement Program (CSSP) responsible for a class of claims related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Movants Glen Lerner and Jonathan Andry appeal the district court’s sanction order disqualifying them from further participation in the CSSP related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and Andry Lerner, L.L.C. appeals the denial of its motion to alter or amend the restrictions imposed on related attorneys’ fees that were escrowed in connection with the sanction. The district court found that Andry and Lerner had violated multiple rules under the Louisiana Rules of Professional Conduct. The court affirmed the district court's sanction order because that court acted within its inherent authority to supervise the settlement program and did not abuse its discretion in imposing the sanction. The court held that, in light of the Special Master’s representation that the parties intend to agree to appropriate amendments to the restrictions on the escrowed fees, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Andry Lerner, L.L.C.’s motion to alter or amend. The court left open to the district court the possibility of amending its orders upon submission of a properly supported motion. View "Lake Eugenie Land & Dev. v. BP" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed a health care liability suit against defendants in federal court under the court’s bankruptcy jurisdiction. Section 74.351 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code requires plaintiffs in health care liability cases to serve an expert report within 120 days after the filing of a defendant’s original answer. Following limited discovery, defendants moved to dismiss because plaintiffs had failed to serve an expert report in accordance with section 74.351’s requirements. The district court ultimately dismissed the case with prejudice. The court held that section 74.351 answers the same question as Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 26 and 37, and these Rules represent a valid exercise of Congress’ rulemaking authority. Accordingly, a federal court entertaining state law claims may not apply section 74.351. The court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Passmore v. Baylor Health Care" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a putative class action in state court challenging the use of red light cameras within Texas and, more specifically, the legislation authorizing such cameras, Tex. Transp. Code Ann. 707.001(3), 707.002. The case was removed to federal court based on the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO), 18 U.S.C. 1961-1968, and the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, 28 U.S.C. 1332. On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's denial of his motion to remand to state court. The court concluded that the district court erred by deeming plaintiff's remand motion untimely where plaintiff acted diligently to gather evidence and file his motion to remand the case. The court concluded that the home state exception applies in this case where a person generally familiar with the case and with the English language would not expect all 58 different defendants to be primary defendants. The court concluded that the district court abused its discretion for not remanding and vacated the judgment, remanded with instructions. View "Watson v. City of Allen, TX" on Justia Law

Grupo Mexico is closely connected to litigation pending in Mexico and sought discovery from SAS and Highland pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1782. On appeal, SAS asserts that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction because Congress has not enacted any statute or rule that gave the district court the jurisdiction to issue a Fed. R. Civ. P. 45 subpoena for service on SAS, a Cayman Islands citizen, in the Cayman Islands or the jurisdiction to enforce the subpoena against SAS after SAS failed to respond. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion by holding that the untimely filing, which objected to the manner of service in the Cayman Islands and the absence of a court order from a Cayman Islands court, waived SAS’s personal jurisdiction defense. The court affirmed the district court's order affirming the magistrate judge’s grant of the motion to compel document production. View "Grupo Mexico SAB de CV v. SAS Asset Recovery, Ltd." on Justia Law

The Commission may refuse a permit to any applicant who has not been a citizen of Texas for at least one year before filing an application. This case stems from the original plaintiffs' attempt to acquire a night club twenty-five years ago. The district court declared the residency requirement invalid and permanently enjoined the Commission from enforcing it. The district court denied TPSA's motion for relief from the injunction under Fed. R. Civ. Pro. 60(b), concluding that there was no case or controversy because the original plaintiffs had not appeared and seemed to lack an ongoing interest and because TPSA lacked standing. The court concluded that, although the original plaintiffs have not appeared and may no longer possess any direct stake in the outcome of the proceeding, there remains a live case or controversy because of the intervention of Fine Wine and Southern Wine. Their intervention ensures that this proceeding involves an actual dispute between adverse litigants. The court also concluded that TPSA has associational standing to bring its Rule 60(b) motion where the interests of TPSA’s members in the enforcement of the residency requirement are germane to TPSA’s purpose, and neither TPSA’s claim for relief nor the relief it requests requires the participation of its individual members. Addressing the injury in fact prong and the redressability prong, the court concluded that TPSA has standing. On the merits, the court concluded that the Twenty-first Amendment does not authorize states to impose a durational-residency requirement on the owners of alcoholic beverage retailers and wholesalers. Finally, TPSA has failed to address the district court’s holding that Texas’s residency requirement violates the Privileges and Immunities Clause. Accordingly, the court reversed and rendered an order denying the motion on the merits. View "Cooper v. Texas Alcoholic Beverage Comm'n" on Justia Law

After William Davidson was diagnosed with mesothelioma, he filed suit against numerous defendants that he contended were responsible for his exposure to asbestos. After Davidson died, Davidson’s estate and family did not substitute as proper plaintiffs. Instead, a motion to dismiss was filed and granted without prejudice. Meanwhile, plaintiffs filed the instant survival and wrongful death action bringing similar claims to those in the first suit. All of the defendants in Davidson II were parties to Davidson I with the exception of the nondiverse Louisiana Defendants whose joinder is contested in this appeal: Graves and Taylor. Georgia-Pacific timely removed this case on the ground that the Louisiana citizenship of Graves and Taylor should be ignored because they had been improperly joined. Plaintiffs sought remand. The magistrate judge issued an order granting the motion to remand. After piercing the pleadings, the district court concluded that Graves and Taylor had been improperly joined and dismissed Graves and Taylor with prejudice. On appeal, plaintiffs challenge only the denial of their motion to remand. Addressing an issue of first impression, the court held that a motion to remand is a dispositive matter on which a magistrate judge should enter a recommendation to the district court subject to de novo review. In light of the district court’s discretion in deciding whether to pierce the pleadings, it was not error to do so here given the unusual procedural posture of this case that meant there was already a lengthy record at the outset of this second lawsuit. However, the district court erred in applying the improper joinder standard to that record. The court did not believe that the existence of a developed record in the first lawsuit warrants expanding the improper joinder standard to allow the absence of evidence alone to satisfy it. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded. View "Davidson v. Georgia-Pacific, LLC" on Justia Law