Justia Legal Ethics Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff suffered a stroke and claimed that the VA hospital failed to properly diagnose and take appropriate measures. He and his wife sued under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. 1346(b), 2671-80, and also sued their attorney for malpractice. The district court ruled in favor of the government and the attorney. The Sixth Circuit dismissed an appeal as forfeited because plaintiff had supplied only a transcript of the testimony of the government's expert witness Fed. R. App. P. 10(b)(3) and had failed to supplement. The district court properly refused to sanction plaintiff's attorney for ex parte communication with treating physicians. The court also properly credited the government expert and held that the hospital's actions were not the proximate cause of the stroke.

Appellants appealed the district court's order awarding them attorney fees following settlement of their claims against appellees brought under the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. 3601-3619, and California law. At issue was whether the district court erred by deducting some of the hours billed and lowered the hourly rates requested by appellants. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion either by relying, in part, on its own knowledge and experience, or by setting an hourly rate of $350 for appellants' lawyers. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Jamyia, a minor child of Navajo decent, was removed from her parents' home after doctors discovered that Jamyia suffered injuries consistent with shaken baby syndrome. The juvenile court entered a dispositional order that terminated the parents' parental rights. On appeal, the court of appeals reversed, holding (1) the State had not proved it made active efforts pursuant to Neb. Rev. Stat. 43-1505(4) to provide remedial services and rehabilitative programs designed to prevent the breakup of the Indian family and that those efforts had been unsuccessful; and (2) the State was required to provide active efforts to both parents to prevent the breakup of the family within the meaning of the statute when aggravated circumstances were present. The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the appellate court, holding that the court of appeals did not have jurisdiction to reach the active efforts issue, and it erred when it reversed the juvenile court's determination that the State had satisfied the statute before terminating the parents' parental rights.

After James Patrick filed a petition for postconviction relief, the district court judge who presided over Patrick's previous trial and sentencing recused herself and ordered that Patrick's postconviction proceedings be reassigned. Patrick filed a motion to invalidate the State's judicial substitution, which the district court denied. On appeal, the Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part, holding (1) the district court did not err when it denied Patrick's motion to invalidate the State's judicial substitution because the substitution in this instance was permitted, Patrick received notice of the substitution, and Patrick was not denied due process when the district court issued its order denying Patrick's motion without waiting for Patrick's reply brief; and (2) Patrick should have been given the opportunity to file his own motion for judicial substitution. The Court concluded that equity demanded that Patrick be given twenty days to move for a judicial substitution.

Defendants engaged in discovery misconduct that was sufficiently egregious to cause the district court to enter an order of default against them. Although defendants subsequently challenged the default order as erroneous, defendants did not challenge the order of default by way of a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 55(c) or 60(b). At issue was whether Judge Real, a district court judge, had the power to impose default as a sanction for discovery misconduct and assuming such power, whether Judge Real abused his discretion by imposing default rather than lesser sanctions. The court held that defendants' failures to comply with orders of the court provided Judge Real with the power under Rule 37(b) to impose sanctions sua sponte, up to and including default and that Judge Wilson appropriately revisited previous orders of the court when he replaced Judge Real after Judge Real recused himself. The court also held that the district court possessed the power to impose the sanction of default and that the district court did not abuse its discretion by doing so. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Defendant, convicted under 18 U.S.C. 371 of conspiracy to defraud the United States while serving as in-house general counsel to the company involving the company's filing of false tax returns with the IRS. He was sentenced to 41 months of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay restitution to the IRS. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. The jury instructions adequately addressed the elements of conspiracy. There was no need for mention of the attorney-client privilege or of an attorney's potential obligation to report illegal activity. The government’s theory of liability was not dependent on whether defendant had an affirmative duty to inform, yet failed to do so; conviction did not turn on whether defendant's actions were governed by the attorney-client privilege. There was sufficient evidence to support the conviction.

Petitioner was convicted of drug and firearm offenses in Michigan state court based on her presence in a house where the drugs were found. She did not own the house and claimed that she did not know the drugs were there. Her lawyer, high on cocaine for much of the time he represented her, never interviewed any of the other people in the house or called them as witnesses. The district court rejected a habeas corpus petition as untimely. The Sixth Circuit remanded. The one-year limitations period on habeas applications by state prisoners, 28 U.S.C. 2244, includes an exception: when a prisoner files an original petition within the one-year deadline, and later presents new claims in an amended petition filed after the deadline passes, the new claims relate back to the date of the original petition if the new claims share a common core of operative facts. Petitioner failed to present the claim in state court and, therefore, has not exhausted remedies, and the district court must decide whether to hold the claim in abeyance.

After Dimitri Henley was convicted of five counts of second degree sexual assault, Henley made several attempts to seek a new trial. Henley also moved Justice Roggensack to recuse herself from the review of his case. Roggensack denied the motion. The current appeal involved a motion for reconsideration of the Supreme Court's decision reversing the circuit court's order granting Henley a new trial. Henley argued that by denying him a new trial and by providing no court procedures for reviewing Justice Roggensack's decision not to recuse, the Court denied Henley's right to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court held (1) the motion for reconsideration met none of the criteria for granting a motion for reconsideration and was therefore denied; (2) determining whether to recuse is the sole responsibility of the individual justice for whom disqualification from participation is sought; (3) a majority of the Court does not have the power to disqualify a judicial peer from performing the constitutional functions of a Supreme Court justice on a case-by-case basis; and (4) Henley received due process.

Court-appointed receiver Michael Polsky filed a complaint against defendants Daniel Virnich and Jack Moores, owners and officers of Communications Products, for breach of their fiduciary duties to the corporation after Communications Products defaulted on a loan to its largest creditor. The Supreme Court accepted review but split three to three. On return to the court of appeals, the judgment was reversed. Polsky filed a petition to review, which the Supreme Court granted. The Court then affirmed the court of appeals. The current action involved Polsky's motion to disqualify Justice Roggensack, asserting that because Justice Roggensack had not participated in the case when it was previously certified to the Court and when the Court's decision remanded the matter to the court of appeals, she should have been disqualified from participation in the decision to affirm the court of appeals. The Supreme Court denied Polsky's motion, holding (1) the Court does not have the power to remove a justice from participating in an individual proceeding, on a case-by-case basis, and (2) due process is provided by the decisions of the individual justices who participate in the cases presented to the court.

Petitioner, an attorney appointed under the Criminal Justice Act (CJA), 18 U.S.C. 3006A, appealed from various orders of the district court, asking the district court to reimburse her for various extrajudicial activities undertaken "to delay and prevent" the execution of a Missouri convicted murderer. The court held that the CJA did not confer jurisdiction on a circuit chief judge to review a district court's reduction of a CJA voucher and therefore, petitioner's request for such review was dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.