Justia U.S. D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

John Tyler and his wife filed suit seeking damages from various companies that manufacture products containing asbestos that he had been exposed. After Tyler died from a form of lung cancer caused by asbestos, Stephen Wannall became the personal representative of Tyler's estate. Honeywell was named in the suit as the successor-in-interest to the Bendix Corporation, which manufactured brake shoes that Tyler used in helping friends, family, and neighbors perform automobile repairs for over 50 years. Honeywell moved for summary judgment, arguing that plaintiff failed to establish the causal link required under Virginia law between Tyler's exposure to Bendix brakes and his disease. The district court denied the motion. While the parties were preparing for trial, the Supreme Court of Virginia issued Ford Motor Company v. Boomer, which rejected the "substantial" cause standard that the parties had previously understood as controlling, and ruled instead that plaintiffs must demonstrate that "exposure to the defendant's product alone must have been sufficient to have caused the harm." Honeywell moved for reconsideration of its motion for summary judgment in light of Boomer. Plaintiff opposed the motion but did not seek leave to file a new declaration of their expert under Rule 26(e). Nor did plaintiff move under Rule 56(d) for permission to take additional discovery in response to Honeywell's motion. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's grant of Honeywell's motion to strike the new expert declaration and its renewed motion for summary judgment pursuant to Boomer. View "Wannall v. Honeywell, Inc." on Justia Law

Appellant filed suit against the Republic of Cuba and others in Florida state court, alleging that appellees tortured appellant and that appellant continues to suffer the consequences of the torture. Appellant was incarcerated in Cuba in the 1960s and 1970s, and endured unlawful incarceration and torture committed by the Cuban government and its codefendants. Appellant obtained a default judgment in state court and now seeks to execute that judgment on patents and trademarks held or managed by appellees in this action, who are allegedly agents and instrumentalities of Cuba. The court affirmed the district court's denial of appellant's request because the Florida state court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to grant the default judgment. View "Jerez v. Republic of Cuba" on Justia Law

The family of Reverend Dong Shik Kim filed suit against the North Korean government, by invoking the terrorism exception of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), 28 U.S.C. 1604, alleging that it abducted him, confined him to a political penal-labor colony, tortured him, and killed him. The court reversed the district court's denial of plaintiffs' motion for a default judgment. The court concluded that admissible evidence demonstrates that North Korea abducted Reverend Kim, that it invariably tortures and kills political prisoners, and that through terror and intimidation it prevents any information about those crimes from escaping to the outside world. Requiring a plaintiff to produce direct, first-hand evidence of the victim's torture and murder would thwart the purpose of the terrorism exception: holding state sponsors of terrorism accountable for torture and extrajudicial killing. Accordingly, the court found plaintiffs' evidence sufficiently "satisfactory" to require a default judgment. View "Han Kim v. Democratic People's Republic of Korea" on Justia Law

Bus driver Bumpass hit the brakes as he approached a stop sign. Robinson, a standing passenger on the bus, fell backward and broke her leg. Robinson sued WMATA, claiming that Bumpass violated WMATA’s standard operating procedures (SOPs) and that the “jerk” caused by Bumpass’ application of the brakes was of such extraordinary force that his negligence could be inferred. Bumpass admitted that he did not check his mirror before leaving the stop that morning. He knew there were several open seats up front, he said, and he assumed Robinson had sat down by the time he closed the doors and started driving. Robinson testified that the bus was going “fast, faster than normal buses,” and that it “was jerking and then [there] was an abrupt stop.” The district court rejected a jury award of $404,713.28. The D.C. Circuit affirmed, holding that a reasonable jury could not have decided in Robinson’s favor. Robinson failed to establish a causal relationship between Bumpass’ deviation from SOPs and her injury; unusual and extraordinary force cannot be inferred from mere descriptive adjectives and conclusions alone. View "Robinson v. Wash. Metro. Area Transit Auth." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against the Fund, asserting claims for assault, false imprisonment, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The Fund's motion to dismiss was converted into a discovery dispute when the district court granted plaintiff's request for jurisdictional discovery over the Fund's objections. The court concluded that, because plaintiff's assertions amount to mere conjecture and surmise, they cannot provide sufficient support to justify jurisdictional discovery. Further, the Fund's subsequent voluntary disclosure of the contract at issue conclusively resolved any question of waiver. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's orders permitting jurisdictional discovery and remanded for further proceedings. View "Nyambal v. International Monetary Fund" on Justia Law

USAID entered a contract with a private consulting firm, DAI, to provide humanitarian support to groups within Cuba pursuant to the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Act of 1996, 22 U.S.C. 6021 et seq. DAI contracted with Alan Gross to train the Jewish community in Cuba to use and maintain information and communication technologies. Gross was subsequently convicted in Cuba of participating in a subversive project of the U.S. government and sentenced to fifteen years' imprisonment. Gross and his wife subsequently field suit against DAI and the United States, alleging, among other things, negligence, gross negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and loss of consortium in connection with Gross's work in Cuba. Gross settled with DAI and the district court granted the United States's motion to dismiss based on sovereign immunity. The court concluded that the foreign country exception deprived the district court of jurisdiction to address Gross's Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. 2680(k), claims, all of which are based on or derivative of injuries suffered in Cuba. Further, the court rejected Gross's Equal Protection Clause argument under rational basis review. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of dismissal. View "Gross v. United States" on Justia Law

Plaintiff and his wife filed suit against the District, the DOC, and several jail officials, seeking relief under federal law and D.C. common law for conspiracy, false arrest, malicious prosecution, defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED), deprivation of due process, aiding and abetting, and loss of consortium. On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants. Plaintiff, a Correctional Officer, was the victim of an unprovoked attack by a prison inmate. Plaintiff was arrested, criminally prosecuted, and fired from his employment. After being acquitted at his subsequent trial, where the inmate admitted to initiating the confrontation and assaulting plaintiff, and after prevailing in a contested administrative hearing, plaintiff was not reinstated until a D.C. Superior Court judge intervened. The court concluded that there were genuine issues of material fact regarding the false arrest, malicious prosecution, and IIED claims. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded to the district court for further proceedings.View "Amobi, et al. v. D.C. Dept. of Corrections, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against Facebook and its founder, alleging that their delay in removing a page entitled "Third Palestinian Intifada," and related pages, which called for Muslims to rise up and kill the Jewish people, constituted intentional assault and negligence. The court affirmed the district court's holding that the Communications Decency Act of 1996, 47 U.S.C. 230, shielded Facebook and its founder from suit where Facebook qualified as an interactive computer service; the complaint acknowledges that the objected-to information was provided by third party users, not Facebook itself; and the complaint seeks to hold Facebook liable as the "publisher or speaker" of that information.View "Klayman v. Zuckerberg, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed a putative class action alleging that aerial herbicide spraying of illegal coca crops had drifted across the border from Colombia and that planes themselves had actually crossed the border and sprayed in Ecuador. Plaintiffs asserted a wide variety of tort claims for alleged injuries to health, property, and financial interests. The court agreed with the district court that the Ecuadorian provinces lacked Article III standing; the court rejected the challenge brought by the 163 plaintiffs who were dismissed for failure to provide complete responses to the court-ordered questionnaires; because District of Columbia law requires expert testimony where the parties offer competing causal explanations for an injury that turns on scientific information, the district court appropriately dismissed individual plaintiffs' claims for crop damages; because expert testimony was not necessary to prove plaintiffs' claims for battery, nuisance, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, the district court erred in dismissing these claims; and because expert testimony is necessary to determine whether plaintiffs were actually in the zone of physical danger, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the negligent infliction of emotional distress claims. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further consideration., battery, nuisance, iemdView "Arias, et al. v. Dyncorp, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, current and former members of the Navy and Marine Corps, filed suit against senior officials in the military and the Department of Defense, alleging that they were raped, sexually assaulted, or sexually harassed by their fellow Sailors and Marines, only to suffer retaliation from their superiors for reporting their plight. The Supreme Court has held that military officials are not subject to personal liability under the Constitution for their management decisions, including the choices they make about the discipline, supervision, and control of servicemembers. The court joined the Fourth Circuit in concluding that no Bivens remedy is available in this instance. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the suit. View "Klay, et al. v. Panetta, et al." on Justia Law