Academic literature on the topic 'Circuit Court (Pennsylvania : Eastern District)'

On April 8,1986, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania held, in the case of Hinton v. Devine (Civ. No. 84-1130), that Executive Order No. 10422 of January 9, 1953, as amended, under which the International Organizations Employees Loyalty Program had been instituted, was unconstitutional in that it violated the First Amendment rights of American citizens. The district court also enjoined the United States Government “from publishing, communicating, or advising any third parties, including any international organizations, as to the loyalty of William H. Hinton or any other United States citizen.”

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently upheld United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York Judge's denial of petitioner's application for a writ of habeas corpus. The Court held that it was not objectively unreasonable for the Appellate Division to conclude, in light of clearly established federal law as expressed by the Supreme Court of the United States, that a New York statute providing for the recommitment of specific defendants who plead not responsible by reason of mental disease or defect (NRRMDD) under a mere “preponderance of the evidence” standard does not violate either due process or the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Like all federal plaintiffs, patent owners who feel their patent has been infringed have the right to file suit in any federal court, so long as venue is proper. Patent plaintiffs often select plaintiff-friendly venues, like the Eastern and Western Districts of Texas. Usually, plaintiffs may select these venues because many of the alleged infringers are large companies with a national presence, which makes them susceptible to suit in many federal courts around the country. Defendants in patent cases often file a motion under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a) to transfer a case to a more defendant-friendly venue, on the basis that the destination venue is more convenient. If the district court denies the motion to transfer, that almost always ends the matter. The exception is that the defendant can petition the proper appellate court—the Federal Circuit in patent cases—for a writ of mandamus: an “extraordinary remedy” that directs the district court to transfer the case. The Supreme Court has mandated that this remedy is reserved for extreme circumstances and may not be used as an appeal. Despite this clear mandate, the Federal Circuit appears to treat such petitions as full-fledged appeals. This Comment seeks to address the ever-growing number of mandamus petitions being granted by the Federal Circuit. Specifically, this Comment focuses on patent cases filed in Texas federal courts. While patent cases in Texas federal courts, like all other patent cases, are appealed to the Federal Circuit, the Federal Circuit remains bound by Fifth Circuit law on motions to transfer under § 1404(a). The Supreme Court and Fifth Circuit have held that a mandamus petition should only be granted upon a clear abuse of discretion by the district court, but the Federal Circuit seems to misapply Fifth Circuit law. The Federal Circuit’s proclivities in determining the propriety of a petition for a writ of mandamus have caused confusion among Texas plaintiffs and uncertainty in the law. This Comment calls attention to the Federal Circuit’s tendency to: (1) misapply Fifth Circuit transfer law; (2) impermissibly add its own nuances to transfer law; and (3) substitute the district court’s judgment for its own, effectively giving defendants a de novo review; or in other words, a second bite at the apple in attempting to transfer a case. Finally, this Comment proposes solutions including: (1) an expansion of Fifth Circuit § 1404(a) jurisprudence; (2) the Supreme Court granting certiorari to provide clarity on the issue; or (3) a change in the Federal Circuit’s choice of law rule.

On October 31, 1994, it was announced that a confidential settlement had been reached in Doe v. Kohn, Nast & Graf, P.C., et al. (No. 93-4510 (E.D. Pa. filed Aug. 19, 1993), 862F. Supp. 1310 (E.D. Pa. 1994)). The settlement in ths widely publicized AIDS discrimination case came three weeks after the trial began in the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (“Philadelphia Lawyer Settles AIDS Discrimination Claims Against Firm,” Daily Lab. Rep. (BNA), Nov. 2, 1994, at 10).Plaintiff Doe, an associate employed at Kohn, Nast & Graf, a prominent law firm in Philadelphia, filed an AIDS discrimination case under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) against his employer claiming that the firm fired him in March 1993 because he was HIV-positive. Doe's complaint also cited claims under ERISA and other Pennsylvania employment laws.

Plaintiff Sheets sought sanctions under Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure against defendants, the Yamaha Motor Co. Ltd. (Yamaha Japan) and its wholly owned American subsidiary, Yamaha Motors Corp., U.S.A. (Yamaha U.S.A.), for misconduct in discovery and frivolous insistence that service on the foreign parent be made in conformity with the Convention on Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters, better known as the Hague Service Convention. Plaintiff had effected service under the Louisiana long-arm statute, which permitted service on the subsidiary as involuntary agent for the defendant parent company in an action arising out of business transacted or tortious conduct occurring in the state. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana initially awarded $25,000 in sanctions to the plaintiff. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit remanded the decision for further findings by the district court on the grounds for imposing sanctions. The district court held (per Schwartz, J.): in light of the decision of the Supreme Court in Volkswagenwerk Aktiengesellschaft v. Schlunk, involving a state service statute virtually identical to that of Louisiana, the defendants’ failure to waive service under the Hague Convention needlessly increased the cost of litigation and was properly the subject of Rule 11 sanctions.

California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), enacted as part of the State’s pioneering Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32), purports to regulate the amount of carbon emissions associated with fuels consumed in the state. Part of this scheme involves assigning numeric scores to vehicle fuels reflecting the amount of carbon emissions associated with their production, transportation, and use. The scores are part of a “cap-and-trade” scheme to lower the state’s total amount of carbon emissions associated with fuel use. Out-of-state industry groups brought a challenge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, alleging that the LCFS violated the “dormant Commerce Clause” of the United States Constitution. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of California agreed with the Plaintiffs, and issued a preliminary injunction. On October 16, 2013, the Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded. This Note describes the background of the dormant Commerce Clause and its application in previous environmental regulations. It then analyzes the arguments on both sides of the challenge to California’s LCFS, and suggests a course of action for California and other states going forward to comply with the Constitution in this developing area of law. Finally, this Note discusses the application of dormant Commerce Clause doctrine to the scenario of global climate change, and the relevance of global warming as a critical issue that states can be allowed to regulate, especially when the federal government has not.

In United States v. DiCristina, the Eastern District of New York ruled that Texas Hold ‘Em poker is game of skill, and thus, not illegal under the federal Illegal Gambling Business Act. In the decision, the court found that the statute’s text and legislative history did not indicate that Congress intended to include Texas Hold ‘Em poker amongst other illegal gambling activities. But most importantly, the Eastern District found that the analytical and psychological elements of the game allow a skilled player to perform better than another. This, the court reasoned, differentiated Texas Hold ‘Em poker from other types of illegal gambling activities. Though the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ultimately disagreed on statutory interpretation grounds, the Eastern District’s skill analysis still stands and gives credence to the longstanding argument that the game, because it allows skilled players to excel over non-skilled players, sits on its own compared to prohibited gambling activities. In effect, DiCristina laid the foundation and answered one of the last remaining questions keeping Congress from legalizing online Texas Hold ‘Em poker. This Comment will explore various legalization surges throughout America’s history of gambling that ultimately helped push forward new periods of regulation and reform. This Comment will also examine the rise and fall of internet gambling and the current federal laws keeping the once thriving industry from returning. Additionally, this Comment will look at prior conclusions of the skill-versus-chance argument before DiCristina, and the Eastern District’s approach to resolving the skill versus chance issue. Lastly, this Comment will examine recent developments surrounding online Texas Hold’ Em poker that mirror surges of prior periods of reform, and together with DiCristina, urge Congress to use these final strongholds to advance federal legislation allowing for interstate online Texas Hold ‘Em poker.

The Supervision to Aid Reentry Program (“STAR”) established by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in 2007 has helped hundreds of people reenter society following their release from prison. Evaluations of the program demonstrate that STAR is successful under a traditional measure of success—recidivism—because it significantly reduces the likelihood of probation revocation for participants and the likelihood of rearrest and probation revocation for graduates. Recidivism rates alone, however, fail to accurately measure and, in fact, obscure some of STAR’s true successes. They fail to assess whether participants have progressed toward ceasing criminal conduct, a process known as desistance, and whether participants’ quality of life has improved. Although less quantifiable, it is important to examine whether STAR is a success based on these more holistic measures. Our analysis of STAR includes voices of participants and indicates that STAR advances desistance and improves quality of life by helping participants to strengthen their relationships with family and pro-social institutions, undergo cognitive transformation, and pursue opportunities for financial and educational advancement. STAR’s success demonstrates that reentry courts remain an integral tool in helping returning citizens reintegrate into society.

On September 11, 2019, Judge Dan Aaron Polster of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, approved a novel negotiation class certification in the massive Opiate multidistrict litigation (MDL). Merely one year later on September 24, 2020, the Sixth Circuit reversed Judge Polster’s certification order. While the Opiate MDL has garnered substantial media and academic attention, less consideration has been directed to analyzing the significance of the negotiation class model and the appellate repudiation of this innovative procedural mechanism. This Article focuses on the development and fate of the negotiation class and considers the lessons to be gleaned from its attempted use in the Opiate MDL. The short unhappy life of the negotiation class raises questions whether its failure was a consequence of implementation or design. This is an important question because if the failure was the result of problematic implementation in the context of idiosyncratic circumstances, then the negotiation class model may live to see another day. On the other hand, if the failure was the consequence of deficient design and judicial overreaching, then the negotiation class may be consigned to the museum of good intentions gone awry. The novel proposal for a negotiation class did not come out of nowhere but was another chapter in a five-decade struggle between aggregationist attorneys and judges seeking creative solutions to mass litigation, pitted against jurists repudiating adventurous use of the class action rule. This Article provides the definitive narration of the historical evolution of expanding novel uses of Rule 23, anchored in the mass tort litigation crisis that emerged on federal court dockets in the late 1970s. The article illustrates how Judge Polster’s negotiation class was the logical culmination of decades of judicial and academic experimentation with innovative procedural means to accomplish the fair and expeditious resolution of aggregate litigation. It traces the role of the American Law Institute in advancing pro-aggregation initiatives, laying the groundwork for the Opiate negotiation class proposal. The discussion elucidates how the debate over the settlement class concept in the 1990s presaged the same debate over the negotiation class three decades later, and how criticisms of the ALI aggregate litigation proposals resurfaced in opposition to the Opiate negotiation class. The negotiation class model promised to ameliorate numerous problems inherent in heterogenous group litigation by infusing class litigation with collective action theories and democratic participatory features. The centerpiece of the negotiation class was to bring class claimants to the table and provide them with meaningful voice through group design of a settlement allocation metric, coupled with a franchise vote to approve or disapprove any offered settlement. Its other defining feature was to provide defendants at early juncture in proceedings with an accurate assessment of the class size as an incentive to enable defendants to secure global peace. The attempted implementation of the negotiation class in the Opiate litigation revealed numerous fault lines in the proposal. The negotiation class as applied failed to provide many claimants with comprehensible information regarding the devised allocation formula. Some claimants believed that it failed to ameliorate the kinds of intraclass conflicts it was designed to remedy. State attorneys general raised the specter of interference with state prerogatives. Furthermore, rather than empowering class members at the negotiation table, the development of the Opiate litigation defaulted to a traditional model of attorney empowerment and dominance in the resolution of aggregate proceedings. The promise of collective action and democratization proved illusory. The deployment of the negotiation class concept in the Opiate MDL also entailed problematic questions concerning the role of judicial surrogates in aggregate litigation and the increasing power and influence that courts delegate to non-party actors. Judge Polster’s embrace of the negotiation class in the Opiate litigation placed the judge, his court-appointed surrogates, and the array of plaintiff and defense attorneys in tension with the Supreme Court admonition to federal judges, at the end of the twentieth century, to cease adventurous use of the class action rule. It may well be that the Opiate MDL was a poor vehicle to test the negotiation class proposal and so the problem was one of implementation, rather than design. The failure of the Opiate negotiation class leaves open the question of whether those who crafted it could have done a better job to avoid appellate reversal. Nonetheless, if the array of special masters, expert academic professors, a seasoned senior judge, and highly experienced complex litigation attorneys were unable to successfully shepherd the first negotiation class, this experience raises doubts about its prospects. It should be remembered that the settlement class of the 1990s was a novel procedure in its day, yet it subsequently became a stock device in the class action toolbox. The history of the settlement class may foreshadow better days for the negotiation class or inspire further rulemaking by the federal judiciary to legitimate the negotiation class model.

Abstract United States v. Joseph Ravara1 is the first reported federal criminal case. It is also the last reported judicial proceeding at which John Jay presided as chief justice of the United States. Ravara, who for two years had been consul general of the Republic of Genoa in the United States, was for a misdemeanor, in sending anonymous and threatening letters to Mr. Hammond, the British Minister, Mr. Holland, a citizen of Philadelphia, and several other persons, with a view to extort money.Although statutory jurisdiction under the Judiciary Act of 1789 was not controverted, whether the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Pennsylvania could constitutionally exercise that juris diction to entertain a prosecution of Ravara, given his consular status, was an issue that the prosecution and the defense disputed at

Abstract This chapter describes Althea Gibson’s experiences competing in tennis tournaments from 1951 to 1953, as well as her continued struggles with sexism and racism. These tournaments include the Caribbean Championship, the National Indoors at the Seventh Regiment Armory, and the Good Neighbor Tournament. The exclusivity of Miami Beach made Gibson’s entry in the Good Neighbor a landmark moment for her chroniclers in the African-American press. Being a Black woman on the White tennis circuit gave Gibson social capital but not money or independence. The chapter then turns to Gibson’s debut at Wimbledon, the oldest and most prestigious tennis tournament in the world. Other tournaments that Gibson participated in during this time include the Pennsylvania State Tennis Tournament at the famed Merion Cricket Club in Haverford and the Eastern Grass Court Championships. While Gibson’s status as the premier Black tennis player in the world earned her no latitude in academics at the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College (FAMC), her fame was still rewarded with special treatment elsewhere. Gibson experienced personal disappointment as she did not succeed in amateur tennis as quickly as she had hoped.