Byline: Rick Benedict
7th Circuit Digests
7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Case Name: LAJIM, LLC, et al. v. General Electric Company
Case No.: 18-1522; 18-2880
Officials: FLAUM, KANNE, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.
Focus: Injunctive Relief
Plaintiffs-appellants purchased land near a former General Electric Company manufacturing plant that had operated for sixty years; the plant leached toxic chemicals that seeped into the groundwater. The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency filed suit under state law against General Electric in 2004 and has been working with the company since then to investigate and develop a plan to address the contamination. In 2013, plaintiffs filed suit under the citizen suit provision of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, seeking a mandatory injunction ordering General Electric to conduct additional investigation into the scope of the contamination and ordering the company to remove the contamination. The district court found the company liable for the contamination on summary judgment but denied plaintiffs' request for injunctive relief because, despite the many opportunities the court provided, plaintiffs did not offer evidence establishing a need for injunctive relief beyond what the company had already done in the state action. We affirm.
Affirmed
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7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Case Name: United States of America v. Jason Galloway
Officials: BAUER, KANNE, and BRENNAN, Circuit Judges.
Focus: Sentencing Guidelines
Jason Galloway pleaded guilty to possessing ammunition as a felon. He now appeals his sentence, raising an unpreserved argument that the district court used an incorrect guideline range. We dismiss his appeal, however, because in his plea agreement Galloway waived his appellate rights.
Dismissed
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7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Case Name: William Liebhart, et al. v. SPX Corporation, et al.
Case No.: 18-1918; 18-2598
Officials: BAUER, KANNE, and BRENNAN, Circuit Judges.
Focus: Court Error Abuse of Discretion
William and Nancy Liebhart together own three houses on the same block in Watertown, Wisconsin. Besides a few other houses, the rest of the block was previously occupied by an abandoned transformer factory, last owned by SPX Corporation. In 2014, SPX demolished the building with the assistance of TRC Environmental Corporation and Apollo Dismantling Services (collectively, "the defendants"). The Liebharts allege that dust and debris containing toxic chemicals migrated onto their properties, contaminating their yards and jeopardizing their health and the health of their tenants.
The Liebharts sued under federal statutes authorizing private rights of action for environmental contamination. They also brought various state-law claims. Following discovery and the submission of expert witness reports, the district court denied the Liebharts' motion for partial summary judgment and granted summary judgment to the defendants with costs. Although the district court adequately evaluated the expert witnesses and did not abuse its discretion in its procedural decisions, the court set the bar unnecessarily high for the plaintiffs to show a violation of the applicable federal statutes. For that reason, we vacate the district court's judgment and remand for reconsideration.
Vacated and Remanded
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7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Case Name: United States of America v. Jesus Salgado
Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, and EASTERBROOK and ST. EVE, Circuit Judges.
Focus: Sentencing Guidelines
Jesus Salgado pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute heroin. At sentencing, over Salgado's objection, the district court applied an aggravating role enhancement and calculated the Guidelines range to be 210 to 262 months' imprisonment. The court sentenced Salgado below that range, to 192 months' imprisonment. It explained, however, that even if it were wrong on the enhancement's application, it would have imposed the same sentence. Salgado appeals, challenging the district court's application of the aggravating role enhancement and the substantive reasonableness of his sentence. We affirm.
Affirmed
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7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Case Name: United States of America v. Steve Briggins
Officials: MANION, BRENNAN, and SCUDDER, Circuit Judges.
Focus: Sentencing Guidelines
In 2017 Steve Briggins was convicted of robbing multiple banks over several months. This was not Briggins's first foray into bank robbery. Eighteen years earlier, in 1999, Briggins was convicted of and sentenced for ten bank robberies he committed over a span of a few months. When the district court sentenced Briggins for the 2017 robberies, it accounted for the 1999 robberies in calculating his criminal history points under the Sentencing Guidelines. Briggins now appeals, contending that the district court, when determining his advisory sentencing range, improperly determined his criminal history category by imposing too many criminal history points for the 1999 robberies. Seeing no error, we affirm.
Affirmed
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7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Case Name: Anthony Sansone v. Megan J. Brennan
Case No.: 17-3534; 17-3632
Officials: KANNE, ROVNER, and BARRETT, Circuit Judges.
Focus: Jury Instructions
Tony Sansone, who is confined to a wheelchair, needs a parking place with room to deploy his van's wheelchair ramp. For years, the Postal Service, his employer, provided him one. But in 2011, it took that spot away and failed to provide him with a suitable replacement. Sansone then retired and sued the Service under the Rehabilitation Act for failing to accommodate his disability. A jury returned a verdict in his favor and Sansone recovered compensatory damages, as well as back and front pay.
The Service asks us to vacate the district court's judgment because of two jury instructions: one about an employee's obligation to cooperate with his employer in identifying a reasonable accommodation and the other about how the jury should evaluate the Service's expert witness. We hold that the district court did not err with respect to the former, but its instruction about the expert was both wrong and prejudicial. The Service also appeals the district court's award of back and front pay, but it forfeited that argument by failing to raise it.
Vacated and remanded in part. Affirmed in part.
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7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Case Name: Charles Greenhill and Amphib, Inc. v. Richard M. Vartanian, et al.
Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, and EASTERBROOK and ST. EVE, Circuit Judges.
Focus: Statue of Limitations Laches Doctrine
Hermann Gring, head of the Luftwaffe in World War II, remarked: "When I saw those Mustangs over Berlin, I knew that the war was lost." The P-51 Mustang fighter entered service in January 1942, and long-range variants introduced late in 1943 could escort Allied bombers to Germany and back. (With external fuel tanks, they had a range exceeding 1,600 miles.) More than 15,500 Mustangs were built; the plane served as this nation's main fighter until jets succeeded it during the Korean War. Some Mustangs remained in military use in other nations until 1984. The picture below shows one of the long-range versions. Surviving aircraft are collector's items, "warbirds" lovingly rebuilt and maintained by private aficionados, displayed in museums, and occasionally flown at air shows. One is in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. The Federal Aviation Administration has more than 100 airworthy Mustangs on its register today. This suit is about one of themor perhaps s two of them.
Still more: Even if Illinois would not apply a statute of limitations, the doctrine of laches would remain. Between 1985 and the beginning of this suit Waterman Brown died, and the parties' inability to obtain his evidence would cause prejudice that is amributable to Vartanian's long delay. Four other potential witnesses died in the decades between 1985 and the filing of Vartanian's counterclaim; they might have addressed topics such as whether Vartanian abandoned the plane between 1965 and 1985. All of the principals (Vartanian, Greenhill, and Martin) are in their 80s and experiencing difficulty remembering events of decades ago. Important business records from the 1960s through the 1990s cannot be located. It is too late for the judicial system to make a reliable decision about...
