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7th Circuit Digests
7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Case Name: Stephanie Dorris v. Unum Life Insurance Company
Officials: HAMILTON, SCUDDER, and ST. EVE, Circuit Judges.
Focus: Court Error Abuse of Discretion
Courts and practitioners frequently say that 502 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. 1132(a)(1)(B), provides for "de novo review" of certain decisions relating to welfare plan benefits. That phrase is really a misnomer. At least in this circuit, ERISA de novo review requires no review at all, but an independent decision. In such a case, the plaintiff bears the burden of proving not that the plan administrator erred, but that she is entitled to the benefits she seeks.
Stephanie Dorris did not fully recognize her burden. After her disability insurance provider, Unum Life Insurance Company of America, terminated her benefits, she fought hard to prove that Unum's explanation for its decision was wrong. She convinced the district court that it was, so the court proceeded to decide whether Dorris was then entitled to benefits. It saw barely a thing in the administrative record going to that question, and no attempt from Dorris to supplement the record. Based on this lack of evidence, the court entered judgment in Unum's favor. On appeal, Dorris contends that some of the evidence proved her entitlement to benefits, or alternatively, that the district court should have given her the opportunity to supplement the record after judgment. Because we see no clear error in the district court's factual findings nor an abuse of discretion in its decision to limit itself to the record before it, we affirm the judgment.
Affirmed
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7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Case Name: Jeremy Lowrey, et al. v. Andrew Tilden, et al.
Case No.: 19-1365; 19-3145
Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, in chambers.
Focus: Jurisdictional Statement
In the two cases I have consolidated only for purposes of this opinion, a magistrate judge issued the final judgment from which the appeal has been taken. Circuit Rule 28(a)(2)(v) requires an appellant in such a case to include in its jurisdictional statement not only information about the magistrate judge's involvement, but also "the dates on which each party consented in writing to the entry of final judgment by the magistrate judge." See also 28 U.S.C. 636(c). The information provided in each of these appeals fell short of the requirements of Circuit Rule 28. In Lowrey v. Tilden, No. 19-1365, the appellees informed the court in their jurisdictional statement that the parties had consented to have a magistrate judge hear the case; they did so after observing that the pro se appellant's jurisdictional statement was not complete and correct and appropriately moving on to provide their own complete jurisdictional summary. See Circuit Rule 28(b). But counsel failed to provide the dates of consent of each party to the magistrate judge's jurisdiction. In McCray v. Wilkie, No. 19-3145, counsel not only failed to provide the dates of consent, but he also neglected to mention that the decision from which the appeal was being taken had been rendered by a magistrate judge.
The significance of the information about the magistrate judge's involvement and the consent of all parties to that judge's resolution of the merits cannot be overstated. See Coleman v. Labor & Indus. Rev. Comm'n of the State of Wis., 860 F.3d 461 (7th Cir. 2017) (a magistrate judge has no authority to issue a final decision that is directly appealable to the court of appeals unless all parties consent). This rule is not a secret. It is clearly spelled out in Circuit Rule 28(a)(2)(v), and this court's Practitioner's Handbook for Appeals (2019 ed.) is readily available on the court's public website, as the second item under the tab "Rules and Procedures." See http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/rules-procedures//Handbook.pdf. The Handbook explicitly refers to the failure to provide dates of consent to proceed before a magistrate judge as one of the recurring problems that the court encounters when performing jurisdictional screening. See Handbook at 145.
In each of these cases, counsel shall have seven days in which to file an amended jurisdictional statement that complies in all respect with the rules.
So Ordered
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7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Case Name: Steven Dotson v. United States of America
Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, and BARRETT and SCUDDER, Circuit Judges.
Focus: ACCA Violation
The Presentence Investigation Report on Steven Dotson listed six prior felony convictions, three of which the Probation Office identified as qualifying him for the enhanced mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years' imprisonment under the Armed Career Criminal Act. The PSR was silent on whether any of Dotson's other three convictions so qualified, and nobody raised the question at sentencing. The district court agreed with the Probation Office and sentenced Dotson as a career offender to 188 months (15 years and 8 months).
What happened during Dotson's present appeal frames the issue now before us. Our decision in D.D.B. meant that Dotson's 2007 Indiana attempted robbery conviction (#3) no longer qualifies as an ACCA predicate. From there, however, the government points to our decision in United States v. Perry, 862 F.3d 620 (7th Cir. 2017), where we held that Indiana burglary qualifies as a violent felony under ACCA, and urges us to rely uponor, more accurately, to substituteDotson's 1993 Indiana burglary conviction (#4) to sustain his sentence as an armed career criminal. The government's requests and reasoning are straightforward: with the Indiana attempted robbery conviction (#3) out because of D.D.B. but the burglary conviction (#4) remaining a violent felony, Dotson still has three qualifying predicates (#1, #2, and #4) and remains an armed career criminal.
Not before now have we considered whether the government can substitute ACCA predicates after sentencing to save an enhanced sentence. We came the closest to the issue in Light v. Caraway, 761 F.3d 809 (7th Cir. 2014), and take some direction from our approach there.
We worry about the consequences of a holding that, as a practical matter, risks producing expansive litigation at sentencing over whether each and every prior felony in a defendant's criminal history constitutes a qualifying ACCA predicate. The law in this area, at the risk of great understatement, is dizzyingly complex. The last outcome we want to risk is sentencing hearings turning into full-blown, prolonged, and extraordinarily difficult exercises over questions where the answers may never matter. Judicial resources warrant better investment.
Affirmed
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7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Case Name: Phillip Hartsfield v. Stephanie Dorethy
Officials: FLAUM, ROVNER, and SCUDDER, Circuit Judges.
Focus: Ineffective Assistance of Counsel
Fifteen years ago, an Illinois jury convicted Phillip Hartsfield of first-degree murder and home invasion. Hartsfield unsuccessfully challenged his convictions on direct appeal and collateral attack in the Illinois courts. In 2014, Hartsfield petitioned a federal district court for a writ of habeas corpus alleging seven claims. The district court denied his petition and Hartsfield appealed. We certified one of the issues Hartsfield presented for review: whether the state court reasonably held that Hartsfield's counsel did not usurp his personal right to testify at trial. We now affirm the judgment of the district court.
Affirmed
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7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Case Name: United States of America v. Tremayne T. Dozier
Officials: SYKES, HAMILTON, and SCUDDER, Circuit Judges.
Focus: Abuse of Discretion Sentencing Guidelines
Tremayne Dozier was arrested in 2017 for trafficking methamphetamine in Decatur, Illinois. A federal grand jury indicted him for conspiracy and possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute. Under the terms of the Controlled Substances Act then in effect, Dozier faced increased penalties if he had a prior conviction for a "felony drug offense." 21 U.S.C. 841(b)(1)(A), (b)(1)(B)(viii). A "felony drug offense" is a drug-related offense "that is punishable by imprisonment for more than one year under any law of the United States or of a State." Id. 802(44). The government identified one such conviction: in 2006 Dozier was convicted in Texas of unlawful possession of cocaine, a "state jail felony" punishable by imprisonment of six months to two years.
Dozier pleaded guilty to the conspiracy count. At sentencing he objected to using the 2006 drug conviction to enhance his sentence. The Texas case had been resolved by plea bargain; in exchange for Dozier's guilty plea, the prosecutor agreed to a nine-month sentence based on section 12.44(a) of the Texas Penal Code, which gives the sentencing judge the discretion to punish a person convicted of a state jail felony by imposing a period of confinement permissible for a Class A misdemeanorthat is, a term not to exceed one year. See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. 12.21, 12.44(a). The Texas court accepted the plea agreement, found Dozier guilty of the state jail felony, and imposed a nine-month sentence.
Dozier argued that the Texas conviction was not a qualifying predicate because the terms of his plea agreement exposed him to confinement of not more than one year. The district judge rejected this argument and imposed a sentence of 20 years, the mandatory minimum for an offender with a prior felony drug conviction.
On appeal Dozier again argues that his 2006 Texas conviction doesn't qualify as a felony drug offense. We disagree. Dozier pleaded guilty to and was convicted of a two-year state jail felony. It does not matter that the sentencing judge accepted the plea bargain and exercised the discretion conferred by state law to sentence Dozier as if he were a...
