Every decision we've summarized from United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
The First Circuit affirmed a district court ruling that workers hired by a nonprofit to manage disaster relief were not employees of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The court held that the agency did not exercise sufficient control over the workers to establish liability under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed the convictions of Lilian Giang for failure to pay employment taxes and mail fraud. The court rejected arguments regarding the admission of evidence on cash structuring, the refusal to give an implicit bias jury instruction, and the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the mail fraud count.
The First Circuit reversed and remanded a Board of Immigration Appeals decision denying adjustment of status. The court held that the Board engaged in impermissible factfinding by determining the petitioner used a false identity to avoid criminal prosecution when that specific intent was not found by the Immigration Judge.
The First Circuit reversed the dismissal of claims against Debra Monday but affirmed the dismissal of claims against other defendants. The court found the district court lacked authority to dismiss claims against the Massachusetts resident while upholding dismissals against out-of-state defendants for lack of personal jurisdiction.
The First Circuit vacated one conviction and affirmed others where a police officer was convicted for brutality and obstruction, ruling that a hearsay statement from the victim violated the Confrontation Clause on one count.
The First Circuit vacated a defendant's sentence because the district court failed to provide a sufficiently reasoned explanation for imposing a twenty-five-month upward variance above the Sentencing Guidelines range. This procedural error prevented the appellate court from reviewing the substantive reasonableness of the sentence, necessitating a remand for resentencing with proper justification.
The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit issued an errata sheet to amend its opinion in this case. The amendment corrects punctuation and citation language within the original text.
The First Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Universal Insurance Company, holding that a Puerto Rico Supreme Court decision clarifying the scope of professional services exclusions applied retroactively to pending cases. The court rejected the appellant's argument that the intervening precedent created new law, finding instead that it merely clarified existing statutory interpretation.
The First Circuit vacated a district court order dismissing a third-party claimant's petition to contest a forfeiture of a boat. The appellate court remanded the case to allow the district court to address the claimant's request to amend his petition.