This case involves a trademark infringement and unfair competition claim by BASIS International Ltd. against Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM). BASIS, which has used the BBX mark for software for 26 years, sought a temporary restraining order to prevent RIM from using the BBX mark at a conference in Singapore. The court granted the TRO, finding it had jurisdiction under the Lanham Act to issue an injunction with extraterritorial effect because RIM's actions would have a significant effect on U.S. commerce. The reasoning centered on the potential irreparable harm to BASIS's goodwill and the lack of adequate legal remedies, despite the international aspects of the case.
This case involves a plaintiff's motion to remand a lawsuit to state court after defendants removed it to federal court. The underlying complaint alleges battery, negligence, and constitutional violations against two county sheriff's deputies and their employer, the Taos County Board of Commissioners. The court denied the motion, holding that the notice of removal was timely because the thirty-day removal period runs from the date each defendant is served under the last-served defendant rule, and that service on one deputy was insufficient so his consent to removal was not required. The court adopted the last-served defendant approach over the first-served rule, noting a trend in case law favoring it to avoid unfairness where later-served defendants would otherwise lose removal rights before being brought into the case.
This case involves the sentencing of defendant Jose Fernando Vallecillo-Rodriguez, who pled guilty to illegal reentry of a previously removed alien under 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a) and (b). The advisory Sentencing Guidelines range was calculated at 51 to 63 months, incorporating a 16-level enhancement for his prior second-degree murder conviction. The defendant requested a below-guidelines sentence of 38 months based on arguments including cultural assimilation, unusually harsh conditions of confinement, double-counting of old convictions, and reduced culpability due to his age at the time of prior offenses, but the court declined all such departures and variances. The court imposed a sentence within the guidelines range, reasoning that it properly reflected the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors such as the seriousness of the offense, just punishment, deterrence, public protection, and avoidance of unwarranted disparities.
This case involved sentencing determinations for defendant Mario Ochoa-Olivas, who was charged with illegal reentry after deportation under 8 U.S.C. § 1326. The government objected to a two-level reduction in the defendant's offense level for acceptance of responsibility under the Sentencing Guidelines, arguing that his guilty plea on the morning of trial—after jurors and witnesses had been summoned—did not timely demonstrate acceptance. The defendant separately moved for a downward departure, contending that the presentence report overrepresented his criminal history category of V by including points from an old 1988 marijuana conviction and recency points tied to supervised release. The court sustained the government's objection and denied the motion, reasoning that the late plea failed to qualify for the reduction under U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1 and that the criminal history calculation accurately reflected the defendant's repeated immigration offenses and probation violations without substantial overrepresentation under U.S.S.G. § 4A1.3.
In this case, defendant Camille Lente pled guilty to three counts of involuntary manslaughter and one count of assault resulting in serious bodily injury after a drunk-driving crash on an Indian reservation that killed three people and seriously injured a fourth. The advisory U.S. Sentencing Guidelines range was 46 to 57 months, but following an initial above-guidelines sentence of 216 months that was vacated on appeal, the district court resentenced Lente to 192 months' imprisonment. The court determined that an upward variance was justified under the factors in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), citing the defendant's blood alcohol level of 0.21, her five prior tribal convictions and probation terms involving alcohol and violence, the extreme harm to multiple victims, and the need for the sentence to reflect the offense's seriousness and promote respect for the law.
This case involved current and former employees of St. Vincent Hospital who filed a collective action in New Mexico state court alleging violations of the New Mexico Minimum Wage Act and state common law claims for unjust enrichment, based on the hospital's policy of deducting time for unpaid lunch breaks that employees were often unable to take due to staffing issues. The hospital removed the case to federal court, arguing that the claims were preempted by Section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act because the employees were covered by collective bargaining agreements that addressed lunch breaks and pay. The court granted the plaintiffs' motion to remand, holding that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction because the state-law claims were independent of and did not require interpretation of the collective bargaining agreements. The core reasoning was that Section 301 preemption applies only when claims are substantially dependent on the agreements, allowing parallel state claims to proceed without federal displacement, and that defenses based on the agreements do not create federal jurisdiction.
