Joan A. Lenard

The case involves plaintiff Tracy Jackson's application for Social Security disability insurance benefits, claiming disability due to seizures, hepatitis C, carpal tunnel syndrome, and related conditions beginning in 2004. The Administrative Law Judge denied the claim after a hearing, finding Jackson not disabled, and the Appeals Council upheld that decision. The district court adopted the magistrate judge's report and recommendation, which concluded that the ALJ's findings were supported by substantial evidence from medical records and evaluations showing relatively mild impairments, and that the correct legal standards had been applied. No objections were filed, leading the court to deny Jackson's motion for summary judgment, grant the Commissioner's motion, and affirm the denial of benefits.

healthcareprocedure

The case involved former Miami-Dade firefighter Walter Dulaney suing the County and the firefighters' union for alleged discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act, claiming they perceived him as a drug user, failed to arrange a required psychological evaluation, and terminated him on that basis, while defendants maintained he was fired for job abandonment. The district court granted summary judgment to both Miami-Dade County and the Union. The court concluded that Dulaney had not established a prima facie case of discrimination or raised a factual issue regarding pretext, rendering further analysis of the ADA's "regarded as" disability definition or 2008 amendments unnecessary.

labor & employmentcivil rights

This case involved allegations by the Securities and Exchange Commission that defendants Joseph Monterosso and Luis Vargas participated in a fraudulent scheme to generate and report fictitious revenue for GlobeTel, a telecommunications company, through an "off-net" program between 2004 and 2006, in violation of federal securities laws. The court granted the SEC's motions for summary judgment against both defendants and denied the defendants' motion for partial summary judgment. The core reasoning was that undisputed evidence showed the defendants knowingly arranged for GlobeTel to report revenue from telecommunications traffic that did not actually run on switches owned or operated by GlobeTel or its subsidiaries, thereby creating false financial statements and press releases, and that this conduct met the elements for securities fraud liability as a matter of law.

business & regulatory

This case involves a Jamaican seaman, St. Hugh Williams, who sued his employer NCL (Bahamas) Ltd. in Florida state court after injuring his shoulder on a tender boat while working aboard the M/V Norwegian Sky, asserting claims under the Jones Act for negligence, unseaworthiness, maintenance and cure, and failure to provide medical care. NCL removed the case to federal district court, arguing that arbitration clauses in the employment contract and collective bargaining agreement required binding arbitration under the United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, creating federal question jurisdiction. The court granted Williams' motion for remand in part, concluding that the Jones Act claim was not arbitrable under Eleventh Circuit precedent in Thomas v. Carnival Corp., which rendered the arbitration provisions unenforceable, and thus no federal jurisdiction existed; it denied the motion to compel arbitration as moot and declined to bifurcate claims or award attorney fees. The core reasoning centered on the application of Thomas to find the arbitration agreement void with respect to statutory claims, leading to remand of the entire action to state court under 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c).

labor & employmentproceduretorts & liability

This case concerns an insurance coverage dispute in which American Empire Surplus Lines Insurance Company sought a declaratory judgment that its policy did not require it to defend or indemnify Chabad House of North Dade, Inc. against state-court negligence claims brought by the parents of a special-needs child allegedly abused by two teenage volunteers sent to the family’s home through Chabad House’s Friendship Circle program. The district court adopted the magistrate judge’s report in part and granted the insurer’s motion for summary judgment. The court held that the claims were excluded from coverage under the policy’s abuse-or-molestation provision because they arose out of the volunteers’ actual or threatened abuse, and that coverage was further limited by the designated-premises endorsement, which applied only to injuries arising from the ownership, maintenance, or use of the scheduled premises or operations necessary or incidental to those premises.

business & regulatorytorts & liability

This case concerned Westchester General Hospital's challenge under the Administrative Procedure Act to the Department of Health and Human Services' denial of permission to depose an agency-affiliated audit manager in connection with a separate state-court breach of contract suit involving Medicare cost reports for a dental residency program. The hospital had sought the employee's testimony on audit findings, documentation sufficiency, and related communications, but the agency refused, citing its Touhy regulations and policies favoring impartiality among private litigants and avoiding disruption of official duties. The district court adopted the magistrate judge's report and recommendation, granting summary judgment to HHS and denying the hospital's cross-motion. The core reasoning was that the agency's decision was not arbitrary or capricious because the requested information was available from other sources, the Touhy request was conclusory on key regulatory requirements, and the denial aligned with the agency's stated interests.

healthcarefederal powerprocedure

This case involves the Securities and Exchange Commission alleging that defendants Monterosso, Vargas, GlobeTel, and others participated in fraudulent schemes from 2002 to 2006 by creating false invoices and call detail records to report nonexistent telecommunications revenue totaling over $119 million, which misled investors through overstated financial reports and SEC filings. The court addressed the SEC's motions in limine seeking adverse inferences against defendants Vargas, Lynch, and GlobeTel based on their invocations of the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination during discovery and other failures to respond. The court granted the motions against Lynch and GlobeTel in full, and granted the motion against Vargas in part while denying it in part as to striking certain affirmative defenses, applying standards from civil cases permitting adverse inferences when Fifth Amendment assertions are made in response to discovery requests.

business & regulatoryprocedure

The case involves a negligence lawsuit by Beverly and Brad McLane against Marriott International, El Sueno Resort, and Marina De Herradura after Beverly suffered a spinal injury on a chartered sportfishing boat off Costa Rica while staying at the Los Sueños Marriott Resort. Plaintiffs alleged negligent boat operation and sought to hold the resort's developer, owner, and operator vicariously liable, along with a loss of consortium claim. The court granted the defendants' motions to dismiss, finding no personal jurisdiction over the Costa Rican corporations due to insufficient minimum contacts with Florida under the long-arm statute and due process requirements. It also dismissed on forum non conveniens grounds, determining that private interest factors like access to evidence and witnesses and public interest factors like local interest in the controversy strongly favored Costa Rica as the appropriate forum.

proceduretorts & liability

The case Gaffigan v. Does 1-10 concerned plaintiffs' claims that anonymous defendants operated websites selling counterfeit products infringing Tiffany trademarks and copyrights. The district court adopted the magistrate judge's report and recommendation after independent review, noting no objections had been filed. It granted plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction, ordering defendants to stop manufacturing, advertising, selling or distributing infringing products, disabling the subject domain names, preserving evidence, and transferring domain control to the court. The court also awarded plaintiffs their attorney's fees and costs up to the filing of the report, with the injunction to remain in effect until further order.

business & regulatoryproperty

In Rivera v. Fantastic Finishes Auto Body, Inc., a former laborer sued an auto body shop and its owner under the Fair Labor Standards Act, alleging overtime violations during his two years of employment. The defendants moved for summary judgment, contending that the court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction because the FLSA did not apply. The court granted the motion and closed the case, holding that the plaintiff failed to establish either enterprise coverage or individual coverage. Enterprise coverage requires proof that at least two employees regularly handled goods moved in interstate commerce and that the business had at least $500,000 in annual sales; individual coverage requires the employee himself to have engaged in commerce. The court found no credible evidence supporting either basis for FLSA jurisdiction.

labor & employment

The case involved a federal habeas corpus petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 filed by Julio Cesar Bellizia, who had been convicted in Florida state court of drug trafficking for possessing over 28 grams of heroin in pellets recovered from his body after he collapsed at an airport. Bellizia argued that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to move for acquittal on the ground that the state only tested the contents of one pellet for heroin and extrapolated the weight and identity to the others, in violation of state precedent requiring individual testing of each unit. The district court conditionally granted the petition, concluding that counsel's omission constituted deficient performance that prejudiced the defense because the untested pellets could not support the conviction under applicable state law, and that the claim was not procedurally barred. The court rejected the state's arguments distinguishing the facts or claiming waiver, while noting that the remedy would be left to state courts.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved a passenger injured on an international flight operated by Executive Airlines from Nevis to Puerto Rico, who sued the airline for damages under the Warsaw Convention. The defendant airline moved for partial summary judgment to limit its liability to $75,000 per the Warsaw Convention as supplemented by the Montreal Agreement, while the plaintiff cross-moved arguing that higher liability limits applied due to the carrier's participation in IATA agreements or other factors. The court denied both motions after analyzing the applicability of the Warsaw Convention, Montreal Agreement, and IATA accords, as well as issues of agency and corporate structure among related airlines.

torts & liabilityprocedure

The case concerned a dispute over insurance coverage after a patron at MVP Bar and Grill was assaulted and injured on premises leased from GDW Partnership. Clarendon America Insurance, as subrogee of GDW, sued Burlington Insurance Company (MVP's liquor liability insurer) seeking defense, indemnity, or a declaratory judgment, even though GDW was not named as an insured on the policy and the underlying complaint alleged only negligence in failing to prevent the attack. The court granted Burlington's motion for summary judgment, ruling that the policy's assault and battery exclusion barred coverage because the claims arose out of the assault, and there was no duty to defend when the complaint showed the exclusion applied.

business & regulatorytorts & liabilityprocedure

The case involved defendants AEY, Inc., Efraim Diveroli, and Ralph Merrill, who were charged with conspiracy to make false statements and commit major fraud and wire fraud against the United States, plus related substantive counts, for supplying the U.S. Army with ammunition manufactured in China, repackaged to conceal its origin and falsely represented as Albanian-made, in alleged violation of a DFARS regulation prohibiting acquisition of munitions from Communist Chinese military companies under a defense contract. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida denied the defendants' motions to dismiss the superseding indictment. The court held that the indictment sufficiently alleged the elements of the charged offenses, including that the defendants' misrepresentations about the ammunition's origin were material and that the DFARS rule's prohibition applied based on its plain language regarding direct or indirect acquisition from prohibited sources. The court rejected arguments that the regulation was ambiguous, did not cover the facts alleged, or failed to provide adequate notice.

criminal lawbusiness & regulatory

The case involved a hair restoration physician and his medical company suing the owner and operator of a consumer information website for allegedly posting false and disparaging statements about the plaintiffs' services, which the plaintiffs claimed were made by fictitious or affiliated individuals to deceive consumers and harm their business. The plaintiffs asserted claims under Florida's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act (FDUTPA), for defamation, and for injunctive relief. The court granted in part and denied in part the defendants' motion to dismiss, dismissing the defamation claim with prejudice due to the plaintiffs' failure to provide the required pre-suit notice under Florida Statute § 770.01 and because the claim could not support injunctive relief under the First Amendment. The court allowed the FDUTPA claim and related request for injunctive relief to proceed, finding that FDUTPA independently supports equitable remedies and that the motion did not establish grounds for dismissal of that count.

free speechbusiness & regulatorytorts & liability

In this employment discrimination case, plaintiff Eliuth Alvarez sued her former employer Royal Atlantic Developers under Title VII and the Florida Civil Rights Act, alleging she was terminated because of her Cuban national origin and in retaliation for complaining about discrimination. The district court granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment. The court found no direct evidence of discriminatory intent and determined that the employer had proffered multiple legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons for the termination, which Alvarez failed to show were pretextual. On the retaliation claim, the court noted that the decision to replace Alvarez had been made weeks before her discrimination complaint, so the close timing alone did not create a triable issue of fact.

labor & employmentcivil rights

The case involved a landscaper who sued his former employer, a Florida landscaping company operating solely within Broward, Dade, and Palm Beach counties, seeking unpaid overtime wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The defendant moved for summary judgment, arguing that the FLSA did not apply because the plaintiff was not engaged in interstate commerce individually and the business did not qualify for enterprise coverage. The court granted the motion and dismissed the case with prejudice, holding that the company's local activities—using in-state materials, tools, and services—did not trigger FLSA coverage under either the individual or enterprise provisions, as the business did not affect interstate commerce in the manner required by the statute. The court reasoned that factors like use of credit cards, cellular phones, a website, and national banks were insufficient to establish the necessary connection to commerce, consistent with congressional intent to leave purely local businesses to state regulation.

labor & employmentbusiness & regulatoryfederal power

This case involved a prisoner, Antonio Holloway, who filed a pro se civil rights complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Chaplain Dominic Bizzaro, alleging that the denial of his requests for pork-free meals violated his First Amendment right to free exercise of religion. The defendant moved to dismiss, arguing primarily that the Prison Litigation Reform Act barred the claim for compensatory damages because no physical injury was alleged. The magistrate judge recommended dismissal without prejudice, noting that the complaint sought only compensatory damages and attorney's fees with no request for other forms of relief like nominal damages or equitable remedies, and the district judge adopted the recommendation in full. The court based its decision on 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(e), which prohibits prisoner suits for mental or emotional injury without a prior showing of physical injury. The complaint was dismissed without prejudice, allowing potential refiling after release from custody.

criminal lawreligious libertycivil rights