The case involved a Jaguar dealership, Miller Automobile Corporation, suing manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover North America over the denial of its request to relocate under the terms of their dealer agreement. The plaintiff alleged breaches of contract, the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and related claims after the manufacturer conditioned relocation approval on entering a performance agreement for facility upgrades. The court granted the defendant's motion to dismiss all counts, holding that the agreement permitted consideration of any relevant factors in the exercise of good faith business judgment, including the performance agreement condition, and that the plaintiff failed to allege facts supporting bad faith or a viable claim for failure to negotiate in good faith under Connecticut law.
This case involves Kevin Carter's habeas corpus petition seeking to vacate his 2005 federal convictions and sentence for Hobbs Act robbery, firearm use in a crime of violence, and being a felon in possession of a firearm, all arising from a single jewelry store robbery. Carter moved for reconsideration of the denial of his claim that his counsel was ineffective for failing to challenge sentence enhancements he received as a career offender under the Sentencing Guidelines and as an armed career criminal under the ACCA, based on five prior convictions identified in his presentence report. The court granted the motion, holding that the enhancements were improper because the prior convictions did not qualify as predicate offenses under the applicable definitions of crimes of violence or controlled substance offenses. The court reasoned that counsel's failure to object to the use of these convictions, including those whose facts were drawn from police reports or were inadequately documented, constituted deficient performance that resulted in actual prejudice by increasing Carter's guideline range to 360 months to life. The decision addresses the retroactive application of relevant precedents interpreting the residual clauses and the requirements for predicate offenses.
The case involved Beverly Forde, a Sunni Muslim inmate at the federal women's prison in Danbury, Connecticut, who sought a religious exemption from the Bureau of Prisons policy allowing male officers to conduct routine, non-emergency pat searches of female inmates. Forde argued that such searches violated her sincerely held Islamic beliefs prohibiting physical contact with men outside her immediate family, claiming a substantial burden under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the First Amendment. After a bench trial, the court granted her habeas petition and ordered the warden to provide her an individual exemption from non-emergency cross-gender pat searches. The court found that the policy substantially burdened her religious exercise and that prison officials failed to demonstrate a sufficient security-based justification specific to the gender of the searching officer in non-emergency situations, as opposed to staffing or other concerns.
This case involves the U.S. government's civil forfeiture action against a residential property in Greenwich, Connecticut, purchased by Martin Frankel using funds from his scheme to defraud and launder money from multiple insurance companies in the 1990s. Frankel pleaded guilty to wire fraud, securities fraud, and racketeering, and the government established probable cause that the property was involved in money laundering under 18 U.S.C. §§ 1956 and 1957. Two claimants asserted innocent owner defenses: a group of receivers and liquidators for the victimized insurance companies, and an individual named Cheryl Lacoff. After a bench trial, the court ruled that the Receiver-Claimants defeated the forfeiture because the purchase funds were traceable to the looted insurance company assets, establishing their status as innocent owners, while rejecting Lacoff's competing claim in this proceeding.
The case involved a former substitute teacher who sued a school personnel director and the board of education after a newspaper article quoted the director attributing his termination to "obscenity and insubordination" for showing The Simpsons Movie to elementary students, asserting state-law claims for defamation and false light plus a federal stigma-plus claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The court denied the defendants' motion for summary judgment on all counts. It held that genuine issues of material fact existed regarding the falsity of the quoted statement, precluding judgment on the defamation-related claims, and that the plaintiff had sufficiently shown a violation of a clearly established constitutional right to defeat qualified immunity on the § 1983 claims against both the individual and the board.
