This case is a judicial review under 42 U.S.C. § 405(g) of the Social Security Administration's denial of disability insurance benefits to a plaintiff alleging onset in 2005 due to fibromyalgia, dysthymia, anxiety disorder, and controlled hypertension. The ALJ found the plaintiff not disabled after determining she could perform past relevant work as a pharmacy technician or cashier, a decision upheld by the Appeals Council. The court reversed the Commissioner's decision and remanded for an award of benefits, holding that the ALJ erred by failing to give significant weight to the treating rheumatologist's opinion on the plaintiff's condition and residual functional capacity, improperly assessed the plaintiff's symptom credibility, and gave controlling weight to non-examining state agency physicians without substantial evidence in the record. Applying the credit-as-true rule to the rejected treating physician evidence established that the plaintiff was disabled and entitled to benefits.
This case involves a federal habeas corpus petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 filed by Petitioner Paige, who had been charged in Arizona state court with multiple counts of dangerous crimes against children involving sexual conduct with a minor. After a mistrial, Paige entered a guilty plea pursuant to a written agreement that included sentencing ranges and a provision allowing for lifetime probation in lieu of prison; he later claimed his counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to ensure he understood he would receive a mandatory prison term on one count. The Magistrate Judge found that trial counsel was ineffective and that the state court's denial of relief was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts and application of Supreme Court precedent. The District Court adopted the Report and Recommendation in full, granted the habeas petition, and remanded the matter to state court to determine appropriate relief such as resentencing or withdrawal of the plea.
The case involves plaintiffs David Seitz and Microtherm, manufacturers of electric tankless water heaters, suing Rheem Manufacturing and its subsidiary Marathon for allegedly conspiring with Watts Water Technologies to terminate a distribution contract and for making false statements in advertisements that disparaged the performance and reliability of electric tankless water heaters to reduce competition. The court addressed defendants' motion to dismiss the second amended complaint, granting it in part and denying it in part. The core reasoning examined whether the plaintiffs sufficiently alleged an agreement to restrain trade, whether the challenged statements were "of and concerning" the plaintiffs or their products, and whether the statements could support claims for defamation, injurious falsehood, or product disparagement under applicable legal standards for corporate plaintiffs.
The case concerns a copyright infringement dispute in which plaintiff ICG-Internet Commerce Group, operator of adult websites, alleged that defendants displayed a three-minute excerpt of its registered video on the site beerandshots.com without authorization. The court granted the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment in part against individual defendant Wolf and his company, finding undisputed evidence that the video was displayed without a license, but denied the motion in part against defendant Montroll due to a factual dispute over whether the video was made available for download, which would implicate the distribution right. The decision applied the summary judgment standard under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56, credited the copyright registration and lack of license, and noted that corporations must appear through counsel while tolerating some informality from pro se individual litigants.
The case concerns the resentencing of a defendant convicted in 1985 on multiple counts, including continuing criminal enterprise (CCE) under 21 U.S.C. § 848, drug conspiracies, extortion, and possession of an unregistered silencer, resulting in a life sentence on the CCE count plus consecutive terms totaling 55 years, to run consecutively to a prior 20-year sentence. The court had previously vacated the drug conspiracy convictions on Counts 3 and 4 under Rutledge v. United States because they were lesser-included offenses of the CCE conviction, violating double jeopardy. It also vacated the original CCE sentence after finding it was based on false information regarding parole eligibility under 18 U.S.C. § 4205(a), which violated due process, and ordered resentencing under the pre-1987 version of Fed. R. Crim. P. 35(a). The government argued that resentencing should be limited to correcting only the illegal portion to effect the original sentencing intent of life imprisonment with parole possibility, while the defendant sought broader adjustments including to other consecutive sentences. The core reasoning focused on the scope of Rule 35 authority to correct illegal sentences and the impact of the vacated counts and sentencing misconceptions.
The case involved a former employee who sued Sears for wrongful termination in state court after his 2002 firing; the case was removed to federal court, where Sears moved for summary judgment to compel arbitration under its Dispute Resolution Program (DRP) agreement. On remand from the Ninth Circuit, which had already determined the DRP was a contract of adhesion, the district court assessed substantive unconscionability under Arizona law for three specific provisions. The court found the "Covered Claims" provision unconscionable because it required employees to arbitrate claims against the company but allowed the company to litigate its own claims in court, creating an overall imbalance of rights and obligations, while the modification/termination and fee provisions were not unconscionable. Because the imbalance could not be cured by severing clauses, the court refused to enforce the DRP and denied the motion to compel arbitration.
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