OPINION OF THE COURT JORDAN, Circuit Judge. Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, First State Insurance Company, and Twin City Fire Insurance Company (collectively, "Hartford" 1 ); Century Indemnity Company and Westchester Fire Insurance Company (collectively, "Century" 2 ); and National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh, PA, Insurance Company of the State of Pennsylvania, Lexington Insurance Company, American Home Insurance Company, and other entities related to American...
OPINION OF THE COURT FISHER, Circuit Judge. Robert John Kulick pled guilty to one count of unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1). The United States Probation Office assigned Kulick a base offense level of 23 under the United States Sentencing Guidelines ("Guidelines"), by cross-referencing a dismissed charge for extortion. Kulick raises two arguments on appeal. First, he contends that the District Court's application of the cross-...
NOT PRECEDENTIAL OPINION SLOVITER, Circuit Judge. Levone Butts appeals from the District Court's orders limiting the testimony of her expert witness and granting summary judgment in favor of Mr. and Mrs. Weisz. 1 We will affirm. This suit results from a sad event occurring when Mr. and Mrs. Butts travelled to the home of their good friends, the Weiszes. During that visit, Mr. Butts died from blunt head trauma after falling down the basement stairwell in the home of Appellees Lloyd and...
NOT PRECEDENTIAL OPINION CHAGARES, Circuit Judge. Franklin Butler was tried and convicted of various drug-related offenses arising out of a warrantless police search of an Allentown, Pennsylvania apartment. On appeal, Butler contends that this search, which led to his arrest and to the discovery of significant amounts of inculpatory evidence, violated his Fourth Amendment rights. The dispositive issue is whether the police created the exigent circumstances on which they relied for executing...
OPINION OF THE COURT POLLAK, District Judge. Plaintiffs—two New Jersey wine enthusiasts, a New Jersey couple who seeks access to more Kosher wines, and a California winery—have brought suit in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey against Jerry Fischer, New Jersey's Director of Alcoholic Beverage Control, alleging that several aspects of New Jersey's Alcoholic Beverage Control Law ("ABC Law") infringe on the dormant Commerce Clause in violation of 42 U.S.C. 1983....
NOT PRECEDENTIAL OPINION OF THE COURT GREENBERG, Circuit Judge. I. INTRODUCTION This matter comes on before this Court on an appeal from an order dated October 16, 2009, and entered on October 20, 2009, denying appellant Robert Holmes' amended motion to vacate, set aside, or correct a sentence pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2255 ("section 2255"). We trace the case to October 24, 2002, when a grand jury returned a 135-count third superseding indictment charging Holmes and 36 co-defendants with...
OPINION OF THE COURT SLOVITER, Circuit Judge. Appellant Dean Rea filed a complaint in the United States District Court of the Western District of Pennsylvania alleging that Federated Investors violated 11 U.S.C. 525(b) when it refused to hire Rea because he had previously declared bankruptcy. The District Court granted Federated's motion under Rule 12(b)(6), Fed.R.Civ.P., to dismiss for failure to state a claim, holding, in accordance with the majority of other courts to have addressed the...
OPINION OF THE COURT JORDAN, Circuit Judge. Gloria Santiago appeals from an order of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania dismissing her claims under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against Warminster Township ("Warminster" or the "Township") and three of its senior police officers, including the police chief. Santiago claims that she suffered a heart attack after being subjected to excessive force during a raid on her home. Her claims against the officers who conducted...
OPINION OF THE COURT ALDISERT, Circuit Judge. Jerome Hines appeals from a jury conviction for the offense of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1), as well as from the sentence imposed by the District Court for the District of New Jersey. He presents two issues for our consideration. First, he challenges as an abuse of discretion the District Court's denial of his pretrial request for an evidentiary hearing to determine the events leading up to his...
NOT PRECEDENTIAL OPINION McKEE, Chief Judge. Dennis Hicks appeals the district court's judgment of conviction and sentence. For the reasons that follow, we will affirm. We write primarily for the parties and therefore will only set forth those facts that are helpful to our brief discussion of the issues. 1 Hicks argues that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence found in his car, and that the district court erred in requiring that he be shackled if he chose to...
OPINION SMITH, Circuit Judge. The plaintiff in this antitrust case is Pittsburgh's second-largest hospital system. It sued Pittsburgh's dominant hospital system and health insurer under the Sherman Act and state law. The plaintiff asserts that the defendants violated sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act by forming a conspiracy to protect one another from competition. The plaintiff says that pursuant to the conspiracy, the dominant hospital system used its power in the provider market to...
OPINION OF THE COURT JORDAN, Circuit Judge. Lawrence V. Ray appeals from an order of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey granting summary judgment, based on qualified immunity, to several officers of the Warren Township Police Department on his Fourth Amendment claim under 42 U.S.C. 1983. Ray claims that the officers violated his Fourth Amendment right against unlawful searches when they entered his home while investigating concerns expressed by his estranged...
NOT PRECEDENTIAL OPINION OF THE COURT STAPLETON, Circuit Judge. Appellant Carl Jones was tried and convicted of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Jones appeals two of the District Court's rulings, arguing that it abused its discretion in: (1) denying the Batson challenge he raised during voir dire of the jury; and (2) repeating the law on the defense of necessity when instructing the jury. 1 We will affirm. I. Background Jones was arrested following an altercation at a...
NOT PRECEDENTIAL OPINION OF THE COURT JORDAN, Circuit Judge. Lazaro Javier Larios appeals an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA") affirming the denial of his application for cancellation of removal. The Immigration Judge ("IJ") denied his application because of Larios's 1998 conviction for terroristic threats under N.J. ANN. 2C:12-3, which both the IJ and the BIA concluded was a crime involving moral turpitude. Larios disputes that conclusion. Larios asserts that 2C:12-3...
NOT PRECEDENTIAL OPINION OF THE COURT STAPLETON, Circuit Judge. I. This trademark infringement litigation was initiated in 2000 and settled in May 2004. Since then, the parties have had numerous disputes concerning performance under the settlement agreement. The settlement agreement provided inter alia that defendants would deliver a Seastar prototype aircraft owned by defendant Seastar Aircraft Inc. to plaintiffs at the Chester County Airport in Pennsylvania on or before May 3, 2005. In...
OPINION OF THE COURT GREENBERG, Circuit Judge. I. INTRODUCTION This matter comes on before this Court on an appeal from an August 15, 2005 order of the District Court entered August 16, 2005, denying appellant LaFond James Houck's petition for a writ of habeas corpus and adopting as the opinion of the Court a report and recommendation of a magistrate judge dated June 21, 2005, recommending that the Court deny the petition. The magistrate judge filed her report and recommendation after...
OPINION OF THE COURT FISHER, Circuit Judge. Richard and Karen Shook, husband and wife, filed suit against Avaya, Inc., Richard's former employer, alleging a violation of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. 1104 and 1132. The Shooks contended that Avaya breached its fiduciary duty owed to them as participant and beneficiary under the Avaya Pension Plan through a series of misleading letters regarding Richard's pension benefits. Based on Avaya's...
OPINION OF THE COURT FISHER, Circuit Judge. This diversity action requires us to decide under Pennsylvania law whether a subcontractor may recover against a school district for a claim of unjust enrichment. The case involves a dispute over unpaid services between the subcontractor Wayne Moving & Storage of New Jersey ("Wayne Moving") and the appellants the School District of Philadelphia and the School Reform Commission (collectively, "School District"). Wayne Moving sued the School District...
OPINION OF THE COURT JORDAN, Circuit Judge. Lawrence Scott Ward appeals his sentence of twenty-five years imprisonment and a $100,000 fine imposed by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Because the District Court committed a procedural error, we will vacate and remand for resentencing. I. Background Ward, a former professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, pled guilty to two counts of inducing a minor to engage in...
OPINION SMITH, Circuit Judge. The Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") appeals from an order of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey denying its motion to hold Lane Labs-USA, Inc., I. William Lane, and Andrew J. Lane in contempt for violation of consent judgments entered by the District Court on July 6, 2000 and September 26, 2000. For the reasons set forth below, we conclude that the District Court committed clear error. Accordingly, we will vacate the order of the...
