OPINION OF THE COURT FUENTES , Circuit Judge : Louis Milton Willis, the former Executive Director of the Legislature of the U.S. Virgin Islands, appeals his conviction on two counts of federal programs bribery and two counts of federal extortion. From about 2009 to 2011, the Legislature's main building on the island of St. Thomas underwent major renovations, which required the Legislature to seek out contractors. The United States claims that, during this period, Willis engaged in a...
NOT PRECEDENTIAL OPINION ** ROSENTHAL , District Judge . This case requires us to decide whether harms an asylum seeker suffered in her country were on account of a government official's persecution for her political activities or her membership in a social group, or, instead, resulted from the government official's personal vendetta in retaliation for private wrongs. Oksana and Oleksandr Feshovets seek review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissing their challenge to...
OPINION OF THE COURT JORDAN , Circuit Judge . Steven Papp filed this failure-to-warn product liability suit against The Boeing Company in the Superior Court of New Jersey, alleging that his late wife, Mary, 1 was made ill by exposure to asbestos from a Boeing aircraft. Boeing removed Papp's failure-to-warn suit to the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey on the basis of the federal officer removal statute, 28 U.S.C. 1442(a)(1). According to Boeing, it was acting...
NOT PRECEDENTIAL OPINION * GREENAWAY, Jr. , Circuit Judge . After a consolidated trial, Appellants Dwayne Onque, Mashon Onque, and Nancy Wolf-Fels were convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud; Dwayne Onque was also convicted of conspiracy to commit money laundering. Before this Court, Appellants allege a series of trial and sentencing errors, which we consider in turn. For the reasons set forth below, we find no error. Accordingly, we will affirm the judgment of conviction entered...
OPINION McKEE , Chief Judge . This appeal arises from the convictions of four men belonging to a violent heroin trafficking organization that operated out of Atlantic City, New Jersey. Over the course of two and a half years, law enforcement officials documented the extensive reach of this organization and the crimes its members committed. Thirty-four people were charged with drug-trafficking related offenses as a result of the investigation. They include the four defendant/appellants here:...
OPINION RENDELL , Circuit Judge . Plaintiffs Bobbi-Jo Smiley, Amber Blow, and Kelsey Turner appeal the District Court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Appellees E.I. DuPont De Nemours & Company and Adecco USA, Inc. (collectively, "DuPont") on their claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA"), 29 U.S.C. 201, et seq. and Pennsylvania's Wage Payment and Collection Law ("WPCL"), 43 P.S. 260.1, et seq. Plaintiffs filed a putative collective action and class action against...
OPINION OF THE COURT JORDAN , Circuit Judge . Table of Contents I. Introduction ...365 II. Background ...366 A. Factual Background ...366 1. PBX Systems and Maintenance...366 2. PDS Systems and Maintenance...369 3. The Dispute between Avaya and TLI ...369 B. Procedural Background ...371 III. Avaya's Appeals ...373 A. Judgment as a Matter of Law on Avaya's Common Law Claims...373 1. Evidence Supporting Avaya's Common Law Claims ...374 2. Customer Contract Interpretation...378 3....
OPINION OF THE COURT FISHER , Circuit Judge . At issue in this case is the proposed merger of the two largest hospitals in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania area: Penn State Hershey Medical Center and PinnacleHealth System. The Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") opposes their merger and filed an administrative complaint alleging that it violates Section 7 of the Clayton Act because it is likely to substantially lessen competition. In order to maintain the status quo and prevent the parties from...
OPINION OF THE COURT McKEE , Chief Judge . Rahman Fulton appeals his convictions for bank robbery and related offenses. He argues that the prosecution presented improper lay and expert witness testimony as well as misrepresented a key expert's testimony during its closing argument. Although we agree with Fulton that the district court improperly admitted certain testimony as lay witness testimony, we conclude that the error was harmless. We also conclude that the prosecution neither...
OPINION SMITH , Circuit Judge . "The class action is an ingenious device for economizing on the expense of litigation and enabling small claims to be litigated. The two points are closely related. If every small claim had to be litigated separately, the vindication of small claims would be rare. The fixed costs of litigation make it impossible." Thorogood v. Sears, Roebuck and Co., 547 F.3d 742 , 744 (7th Cir. 2008). But not every group of plaintiffs should be granted class action...
OPINION OF THE COURT FUENTES , Circuit Judge . Rashied Goodwin was arrested pursuant to a warrant for allegedly selling heroin to an undercover police officer. A grand jury indicted him but the charges were eventually dropped. Goodwin then brought this 42 U.S.C. 1983 lawsuit for false imprisonment and malicious prosecution against the three detectives involved in securing his arrest warrant. He claims that the detectives submitted a false warrant application because they knew or should...
OPINION OF THE COURT JORDAN , Circuit Judge . For five days in September 2013, lane closures on the George Washington Bridge caused extraordinary traffic jams in Fort Lee, New Jersey. The closures were allegedly orchestrated as revenge against the Mayor of Fort Lee for his refusal to endorse New Jersey Governor Christopher J. Christie in the Governor's bid for reelection. Political and legal consequences of the supposed retaliation have been extensively covered in local and national media,...
NOT PRECEDENTIAL OPINION * HARDIMAN , Circuit Judge . In these consolidated appeals, Newark Portfolio JV, LLC seeks review of an order of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board) certifying Local 55 of the Laborers' International Union of North America as the collective bargaining representative for a unit of Newark Portfolio's employees, and the Board seeks enforcement of an order compelling Newark Portfolio to bargain with the Union. Because the Board's decision to certify...
OPINION OF THE COURT JORDAN , Circuit Judge . In this insurance coverage dispute, Auto-Owners Insurance Company ("Auto-Owners") seeks a declaration that it has no obligation to defend or indemnify its insured, Stevens & Ricci, Inc. ("Stevens & Ricci"), in connection with a $2,000,000 judgment entered against Stevens & Ricci as part of the settlement of a class action lawsuit. In that class action, the Hymed Group Corporation ("Hymed") alleged, as representative of the class, that...
OPINION SMITH , Circuit Judge . Petitioners are twenty-eight families — twenty-eight women and their minor children — who filed habeas petitions in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to prevent, or at least postpone, their expedited removal from this country. They were ordered expeditiously removed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) pursuant to its authority under 235(b)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. 1225(b)...
NOT PRECEDENTIAL OPINION * FISHER , Circuit Judge . Efe Franklyn Edeki fled Nigeria to the United States where he was detained by immigration authorities. He sought relief in three forms: asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture. The Immigration Judge denied his applications for relief, and the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirmed. Edeki now seeks review of the BIA's order. We will deny the petition. I. We write principally for the...
OPINION THE COURT AMBRO , Circuit Judge . This case has a familiar cast of characters: two co-defendants, a confession, and a jury. And, for the most part, it follows a conventional storyline. In the opening chapter, one of the defendants (Miguel Garcia) in a murder case gives a confession to the police that, in addition to being self-incriminating, says that the other defendant (Antonio Lambert 1 ) pulled the trigger. When Lambert and Garcia are jointly tried in Pennsylvania state court,...
NOT PRECEDENTIAL OPINION * GREENAWAY, Jr. , Circuit Judge . This matter returns to the Third Circuit on a consolidated appeal. The District Court found, based on evidence adduced at a bench trial, that Appellants James Doyle and Cynthia Holloway breached their fiduciary duties to the Professional Industrial Trade Workers Union ("PITWU") Health & Welfare Fund ("Fund"), a plan governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act ("ERISA"). For the reasons that follow, we will affirm the...
NOT PRECEDENTIAL OPINION * AMBRO , Circuit Judge . Eliyahu Weinstein pleaded guilty in two cases now consolidated before us on appeal. In the first (" Weinstein I ") he admitted to operating a Ponzi scheme from 2004-2011 whereby he misappropriated hundreds of millions of dollars that victims thought they were investing in specific real estate transactions. In the second (" Weinstein II ") he admitted to engaging in similar conduct from 2012-2013. Weinstein tried unsuccessfully to...
NOT PRECEDENTIAL OPINION * AMBRO , Circuit Judge . Montez Freeman appeals the District Court's denial of his motion for a sentence reduction pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2). He contends that the Court improperly relied on a post-sentence report to conclude that, if he had not reached a plea agreement with the Government, he would have been designated as a career offender and subject to an enhanced mandatory minimum sentence. The Government responds that Freeman is not eligible for a...
