U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit

The court held that Holmes’s second-in-time habeas petition was not “second or successive” because his equal-protection claim arose only when the Indiana Supreme Court denied his request for state post-conviction relief.

The Seventh Circuit held that the officer was entitled to qualified immunity on the estate’s substantive due-process claim arising from a fatal collision caused by his distracted driving.

The Seventh Circuit affirmed the denial of Union Pacific’s motion for summary judgment, interpreting the Illinois BIPA government-contractor exemption to apply when biometric data is collected in the course of performing government work, not merely while the railroad has any government contract.

The Seventh Circuit affirmed the denial of Union Pacific’s motion for summary judgment, holding that the Illinois BIPA exemption for government contractors applies when a contractor is performing the government work, not merely whenever it has some government contract.

The Seventh Circuit affirmed the denial of Lloyd’s motion to vacate the 2017 judgment entered pursuant to his settlement with the FTC. It concluded that Lloyd had waived challenges to the judgment, waited an unreasonable time to seek relief, and had not shown that the later Supreme Court decision or the…

The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Cook County on Mason’s Title VII religious-accommodation claim because the County’s evidence, considered in the hospital setting and alongside the undisputed facts about Mason’s work, established undue hardship without a triable factual dispute.

The Seventh Circuit affirmed Howard’s convictions and sentence, concluding that the district court properly quashed a subpoena to a witness who faced a reasonable risk of self-incrimination and properly admitted evidence under the inevitable-discovery doctrine.

The Seventh Circuit affirmed Howard’s convictions on three drug counts and his within-Guidelines sentence. It held that the district court properly quashed a subpoena to a witness who faced a reasonable risk of self-incrimination, that the challenged home and phone evidence would have been discovered through lawful…

The court granted appointed counsel’s motion to withdraw under the Anders procedure and dismissed Lauderdale’s appeal as frivolous. It concluded that the traffic stop and dog sniff supplied no nonfrivolous suppression issue, that Lauderdale did not wish to challenge his plea, and that his appeal waiver foreclosed a…

The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for WDOT on Knox’s Rehabilitation Act claims. It concluded that being available outside normal business hours was an essential function of her communications specialist position, and that no reasonable accommodation would allow her to perform that function without shifting…

The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for prison officials on Jones’s Eighth Amendment failure-to-protect claim because no reasonable jury could find that their inaction proximately caused injuries from a fight Jones chose to escalate.

The court modified the dismissal of Walker’s claim against Goble’s substitute to reflect failure to state a claim, rather than failure to serve, and affirmed the judgment as modified.

The court affirmed enforcement of Gilmore’s oral settlement because the record showed that the parties agreed to definite material terms, including a payment inclusive of attorney’s fees in exchange for a release.

The Seventh Circuit affirmed the denial of Isby’s habeas petition, concluding that Indiana law consistently barred applying restored good-time credit from a completed sentence to a later sentence, so the challenged policy did not increase his punishment retroactively.

The Seventh Circuit affirmed the denial of the Board Regional Director’s request for a preliminary injunction under NLRA § 10(j), concluding that she had not shown specific irreparable harm to protected labor rights and that her delay reinforced the conclusion that interim relief was unnecessary.

The Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment, holding that under the Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act the credit for a prior partial withdrawal must be applied after the employer’s withdrawal liability is calculated using the full four‑step process in §1381(b).

The Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision to vacate the arbitration award and apply Consumers Concrete’s prior partial-withdrawal credit after completing the four-step calculation of its complete-withdrawal liability.

The court affirmed the judgment vacating the arbitration award because the MPPAA requires a prior partial-withdrawal credit to reduce the employer’s completed withdrawal-liability calculation, after the four statutory steps.

The Seventh Circuit held that an employer’s credit for liability from an earlier partial withdrawal must be applied after calculating its later withdrawal liability through the MPPAA’s four-step process.

The court affirmed summary judgment for the school corporation and its emergency manager, concluding that Buggs’s removal from school property and brief detention did not violate the Fourth Amendment.

The court held that an employer’s credit for liability from an earlier partial withdrawal must be applied after calculating its later withdrawal liability through the four steps prescribed by the statute.

The court denied Florida’s attorney general a stay of a preliminary injunction that bars him from pursuing a state enforcement action against the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) while the appeal proceeds.

The court remanded to permit the district court to vacate its preliminary injunction after granting the plaintiff’s motion to dismiss the complaint. The court stated that once the injunction is vacated, no appealable order will remain and the appeal will be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.

The court affirmed dismissal of Walker’s claim against Liberty Healthcare because he did not allege that its polygraph policy caused him an injury, and affirmed dismissal of his retaliation claim because his attached grievance showed he received Roe’s letter before filing it.

The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the Postal Service on Ismail’s discrimination, retaliation, and hostile-work-environment claims. It concluded that the district court acted within its discretion in deeming the Postal Service’s factual assertions admitted after Ismail failed to comply with the local…

The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the Postal Service on Ismail’s discrimination, retaliation, and hostile-work-environment claims. It concluded that the district court acted within its discretion in enforcing the local summary-judgment rule and that the record, viewed under the applicable Title VII…

The court dismissed Cedeno-Gonzalez’s appeal because his claims challenging detention became moot after he received a revocation interview and was removed, leaving no detention-related relief the court could grant.

The court denied Perez and her children’s petition for review because Perez did not adequately present key challenges to the immigration judge’s denial of asylum, withholding of removal, and Convention Against Torture relief to the Board of Immigration Appeals.

The court held that Stupak was a trespasser because Mont du Lac had not expressly or impliedly permitted him to use the closed slides. But viewing the evidence in Stupak’s favor, a reasonable jury could find that the resort acted recklessly by leaving the slides accessible with deflated safety bumpers and by…

The court held that the complaint asserted personal-capacity claims for damages against state officials, so the Eleventh Amendment did not bar them. The district court erred by applying a test developed for statutory claims rather than assessing the complaint as a whole, including its requested relief, named…

The Seventh Circuit affirmed judgment on the pleadings for the City on the plaintiffs’ Fourteenth Amendment and Fourth Amendment claims. The equal-protection claim failed because the Cook County court orders, not the City’s Special Order, created the challenged classifications; the Fourth Amendment claim failed…

The court affirmed summary judgment for the school on the claims pursued on appeal. It held that the Title IX claim was forfeited under the district court’s case-management rules, that the school applied reasonable accommodations without deliberate indifference, and that the plaintiffs did not establish retaliation…

The court denied the petition for review because Perez did not exhaust her administrative remedies before the Board: her brief did not develop challenges to essential grounds on which the Immigration Judge denied relief.

The court denied American Backflow’s petition for review and granted the Board’s cross-application to enforce its order requiring the company to bargain with the Union. It concluded that substantial evidence supported the Board’s finding that the company’s conclusory denial did not contest the alleged settlement…

The court denied American Backflow’s petition for review and granted enforcement of the Board’s order requiring it to bargain with the Union. It concluded that substantial evidence supported the Board’s determination that the company’s generalized denial did not contest its alleged breach with enough specificity to…

The Seventh Circuit affirmed the denial of Pennington’s suppression and dismissal motions. It held that the first stop was unlawfully prolonged, but the second stop and resulting discovery of drugs were sufficiently attenuated from that violation; the second stop itself was not unreasonably prolonged.

The Seventh Circuit affirmed Frazier’s conviction and sentence. It held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by declining to order another competency hearing when the record, including the prior competency evaluation and the court’s careful questioning, did not call his competency into question.

The Seventh Circuit affirmed Frazier’s conviction and sentence, holding that the district court did not abuse its discretion by declining to order a second competency hearing when the record showed no material change undermining the prior competency finding and showed that Frazier understood the proceedings and his…

The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the defendants and upheld the district court’s three-week extension of the dispositive-motion deadline. It concluded that the extension was supported by good cause and that the record would not permit a reasonable jury to find deliberate indifference to Boclair’s…

The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the defendants on Dyjak’s due-process and free-exercise claims, concluding that the dietician’s efforts to address Dyjak’s nutritional needs were objectively reasonable and that the record did not establish liability by the other officials.