Joseph Peter Kinneary

Judith Chenoweth sued her former employer, Wal-Mart, after being terminated for missing work to care for her husband following his stroke, raising claims under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) for failure to provide timely notice of continued health coverage rights, and Ohio public policy regarding wrongful discharge. On cross-motions for summary judgment, the court granted Chenoweth partial summary judgment on her COBRA claim, finding that Wal-Mart undisputedly failed to send the required notice until approximately eight months after termination due to a computer system error, and awarded her medical expenses, attorney fees, and a statutory penalty. The court denied Wal-Mart's motion for summary judgment on the FMLA and public policy claims, holding that genuine issues of material fact existed regarding the circumstances of her termination and eligibility for reinstatement that required resolution at trial.

labor & employmenthealthcare

This case involved two death row inmates challenging an Ohio prison policy that required last statements to be written hours before execution and gave the warden discretion to edit or censor them, claiming violations of the First Amendment in both a facial attack on the policy and an as-applied challenge to its implementation. Defendants moved to dismiss both counts for failure to exhaust administrative remedies under the PLRA, which requires prisoners to complete available grievance procedures before suing over prison conditions. The court granted the motion in part by dismissing the facial challenge without prejudice, reasoning that it concerned prison conditions and that Ohio's grievance process was an available remedy as confirmed by Sixth Circuit precedent, but denied the motion as to the as-applied challenge, concluding it was not subject to the PLRA exhaustion requirement.

criminal lawfree speech

This case involved two West Virginia attorneys who filed a bankruptcy petition for Ohio residents in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, despite the debtors having no connection to that venue. The bankruptcy court sanctioned the attorneys by requiring them to pay the trustee's fees and refund their clients' fees, finding the filing improper under bankruptcy venue rules. On appeal, the district court affirmed the sanctions, reasoning that the attorneys knew the venue was incorrect and their actions caused unnecessary delays and expenses, and that their conduct was unreasonable under the circumstances.

procedure

In Treesh v. Taft, two Ohio death row inmates brought a First Amendment challenge to a prison policy that barred them from making a final oral statement audible to spectators at the time of execution and instead required any last statement to be written hours earlier, with the warden having discretion to edit or censor it before release. The defendants moved to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, arguing the claims were moot after the policy was amended to remove editing authority and were not ripe because the inmates' convictions and sentences were still under appeal. The court denied the motion, holding that the claims were not moot because the core policy restrictions remained in force and were ripe for review because the policy was final and the constitutional issues could be addressed without waiting until the eve of execution, as supported by analogous precedent.

free speechcriminal law

In United States v. Shalash, the defendant pled guilty to twelve counts of structuring currency transactions to evade reporting requirements and agreed to forfeit $414,700 in assets, including a partial interest in his family residence. He moved for a downward departure of eleven levels from the applicable sentencing guideline range to qualify for probation, citing the forfeiture's impact, his family responsibilities, the conduct as aberrant behavior, and the totality of circumstances. The court denied the motion, holding that downward departures are permitted only for mitigating factors not adequately considered in the guidelines or for sufficiently unusual circumstances outside the heartland of cases. The court found the forfeiture already incorporated into the sentence, family ties a discouraged factor not present to an exceptional degree, the offenses consisting of repeated acts over years rather than a single aberrant act, and no basis for departure even when considering all factors together.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involves a pro se plaintiff who sued a city official, claiming she denied him employment with the City of Columbus and conspired to violate his civil rights under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1980-1986 and Title VII by not responding to his job inquiries or a referral letter. The defendant moved for relief from a prior scheduling order under Rule 60(b) and for summary judgment under Rule 56, asserting she lacked hiring authority and directed the plaintiff to the proper civil service channels. The court granted both motions, determining there were no genuine issues of material fact and the defendant was entitled to judgment as a matter of law. The plaintiff's later motion for reconsideration was denied, resulting in entry of judgment for the defendant and termination of the case.

civil rightslabor & employmentprocedure

The case involved the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), as statutory trustee of a pension plan, suing Bank One for allegedly breaching ERISA fiduciary duties in 1990 by accepting an unregistered stock contribution to fulfill minimum funding obligations without proper valuation or consideration of the plan's interests. Bank One moved for partial judgment on the pleadings, contending that the claim in Count I was time-barred under the six-year limitations period of 29 U.S.C. § 1113. The court denied the motion, ruling that the applicable statute of limitations is instead the three-year period in 29 U.S.C. § 1303(e)(6), which runs from the date the PBGC is appointed trustee, and that the 1997 complaint was timely filed. The core reasoning was that Congress provided a distinct limitations rule for PBGC trustee actions to allow time for discovery of violations after plan termination, separate from the general ERISA fiduciary provisions.

labor & employmentbusiness & regulatory

Marilyn Heck, a seventy-year-old assistant bookkeeper at Kenyon College's bookstore, brought federal claims under the ADEA and ERISA alleging that she faced pressure to retire so the college could replace her with younger workers at lower cost, received inadequate training on a new computer system, and was terminated after performance issues including a computer crash. The court granted summary judgment to the defendants on the federal claims in case 96-1050 and dismissed them with prejudice, determining there was no genuine issue of material fact supporting discrimination and that the termination stemmed from documented work problems. The court remanded the related state-law claims in case 97-1255 to the Knox County Court of Common Pleas for lack of federal jurisdiction.

labor & employmentcivil rights

In Ashiegbu v. Purviance, a pro se plaintiff sued several Ohio state officials in their individual capacities, alleging they conspired to deny him state employment in violation of 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981-1986 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The court denied the plaintiff's motion to strike one defendant's answer under Rule 12(f) but granted the individual state defendants' motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6). The court reasoned that the complaint consisted of conclusory allegations without the factual specificity required to plead a conspiracy claim, including details on time, place, conduct, and a meeting of the minds among defendants.

civil rightslabor & employmentprocedure

Plaintiff Terry Wilkins, a former chief of the Office of Community Services in the Ohio Department of Development, sued department officials under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming his termination violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments because it was retaliation for reporting misuse of state and federal funds and violations of laws and policies by community action agencies. Defendants moved for summary judgment, asserting that the claims were barred by claim preclusion from a prior case in the same court, Wilkins ex rel. United States v. Ohio, and that plaintiff failed to establish a First Amendment violation. The court granted summary judgment, holding that the doctrine of claim preclusion applied because the present claims involved matters that should have been raised in the earlier action, and therefore did not reach the merits of the constitutional claims.

civil rightsfree speechprocedurelabor & employment

In Hall v. Ohio Education Ass'n, the plaintiff brought an ERISA action seeking service credit under the defendant Ohio Education Association’s pension plan, which the defendants successfully defended. The defendants then applied under Rule 54(d) and 29 U.S.C. § 1132(g)(1) for taxation of costs totaling about $5,800, including deposition transcripts and copying, and for attorneys’ fees of $115,278.75. The court denied both requests. For costs, the defendants failed to demonstrate that the specific expenses were necessary for use at trial rather than for discovery or investigation, as required by 28 U.S.C. § 1920. For fees, application of the King factors showed that the plaintiff lacked financial ability to pay, brought the claim in good faith without egregious conduct, and that an award would not serve deterrence or common-benefit purposes.

labor & employmentprocedure

The case involved plaintiffs who received a $900,000 state grant for reclaiming abandoned mine land, which the IRS later classified as taxable ordinary income, resulting in a large federal tax deficiency, liens, and subsequent state tax liens and garnishments pursued by defendant Heiser on behalf of Ohio. Plaintiffs sued the IRS, the United States, and Heiser, alleging improper tax assessments, conspiracy, improper disclosures of tax information, and related harms affecting their property and business. The court granted the defendants' motions to dismiss, dismissing most counts with prejudice and one portion of a disclosure claim without prejudice, while finding other requests moot. The core reasoning centered on the availability of alternative remedies for challenging IRS determinations, statutory limitations on suits against tax collection activities, and procedural bars to the claims.

taxesfederal powerproperty

This case involved a criminal defendant charged in connection with distributing child pornography online who filed motions to suppress evidence obtained during an FBI investigation. The defendant sought to exclude oral statements he made to agents at an airport, statements made via AOL chat rooms, and physical evidence seized from his home. The court granted the motion to suppress the airport statements, finding that the defendant was in custody and subjected to interrogation without receiving Miranda warnings. The court denied the motion to suppress the AOL-related statements and residence evidence, ruling that the defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in AOL communications and that the evidence would have been inevitably discovered through execution of a valid search warrant.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved defendant Larry Wayne Harris facing charges of wire fraud and mail fraud for allegedly using misrepresentations to obtain vials of yersinia pestis bacteria via mail order. Harris filed motions to suppress statements and evidence obtained during searches and interrogations, as well as to dismiss the indictment, primarily arguing violations of his Miranda rights and lack of probable cause. The court denied all motions, finding that Harris was not in custody when he inquired about an attorney, that he voluntarily waived his rights before subsequent interrogations, and that probable cause supported the arrest warrant based on evidence of deception in obtaining the bacteria.

criminal lawprocedure

The case was a civil in rem action brought by the FDA under the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act seeking condemnation and destruction of seized quantities of WRM-RID Dog Wormer, an animal drug with active ingredients piperazine phosphate and arecoline hydrobromide that Bingman Laboratories had manufactured and sold since the 1950s. The court granted the government's motion for summary judgment. It held that WRM-RID was an adulterated new animal drug because it lacked an approved new animal drug application or investigational exception, was not generally recognized as safe and effective (the combination of ingredients was not shown to qualify for the 1962 grandfather clause), and had been held for sale after interstate shipment. The court rejected Bingman's arguments that summary judgment was inappropriate, that prior FDA contacts or non-enforcement created estoppel or due process violations, and that the agency bore the burden to prove lack of safety.

business & regulatoryhealthcare

This case involves Globe Metallurgical's purchase of an integrated computer system, including HP hardware and software from C-J and Q-CIM, which Globe claimed failed to function as represented, leading to claims for breach of contract, breach of express and implied warranties, negligent misrepresentation, and fraud. Defendants HP and C-J moved for summary judgment, arguing that the contracts contained valid disclaimers of warranties, integration clauses limiting remedies, and that tort claims were barred or unsupported. The court applied California law to the lease agreement and Florida law to certain software licenses, determined that Globe had abandoned its negligent misrepresentation claim, and analyzed whether the fraud allegations met the requirements for promissory fraud or were contradicted by the written terms. It concluded that summary judgment was appropriate on the contract and warranty claims due to the disclaimers and lack of contrary contractual provisions, while addressing limitations on damages and choice-of-law issues for the remaining claims.

business & regulatoryprocedure

The case involved a challenge by Epicenter of Steubenville, Inc., a provider of group homes for mentally handicapped adults known as Adult Care Facilities, against a city ordinance imposing a one-year moratorium on any new such facilities in Steubenville. The court granted Epicenter's motion for a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of the ordinance. The core reasoning was that the moratorium amounted to an absolute ban on new facilities for the handicapped, enacted due to alleged supervision issues with some existing residents, which directly violated federal fair housing law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of handicap.

civil rights

The case involved Michelle Neff suing the Civil Air Patrol under Title VII for alleged discrimination, claiming she was an employee due to her volunteer role. The court reconsidered its prior ruling and determined that Neff was not an employee within the meaning of Title VII. Using the Sixth Circuit's "economic realities" test, which focuses on economic dependence, the court found that Neff received no direct compensation and only minor benefits insufficient to establish employee status, similar to other cases involving unpaid volunteers. As a result, the court granted summary judgment to the Civil Air Patrol on the Title VII claims and dismissed the remaining state claims without prejudice.

civil rightslabor & employment

In this case, Federated Department Stores, a Chapter 11 debtor, filed adversary proceedings in bankruptcy court against the EPA seeking declaratory judgment and injunctive relief regarding the timing of when alleged violations of the Toxic Substances Control Act accrued into bankruptcy claims. The EPA moved to withdraw the reference of these proceedings to the district court. The court denied the motion, holding that mandatory withdrawal was not required because the issue primarily involved bankruptcy law with only incidental reference to non-bankruptcy federal law, and discretionary withdrawal was inappropriate absent exceptional circumstances given the bankruptcy judge's familiarity with the case.

environmentbusiness & regulatoryfederal powerprocedure

In this bankruptcy case, the district court reviewed the bankruptcy court's denial of attorneys' fees to Squire, Sanders & Dempsey (SS&D), which had been appointed as counsel for the Committee of Unsecured Creditors in the involuntary Chapter 11 reorganization of National Liquidators. SS&D had represented a creditor who served as co-chairman of the Committee and failed to disclose that representation until filing its fee application, prompting an objection from the Chapter 11 Trustee on grounds of adverse interest and untimely disclosure. The court reversed the bankruptcy court's finding of an adverse interest, affirmed in part the determination that SS&D violated disclosure requirements, and remanded for calculation of reasonable fees and imposition of a sanction limited to services performed after actual knowledge of the dual representation arose. The decision applied standards under 11 U.S.C. §§ 1102 and 1103, emphasizing equitable considerations for the timing of disclosure.

business & regulatoryprocedure