The case involved the resentencing of defendant Carlos Vazquez, who had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine and faced an enhanced advisory guideline range as a career offender under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1 due to prior felony convictions. After an initial below-guideline sentence was vacated on appeal in Vazquez I, the district court later imposed 180 months following the Supreme Court's Kimbrough decision. On further remand, the court concluded that Kimbrough overruled prior Eleventh Circuit precedent in Williams, allowing sentencing courts to vary from the career offender guidelines based on policy disagreements, and that such a variance was permissible here. Accounting for post-sentencing rehabilitation, the court reduced the sentence to 90 months' imprisonment followed by supervised release.
This case involves a dispute between Blackwall Group, LLC, which operates a bar named “Sickboy’s Bad Habit Lounge” in Daytona Beach, and Sick Boy, LLC, a clothing company that sells apparel under the “Sick Boy” trademark. Blackwall sought a declaratory judgment that its business name and logo do not infringe on the trademark, while Sick Boy counterclaimed for infringement and moved for a preliminary injunction to stop the alleged infringement. The court denied the motion for preliminary injunction, finding that Sick Boy failed to show a substantial likelihood of success on the merits. The decision was based on an analysis of seven factors for likelihood of consumer confusion, concluding that the marks were not likely to confuse customers given differences in goods, services, and customer bases, among other considerations.
This case is a bad faith insurance claim brought by Russell and Denise Noonan against Vermont Mutual Insurance Company after a 2005 motorcycle accident in which Mr. Noonan was injured by the company's insured driver. The Noonans contended that the insurer failed to promptly tender its $100,000 policy limits despite clear liability and damages far exceeding the limit, leading to a consent judgment against the driver that was assigned to the plaintiffs. The court granted summary judgment to the defendant, finding no bad faith as a matter of law. The insurer had promptly set reserves at the full limit, repeatedly requested medical records and bills from the plaintiffs' counsel, and tendered its limits shortly after finally receiving the records in August 2006; the court concluded that the insurer acted reasonably and that any delay resulted from the lack of documentation provided by the plaintiffs.
This case concerns the resentencing of defendant William Irey, who pled guilty to one count of sexual exploitation of children under 18 U.S.C. § 2251(c) and was originally sentenced by the district court to 17.5 years in prison. The Eleventh Circuit en banc reversed that sentence as substantively unreasonable and directed imposition of the statutory maximum of 30 years. The district court here granted the parties' unopposed motion to continue the resentencing hearing pending the defendant's petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court. The court reasoned that there was no pressing need to impose the longer sentence while Irey continued serving his original term and that the delay would allow it to address aspects of the appellate ruling before potential Supreme Court review.
This case concerned Antonino Lyons, who was convicted by a jury in 2001 of federal cocaine-trafficking and other charges based almost entirely on testimony from incarcerated felons. The court found that prosecutors and the DEA agent committed Brady and Giglio violations by withholding exculpatory interview notes, prior inconsistent statements, and recordings, while also making false representations to the court about the existence and possession of such materials. These disclosures led to Lyons's exoneration on all charges nearly three years after his arrest. Lyons subsequently sought compensation under the Unjust Conviction and Imprisonment Act for the time he spent incarcerated due to the misconduct. The court determined that the government's nondisclosure of material evidence directly undermined the fairness of the trial and supported relief under the statute.
This case involved Intertape's motion for summary judgment on seven counts of ITI's counterclaims, which alleged violations of Florida's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, the Lanham Act (trademark infringement, unfair competition, and false advertising), Minnesota's Deceptive Trade Practices Act and Consumer Fraud Act, and common law trademark infringement and unfair competition. The claims arose from Intertape's development and marketing of its competing painter's tape product, Bloc-it, which ITI contended involved false performance comparisons to ITI's FrogTape and misleading statements about blocking paint bleed. The court granted summary judgment to Intertape on all counts, reasoning that ITI presented no evidence of literal falsity in the advertisements, no proof of actual consumer deception, insufficient standing for certain Lanham Act claims, and that some statements constituted non-actionable puffery rather than provably false assertions.