Weekly Case Digests January 17, 2022 - January 21, 2022.

Byline: Derek Hawkins

7th Circuit Digests

7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: United States of America v. Carl P. Palladinetti

Case No.: 20-2734

Officials: FLAUM, KANNE, and SCUDDER, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Sufficiency of Evidence

Carl P. Palladinetti participated in a scheme to defraud lenders into facilitating certain real estate transactions. He and his co-defendants were charged with many counts of bank fraud and making false statements. The district court held a bench trial on one of the bank fraud counts. The only issue was whether one of the banks Palladinetti defrauded was insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ("FDIC"). The district court determined that it was and found him guilty. We affirm.

Affirmed

Full Text

[divider]

7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Damon Turnage v. Thomas J. Dart, et al.,

Case No.: 20-3167

Officials: EASTERBROOK, KANNE, and ST. EVE, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Prisoner ADA and Rehabilitation Act Violation

Damon Turnage contends that on September 21, 2016, he fell from an upper bunk at Cook County Jail and suffered a broken ankle plus other injuries. He seeks damages under 202 of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. 12132, and 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. 794(a), on the ground that the Jail knew that he is subject to occasional seizures but failed to enforce his lower-bunk permit (which had been issued to reduce the risk of falling during a seizure).

Turnage is using the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act to pursue, in federal court, what is effectively a state-law tort claim. And there is no tort without injury. Rozenfeld v. Medical Protective Co., 73 F.3d 154, 156 (7th Cir. 1996). These statutes may be available to protest exposure to unjustified risks, but a prisoner or other litigant is free to wait until the risk comes to pass. Forget about 1997e(a) for a moment and suppose that Turnage had filed a common-law tort suit on September 10, 2018, more than two years after his placement into an upper bunk but less than two years after his fall and injury. (Two years is a normal limit for tort suits.) A court would deem that suit timely, because injury, coupled with knowledge of its cause, marks the claim's accrual. See United States v. Kubrick, 444 U.S. 111 (1979). For the same reason, a grievance that is timely with respect to an injury satisfies 1997e(a) when the suit seeks damages for that injury.

Turnage has exhausted the administrative remedies available to him. The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Vacated and remanded

Full Text

[divider]

7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Jose Edin Pineda-Teruel v. Merrick B. Garland

Case No.: 20-3516

Officials: EASTERBROOK, ROVNER, and KIRSCH, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Immigration Removal Proceedings

Jose Edin Pineda-Teruel illegally entered the United States in 2007. He was removed to Honduras in 2017. In 2019, he again attempted to enter the United States but was apprehended at the border. Facing enforcement of the prior removal order, Pineda-Teruel filed an application seeking withholding of removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act and protection under the Convention Against Torture, claiming that he was the target of an extortion scheme in Honduras and risked death if he returned. Both an immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals found that Pineda-Teruel failed to establish eligibility for withholding of removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act or protection under the Convention Against Torture. We find no error and therefore deny Pineda-Teruel's application.

Petition denied

Full Text

[divider]

7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Melvin D. Reed v. PF of Milwaukee Midtown, LLC,

Case No.: 20-3057

Officials: EASTERBROOK, KANNE, and ST. EVE, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Frivolous Appeal and Attorney Fees

Melvin Reed applied for a job at Planet Fitness of Milwaukee. When it did not hire him, he filed with the EEOC a charge of age discrimination. After the agency found a lack of support for that charge, Reed sued under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. 62134.

The clerk of court returned Reed's complaint, unfiled. In 2012 the district court had issued a litigation-bar order based on Reed's history of frivolous suits. Reed v. Lincare, Inc., No. 11-C-221 (E.D. Wis. Nov. 21, 2012). The judge concluded that Reed sent off many employment applications every year. If hired, he worked for a short time before giving the employer...