Weekly Case Digests September 7, 2021 September 10, 2021.

Byline: Derek Hawkins

7th Circuit Digests

7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Czeslaw M. Parzych v. Merrick B. Garland

Case No.: 20-2317

Officials: MANION, WOOD, and BRENNAN, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Immigration Removal Order

Czeslaw Parzych, a Polish citizen and lawful permanent resident of the United States, was twice convicted of burglary in Illinois, leading the Department of Homeland Security to begin removal proceedings. After several appeals, the Board of Immigration Appeals ultimately upheld an Immigration Judge's determination that Parzych was removable. Parzych now petitions for review, arguing that the Board erred by applying the "modified categorical approach" to determine whether his Illinois convictions were removable offenses under federal law. Because the Illinois burglary statute is not divisible, we agree with him that the modified categorical approach does not apply. We therefore grant Parzych's petition for review, vacate the removal order, and remand the case to the Board for further proceedings.

Petition granted, vacated and remanded

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7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: American Bankers Insurance Company of Florida v. Robert Shockley, Jr.,

Case No.: 20-1938

Officials: MANION, KANNE, and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Insurance Claim Duty to Defend

This insurance dispute stems from Robert Shockley, Jr., filing a civil complaint in Illinois state court. The complaint alleged Shockley was severely injured after being thrown from (and run over by) a golf cart driven by a St. Charles Farms ("SFC") employee. Shockley sued SFC and its employee for negligence. In response, SFC's insurer American Bankers Insurance Company of Florida filed suit in federal court seeking a declaratory judgment that it has no duty to defend or indemnify SFC or its employee in the underlying lawsuit. The district court granted American's motion for summary judgment. Because the district court erred in interpreting the insurance policy, we reverse and remand.

Reversed and remanded

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7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Adrian Thomas v. James S. Black, et al.,

Case No.: 20-1718

Officials: HAMILTON, SCUDDER, and KIRSCH, Circuit Judges.

Focus: 8th Amendment Violation Summary Judgment

Adrian Thomas sued several prison officials at Pontiac Correctional Center in Illinois alleging they violated the Eighth Amendment by restricting him for two months to a cell with feces on the walls, a mattress covered in human waste, a bunk bed with a hundred dead flies, and inadequate plumbing that caused him to develop a rash. Had the officials done nothing in response to Thomas's complaints, they would have violated the Constitution's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. But, relying on undisputed evidence showing that the prison responded to Thomas's concerns and medical needs, the district court entered summary judgment for the officials. We affirm.

Affirmed

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7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: StarNet Insurance Company v. Adam Ruprecht, et al.,

Case No.: 20-1192

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

Focus: Insurance Claim Coverage

StarNet Insurance Company filed suit in diversity seeking a declaratory judgment specifying that the terms of a workers' compensation and employers liability policy it issued to P.S. Demolition, Inc. obligate it to pay nothing more for a workplace injury than the amounts that Illinois workers' compensation law requires P.S. Demolition to pay its injured employees. The district court entered judgment on the pleadings in favor of StarNet. StarNet Ins. Co. v. Ruprecht, 2019 WL 6877599 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 17, 2019). We affirm. Our reasoning tracks that of the district court.

Affirmed

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7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Isabella Nartey v. Franciscan Health Hospital

Case No.: 19-3342

Officials: HAMILTON, SCUDDER, and KIRSCH, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Failure to State Claim

In August 2016 Millicent Nartey was admitted to a hospital where she suffered a stroke and eventually passed away. Her daughter, Isabella Nartey, sued the hospital, alleging that its treatment did not comply with federal and state law. The district court dismissed the complaint but allowed Nartey 30 days to file an amended one. Nartey missed the deadline, leading the district court to enter judgment against her. Nartey failed to file a formal notice of appeal within the initial time limit prescribed by Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4, causing us to question our jurisdiction to hear this appeal. But we can still reach the merits of Nartey's arguments because she gave sufficient notice of her intent to appeal in other timely post-judgment filings. In the end, though, we agree with the district court that Nartey failed to state a claim, and so we affirm the dismissal of her complaint.

Affirmed

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7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Keith Smith v. City of Chicago, et al.,

Case No.: 19-2725

Officials: FLAUM, ROVNER, and BRENNAN, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Time-barred

"Better late than never" is not a phrase typically heard in a federal courthouse. Even meritorious claims brought outside their statute of limitations must be dismissed. Keith Smith sued the City of Chicago and two of its police officers under 42 U.S.C. 1983 for violating the Fourth Amendment, claiming unlawful pretrial detention based on fabricated evidence. Rather than resolve the appeal on the merits, we must decide whether Smith timely filed his complaint, a question which depends on when his claim accrued. Smith argues that happened when he was acquitted at trial. If it did, then his complaint was timely. But our precedent establishes that a Fourth Amendment claim such as Smith's accrues when he is released from detention, and the Supreme Court's recent decision in McDonough v. Smith, 139 S. Ct. 2149 (2019), has not disturbed that conclusion. Smith was released on bond on March 29, 2014, so if his claim accrued then, under the applicable two-year limitations period his lawsuit, filed on July 18, 2018, was untimely.

Alternatively, Smith contends his claim was timely because his bond conditions constituted an ongoing Fourth Amendment seizure, so he was not released from custody until he was acquitted. Squarely reaching this issue for the first time in this circuit, we hold that requirements to appear in court for a hearing and to request permission before leaving the statetaken together or separatelydo not amount to Fourth Amendment seizures. Smith's accrual date remains the date he was released on bond, and because his claim was untimely, we affirm the district court's dismissal of his complaint.

Affirmed

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7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Prairie Rivers Network v. Dynegy Midwest Generation, LLC,

Case No.: 18-3644

Officials: FLAUM, ROVNER, and BRENNAN, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Standing to Sue Jurisdiction

Prairie Rivers Network is an Illinois non-profit organization that advocates for clean water and healthy rivers. Under the Clean Water Act's citizen-suit provision, PRN sued Dynegy Midwest Generation, LLC, alleging that Dynegy illegally discharged coal ash pollutants into groundwater, which in turn entered the Middle Fork of the Vermilion River. The district court held that the Clean Water Act did not cover these groundwater discharges, so it dismissed PRN's suit for lack of jurisdiction. We then stayed PRN's appeal pending the Supreme Court's decision in County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund, 140 S. Ct. 1462 (2020). In that case, the Court established a multi-factor test to determine whether groundwater discharges fall under the Clean Water Act's ambit. Id. at 147677.

We need not assess County of Maui's reach, however, because PRN lacks standing. PRN has more than 1000 members yet fails to show that at least one of those individual members has standing. Associational standing, which PRN asserts, requires more specificity. Without at least one individual member who can sue in their own right, PRN cannot sue on their behalf. Because PRN cannot cure that defect via declarations on appeal, we affirm the district court's dismissal for lack of jurisdiction.

Affirmed

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7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: U.S. Venture, Inc., v. United States of America

Case No.: 20-1861

Officials: SYKES, Chief Judge, and BRENNAN and SCUDDER, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Statutory Interpretation Alternative Fuel Mixture Tax Credit

Statutory interpretation is familiar territory for federal courts, and this appeal requires us to resolve a dispute over the scope of a statutory credittaken against excise fuel taxesthat Congress made available to producers of "alternative fuel mixtures." U.S. Venture, a Wisconsin-based producer of motor fuels, argues that the tax credit applies to gasoline with a butane additive. The United States disagrees, contending that there is nothing alternative about gasoline containing a butane additive and that Congress made this plain through a combination of statutory provisions defining the scope of the alternative fuel mixture tax credit provided in 26 U.S.C. 6426(e). The district court concluded that the government had the stronger position under the operative statutory and regulatory provisions. We agree.

Reading statutory text through a wholistic lensgiving effect to the language Congress enacted into law and interpreting that language in the context of the full statutory schemeis the cornerstone of proper statutory construction and where U.S. Venture falls short. We affirm the district court's entry of judgment for the government.

Affirmed

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7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Victor Mejia-Padilla v. Merrick B. Garland

Case No.: 20-1720

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

Focus: Immigration Removal Order

Petitioner Victor Mejia-Padilla ("Mejia") seeks review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals sustaining the denial of his...