Uddin v. AG — immigration — reversal — Rendell

The Third Circuit today granted an immigration petition to review, holding that the BIA erred when it found a Bangladesh citizen ineligible for withholding of removal. The BIA had deemed him ineligible because he was a member of a major political party, some of whose members had committed terrorist acts.

The Third Circuit held that membership in a party whose members had committed terrorism wasn’t enough — the BIA had to find that the terrorist acts were authorized by party leaders. Analogizing to American politics, the court observed, “If a single member of the Democratic or Republican Party committed a terrorist act, we would not impute terrorist status to the entire group, absent some showing that party leadership authorized the act.”

The court joined the reasoning of a 2008 Seventh Circuit opinion authored by just-retired Judge Posner. Not surprisingly, today’s opinion quotes Posner at length and identifies him by name.

Joining Rendell were Greenaway and Shwartz; Greenaway also concurred separately. Arguing counsel were Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran of NY for the petitioner and Daniel Smulow for the government.

UPDATE: The Court issued an amended opinion on September 25. The opinion link has been updated; the change is identified in this order.

Mateo v. AG — immigration — reversal — Vanaskie

The Third Circuit held that a non-citizen’s Pennsylvania conviction for robbery of a motor vehicle did not support his removal. The removal order was premised on the vehicle-robbery conviction being a crime of violence, but the Third Circuit held that the crime-of-violence standard was unconstitutionally vague. The court joined three other circuits on this point, splitting with the Fifth Circuit. The court further held that the vagueness standard is no lower in immigration cases than it is in criminal cases.

Joining Vanaskie were McKee and Jordan. Arguing counsel were Tracey Hubbard of Scranton for the petitioner and Matthew Connelly for the government.

US v. Hodge — criminal — reversal in part — Chagares

After a Virgin Islands man used a gun to rob an armored vehicle, the government charged him with a separate Virgin Islands gun count for each of three crimes he committed during the offense. Today, the Third Circuit vacated two of those non-federal convictions on double jeopardy grounds (but it rejected the analogous argument as to two federal gun counts). The court granted relief even though the defendant received a single sentence for all three counts, similar to the federal practice of imposing concurrent sentences. The court rejected the defendant’s many other challenges.

Joining Chagares were Jordan and Hardiman. Arguing counsel were Richard Della Fera of Florida for the defendant and David White for the government.

Moody v. Atlantic City Bd. of Education — employment discrimination — reversal — Shwartz

An employee sued her employer, alleging that a fellow employee had sexually harassed her and the employer retaliated against her when she complained.

On the harassment claim, the employer’s liability turned on whether the alleged harasser was her supervisor even though he didn’t hire and couldn’t fire her. The plaintiff was a substitute janitor who worked at different sites; the alleged harasser had the power to decide if she got work at one of those sites, and in a recent several-month period 70% of her work had been at that site. The district court granted summary judgment to the employer based its conclusion that the alleged harasser was not her supervisor.

Today, a divided Third Circuit panel reversed, holding that the plaintiff’s allegations were sufficient to survive summary judgment on whether the alleged harasser was her supevisor. Judge Rendell dissented on this point, arguing that in light of a recent Supreme Court case the majority was “simply incorrect.”

On the retaliation claim, the panel was unanimous that reversal was required, holding that her allegation that her hours were reduced right after she complained was sufficient.

Joining Shwartz was Greenaway; Rendell dissented in part. Arguing counsel were Samuel Dion of Dion & Goldberger for the plaintiff and Rachel Conte of Riley and Rile for the employer.