It’s mid-August, so clerkships are ending and opinions are issuing thick and fast. Three more today, including a significant prisoner-rights opinion.
Deborah Heart & Lung Ctr. v. Virtua Health — civil / antitrust — affirmance — Roth
A dispute between two health care providers over patient referrals led one of them to bring an antitrust suit against the other. The district court ruled for the defendant, and today the Third Circuit affirmed. The opinion begins, “In antitrust suits, definitions matter,” and the court found that the plaintiff failed to meet its own undisputed definitions of the relevant products and markets. The court stated that it wrote in order to clarify the plaintiff’s burden under Section 1 of the Sherman Act when the plaintiff doesn’t allege that the defendants have market power: such plaintiffs must show anti-competitive effects on the market as a whole.
Joining Roth were Fuentes and Krause. Arguing counsel were Anthony Argiropoulos of Epstein Becker for the appellant and Philip Lebowitz of Duane Morris for the appellees.
US v. Jones — criminal — affirmance — Hardiman
When defendants commit a crime while they are on supervised release, they get a new, revocation sentence, and the length of that sentence depends on the seriousness of the original offense. But what if the seriousness of the offense has changed between the time of the original conviction and the time of the revocation sentencing?
Jermaine Jones was sentenced back in 2000 as an armed career criminal. Since that time, the Supreme Court decided cases that Jones says would make him ineligible to be sentenced as an armed career criminal today. So when Jones violated the terms of his supervised release and faced revocation sentencing, the sentencing court had to decide how to calculate his revocation sentence now–as a career criminal or not? Jones argued that he should be sentenced today based on how his original offense would be classified today; it would be unconstitutional to sentence him as an armed career criminal now, so it would be wrong to classify him now as an armed career criminal when imposing a revocation sentence. The government argued he should be sentenced today based on how his offense was classified at the time.
Today, the Third Circuit agreed with the government and affirmed, holding that it was correct to classify Jones as an armed career criminal for purposes of calculating his revocation sentence.
Hardiman was joined by Smith (Sloviter also had been on the panel before she assumed inactive status). The case was decided without oral argument.
Parkell v. Danberg — prisoner civil rights — reversal in part — Chagares
A Delaware inmate fell and seriously injured his elbow. In the suit he eventually filed, he alleged a disturbing year-long ordeal of mistreatment and neglect by prison guards and health-care staff. He also alleged that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated by three-times-daily visual body cavity searches even though he had no contact with anyone. The district court granted summary judgment for the defendants.
Today in a 38-page opinion the Third Circuit reversed summary judgment on the Fourth Amendment cavity-searches claim, holding that the Fourth Amendment gives inmates a “very narrow” right to bodily privacy and that the prisoner here may be able entitled to prospective injunctive relief. The court affirmed summary judgment on his Eighth Amendment conditions-of-confinement and deliberate-indifference claims, as well as his effort to recover money damages on his Fourth Amendment claim, essentially because the pro se inmate had failed to marshal enough proof about who was actually responsible.
Joining Chagares were Fisher and Cowen. Arguing counsel for the inmate were Suzanne Bradley and former Barry clerk Brendan Walsh of Pashman Stein, who the court thanked for the quality of their pro bono representation. Counsel for the defendants were Devera Scott of the Delaware AG’s office and Chad Toms and Daniel Griffith of Whiteford Taylor.