The Lawletter Vol 38 No 3

John Buckley, Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group

On January 25, 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that President Obama lacked authority under the Constitution to fill three of the National Labor Relations Board's ("NLRB") five seats through "recess appointments" made on January 4, 2012.  Canning v. NLRB, 705 F.3d 490 (D.C. Cir. 2013).  The President attempted to fill the seats after Congress began a new session on January 3 and while that new session continued.  The court's decision emphasized the Constitution's use of the word "the" in the phrase "the Recess" in the Recess Appointments Clause of Article 2.  Under this Clause, the President has the power to make recess appointments only between sessions of CongressCso‑called "intersession appointments," according to the court.  This decision is significant not only for the NLRB, but also for all federal agencies.  

The controversy arose after three seats on the Board came vacant between 2010 and 2012.  President Obama tried to fill all three seats on January 4, 2012, when the Senate had declared it was in session, but the President claimed that Congress was in a recess because the Senate was operating only pro forma sessions every three business days from December 2, 2011 through January 23, 2012. 

The court's ruling resulted from an appeal by the corporate employer Noel Canning, a division of the Noel Corporation, which argued that a quorum of three NLRB members did not exist on the date the Board rendered an order adverse to the employer.  Specifically, the NLRB had ruled that the employer had violated the National Labor Relations Act by failing to reduce to writing and execute a collective bargaining agreement reached with Teamsters Local 760.  A quorum was lacking, according to the employer, because only one member voting for the decision had been confirmed by the Senate; the other two owed their positions on the Board to the challenged recess appointments.

Specifically, the Recess Appointments Clause provides that "[t]he President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session."  U.S. Const. art. II, § 2, cl. 3.  The employer argued that the phrase "the Recess" refers to the intersession recess only.  The Board argued that "the Recess" also includes intrasession recesses, noting that the Eleventh Circuit has interpreted the language in that fashion.  The District of Columbia Circuit agreed with the employer, stating:  "As a matter of cold, unadorned logic, it makes no sense to adopt the Board's proposition that when the Framers said 'the Recess,' what they really meant was 'a recess.'  This is not an insignificant distinction.  In the end, it makes all the difference."  705 F.3d at 500.

Moreover, the court noted that for nearly a century after the Constitution was ratified, no president had ever attempted intrasession recess appointments, and for decades thereafter such appointments were exceedingly rare.

The Lawletter Vol 38 No 2

Brad Pettit, Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group

The Internal Revenue Code ("I.R.C.") provides that

[e]xcept in the case of a rollover contribution described in [§ 408](d)(3) . . . , no contribution [to a qualified individual retirement account or a retirement plan] will be accepted unless it is in cash, and contributions will not be accepted for the taxable year on behalf of any individual in excess of the amount in effect for such taxable year under section 219(b)(1)(A).

26 U.S.C. § 408(a)(1) (emphasis added).  A key requirement for a "rollover contribution" is that "the entire amount received" by an individual upon a payment or distribution from a retirement account or plan must be "paid into" an individual retirement account, an individual retirement annuity, or an eligible retirement plan for the benefit of the individual "not later than the 60th day after the day on which" the payment or distribution is received.  Id. § 408(d)(3)(A).

Since we live in an imperfect world, mistakes can be made when an individual seeks to achieve a timely tax-free rollover of money or securities from one tax-favored retirement account or plan into another.  Accordingly, the I.R.C. provides that "[t]he Secretary [of the Treasury] may waive the 60‑day [rollover] requirement under subparagraphs (A) and (D) where the failure to waive such requirement would be against equity or good conscience, including casualty, disaster, or other events beyond the reasonable control of the individual subject to such requirement."  Id. § 408(d)(3)(I) (emphasis added).  In an administrative ruling, the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") stated that "a taxpayer must apply for a hardship exception to the 60‑day rollover requirement using the same procedure as that outlined in Rev. Proc. 2003‑4 for letter rulings, accompanied by the user fee set forth in Rev. Proc. 2003‑8."  Rev. Proc. 2003‑16, § 3.01, 2003‑1 C.B. 359 [after clicking on this hyperlink, scroll down to page 359].

In determining whether to grant a waiver, the Service will consider all relevant facts and circumstances, including:  (1) errors committed by a financial institution, other than as described in Section 3.03 below; (2) inability to complete a rollover due to death, disability, hospitalization, incarceration, restrictions imposed by a foreign country or postal error; (3) the use of the amount distributed (for example, in the case of payment by check, whether the check was cashed); and (4) the time elapsed since the distribution occurred.

Id. § 3.02.  According to the IRS, there is an automatic waiver of a defect in an attempt to carry out a tax-free rollover into an IRA, and no formal application for a discretionary waiver is necessary

if a financial institution receives funds on behalf of a taxpayer prior to the expiration of the 60‑day rollover period, the taxpayer follows all procedures required by the financial institution for depositing the funds into an eligible retirement plan within the 60‑day period (including giving instructions to deposit the funds into an eligible retirement plan) and, solely due to an error on the part of the financial institution, the funds are not deposited into an eligible retirement plan within the 60‑day rollover period.

Id. § 3.03.  But the IRS cautions that "[a]utomatic approval is granted only: (1) if the funds are deposited into an eligible retirement plan within 1 year from the beginning of the 60‑day rollover period; and (2) if the financial institution had deposited the funds as instructed, it would have been a valid rollover."  Id.

The Lawletter Vol 38 No 2

John Stone, Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group

In New Hampshire, text messaging while driving a vehicle is illegal, but simply talking on a cell phone while driving is not.  In the right set of circumstances, however, the otherwise legal act of talking on a cell phone while driving can support a criminal conviction for negligent homicide when that conduct leads to a fatal accident.  Such was the outcome in State v. Dion, No. 2011-786, 2013 WL 474884 (N.H. Feb. 8, 2013) (not yet released for publication).

At about dusk, the vehicle driven by Lynn Dion, traveling at about 30 miles per hour, struck and killed a pedestrian, who had nearly finished crossing a street and who was using a well-lit, brightly painted crosswalk marked with a yellow and black pedestrian crossing sign.  Dion denied ever seeing that pedestrian, or her companion, who was also struck by the vehicle but with less serious effects.  Dion admitted that intermittently during her fateful trip she had made and received some cell phone calls as she drove, but she denied that she had been on the phone at the time of the collision.

Reconstruction analysis of the collision by the police showed that the defendant had had fully 13.5 seconds in which to see the pair of pedestrians in the crosswalk as she drove across a bridge, that her view had been unobstructed, and that it would have taken her, at most, 1.5 seconds to react upon seeing the women.  Nevertheless, at no time before striking the pedestrian who died did Dion slow down, apply her brakes, or turn to avoid the pedestrians, indicating that Dion, as she herself stated, had completely failed to see them.  These facts further led the police to conclude that rather than experiencing a momentary distraction, such as could be caused by a sneeze or changing a station on her car radio, Dion had been inattentive for a longer period.  But how could this conclusion be reconciled with the defendant's insistence that she had not been on the phone during the moments immediately leading up to the accident?  The clinching evidence was Dion's cell phone records, which undercut that part of her story.  The records showed that Dion had placed a call to a friend, hung up a few seconds later, and only about 90 seconds after that placed her call to police from the scene of the accident.

Dion sought to no avail to keep her cell phone records from being used as evidence against her at her trial.  In upholding the use of such evidence, the court that rejected her appeal ruled that under New Hampshire Rule of Evidence 403, the probative value of the cell phone records was not outweighed by their prejudicial effect.  Dion had admitted to a law enforcement officer that she "had made phone calls throughout her trip," and the records of her calls bore directly on the issue of her attentiveness in the minutes leading up to the collision.  Such records were "inextricably intertwined" with evidence of the crime of negligent homicide.  Id. at *4-5.

As for the conviction itself, which led to a prison sentence, Dion argued to no avail that the evidence against her was insufficient to support her conviction for negligent homicide, because merely using a cell phone while driving does not constitute the required wrongful or blameworthy conduct to establish the culpable mental state for criminal negligence.  New Hampshire Revised Statutes section 630:3(I) makes it a felony to cause another person's death negligently.

Section 626:2 states as follows:

A person acts negligently with respect to a material element of an offense when he fails to become aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the material element exists or will result from his conduct.  The risk must be of such a nature and degree that his failure to become aware of it constitutes a gross deviation from the conduct that a reasonable person would observe in the situation.

The Lawletter Vol 38 No 2

Alistair Edwards, Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group

Some states have statutes prohibiting a merchant from requiring its credit card customers to give or write certain "personal identification information" in a credit card transaction or on a credit card form.  For example, pursuant to section 105 of chapter 93 of Massachusetts General Laws, the Massachusetts General Court has declared:

(a)        No person, firm, partnership, corporation or other business entity that accepts a credit card for a business transaction shall write, cause to be written or require that a credit card holder write personal identification information, not required by the credit card issuer, on the credit card transaction form. Personal identification information shall include, but shall not be limited to, a credit card holder's address or telephone number.  The provisions of this section shall apply to all credit card transactions; provided, however, that the provisions of this section shall not be construed to prevent a person, firm, partnership, corporation or other business entity from requesting information [that] is necessary for shipping, delivery or installation of purchased merchandise or services or for a warranty when such information is provided voluntarily by a credit card holder.

Mass. Gen. Laws Ann. ch. 93, § 105(a).  Similarly, California's Song‑Beverly Credit Card Act ("Credit Card Act") provides:

(a)        Except as provided in subdivision (c), no person, firm, partnership, association, or corporation that accepts credit cards for the transaction of business shall do any of the following:

(1)        Request, or require as a condition to accepting the credit card as payment in full or in part for goods or services, the cardholder to write any personal identification information upon the credit card transaction form or otherwise.

(2)        Request, or require as a condition to accepting the credit card as payment in full or in part for goods or services, the cardholder to provide personal identification information, which the person, firm, partnership, association, or corporation accepting the credit card writes, causes to be written, or otherwise records upon the credit card transaction form or otherwise.

Cal. Civ. Code § 1747.08(a)(1)-(2).

Several courts have recently considered whether a Zone Improvement Plan code ("ZIP code") constitutes personal identification information.  For example, in Pineda v. Williams‑Sonoma Stores, 246 P.3d 612 (Cal. 2011), the California Supreme Court held that a business's act of requesting and recording a cardholder's ZIP code could violate the Credit Card Act and that the customer's ZIP code constituted personal identification information.  There, the court explained:

Section 1747.08, subdivision (a) provides, in pertinent part, "[N]o person, firm, partnership, association, or corporation that accepts credit cards for the transaction of business shall . . . : [¶] . . . [¶] (2) Request, or require as a condition to accepting the credit card as payment in full or in part for goods or services, the cardholder to provide personal identification information, which the person, firm, partnership, association, or corporation accepting the credit card writes, causes to be written, or otherwise records upon the credit card transaction form or otherwise." (§ 1747.08, subd. (a)(2), italics added.) Subdivision (b) defines personal identification information as "information concerning the cardholder, other than information set forth on the credit card, and including, but not limited to, the cardholder's address and telephone number."  (§ 1747.08, subd. (b).)  Because we must accept as true plaintiff's allegation that defendant requested and then recorded her ZIP code, the outcome of this case hinges on whether a cardholder's ZIP code, without more, constitutes personal identification information within the meaning of section 1747.08.  We hold that it does.

April 25, 2013

Fred Shackelford, Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group

At a baseball stadium, what duty of care is owed to spectators with respect to errant balls?  The Idaho Supreme Court recently addressed this issue in Rountree v. Boise Baseball, LLC, 296 P.3d 373 (Idaho 2013).  The plaintiff in Rountree lost an eye as a result of being struck by a baseball while he was in Memorial Stadium's "Executive Club" section, which was located at the very end of the third-base line. This area was one of the stadium's only sections that was not covered by vertical netting.

The Rountree court noted that the precise duty owed by stadium owners and operators to spectators injured by foul balls was a matter of first impression in Idaho. The court recognized that other courts have addressed the issue, stating:

The majority of jurisdictions to consider the issue have limited this duty by adopting some variation of the Baseball Rule. See generally James L. Rigelhaupt, Jr., Liability to Spectator at Baseball Game Who Is Hit by Ball or Injured as Result of Other Hazards of Game, 91 A.L.R.3d 24 (1979 & Supp.2003); Quinn v. Recreation Park Ass'n, 3 Cal.2d 725, 46 P.2d 144 (1935); Turner v. Mandalay Sports Entm't, LLC, 124 Nev. 213, 180 P.3d 1172 (2008); Lawson, 901 P.2d 1013 (Utah 1995); Bellezzo v. State, 174 Ariz. 548, 851 P.2d 847 (Ariz.App.1992); Akins v. Glens Falls City Sch. Dist., 53 N.Y.2d 325, 441 N.Y.S.2d 644, 424 N.E.2d 531 (1981); Arnold v. City of Cedar Rapids, 443 N.W.2d 332 (Iowa 1989); Anderson v. Kansas City Baseball Club, 231 S.W.2d 170 (Mo.1950); Cincinnati Baseball Club Co. v. Eno, 112 Ohio St. 175, 147 N.E. 86 (1925).

Though many variations exist, the most common formulation of the Baseball Rule is that stadium owners and operators must provide "screened seats [ ] for as many [spectators] as may be reasonably expected to call for them on any ordinary occasion." Quinn, 46 P.2d at 146; see also Rigelhaupt, supra, 91 A.L.R.3d 24 § 3[a]. The rationale behind this is put bluntly by the Eno Court: "it is common knowledge that in baseball games hard balls are thrown and batted with great swiftness" and "they are liable to be thrown or batted outside the lines of the diamond." Eno, 147 N.E. at 87. The Eno Court therefore concluded that "due care on the part on the management does not require all of the spectators to be screened in; that the management performs its duty toward the spectators when it provides screened seats in the grand stand and gives spectators the opportunity of occupying them." Id.

Id. at 377-78 (footnote omitted).

The court acknowledged that it had the authority to establish or limit existing tort duties. However, it declined to do so in this case, concluding that Idaho's existing premises liability principles provide an adequate framework for analyzing a stadium owner's duty of care.  Thus, a baseball fan at a stadium is an invitee, to whom the premises owner owes a duty to keep the premises in a reasonably safe condition or to warn of hidden or concealed dangers.

The court concluded that it was not necessary to establish a special rule for baseball stadiums or that if a special rule were necessary, then the legislature would be better equipped to do research and formulate one. The court reasoned as follows:

Boise Baseball admits that at least for "seven seasons[, Mr. Rountree's] accident is the only time a spectator has suffered a 'major' injury because of a foul ball" at Memorial Stadium. The rarity of these incidents weighs against crafting a special rule. There is no history of accidents that we can look to, and draw from, to sensibly create a rule. Furthermore, Boise Baseball has not provided any broader statistical evidence regarding the prevalence of foul ball injuries in general, and—assuming they are so prevalent—how varying stadium designs might prevent them. Without this information, drawing lines as to where a stadium owner's duty begins, where netting should be placed, and so on, becomes guesswork. These kinds of questions are appropriate for the Legislature because it "has the resources for the research, study and proper formulation of broad public policy." Anstine v. Hawkins, 92 Idaho 561, 563, 447 P.2d 677, 679 (1968). Declining to adopt the Baseball Rule leaves policy formulation to the deliberative body that is better positioned to consider the pros and cons of the issue.

April 25, 2013

John Stone, Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group

A tan Infinity hit an unoccupied car in a jewelry store parking lot. The Infinity was driven by a female and carried a male passenger. The driver inspected the car she had hit, spoke briefly with her male passenger, and then drove away without leaving any information. Someone witnessed the incident, took down the Infinity's license plate number, and reported these observations to the Colorado State Patrol.

Two troopers investigated the report, first by running a search on the license plate number of the Infinity and determining that it belonged to a Mr. Kaufman. They also checked the jewelry store's receipt records and found that Kaufman had made a purchase in the store a few minutes before the accident. When the troopers reached Kaufman by telephone, he agreed to allow them to speak with him at his residence later that day.

At the meeting, Kaufman asked the troopers to reveal what they had learned during their investigation. They declined to do so, except to tell Kaufman the name of the owner of the damaged car. Within the troopers' hearing, Kaufman then called the victim and offered to pay for the damage incurred by the victim. The troopers continued to question Kaufman, in particular asking him who had been driving his vehicle on the day of the accident. Citing "privilege," Kaufman declined to identify the driver of his vehicle.

Frustrated by Kaufman's silence, and after consulting a supervisor, one of the troopers presented Kaufman with a choice:  reveal the driver's identity or be arrested for obstruction of a peace officer.  Kaufman still declined to reveal the driver's identity and was arrested and taken to jail. The charges against him were eventually dropped by the local district attorney's office.

Kaufman filed suit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging violations of his Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights. The defendant troopers moved for summary judgment on the ground of qualified immunity. In opposition to the summary judgment motion, Kaufman argued that he had been subjected to a false arrest in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights, because Colorado's obstruction statute does not criminalize a refusal to answer police questions during a consensual encounter (as opposed to questions following a valid arrest). (Kaufman eventually dropped his argument that the defendants had infringed his Fifth Amendment rights by retaliating against him for having asserted his Fifth Amendment privilege.)

The district court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment, concluding that there had been no false arrest, because the troopers had had probable cause to believe that Kaufman's silence, accompanied by an assertion of privilege, constituted a violation of the obstruction statute.  Kaufman v. Higgs, Civ. Act. No. 10-cv-00632-LTB-MEH, 2011 WL 3268346 (D. Colo. July 29, 2011).  In an appeal by Kaufman, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the shield afforded by the qualified immunity defense was not available to the troopers, because their arrest of Kaufman for obstruction of a peace officer was objectively unreasonable under the facts of the case and established case law.  Kaufman v. Higgs, 697 F.3d 1297 (10th Cir. 2012).

April 10, 2013

Doug Plank, Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group

Since the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), it has been well settled that the Sixth Amendment guarantees to criminal defendants not simply the right to counsel but also the right to effective assistance of counsel.  Under Strickland, a violation of the right to counsel may be shown if the defendant demonstrates that (1) counsel made errors so serious that counsel was not functioning as the "counsel" guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment, and (2) the deficient performance prejudiced the defense. 

In Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52 (1985), the Court concluded that the Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel extends to the plea-bargaining process and that the test established in Strickland should be applied to the situation in which a defendant enters a guilty plea following plea negotiations.  Until recently, the Court had not found that Strickland should apply when plea negotiations resulted in a defendant's refusal to plead guilty.  However, in early 2012, in Lafler v. Cooper, 132 S. Ct. 1376 (2012), the Court squarely held for the first time that the test from Strickland should be used to judge defense counsel's advice during the plea negotiations, whatever the outcome, and stated that in the context of a plea offer that was rejected on advice of counsel, a defendant could establish prejudice with evidence that

but for the ineffective advice of counsel there is a reasonable probability that the plea offer would have been presented to the court (i.e., that the defendant would have accepted the plea and the prosecution would not have withdrawn it in light of intervening circumstances), that the court would have accepted its terms, and that the conviction or sentence, or both, under the offer's terms would have been less severe than under the judgment and sentence that in fact were imposed.

The Lawletter Vol 38 No 1

Anne Hemenway, Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group

Many considerations come into play before an entity or individual files for bankruptcy relief.  Included among them is the careful consideration the potential debtor must give to other nonbankruptcy claims or lawsuits to which it is, or may be in the future, a party.  If it goes forward as a debtor, it must avoid the pitfall of having the doctrine of judicial estoppel preclude it from seeking future relief in a nonbankruptcy court.

Judicial estoppel is an equitable doctrine applied at the discretion of the court.  New Hampshire v. Maine, 532 U.S. 742 (2001).  The primary purpose of the doctrine of judicial estoppel is to protect the integrity of the judicial process and to guard the judicial process against improper use.  Milton H. Greene Archives, Inc. v. Marilyn Monroe, LLC, 692 F.3d 983, 993 (9th Cir. 2012) (the doctrine is invoked because of "general considerations of the orderly administration of justice and regard for the dignity of judicial proceedings and to protect against a litigant playing fast and loose with the courts" (internal quotation marks omitted)).  The fundamental requirement for the application of judicial estoppel is that the party against whom estoppel is asserted must be assuming a position of fact inconsistent with a stance that that party has taken in prior litigation.  Bland v. Doubletree Hotel Downtown, Civ. No. 3:09CV272, 2010 WL 723805 (E.D. Va. Mar. 2, 2010).  Judicial estoppel is most often applied where in its schedules the debtor has failed to disclose assets or contingent assets to the bankruptcy court but then later pursues a known claim in state court.  In re Knight-Celotex, LLC, 695 F.3d 714 (7th Cir. 2012); Guay v. Burack, 677 F.3d 10 (1st Cir. 2012).

The specific elements of judicial estoppel are (1) the party to be estopped must be advancing an assertion that is inconsistent with a position taken during previous litigation; (2) the position must be one of fact instead of law; (3) the prior position must have been accepted by the court in the first proceeding; and (4) the party to be estopped must have acted intentionally and not inadvertently.  Love v. Tyson Foods, Inc., 677 F.3d 258 (8th Cir. 2012). Importantly, judicial estoppel requires that the party adopting the inconsistent positions must have acted with some intent in doing so.

In Bland, the court held that judicial estoppel applied where the debtor had failed to properly disclose a claim in her bankruptcy proceedings.  Even though the debtor had actually amended her petition to include the claim against the defendant hotel, she stated that the claim's value was only one dollar.  The court stated:

While the Court would be receptive to the conclusion that Bland neglected to initially include the Doubletree claim in the bankruptcy proceeding as a result of inadvertence where she amended her petition upon supposedly learning for the first time of the necessity for doing so, the Court cannot ignore or discount the undisputed fact that she valued the claim at such a negligible amount while seeking a bounty in this litigation.  The Court simply cannot tolerate such purposeful action.

2010 WL 723805, at *5.  The court held that the debtor's later Title VII claim against her employer was barred under the doctrine of judicial estoppel because of her failure to disclose the contingent or unliquidated claim in her bankruptcy case and because her actions were not inadvertent.