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DOUG GOODMAN,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
COMMERCIAL BANK AND TRUST COMPANY,
Defendant-Appellee. |
No. 22-5238 |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee at Jackson.
No. 1:21-cv-01003—S. Thomas Anderson, District Judge.
Argued: January 11, 2023
Decided and Filed: June 26, 2023
Before: KETHLEDGE, READLER, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.
_________________________
OPINION
_________________________
CHAD A. READLER, Circuit Judge. Under Tennessee’s version of the Uniform
Commercial Code, when is a bank entitled to a remedy (here, restitution) from a payee for
mistakenly paying a negotiable instrument (here, a check)? And when does a payee take a check
in “good faith” and “for value,” enabling the payee to defend against a payor bank’s claim for
restitution? Those questions are posed here, as they were before the district court. At summary
judgment, the district court held that two checks cashed at Commercial Bank and Trust were paid
to Doug Goodman by “mistake” within the meaning of Tenn. Code Ann. § 47-3-418(b), and that
Goodman could not demonstrate that he took the checks in good faith and for value, see id. § 47-
3-418(c), entitling the Bank to restitution. We agree and thus affirm. |
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JAMES HARRISON FOX; SCOTT DAVID PERREAULT,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
HEIDI E. WASHINGTON, Director of the Michigan
Department of Corrections (MDOC),
Defendant-Appellee |
No. 21-1694 |
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Michigan at Grand Rapids.
No. 1:13-cv-01003—Phillip J. Green, Magistrate Judge.
Argued: April 5, 2023
Decided and Filed: June 26, 2023
Before: SUTTON, Chief Judge; GRIFFIN and STRANCH, Circuit Judges.
_________________________
OPINION
_________________________
Plaintiffs are adherents to Christian Identity, a religion that is “explicitly racist.” Fox v.
Washington, 949 F.3d 270, 273 (6th Cir. 2020). In its view, Caucasians are “God’s chosen
people.” Id. at 274 (internal quotation marks omitted). After the Michigan Department of
Corrections refused to recognize Christian Identity as a religion for purposes of the Michigan
prison system, plaintiffs brought this declaratory judgment action under the Religious Land Use
and Institutionalized Person Act of 2000, 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc et seq. (RLUIPA), requesting that
the Department be directed to recognize Christian Identity as a religion. The district court
affirmed the Department’s denial, and plaintiffs appealed.
In Fox, we held that plaintiffs satisfied the first two parts of the three-part RLUIPA test,
but we remanded to the district court for the Department to sustain its “heavy burden” under a
strict scrutiny analysis to show that its refusal to recognize Christian Identity as a religion
furthered a compelling governmental interest, and, if so, that its denial was the least restrictive
means of furthering such a compelling interest. 949 F.3d at 283.
On remand, the district court concluded that the Department met its burden and that
refusing to recognize Christian Identity was the least restrictive means to ensure its compelling
governmental interest. We disagree and hold that the Department failed to satisfy its burden of
showing that its denial of recognition was the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling
governmental interest. Alternatives, other than to simply accept or reject recognition, were
available and included in the Department’s policies, but never considered by it.
Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the district court and remand for entry of
judgment in plaintiffs’ favor. |
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
JARON HOWARD MORGAN,
Defendant-Appellant. |
No. 22-1445 |
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Michigan at Grand Rapids.
No. 1:21-cr-00061-1—Paul Lewis Maloney, District Judge.
Decided and Filed: June 26, 2023
Before: SUTTON, Chief Judge; BATCHELDER and STRANCH, Circuit Judges.
_________________________
OPINION
_________________________
SUTTON, Chief Judge. Early on a February morning in Lansing, Michigan, an officer
noticed a man, later determined to be Jaron Morgan, seemingly passed out at the wheel of a
stopped, still running, car. Without knocking on the car door, shining a flashlight into the car, or
otherwise trying to arouse Morgan, the officer opened the car door and asked Morgan whether
everything was okay. Morgan was groggy, and the officer asked for his identification. An
altercation ensued. The officer arrested Morgan and found a firearm in the car and drugs on him,
prompting a criminal indictment. The district court denied Morgan’s motion to suppress under
the Fourth Amendment based on the community-caretaking doctrine, Morgan conditionally
pleaded guilty, and the court sentenced him to 204 months. We reverse the district court’s denial
of the motion to suppress. |
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