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GARY WATKINS,
Petitioner-Appellant,
v.
GEORGE STEPHENSON, Warden,
Respondent-Appellee. |
No. 21-2914 |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan at Detroit.
No. 2:10-cv-13199—Arthur J. Tarnow, District Judge.
Decided and Filed: January 13, 2023
Before: KETHLEDGE, READLER, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.
_________________________
OPINION
_________________________
MURPHY, Circuit Judge. When a state prisoner seeks to amend a habeas petition filed
in federal court, the prisoner often will encounter a problem: the one-year statute of limitations
will have expired by the time of the amendment. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1). If the prisoner
timely filed the original petition, this problem may not be insurmountable. Under Federal Rule
of Civil Procedure 15(c)(1)(B), the amended petition will “relate[] back to the date” of the
original petition as long as the new claims arose from the same “conduct, transaction, or
occurrence” as the old ones. But sometimes a court will dismiss a prisoner’s original petition on
procedural grounds, and the prisoner will seek to file a new petition in a later suit. Can the
petition in the new suit “relate back to the date” of the petition in the dismissed suit, such that
Rule 15 allows the prisoner to rely on that earlier date to determine the new suit’s timeliness?
Gary Watkins’s appeal in this habeas case raises that question. Like every other circuit
court to address it, we hold that Rule 15 does not apply across cases in this fashion. And our
prior decision in this case forecloses Watkins’s other attempts to establish the timeliness of his
amended petition. See Watkins v. Deangelo-Kipp, 854 F.3d 846, 849–52 (6th Cir. 2017).
We thus affirm the district court’s dismissal of his petition. |
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WESTFIELD NATIONAL INSURANCE COMPANY (21-6026);
MOTORISTS MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY (21-6043),
Plaintiffs-Appellees,
v.
QUEST PHARMACEUTICALS, INC.,
Defendant-Appellant. |
Nos. 21-6026/6043 |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky at Paducah.
Nos. 5:19-cv-00083; 5:19-cv-00187—Thomas B. Russell, District Judge.
Argued: October 20, 2022
Decided and Filed: January 13, 2023
Before: COLE, GIBBONS, and BUSH, Circuit Judges.
_________________________
OPINION
_________________________
COLE, Circuit Judge. In the wake of a nationwide opioid epidemic, aggrieved
individuals, local governments, and other organizations are taking pharmaceutical companies to
task for their allegedly wrongful conduct in promoting and distributing prescription opioids.
Quest Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (“Quest”), a Kentucky-based distributor of generic drugs, now finds
itself on the receiving end of approximately 77 such lawsuits. Quest reported the litigation to its
insurers, Westfield National Insurance Co. (“Westfield”) and Motorists Mutual Insurance Co.
(“Motorists”), who promptly filed suit in federal court and sought declaratory judgments that
they were not required to defend or indemnify Quest in the underlying lawsuits. The district
court granted summary judgment to the insurers, reasoning that the relevant policy language,
which requires the insurers to defend Quest in lawsuits seeking damages “because of bodily
injury,” did not cover the claims brought against Quest. After its motion for reconsideration was
denied, Quest timely appealed and the cases were consolidated for argument and opinion.
Because we agree with the district court’s interpretation of the policies’ scope under Kentucky
law, we affirm. |
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NIKKI BOLLINGER GRAE, et al.,
Plaintiffs,
v.
CORRECTIONS CORPORATION OF AMERICA, nka
CoreCivic; DAMON T. HININGER; DAVID M.
GARFINKLE; TODD J. MULLENGER; HARLEY G. LAPPIN,
Director,
Defendants-Appellees,
MARIE NEWBY,
Intervenor-Appellant,
EDDIE TARDY,
Proposed Intervenor. |
No. 22-5312 |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee at Nashville.
No. 3:16-cv-02267—Aleta Arthur Trauger, District Judge.
Argued: November 15, 2022
Decided and Filed: January 13, 2023
Before: BATCHELDER, GIBBONS, and THAPAR, Circuit Judges.
_________________________
ORDER
_________________________
THAPAR, Circuit Judge. What started as a securities-fraud action against Corrections
Corporation of America (now known as CoreCivic) has turned into a quest for documents. Eddie
Tardy seeks to intervene and unseal documents that CoreCivic produced during discovery.
Because he lacks standing, we deny his motion. |
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