Sarah Baldwin*

Photo Credit: https://wlflegalpulse.com/2015/10/01/eleventh-circuit-has-opportunity-in-u-s-v-clay-to-reshape-prosecutors-courts-approach-on-criminal-intent/

On September 13, 2018, the Eleventh Circuit concluded that the district court did not err in holding that Valencia College did not violate Jeffery Koeppel’s statutory or constitutional rights when it suspended him for his conduct towards another student.  During the summer of 2014 Koeppel and a female student, whom the court referred to as Jane Roe, were assigned to be biology lab partners at Valencia College, a public university in Florida.  As the semester went on, Koeppel began to contact Roe outside of class and eventually told her he was attracted to her.  Roe told Koeppel she was not interested and she was already in a relationship.  Roe and Koeppel finished the summer semester with no further issues.

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Mollie Beth Amick*

Photo Credit: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/sandeep-prasad/canadas-abortion-myth_b_8198478.html

In West Alabama Women’s Center v. Williamson, the Eleventh Circuit struck down a recent Alabama statute that banned dilation and evacuation abortions, holding that the law represented an unconstitutional restriction on a woman’s right to an abortion.

The plaintiff clinics filed suit on behalf of their present and future patients, claiming the Act was unconstitutional on its face. The Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act, passed in 2016, made it unlawful for a medical practitioner to “purposely perform or attempt to perform a dismemberment abortion and thereby kill an unborn child unless necessary to prevent serious health risk to the unborn child’s mother.” Put more simply, the Act would require medical practitioners to end the life of a fetus before dismembering that fetus. Violation of this prohibition would be “punishable by up to two years imprisonment and fines of $10,000.”

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Daniel Moss*

Photo Credits: http://www.libertylawsite.org/2016/12/15/the-judicial-supremacy-of-dead-justices/#comment-1506547

On August 28, 2018, the Cumberland School of Law chapter of the Federalist Society hosted a panel discussion entitled “State Judges, Federal Courts, and Judicial Supremacy: Constitutionality of Roy Moore’s Removals.”  The Federalist Society held the discussion in the John L. Carroll Moot Courtroom at Cumberland School of Law.  Both law students and faculty attended the discussion and had the opportunity to ask questions of the panelists.

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Alex Sidwell

Photo Credit: http://www.proudpak.pk/insurance-in-pakistan/

Billy Fleming went to the emergency room on June 11, 2013, complaining of severe abdominal pain.  Following nonsurgical treatment, his physicians scheduled a colectomy, the removal of all or part of the colon.  Blue Advantage, the company in charge of Fleming’s employee health-insurance coverage, determined that nonsurgical treatment was appropriate, denied coverage of the surgery, and told Fleming to go to the emergency room if his pain worsened.  Fleming returned to the emergency room on July 15, 2013, where he appeared in distress.  Fleming died on July 16, 2013, and an autopsy showed his cause of death was “septic shock” resulting from a ruptured intestine.

Douglas Ghee, on behalf of Fleming’s estate, sued Blue Advantage for the wrongful death of Fleming caused by medical malpractice. Blue Advantage moved to dismiss the claim on the ground that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”) preempted the wrongful death claim. ERISA is a federal law that regulates the operation of a health insurance benefit plan if an employer provides one for its employees. The trial court agreed with Blue Advantage and dismissed the wrongful death claim, ruling that the claim was preempted by ERISA. Ghee appealed to the Alabama Supreme Court on October 26, 2016.

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Brenton Thompson

Photo Credit: https://www.mdlinx.com/internal-medicine/article/3029

The Alabama Medical Liability Act controls medical malpractice actions brought against “health care providers” for medical injuries. Under the AMLA, a medical-malpractice plaintiff must prove “by substantial evidence” (1) the appropriate standard of care, (2) a breach of that standard by the health-care provider, and (3) a proximate causal connection between the health-care provider’s breach and the plaintiff’s injuries.

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Xan Ingram

On Tuesday, April 17, 2018, the Supreme Court ruled in Sessions v. Dimaya that a portion of the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”) was unconstitutional.  Delivering the opinion of the Court, Justice Kagan explained that the result was dictated by Johnson v. United States.  The Court, in both cases, held that residual clauses defining criminal conduct were void for vagueness.

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