The Sixth Circuit is sitting for oral arguments (and taking a lot cases under submission just on the briefs) the weeks of November 18 and December 2, 2014. The Court has 153 cases listed on its docket including two in which it will sit en banc.
As usual, the biggest single class of cases are sentencing appeals following guilty pleas in criminal cases; there are 36 of these such cases (23.5% of the total). Nearly all of these raise issues of whether the advisory sentencing guidelines were applied correctly by the district court.
The next most numerous category is a miscellaneous amalgam of cases raising issues under the Affordable Care Act, the Federal Tort Claims Act, copyright law, Railway Labor Act, Fair Credit Act, National Labor Relations Act, the Americans With Disabilities Act and the like. In 16 cases, a plaintiff appeals a summary judgment granted an employer in employment cases arising under the Family Medical Leave Act, Fair Labor Standards Act, Title VII, ADEA and/or labor law. 9 cases are appeals in habeas corpus cases.
4 appeals follow from civil jury trials, three won by plaintiffs in employment discrimination (Perry v. Autozone Stores), defamation and various other torts (Armstrong v. Shirvell) and SOX whistleblower cases (Rhinehimer v US Bancorp).
11 appeals follow from criminal jury trials including one from a major methamphetamine trial in the London division of the Eastern District of Kentucky, United States v. Russell Collins, et al, Nos. 12-6263, 6512, 6617.
The two en banc cases are sure, given the seemingly intractable divisions on the Sixth Circuit, to reach results directly opposite from the initial panel decisions. One case, Hill v Curtin, No 12-2528, granted a writ of habeas corpus and ordered a new trial based on a state court trial judge's failure to conduct an adequate Faretta v California colloquy with the defendant after he announced that he wished to represent himself.
The other en banc case, EEOC v Ford Motor Company, reversed a summary judgment granted Ford and ruled that telecommuting could be a reasonable accommodation for an employee with a disability under the Americans With Disabilities Act. In this case, Judge McKeague's dissent from the initial panel decision will likely become the en banc majority opinion (assuming he does not elect to defer to Judge Sutton, the usual author of the en banc opinions from the court's conservative majority) but hopefully will not blossom into a ruling limiting unduly the accommodations that may be deemed reasonable under the ADA.
