Short Circuit: An inexhaustive weekly compendium of rulings from the federal courts of appeal

Sensitive places, reasonable arguments, and volcanic fiduciary relationships.

Please enjoy the latest edition of Short Circuit, a weekly feature written by a bunch of people at the Institute for Justice.

New case: Last year, Portland, Me. police sent SWAT to apprehend a teen suspected of stealing cologne and shoes from a house party, even though the teen had no history of violence or anti-police animus. But then, bad to worse, SWAT officers jumped out on the wrong kid, handcuffing him at gunpoint and marching him around in front of schoolmates—even though they knew immediately they had the wrong guy (no tattoos, wrong hairstyle, etc. etc.). Click here to learn more.

New on the Short Circuit podcast: a punch up at a bachelorette party and the start of #12Months12Circuits. This time: Circuit the First.

1. The Herzogs, a prominent Jewish family, fled Hungary when Germany invaded in 1944. Their art collection was one of Europe's great private collections, including masterpieces by El Greco, Renoir, and Monet, but it was confiscated by the Nazis. The family scattered across the globe and began their eight-decade struggle to recover their art, much of which remains on exhibit in Hungarian museums (and some identified by tag as "From the Herzog Collection"). They're now on their fourth trip to the D.C. Circuit (after visits in 2013, 2017, and 2022), which delivers the bad news that U.S. courts lack jurisdiction over the family's claims.
2. Federal law penalizes "conscious, voluntary, and culpable" participation in a third party's terrorist activities, says the D.C. Circuit, which is bad news for these defendant companies alleged to have paid bribes to a Shiite militia in Iraq and to have supplied the militia with off-the-books medical supplies that were then sold on the black market, earning revenues that were used to harm Americans. Case undismissed.
3. In this suit by sons of hall of famer Roberto Clemente against various Puerto Rican officials over use of their father's name, you'll need to get past a full nine innings of baseball metaphors before the First Circuit allows some claims to go forward.
4. Eleven residents of Rockport, Mass. are most unhappy about the town's decision to allow more housing to be built, something the town says it has to do to comply with state law. They sue, claiming the zoning change did not have the required two-thirds majority and also "affect[ed] sharply" their property values. First Circuit: And you're in federal court because? No Article III standing for you.
5. What do you call an argument that a circuit court has never addressed but that is supported by eight state supreme court rulings (including one in the same circuit) and that was accepted by one of three circuit judges (in a 28-page dissent) and then garnered three votes for cert? Second Circuit (unpublished): You call it "by definition not frivolous." Grant of attorneys' fees to this eminent domain-abusing town is reversed. [This is an IJ case.]
6. Criminal defendant: Yes, the gov't proved there was a conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the United States. And, yes, the gov't proved that I entered the avionics compartment of an airplane to retrieve something that I likely knew was illegal. But they didn't prove I knew it was narcotics. Second Circuit (over a dissent): You're right. Remanded for entry of acquittal.
7. If you need a summary of the history of minor league baseball teams bargaining with their MLB superiors, look no further than this Third Circuit opinion concerning the San Francisco Giants, the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes, and Florida non-profit law. Did the head of the minor league clubs' association sell the Volcanoes and various other teams down the river when it and MLB restructured their relationship a few years ago? Doesn't matter, as they shared no fiduciary relationship.
8. In 2025, the Trump administration froze/terminated a slew of gov't grants related to "environmental justice" or DEI programs. Grant recipients sue, and a district court preliminarily enjoins the freeze/termination. Fourth Circuit: Reversed. Some of these claims should have been brought in the Court of Federal Claims, while others are barred by sovereign immunity.
9. Maryland bans guns in certain "sensitive places," including government buildings, healthcare facilities, public transportation, schools, in vehicles within 1,000 feet of a public demonstration, casinos, places that sell booze, and private property held open to the public. Which of these bans violate the Second Amendment? Fourth Circuit: None except that last one. Dissent: Actually, all of them except government buildings, schools, and healthcare facilities.
10. Doctor: HHS should reconsider giving me an Adverse Action Report about a bad appendectomy, based on new evidence. HHS: You're not eligible for reconsideration.  HHS Regulations: Yes he is. HHS (now on appeal): Akshually, we did examine the evidence and denied your claim on the merits. Fifth Circuit: In court agencies must defend their actual reasons given, not post hoc justifications; do it over. Concurrence/Dissent: This guy was pro se below and kind of a mess, we should give the district court another chance now that he has real lawyers.
11. The dangers of AI in law are a hot topic, and this Seventh Circuit opinion on the perils of AI for pro se litigants is another rumination to add to the mix. More gratifying for some, though, is the court's vacatur of the lower court's Younger abstention ruling.
12. Woman calls her mother to say that a man—her foe in a years-long legal dispute—was at her Kansas City, Kan. house, trying to kill her and her husband. Police arrive, find the couple shot to death. They set their sights on the woman's foe. Yet no evidence linked him to the deaths, either at his home or theirs. He's convicted anyway. A decade later, the state finally gets around to testing gunshot residue swabs, which reveal gunshot residue on the woman's hand. Further investigation uncovers that a snitch's testimony was bogus and a boatload of exculpatory evidence was missing from the case files. He's released—and dies just a few months later. Tenth Circuit: No qualified immunity for the two lead investigators.
13. "The Securities and Exchange Commission ('SEC') filed a complaint that was repugnant to every Federal Rule of Civil Procedure governing the filing of complaints in the United States District Courts," says Eleventh Circuit Senior Judge Gerald Bard Tjoflat, dissenting in a securities fraud case that your summarist—a full 50 years younger than his honor—lacks the energy to read, let alone opine on for 69 pages.
14. And in en banc news, the Tenth Circuit will reconsider its decision concerning the resentencing process that follows a revocation of probation. The court is considering whether to overturn a 2022 case and a bunch of sentencing-guideline issues that remind us it's good that Short Circuit staff don't practice criminal procedure.

Bad news: After two trips to the South Carolina Supreme Court, IJ's longest-running active case closes on a sour note. We'd challenged a law written by the optometrists' association specifically designed to outlaw one competitor—our client, who offered perfectly safe and effective online vision tests. (Slideshows feature our client's name with a big red circle and cross through it.) The state declined to defend the law in court, but optometrists themselves stepped in. And sadly, the South Carolina Supremes broke with other states like Georgia and North Carolina that have recently declared that economic liberty gets more protection under their state constitutions than the federal one. Click here to learn more.