Ten Most Significant

Judge Sotomayor has served for 17 years on the federal bench – participating in more than 3,000 rulings during her 11 years on the Second Circuit and ruling on 450 cases during her six years as a District Court Judge. Throughout her career, Judge Sotomayor has demonstrated a record of judicial excellence and, for each case that comes before her, has narrowly applied the law to the facts of the case. A sampling of her most significant cases are below.

Silverman v. Major League Baseball Player Relations Committee, Inc., 880 F. Supp. 246 (S.D.N.Y. 1995): When the National Labor Relations Board alleged that the major league baseball owners engaged in unfair labor practices during the 1994-1995 players strike, Judge Sotomayor issued a preliminary injunction against the major league owners, ordering them to restore the terms and conditions of employment provided under their most recent agreement with the players. Judge Sotomayor concluded that the National Labor Relations Board, which brought the action against the owners, had reasonable cause to believe that the owners committed unfair labor practices when they revoked the salary arbitration clause and the free agency anticollusive provision in their most recent agreement with the players absent a good faith impasse. She found that the injunction was just and proper based due to the possible harm to the public, the players, and the NLRB, and her opinion was affirmed by the Second Circuit. United States v. Quattrone, 402 F.3d 304 (2d Cir. 2005): In a high-profile federal criminal trial of a former bank executive, the district court prohibited the media from publishing the names of the jurors, in order to ensure an orderly trial. On appeal, Judge Sotomayor wrote the opinion for a unanimous panel, striking down the district’s court order as an unjustified prior restraint on expression in violation of the Free Speech and Free Press Clauses of the First Amendment. Although sensitive to the district court’s attempt to protect the fairness of the criminal trial, Judge Sotomayor wrote, “the freedom of speech and press invariably must inform a court’s choice of remedy.” Judge Sotomayor reasoned that the order unnecessarily infringed both the right against prior restraints on speech and the right to report freely on events that transpire in an open courtroom.

Ford v. McGinnis, 352 F.3d 582 (2d Cir. 2003): A prison inmate brought a First Amendment challenge against corrections officials, alleging that the refusal to serve a religious feast in a high-security area infringed his religious rights. The district court rejected the free exercise claim, granting the corrections officials’ motion for summary judgment, and the inmate appealed. Judge Sotomayor, writing for a unanimous panel, reversed the district court and ruled that the relevant question was whether the prisoner sincerely held the belief of the feast’s religious significance, rather than the objective validity of the religious belief.

United States v. Falso, 544 F.3d 110 (2d Cir. 2008): In this case involving crimes related to child pornography and intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct with minors, Judge Sotomayor wrote the opinion upholding the use of evidence found in a search of the defendant’s home, even though the search warrant was not supported by probable cause. The district court had previously denied the defendant’s motion to suppress evidence seized from his home and computer pursuant to a search warrant and statements he made to Federal Bureau of Investigation agents. Judge Sotomayor wrote the opinion affirming the defendant’s conviction, concluding that while the search warrant was not supported by probable cause, the motion to suppress was nevertheless properly denied because the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applied. She explained that the good-faith exception applied because the judge that issued the search warrant was not knowingly misled and the affidavit in support of the warrant was not so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render reliance unreasonable. In a separate order, the Court of Appeals unanimously held that the district court properly denied the defendant’s motion to suppress his statements to the FBI agents.

Clarett v. National Football League, 369 F.3d 124 (2d Cir. 2004): A college football player sued the NFL, arguing that an NFL rule that limited eligibility for the NFL entry draft to players who were three full college football seasons removed from high school graduation constituted an unreasonable restraint of trade in violation of section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act and section 4 of the Clayton Act. The district court entered summary judgment in favor of the player, and the NFL appealed. On appeal, Judge Sotomayor wrote the unanimous opinion reversing the district court’s judgment and remanding it with directions to enter judgment in favor of the NFL. Judge Sotomayor held that the NFL’s eligibility rules are immune from antitrust scrutiny under the non-statutory labor exemption, a long-recognized rule that, in order to accommodate the collective bargaining process, mandates that certain concerted activity among and between labor and employers is beyond the reach of the antitrust laws.

In re NYSE Specialists Securities Litigation, 503 F.3d 89 (2d Cir. 2007): Investors filed class actions under federal securities laws, alleging that the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) failed to adequately monitor and police trading by its floor-trading firms, and made misrepresentations about the market’s integrity. The district court dismissed the claims, and the investors appealed. Judge Sotomayor, writing for a unanimous panel, held that although the NYSE was entitled to absolute immunity from liability based on its alleged regulatory failure to take action against the firms’ conduct, the investors had standing to bring their Rule 10b-5 claim for the NYSE’s alleged misrepresentations and the Court remanded for proceedings consistent with its decision.

Farrell v. Burke, 449 F.3d 470 (2d Cir. 2006): A former parolee, who had been convicted of sexual crimes involving minors, sued his parole officers, alleging that they violated his constitutional rights by imposing and enforcing a special condition of parole that prohibited his possession of “pornographic material.” Judge Sotomayor, writing for a unanimous panel, affirmed the district court’s judgment in favor of the defendants. She explained that even if the term “pornography” is inherently vague, the materials the plaintiff possessed - which contained sexually explicit pictures and lurid descriptions of sex between men and boys - fit within “any reasonable understanding of the term [pornography].” She concluded that the plaintiff could not demonstrate that the no-pornography condition threatened to chill the exercise of substantial constitutionally protected conduct.

Shi Liang Lin v. United States Department of Justice, 494 F.3d 296 (2d Cir. 2007) (en banc): Three men, whose respective girlfriends and fiancée allegedly were victimized by China’s family planning policies, appealed the decisions of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) denying their applications for asylum. The Second Circuit ordered a hearing en banc to consider the BIA’s rationale for extending a per se presumption of persecution to spouses, but not to non-married partners, of individuals who had been involuntarily subjected to an abortion or sterilization. The Second Circuit held that the statute providing refugee status to applicants who had undergone forced abortions or involuntary sterilization does not provide those applicants’ spouses, boyfriends, or fiancés with automatic eligibility for refugee status. Judge Sotomayor’s opinion concurring in the judgment argued that, because the cases before the Court involved only unmarried petitioners, it was inappropriate for the majority to opine on whether its holding extended to spouses.

Croll v. Croll, 229 F.3d 133 (2d Cir. 2000): A father sought an order compelling his wife to return their minor child to Hong Kong under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, implemented by the International Child Abduction Remedies Act. The district court entered judgment in favor of the father and issued the order. On appeal, the majority held that the district court lacked jurisdiction to order the return of the child to Hong Kong because a ne exeat provision in a Hong Kong custody order did not confer “rights of custody” on either the father or the Hong Kong court. Judge Sotomayor dissented, arguing that the ne exeat clause gave “rights of custody” to the father within the meaning of the Hague Convention and the father’s petition to return the child to Hong Kong therefore should have been granted. Judge Sotomayor concluded that the mother had breached the father’s right of custody by removing the child from Hong Kong without the consent of the father or the Hong Kong court.

United States v. Real Property Known as 77 East 3rd Street, New York, NY, No. 85 Civ. 3351, 849 F. Supp. 876 (S.D.N.Y. 1994); 869 F. Supp. 1042 (S.D.N.Y. 1994); 1994 WL 4288 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 4, 1994); 1994 WL 4276 (Jan. 4, 1994): This civil action was brought by the government seeking forfeiture of a building in Manhattan because the New York City Chapter of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club allegedly used it to store and distribute narcotics. Following an approximately five-week trial, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the claimants, finding that they had proven, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the Building, was not used, or intended to be used, to commit, or to facilitate the commission of, a felony drug violation during the relevant time period. Judge Sotomayor issued two published opinions in connection with this action – one granting the government’s motion to impanel an anonymous jury in light of the Club members’ history of violence and one denying the government’s post-trial motion for judgment as a matter of law or for a new trial – and two unpublished opinions in favor of the government on pre-trial motions.