In this special live episode, Mark and Kian are hosted by the Federalist Society chapter of the Indiana University McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis. This episode is an appellate procedure extravaganza, with our hosts managing to cover four separate cases in under an hour – Gilbank v. Wood County Department of Human Services (a split en banc decision on the Rooker-Feldman doctrine), Indiana Green Party v. Morales (a First Amendment challenge to Indiana ballot-access rules), World Seed Church v. Village of Hazel Crest (a discussion of mootness, standing, and Rule 60(b)), and Vanegas v. Signet Builders (a split panel opinion discussing how personal jurisdiction applies to collective actions under the Fair Labor Standards Act).

In this month’s podcast, Kian and Mark address two cases dealing with two completely different but equally complex areas of federal law: securities litigation and Medicaid.

In Alcarez v. Akorn, the Court examined the avenues of federal review of so-called “mootness fees” in securities litigation. These fees arise when securities plaintiffs sue over lack of disclosures but the case is rendered moot when the company later provides the disclosure. Mootness fees then sometimes become part of the settlement of the now moot litigation. Alcarez provides a roadmap for how shareholders may intervene and oppose the payment of these fees.

The second case – Saint Anthony Hospital v. Whitehorn – came back to the Seventh Circuit on remand from the Supreme Court. The opinion addressed whether a hospital could invoke Section 1983 against state regulators to compel them to enforce timely payment by managed care organizations. It provides an in-depth examination of when plaintiffs may bring Section 1983 claims to enforce federal statutes enacted under the Spending Clause.

Mark and Kian return to discuss two of the Seventh Circuit's March 2024 opinions.

In Garrick v. Moody Bible Institute, a split 2-1 panel (Judge St. Eve writing and joined by Judge Hamilton, with Judge Brennan dissenting) refused to exercise appellate jurisdiction over a district court order rejecting a motion to dismiss that was based on the church autonomy doctrine. Because they do not end the proceedings, decisions denying motions to dismiss are interlocutory and thus generally not immediately appealable. Under the collateral order doctrine, however, federal appellate courts will hear an appeal from an interlocutory order where the order is conclusive, resolves important questions separate from the merits, and is effectively unreviewable on appeal from the final judgment. The orders that fall into this category often involve "immunities" – such as prosecutorial immunity, sovereign immunity, and qualified immunity. The defendant in this case argued that the church autonomy doctrine recognizes an immunity that triggers the collateral order doctrine. Judge Brennan agreed, but the majority held otherwise, concluding that the church autonomy doctrine does not "confer immunity from trial in every employment discrimination suit."

The second case, Gerlach v. Rokita, addresses a different sort of immunity – sovereign immunity. The plaintiff argued that the State of Indiana violated the Takings Clause by failing to compensate her for interest accrued on her unclaimed property while that property was held by the State. While the unanimous panel acknowledged that the Seventh Circuit has previously held that the Takings Clause requires paying such interest, it rejected the plaintiff's claim: It held that the plaintiff's claims for "monetary relief for past Takings Clause violations ... are, in effect, claims against the State of Indiana itself and thus barred" by "Indiana’s sovereign immunity."