Justin Bartz v. Columbia County, Wisconsin — 7th Cir. (Oct 30, 2026)

The Fourth Circuit hears a challenge to the Army Corps of Engineers' approval of the Point Farm Mitigation Bank in coastal South Carolina. Mitigation banks provide credits developers can use to compensate for permitted wetland damage elsewhere. The plaintiffs say this bank generates credits by preserving marsh that already had legal protection. So, in their view, the credits do not provide a real environmental offset. The government disputes that premise. The district court dismissed the suit for lack of standing, treating construction-related harms as over and future development harms as too speculative. Standing requires a concrete personal injury connected to the challenged approval that a court can remedy. The plaintiffs will argue that ongoing credit sales still threaten wetlands they use and enjoy. The government will argue that those concerns depend on hypothetical projects, and that reversing this approval would not remedy the claimed harm. The appeal is about who can bring suit, not yet whether the bank was lawfully approved.

The Fourth Circuit considers whether Timothy Guess can bring another challenge to his federal sentence after receiving a sentence reduction. A judge shortened his prison term but did not give him the full reduction he requested. The order he received did not explain the judge's reasons, a problem noted in the earlier appeal of that reduction. Section twenty-two fifty-five allows federal prisoners to challenge the legality of their convictions or sentences. But strict rules limit second or successive motions. The judges will explore two different ideas: whether a later reduction creates a new judgment, and whether a newly arising claim should count as a repeat challenge. Guess seeks to have his proposed motion treated as a first motion. This hearing concerns whether the motion can proceed, not whether its underlying challenge should win.

The Ninth Circuit hears a prisoner's appeal concerning his return to prison after surgery at an outside hospital. He says he had trouble breathing and was coughing up blood, but the transport officers refused his requests for more medical care. His attempts to complain then ran into two different grievance systems. The health care process rejected his complaint as belonging in the custody process; that process rejected his later grievance and appeal as late. The trial court ended the lawsuit without deciding the medical-care allegations, finding he had not exhausted administrative remedies. Exhaustion means completing the required internal grievance and appeals process before going to court. Under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, only remedies that are actually available must be exhausted. The prisoner will argue that rejections and confusing directions left him without an available path to follow. The officer will argue he could still have used custody review and timely appealed, but did not complete its steps.

The Fourth Circuit considers a damages claim arising from a mistaken arrest in a federal drug investigation. DEA agents traced a vehicle they were watching to the plaintiff through its registration, then wrongly identified him as the person they had seen. His lawsuit says he spent about three weeks in jail, lost two jobs, and the charges were later dismissed. He sued the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act, a law allowing certain damages claims for federal employees' negligence. The district court dismissed his remaining claim under the discretionary-function exception. That exception protects certain government policy judgments, even when officials abuse their discretion. The plaintiff will argue that the misidentification reflected careless inattention, not a protected policy choice. The government will argue that the claim challenges the kind of investigative judgment the exception protects. The judges also ask what the district judge had to address after the plaintiff objected to a magistrate judge's recommendation of dismissal.

The Ninth Circuit considers whether a consumer class action against the CreditNinja companies belongs in federal or state court. The plaintiff sued in California state court, seeking restitution, or money returned, and a public injunction aimed at protecting the public. The companies moved the suit to federal court, but the district judge sent it back to state court. Two different legal obstacles matter. Federal equitable rules can bar restitution when an ordinary damages remedy would adequately address the injury. That adequate-remedy-at-law objection can be waived by the defendant; it is not the same as the federal court's basic power to hear a case. But the trial judge also found the plaintiff lacked standing to pursue the public injunction, a separate obstacle that waiver does not automatically resolve. The lawyers will debate whether the money claim can stay in federal court while the request for an injunction goes elsewhere, and whether a single claim can be split between two courts.