United States v. California, et al. — 9th Cir. (Oct 25, 2026)

The Second Circuit considers who should receive the money from two five-million-dollar life insurance policies on Russel Mechling. He joined an arrangement called Oceanus that financed the policies and obtained an option to take them over. His wife received several hundred thousand dollars in connection with the arrangement. The investor later acquired the policies’ beneficial interest, and U.S. Bank acted as a securities intermediary, holding assets for its customer rather than for itself. After Mechling died, his estate sued the bank and the investor, FCI Cayman, to recover the death benefits. It alleges stranger-originated life insurance, or STOLI: insurance arranged from the outset for investors to benefit from a stranger’s death, rather than later resale of a policy genuinely obtained for insurance needs. The estate invokes Wisconsin’s insurable-interest law. An insurable interest is a recognized family or financial stake in the insured person’s continued life. Section six thirty-one point oh seven does not automatically invalidate a policy lacking that interest. Instead, it permits a court to redirect proceeds to someone equitably entitled to them. Whether that includes this estate is disputed. The district court entered summary judgment for the defendants, resolving the claim without a trial. It relied on unclean hands: a doctrine that can deny equitable relief because of a claimant’s own wrongdoing connected to the transaction. The estate challenges both the assessment of Mechling’s conduct and the use of that doctrine against the statute’s anti-wagering purpose. You will hear references to Gold, a separate case raising similar insurance issues. This recording is the argument about Mechling’s policies, not a decision on the appeal.

An unfinished street beside an Ohio home has produced a dispute over who owns the land and who must maintain it. Tenisha Wilson and Denman Gordon live next to Laurens Avenue in South Euclid. Recorded as a street in nineteen sixteen, the disputed strip was never completed as an ordinary public road. Parts have served as a driveway; other parts remain grass and woods. The city required maintenance and repairs at the homeowners’ expense, with citations threatened for noncompliance. The homeowners asked the city to give up the street, but it refused. They contend that the city abandoned the land’s road purpose long ago. The city points to a water main and public use as reasons its rights continue. After earlier state-court litigation, a federal judge ruled that abandonment made the homeowners owners of the strip. The judge separately rejected their equal-protection claim. The city appeals the ownership ruling; the homeowners cross-appeal the equal-protection ruling. This argument addresses both challenges, not a final appellate decision. You will hear fee simple determinable: land ownership that automatically ends when a stated condition fails. The parties dispute whether the city’s ownership was conditional on road use and whether that condition ended. Abandonment here involves nonuse and intent, not simply an unpaved appearance. Formally vacating a street is a different route from establishing that rights were already abandoned. The equal-protection theory is called class of one: intentionally treating someone differently from similarly situated people without a rational basis. The homeowners compare their treatment with earlier street vacations. The dispute includes whether those older examples, under different circumstances, are meaningful comparisons.

The Second Circuit hears Alan Kaufman’s civil appeal involving Melrose Credit Union, where he served as chief executive. The dispute concerns rent-free housing and home-purchase financing he received from a major borrower while approving loans for that borrower’s companies, and vendor-paid vacations while the credit union bought advertising. A criminal jury convicted him of accepting illegal gratuities. The National Credit Union Administration Board, acting as Melrose’s liquidating agent, then sued him for breaching his duty of loyalty. The civil case seeks to recover compensation paid during his disloyalty. The district court granted partial summary judgment, deciding claims without a civil trial because it found no genuine dispute requiring one. Kaufman is appealing that ruling. New York’s faithless servant doctrine can require a disloyal employee to return compensation for the period of disloyalty. Compensation paid to that employee can itself satisfy the harm element of a fiduciary-duty claim, without proof of a separate out-of-pocket loss. That is different from saying every claim requires no harm. Another issue is collateral estoppel: when issues necessarily resolved in an earlier case cannot be litigated again. Kaufman will challenge the civil court’s reliance on his criminal case. That does not mean every question of civil liability or damages was automatically decided by the criminal verdict. He also invokes Snyder, which held that a particular federal law concerning state and local officials does not criminalize gratuities for past official acts. His conviction involved a different bank statute, so Snyder does not itself settle this civil case. Finally, Article Three standing requires a concrete injury traceable to the defendant and likely to be redressed by the court. That constitutional requirement is distinct from the state-law remedy of returning compensation. Representing himself, Kaufman will ask the panel to reverse.

The Sixth Circuit hears Justin Bobo’s appeal from a federal gun sentence. Bobo pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm after a felony conviction. At sentencing, the district court counted an earlier Tennessee robbery conviction toward treating him as an armed career criminal. His appeal challenges that classification, not his admission of possessing the gun. The Armed Career Criminal Act imposes a minimum fifteen-year prison term for unlawful firearm possession when a person has three qualifying prior convictions committed on different occasions. The issue here is its definition of a violent felony, which includes an offense requiring the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against another person. Actual injury is not required by that language. Tennessee defines robbery as taking property from another person by violence or by putting that person in fear. In Mitchell, the Sixth Circuit held that both alternatives meet the federal force requirement. Bobo relies on a later Tennessee Supreme Court decision, State versus Curry. Applying a different state firearms law, Curry required a jury to determine whether a particular robbery was actually committed by violence. The question is whether that decision changes the state-law understanding on which Mitchell relied. You will hear the categorical approach: comparing the legal elements of the prior offense with the federal definition, rather than retrying the old incident. A limited variation permits specified court records, often called Shepard documents, to identify which alternative offense a conviction involved. It is not an unrestricted inquiry into the defendant’s conduct. Tennessee later added robbery to its state firearms statute’s list of crimes of violence, effective July first, twenty twenty-five. That changed the state list, not the federal act. The lawyers disagree about what Curry and that amendment mean for Bobo’s sentence.

The Ninth Circuit hears Cockrell’s appeal against Navient, together with a related appeal by Anthony. Cockrell says Navient retroactively placed his student loan into forbearance, then added purportedly unpaid interest to his principal balance. He maintains that his loan was current during the period involved. Forbearance temporarily pauses or reduces required payments; it does not erase the debt. Capitalization adds unpaid interest to the principal balance, which can make the borrower pay interest on a larger amount. Cockrell sued under California’s Unfair Competition Law, seeking money back and an order stopping the practice. His complaint was dismissed, and he is appealing that dismissal. The central issue is preemption: when federal law displaces a state-law claim. Express preemption comes from Congress’s explicit language. Conflict preemption can apply when a state-law claim would obstruct the federal scheme. Section 1098g exempts covered student loans from state-law disclosure requirements. The parties disagree about whether these claims really demand different disclosures or instead challenge loan charges that were unlawful regardless of notice. The panel repeatedly discusses Chae, an earlier Ninth Circuit decision about different student-loan servicing practices. It held some claims expressly preempted as disclosure challenges and other claims barred because they conflicted with the federal framework. The borrowers will contend that their cases enforce federal standards rather than change them. You will also hear about section 1083. It says a lender’s failure to provide information required by that section cannot itself support a claim for civil damages. The panel will ask how that provision affects the borrowers’ theory. This hearing concerns whether the lawsuits can proceed, not a jury verdict deciding that Navient’s conduct was lawful.