The following published opinions were released by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on May 29, 2003:

• Keenan v. Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette Inc. (King, DeMoss, Southwick, JJ.; opinion by Southwick, J.). The district court entered summary judgment in favor of the defendants on the plaintiff’s claims arising from an oral agreement made by constituents of the defendant banking syndicate members that, if the plaintiff made a personal loan to a company of which he was the primary equity holder, the banking syndicate would waive the company’s technical credit facility default and would extend a long-term credit facility. The district court found that the Louisiana Credit Agreement Statute was applicable and that, under that statute, the agreement at the basis of the plaintiff’s claims was required to be in writing in order to be enforceable. The Fifth Circuit reversed and remanded, holding that the plaintiff was not a statutory “debtor” because he, in fact, loaned money rather than borrowing it, and individually had no credit relationship with the defendants. The Court then held “that when the Louisiana Credit Agreement Statute created a requirement of a writing for agreements between ‘debtors’ and ‘creditors,’ it was not casting a broad net such that all agreements involving lending had to be in writing. The situation of two lenders entering an accommodation as to a third-party borrower is beyond the purposes of the statute controlling debtors and creditors.” Slip op. at 16.
• Coury v. Moss (Wiener, Barksdale, Dennis, JJ.; opinion by Dennis, J.). Affirming the district court’s partial summary judgment, holding that a provision in the articles of incorporation that prohibited the sale of shares in the corporation to a third party without first offering them at book value back to the corporation was not implicated by a shareholder’s exchange of assets between his bankruptcy estate and a limited partnership in which he was the general partner.
• Perez v. Cain (Reavley, Jolly, Garza, JJ.; opinion by Reavley, J.). Affirming district court’s grant of habeas relief, the Fifth Circuit held that a rational jury could only have found that the petitioner was innocent by reason of insanity. The Court held that “in the absence of contrary evidence, or inconsistencies in the reports of the other experts,” that two of the experts revised their opinions to find incompetence and that there was some cross-examination testimony that undermined the direct-examination testimony of the petitioner’s family members, “were not sufficiently material to provide the jury with a rational basis to disregard the testimony of all seven mental health experts.” Slip op. at 14. The Fifth Circuit observed, “The evidence that [the petitioner] produced as to his insanity was overwhelming. It included lay testimony from [the petitioner’s] wife and son describing a slow progression of odd behavior, which the experts found consistent with classic symptoms of mental illness; lay testimony from his son about bizarre behavior on the drive to New Orleans; consistent expert testimony from largely disinterested doctors that [the petitioner] is mentally ill, suffers from delusional behavior, and did not know right from wrong on the night of the offense; expert opinion that it was very unlikely [the petitioner] and his family would know how to fake the illness; and objective evidence that once he was given anti-psychotic medication, [the petitioner’s] condition improved in a manner that a layman would not know how to fabricate,” and that “[t]he state produced insufficient evidence solely through cross-examination and argument to controvert [the petitioner’s] claim.” Slip op. at 17-18.