The following published opinions were released by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on June 9, 2008:

• Burden v. Johnson & Johnson Medical (Higginbotham, Wiener, Dennis, JJ.; opinion by Dennis, J.). In this products liability action arising from claims of injury related to the manufacture and use of latex gloves, the distributor Owens Minor Medical, Inc. (”Owens”), demanded indemnification by several manufacturers of the gloves. Owens proceeded to defend itself at its own cost; after Owens and other defendants were dismissed from the suit (which had been removed to federal court and transferred to multi-district litigation), remaining was Owens’s cross-claims against the manufacturers for indemnity, wherein Owens sought the costs it had expended in its defense. The district court awarded summary judgment in favor of the defendant manufacturers, finding that they had offered a sufficient, albeit limited, defense and indemnification to satisfy Texas Civil Practice Remedies § 82.002. The Fifth Circuit initially certified the question of the adequacy of the manufacturers’ response under § 82.002 to the Texas Supreme Court, which responded that the manufacturers satisfied their burden by offering to indemnify and defend the distributor for any costs associated with their own products. In resolving the remaining issues in the appeal, the Fifth Circuit held that manufacturer Ansell provided an unconditional offer of defense, properly limited to claims related to sale of its own products; but that manufacturer BD did not satisfy its summary judgment burden of showing that it made a proper offer of defense under § 82.002. The Fifth Circuit therefore affirmed the district court’s summary judgment in part, vacated in part, and remanded for further proceedings.
• U.S. v. Rowan (Jolly, Garza, Prado, JJ.; opinion by Garza, J.) (on remand from U.S. Supreme Court) (withdrawing June 4, 2008, panel opinion and replacing with this June 9, 2008, opinion). The government appealed the district court’s sentencing of the defendant to sixty months’ supervised release, a non-Guidelines sentence, for his conviction of possession of child pornography. The Fifth Circuit vacated and remanded for resentencing. The U.S. Supreme Court then vacated and remanded the Fifth Circuit’s decision for consideration pursuant to the Supreme Court’s decision in Gall v. United States, 128 S. Ct. 586 (2007). Under the Gall framework for evaluating non-Guidelines sentences, the Fifth Circuit held that there was no significant procedural error in the district court’s sentencing decision, and affirmed the sentence.
• U.S. v. Rodriguez-Rodriguez (Garwood, Clement, Prado, JJ.; per curiam opinion) (on remand from U.S. Supreme Court). The U.S. Supreme Court remanded this case to the U.S. Fifth Circuit in light of the Gall approach to sentencing appeals. The Fifth Circuit held that the defendant’s sentence, which was within the Guidelines range, should be affirmed, finding that the district court adequately considered and gave individualized attention to the defendant’s pleas for a sentence below Guidelines range.

In addition, the Fifth Circuit released revised opinions in Martinez v. Mukasey and in Bilbe v. Belsom.