Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the employer in an action brought by plaintiff, alleging that the employer violated the Nebraska Equal Pay Act and the Nebraska Fair Employment Practices Act by giving her male counterparts better pay despite her stronger work performance.The court concluded that the facts presented were insufficient to establish plaintiff's prima face case under the Nebraska Equal Pay Act because nothing in the record suggests that her position required her to take on the additional duties and responsibilities of her higher-ranked coworkers. Because plaintiff's evidence was insufficient either to establish her prima facie case under the Nebraska Fair Employment Practices Act or to show that the employer's reasons for the pay disparity were pretextual, the district court properly granted the employer's motion for summary judgment. View "Perry v. Zoetis LLC" on Justia Law

The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of a petition for writ of habeas corpus where petitioner challenged his 2000 felon-in-possession conviction under Rehaif v. United States, 588 U.S. ---, 139 S. Ct. 2191 (2019). The court agreed with the district court that petitioner failed to show that 28 U.S.C. 2255's remedy was ineffective or inadequate to test the legality of his detention—a prerequisite in his case to habeas relief. In this case, section 2255's remedy was itself perfectly capable of facilitating petitioner's argument where section 2255 authorizes a motion challenging a sentence upon the ground that the sentence was imposed in violation of the laws of the United States. View "Jones v. Hendrix" on Justia Law

Bellion produces and distributes vodka that is infused with NTX, a proprietary blend that Bellion contends mitigates alcohol’s damage to a person’s DNA. Bellion filed a petition with the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), the agency that regulates alcoholic beverage labeling and advertising, to determine whether Bellion could lawfully make certain claims about NTX on labels and in advertisements. TTB found that the claims were scientifically unsubstantiated and misleading so that including them on vodka labels and in advertisements would violate the Federal Alcohol Administration Act, 27 U.S.C. 201, and TTB’s regulations.Bellion filed suit, alleging that TTB’s denial of the petition violated Bellion’s First Amendment rights and that the standards under which TTB rejected the proposed NTX claims are unconstitutionally vague. The district court granted TTB summary judgment. The D.C. Circuit affirmed. In making its decision, TTB did not rubber-stamp the FDA’s analysis of the scientific evidence or delegate final decision-making authority to the FDA. Bellion’s proposed claims are misleading and can be proscribed consistent with the First Amendment. Bellion received a clear response from TTB about why its proposed claims were denied. Bellion cannot bring an as-applied vagueness challenge to the regulation; its facial challenge to the regulation is without merit. View "Bellion Spirits, LLC v. United States" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of federal habeas relief to petitioner based on the ineffective assistance of counsel. Petitioner was convicted of second degree murder stemming from the discharge of his gun during a fight that killed the victim. Petitioner testified that the gun fired accidentally when the victim pulled on the gun and the two men collided. Defendant's testimony was contradicted by an eyewitness supposedly watching the fight from outside her apartment across the street who said she saw the victim backing away from petitioner with his hands raised at the moment the gun fired. Petitioner's trial counsel never attempted to interview the eyewitness or her roommate, who would have testified that the eyewitness was actually inside their apartment at the time of the shooting.The court concluded that counsel's performance was deficient and that the state court's determination to the contrary was an unreasonable application of Strickland v. Washington. In this case, the court cannot say that a fairminded jurist would find counsel's strategic decision not to request a continuance or to even try to interview the witness to be a "conscious and informed decision." Given the importance of the witness's testimony, the court found that no fairminded jurist could conclude that the failure to introduce the roommate's impeachment testimony would not have undermined confidence in the outcome. Therefore, petitioner was prejudiced by counsel's deficient performance. View "Hughes v. Vannoy" on Justia Law

In 2009, Brown, then 13 years old, was tried as an adult, convicted of murder, and sentenced to 60 years' imprisonment. Brown unsuccessfully sought post-conviction relief in Indiana state courts, alleging ineffective assistance of counsel.On remand the federal district court granted Brown a conditional writ of habeas corpus, noting that the court had admitted an out-of-court statement (a jailhouse confession to another detainee) by the co-defendant. The statement was hearsay as to Brown but implicated him in the shooting. Brown could not cross-examine his co-defendant. Brown’s lawyer failed even to ask for a limiting instruction. The conditional writ ordered Indiana to vacate Brown’s conviction and release him from custody unless it elected to retry Brown within 120 days. The state appealed. Brown filed a cross-appeal, challenging the denial of his motions to authorize discovery and expand the record in light of statements made by the elected county prosecutor in a 2018 campaign debate that Brown asserts contradicted the prosecution’s theory at trial. Within 120 days, the state moved to vacate Brown’s murder conviction, to initiate retrial proceedings in a new criminal case, and to transfer Brown to pretrial custody. In March 2021, the state court vacated Brown’s conviction. The Seventh Circuit dismissed the state’s appeal. The state court’s vacatur of the conviction ended its jurisdiction under both 28 U.S.C. 2254 and Article III of the U.S. Constitution. View "Brown v. Vanihel" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed from an order denying its petition to compel arbitration of Labor Code claims pursued by former employees, who contend that their lawsuit is limited to recovering civil penalties under the Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (PAGA).The Court of Appeal again interpreted the California Supreme Court's decision in Iskanian v. CLS Transportation Los Angeles, LLC (2014) 59 Cal.4th 348, to mean "that PAGA representative claims for civil penalties are not subject to arbitration" under a predispute arbitration agreement. In this case, the PAGA claims alleged in the former employees' complaint are owned by the state and are being pursued by the former employees as the state's agent or proxy. The court explained that the arbitration agreements at issue are not enforceable as to the PAGA claims because the state was not a party to, and did not ratify, any of those agreements. Furthermore, after the former employees became representatives of the state, they did not agree to arbitrate the PAGA claims. Consequently, under the rule of California law recognized in Esparza v KS Industries, L.P. (2017) 13 Cal.App.5th 1228, 1234, and many other decisions of the Court of Appeal, the court concluded that the PAGA claims cannot be forced into arbitration based on agreements made by the former employees before they became authorized representatives of the state. Accordingly, the trial court correctly applied this rule of law.The court also concluded that defendant's argument that arbitration is compelled by the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) and federal preemption fails for similar reasons. The court concluded that the FAA does not reach the PAGA claims alleged in this case and, therefore, federal law does not preempt the rule of California law stating PAGA claims are subject to arbitration only if the state, or the state’s authorized representative, consents to arbitration. View "Herrera v. Doctors Medical Center of Modesto, Inc." on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit vacated the district court's order denying plaintiff's motion seeking to recover reasonable attorney's fees, costs, and expenses from Montgomery County. Plaintiff's case stems from her action against the county for failure to reasonably accommodate her disability. The district court held that plaintiff is not eligible for such an award because she is not a "prevailing party" under 29 U.S.C. 794a(b).In this case, plaintiff won a jury verdict that found the county liable for discrimination and entitled plaintiff to equitable relief—at least until the county capitulated by transferring her to a call center called MC 311. The court thought that this case is more like Parham v. Southwestern Bell Telephone Co., 433 F.2d 421 (8th Cir. 1970), and concluded that plaintiff is not a prevailing party because she catalyzed the county to change its behavior by filing a lawsuit; rather, she is a prevailing party because she proved her claim to a jury before the county capitulated by transferring her to MC 311. The court noted that its holding is narrow, and that it would be unjust to hold that plaintiff did not prevail simply because the county's timely capitulation rendered unnecessary equitable relief that she would have otherwise been entitled to. The court remanded for further proceedings. View "Reyazuddin v. Montgomery County, Maryland" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, prisoners at East Mississippi Correctional Facility (EMCF), filed suit challenging their conditions of confinement by filing a class action against MDOC officials. The district court ultimately found no constitutional violations and denied plaintiffs' requested injunction. Plaintiffs appealed three of the conditions they originally challenged: medical care, protection from harm, and solitary confinement.The Fifth Circuit affirmed, rejecting plaintiffs' contention that the district court erred by considering the challenged conditions in isolation instead of in combination. Rather, the district court grouped plaintiffs' allegations into several categories based on different identifiable human needs and considered all allegations related to each category in a distinct section. The court also concluded that plaintiffs' contention that the district court erred by failing to consider whether past violations were likely to recur is foreclosed by Farmer v. Brennan. See 511 U.S. 825. Finally, the court rejected plaintiffs' contention that the district court wrongly disregarded the testimony of their expert witnesses, and concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in this case. View "Dockery v. Cain" on Justia Law

Tennessee Code 39-15-202(a)–(h) requires that women be informed, orally and in-person by the attending physician or by the referring physician that she is pregnant; of the fetus’s probable gestational age; whether the fetus may be viable; of services “available to assist her”; and of “reasonably foreseeable medical benefits, risks, or both of undergoing an abortion or continuing the pregnancy.” There is a 48-hour waiting period, beginning when the woman receives the mandated information, which can be reduced to 24 hours by court order.The district court declared the waiting period unconstitutional and permanently enjoined its enforcement. The Sixth Circuit denied a stay pending appeal but subsequently, “en banc,” reversed. The facial attack fails as a matter of law. Given Tennessee’s strong “interest in protecting the life of the unborn,” there was a rational basis to enact a waiting period, which is not a substantial obstacle to abortion in a large fraction of cases. The plaintiffs claimed that the law—even if facially valid— is unconstitutional as applied to women who will miss the cutoff date for an abortion because of the waiting period; women whose medical conditions increase the risk of delaying the procedure; and women who are survivors of rape, incest, or violence. But, although the law has been in effect for five years, the plaintiffs failed to identify any “discrete and well-defined instances” where women in these groups faced (or were likely to face) a particular burden because of Tennessee’s waiting period. View "Bristol Regional Women's Center, P.C. v. Slatery" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against Officers Kuykendall and Henry, arguing that they violated his Fourth and First Amendment rights. After the district court denied defendants' motion for summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity, they filed this interlocutory appeal.Concluding that it has jurisdiction under the collateral order doctrine, the Eighth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of defendants' motion for summary judgment. The court concluded that John Doe's and the third party's reports were sufficient to have provided probable cause to arrest plaintiff for assault in the fourth degree under Missouri law. In this case, the facts that plaintiff directs the court to do not diminish the officers' probable cause to believe, at the time of plaintiff's arrest, that he had committed a crime. Furthermore, the fact that no formal charges were initiated against plaintiff does not retroactively diminish the reasonableness of the officers' belief. Even if the officers were mistaken that probable cause existed, that mistake was "objectively reasonable" and arguable probable cause exists, entitling them to qualified immunity. Finally, the officers were also entitled to qualified immunity on plaintiff's First Amendment retaliation claim. View "Just v. Kuykendall" on Justia Law