Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the circuit court issuing a permanent writ of mandamus in favor of Jim Swoboda, holding that the circuit court's decision was erroneous because Swoboda failed to establish that he was entitled to mandamus relief.Swoboda filed a charge of discrimination with the Missouri Commission on Human Rights against his employer and Armstrong Teasdale, LLP (the Law Firm), alleging retaliation, disability, and aiding and abetting as types of discrimination he faced in retaliation for participating in a discrimination case brought by another officer. The Commission determined that it lacked jurisdiction over the matter because there was no employer-employee relationship between Swoboda and the Law Firm. The circuit court issued a writ of mandamus finding that the Commission erred in dismissing the charge without first taking certain steps. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the issuance of mandamus relief was foreclosed where, rather than seeking to enforce a previously delineated right, Swoboda attempted to adjudicate whether his claim was permissible under applicable statutes. View "State ex rel. Swoboda v. Missouri Commission on Human Rights" on Justia Law

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (“ATF” or the “Bureau”) promulgated a rule classifying “bump stocks” as machine guns. The Bureau’s new rule instructed individuals with bump stocks to either destroy them, abandon them at the nearest ATF facility, or face criminal penalties. Plaintiffs initially moved for a preliminary injunction to stop the rule from taking effect, which the District Court denied, and a panel of this Court affirmed. At the merits stage, the District Court again rejected Plaintiffs’ challenges to the rule under the Chevron framework. See Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984).The central question on appeal was whether the Bureau had the statutory authority to interpret “machine gun” to include bump stocks and the DC Circuit affirmed. In employing the traditional tools of statutory interpretation, the court found that the disputed rule is consistent with the best interpretation of “machine gun” under the governing statutes. The court explained that it joins other circuits in concluding that these devices, which enable such prodigious rapid-fire capability upon a pull of the trigger, fall within the definition of “machine gun” in the National Firearms Act and Gun Control Act. View "Damien Guedes v. ATF" on Justia Law

The First Circuit reversed the judgment of the district court concluding that the retroactivity rule from two Seventh Circuit opinions - United States v. Leach, 639 F.3d 769 (7th Cir. 2011), and Vasqez v. Foxx, 895 F.3d 515 (7th Cir. 2018) - controlled and that, therefore, a disputed ordinance applied prospectively, holding that the ordinance was retroactive.The ordinance at issue was passed by the Village of Hartland, Wisconsin and placed a moratorium against any new sex offenders residing there either temporarily or permanently. Plaintiff, a registered sex offender, brought this action against the Village, alleging that the ordinance violated the Ex Post Facto Clause of U.S. Const. art. I, 10. Under the Leach-Vasquez rule, a law is not retroactive and cannot violate the Ex Post Facto Clause if it applies "only to conduct occurring after its enactment." The district court only considered the retroactivity prong of the two-part analysis because, under Leach-Vasquez, the ordinance operated only prospectively. The Seventh Circuit reversed and remanded the case, holding (1) this Court overturns the Leach-Vasquez rule governing the retroactivity inquiry of the Ex Post Facto Clause, and instead, the critical question is whether the law attaches new legal consequences to events completed before its enactment; and (2) the subject ordinance applies retroactively. View "Koch v. Village of Hartland" on Justia Law

The Seventh Circuit reversed the order of the district court granting summary judgment and dismissing this complaint brought by Plaintiff after he was fired from his commissary job while incarcerated at Indiana State Prison, holding that the district court erred in finding that Plaintiff failed to comply with the Prison Litigation Reform Act's (PLRA) exhaustion requirement, 42 U.S.C. 1997e(a).Plaintiff was hired for a job in the commissary with the understanding that he would miss work on Fridays to attend the prison's weekly Jumu'ah Muslim prayer service. When Officer Julie Anton refused to allow Plaintiff to attend Jumu'ah and he went anyway, Anton fired Plaintiff based on a work evaluation accusing Plaintiff of theft. Plaintiff sued Anton under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging a violation of his First Amendment rights. The district court dismissed the complaint because Plaintiff did not file a formal grievance before bringing suit. The Seventh Circuit reversed, holding that the prison's grievance policy excepted Plaintiff's claim from the prison's administrative process. View "Miles v. Anton" on Justia Law

The Sixth Circuit affirmed the order of the district court granting summary judgment in favor of the City of Powell, Ohio and dismissing Golf Village North LLC's claims brought under 28 U.S.C. 1983 for violating its procedural and substantive due process rights, holding that there was no error.Golf Village, a developer, sought to build a "residential hotel" on its property in Powell, Ohio but never filed the required zoning application. Instead, Golf Village requested that the City confirm the residential hotel was a permitted use of the property. The City directed Golf Village to file an appropriate application for "zoning Certificate approval" to receive an answer. Rather than reply, Golf Village sued the City. The district court granted summary judgment for the City. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, holding that Golf Village's procedural due process and substantive due process rights were not violated in this case. View "Golf Village North, LLC v. City of Powell, Ohio" on Justia Law

Rouch World, LLC, and Uprooted Electrolysis, LLC, brought an action before the Michigan Court of Claims against the Department of Civil Rights and its director, seeking, among other relief, a declaratory judgment that the prohibition of sex discrimination in places of public accommodation under the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (ELCRA) did not bar discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The owners of Rouch World had denied a request to host the same-sex wedding of Natalie Johnson and Megan Oswalt at their facility, claiming that doing so would violate their religious beliefs. The owner of Uprooted Electrolysis had denied hair-removal services to Marissa Wolfe, a transgender woman, on the same basis. Johnson, Oswald, and Wolfe filed complaints with the Department of Civil Rights, which had issued an interpretive statement in 2018 indicating that the ELCRA’s prohibition against discrimination based on sex included sexual orientation and gender identity. The Department of Civil Rights opened an investigation into both of these incidents, but the investigations were stayed when plaintiffs brought this action. The Michigan Supreme Court held that the ELCRA encompasses discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The Court overruled the Court of Appeals decision in Barbour v. Dept. of Social Servs, 497 NW2d 216 (1993), and reversed in part the Court of Claims decision below. View "Rouch World LLC v. Department Of Civil Rights" on Justia Law

Plaintiff was removed from a political rally and arrested for violating a St. Louis, Missouri ordinance that prohibits disturbing the peace. After Plaintiff was acquitted of that charge in state court, he brought claims against, as pertinent to this appeal, three St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department officers. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the officers, and Plaintiff appealed.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed holding that it was objectively reasonable for the officers to mistakenly believe, under the totality of the circumstances that Plaintiff was engaged in acts or conduct inciting violence or intended to provoke others to violence. The court explained that two of the officers had arguable probable cause to arrest and then initiate prosecution against Plaintiff meaning that it was not clearly established that doing so would violate Plaintiff’s right to be free from unlawful seizure, malicious prosecution, or First Amendment retaliation. Thus, the court affirmed the district court’s grant of qualified immunity to those officers. Further, the court wrote that the district court properly granted qualified immunity to the remaining officer because it was not clearly established that initiating prosecution against Plaintiff would violate his Fourth Amendment right to be free from malicious prosecution or his corresponding right under Missouri law. View "Rodney Brown v. Matthew T. Boettigheimer" on Justia Law

In this case arising out of a child welfare investigation, the Seventh Circuit vacated the judgment of the district court entering summary judgment in favor of Indiana Department of Child Services (DCS) case workers on the grounds of qualified immunity, holding that the facts were too disputed to allow the Court to reach any legal conclusions with confidence.When DCS learned from a social worker that Plaintiffs may not have been providing their infant daughter prescribed medication to control epileptic seizures DCS case workers took the child to the hospital for a blood draw to clarify whether that was so. The results showed that the infant had started the prescription a few days earlier. Plaintiffs filed a complaint under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that the investigation and demand for a blood test violated their constitutional rights as parents under the Fourteenth Amendment and their daughter's rights under the Fourth Amendment. The district court entered summary judgment for the DCS defendants on the grounds of qualified immunity. The Seventh Circuit vacated the summary judgment and remanded the case, holding that the facts were so contested as to limit what the Court could do on appeal. View "Jerger v. Blaize" on Justia Law

The Janesville Wisconsin Police Department created a “no‐preference tow list” to simplify its response to traffic accidents in which a vehicle owner expressed no preference as to which tow company towed their car. Smith is Black and owns Flying A.J.’s Towing Company, which operates in the area. Flying A.J.’s was added to the list. Less than two months later, the Police Department removed the company from its tow list, citing the company’s unresponsiveness and complaints related to one particular tow job.Smith and Flying A.J.’s claim that their removal was due to Smith’s race and in retaliation because, in 2010, Smith had successfully sued the town of Beloit after experiencing racial discrimination by the police department. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of those claims under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and 1981. Smith had failed to put forth sufficient evidence to allow a jury to determine that Smith’s race or former complaints caused the decision to remove Flying A.J.’s from the tow list. Smith claimed that a tow company owned by a white man had received a lesser penalty but the situations leading to the two complaints are too dissimilar for any reasonable jury to conclude that the factor leading to any perceived disparate treatment was race. View "Smith v. City of Janesville" on Justia Law

Cattle rancher Zane Odell was a cattle rancher who had a permit to graze his cattle in parts of San Juan County, Utah on land held by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management ("BLM") and the Utah School and Institutional Trust Land Administration. On the morning of April 1, 2017, Odell left his corral gate open so his cattle could graze on state and federal public land and then return home to get water on his property. That same evening, Odell noticed that his corral gate had been shut and latched. Odell called the San Juan County Sheriff’s Department and reported the situation, explaining that but for a 10-foot gap in his fence, the closure of the corral gate risked depriving his cattle of water. Odell and Sergeant Wilcox reviewed video footage from Odell’s trail camera which showed part of a SUV’s license plate number. The SUV belonged to plaintiff Rosalie Chilcoat and her husband. A few days after Odell reported the gate closure, Chilcoat and her husband were driving on the county road near Odell’s property. Odell and two other ranchers caught up to the couple and detained them by blocking the public roadway. Odell called the San Juan County Sheriff’s Department and was told Chilcoat and her husband should not be allowed to leave until the deputy arrived. While waiting for the deputy, Odell accused Chilcoat and her husband of criminal activity and threatened them with jail time. Chilcoat was ultimately held on criminal charges relating to the initial gate closure. The State of Utah elected not to defend the state court’s ruling. The Utah Court of Appeals reversed the state court’s probable cause determination, ultimately resulting in the dismissal with prejudice of all remaining criminal charges pending against Chilcoat. Chilcoat then sued Odell, Prosecutor Laws, and San Juan County in federal district court in Utah, alleging claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against all Defendants, and a state-law assault claim against Odell. Considering the allegations in Chilcoat's proposed amended complaint, and viewing all non-conclusory allegations in the light most favorable to Chilcoat, the Tenth Circuit concluded she stated a plausible municipal liability claim against San Juan County. The district court erred by denying her proposed amended complaint as futile under Rule 15(a)(2). The district court's denial of her request for leave to amend was reversed. View "Chilcoat v. San Juan County, et al." on Justia Law