Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

Indiana requires abortion providers to dispose of fetal remains by either burial or cremation. Women may choose to take custody of the remains and dispose of them as they please. The Supreme Court sustained this regimen against Equal Protection challenges in 2019.This suit was filed by two women who had abortions and object to the cremation or burial of the fetal remains, which they contend implies the personhood of a pre-viability fetus, and two physicians do not want to tell patients about their statutory options. The Seventh Circuit reversed a “needlessly broad injunction” that treats the statute as invalid on its face and “effectively countermands the Supreme Court’s decision for the entire population of Indiana." The state does not require any woman who has obtained an abortion to violate any belief, religious or secular. The cremate-or-bury directive applies only to hospitals and clinics. Indiana’s statute need not imply anything about the appropriate characterization of a fetus. Nor does Indiana require any woman to speak or engage in expressive conduct. A state may require medical professionals to provide information that facilitates patients’ choices directly linked to procedures that have been or may be performed. View "Doe v. Rokita, Attorney General of Indiana" on Justia Law

In March 2020, New Jersey Governor Murphy responded to the spread of COVID-19; Executive Order 107 prohibited in-person gatherings and ordered New Jersey residents to “remain home or at their place of residence,” except for certain approved purposes, such as an “educational, political, or religious reason.” EO 107 excepted businesses deemed “essential,” including grocery and liquor stores, which could continue to welcome any number of persons (consistent with social distancing guidelines). Violations of EO 107 were subject to criminal prosecution for “disorderly conduct.” The order granted the Superintendent of the State Police, “discretion to make clarifications and issue [related] orders[.]” He exercised that power, declaring (Administrative Order 2020-4) that gatherings of 10 or fewer persons were presumptively permitted. Neither EO 107 nor AO 2020-4 contained an exception for religious worship gatherings or other First Amendment activity.Two New Jersey-based, Christian congregations, believing that the Bible requires them to gather for in-person worship services, violated the Orders and were cited. Less than a week after the filing of their complaint, challenging the Orders, Governor Murphy raised indoor gathering limits to 50 persons or 25 percent of room capacity (whichever was less), allowing outdoor religious gatherings without any gathering limits. The district court denied the congregations’ motion for a preliminary injunction. The Third Circuit dismissed an appeal as moot. View "Clark v. Governor of New Jersey" on Justia Law

The Court of Chancery dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction this case brought by Plaintiffs, two religious leaders, challenging restrictions that the Governor imposed on houses of worship during the COVID-19 pandemic, holding that Plaintiffs failed to show any basis for relief.Plaintiffs asserted that they suffered harm as a result of the challenged restrictions and that the restrictions triggered, but could not survive, strict scrutiny. Plaintiffs sought as a remedy a declaration that the challenged restrictions were unconstitutional and a permanent injunction prohibiting the Governor from implementing similar restrictions in the future. The Court of Chancery granted the Governor's motion to dismiss, holding that Plaintiffs did not establish a reasonable apprehension that the Governor would engage in conduct that would warrant a permanent injunction and therefore did not make the necessary showing. View "In Re Covid-Related Restrictions On Religious Services" on Justia Law

In 2021, Tennessee enacted a statute that vaccination, masking, and quarantine decisions: “A local health entity or official, mayor, governmental entity, or school does not have the authority to quarantine a person or private business for purposes of COVID-19,” and “a school or a governing body of a school shall not require a person to wear a face mask while on school property” unless various conditions are met. Before seeking accommodation under its terms, eight minor students with disabilities filed suit, alleging that the legislation violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12101m Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. 794, the Equal Protection Clause, and the Supremacy Clause. The district court granted a preliminary injunction with respect to sections of the Act concerning face coverings for schools and provisions that prohibit local health officials and schools from making quarantining decisions as they relate to public schools.While acknowledging that the case is moot, the Sixth Circuit dismissed it for lack of jurisdiction. The plaintiffs’ argument that they are injured because the Act categorically violates the ADA amounts to an overly generalized grievance. They do not seek redress for a completed violation of a legal right; they seek only prospective relief to protect against future violations. Their injuries are not fairly traceable to any defendant, so no remedy applicable to those defendants (be it an injunction or a declaration) would redress the alleged injuries. View "R. K. v. Lee" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs brought various claims against Rockland County ("Rockland County Defendants") officials including a violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, based on orders which excluded children who were not vaccinated against measles from attending school and an emergency declaration which barred unvaccinated children, other than those with medical exemptions, from places of public assembly. The district court granted summary judgment for Rockland County Defendants.The Second Circuit reversed, finding that Plainitffs' claim raises numerous disputes—including whether there is evidence of religious animus, to whom the emergency declaration applied, and what the County’s purpose was in enacting the declaration—that prevent Defendants from prevailing on summary judgment. View "M.A. v. Rockland County Department of Health" on Justia Law

Pro se plaintiff Gary Wisner, M.D. filed a complaint alleging that defendants Dignity Health and the Dignity Health St. Joseph’s Medical Center (collectively, SJMC) falsely reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) that Wisner surrendered his clinical privileges while under criminal investigation for insurance fraud. The trial court granted a special motion to strike the complaint after concluding that Wisner’s claims arose from a protected activity and that Wisner failed to establish a probability of prevailing on the merits. Wisner contested both aspects of the trial court’s order, and he also argued the court erred by denying his motion to conduct limited discovery prior to the hearing on the anti-SLAPP motion. Finding no error, the Court of Appeal affirmed. View "Wisner v. Dignity Health" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed the judgment of the district court dismissing Calvary Chapel of Bangor's (Calvary) complaint against Maine Governor Janet Mills raising several facial and as-applied constitutional and statutory challenges to the Governor's executive orders seeking to slow the spread of the COVID-19 outbreak in early 2020, holding that the complaint was moot and that no mootness exception could save it.Calvary sued the Governor in federal court claiming that the Governor's orders at issue discriminated against Calvary by treating religious gatherings less favorably than other gatherings. Calvary requested a temporary restraining order, a preliminary injunction, a permanent injunction, and a declaratory judgment. The district court denied relief and dismissed the complaint. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that this case was moot and that no exception to mootness applied. View "Calvary Chapel of Bangor v. Mills" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court reversed the order of the district court committing Appellant to the Montana State Hospital at Warm Springs for a period of up to ninety days, holding that the district court committed reversible error when it allowed a professional person to testify by telephone over Appellant's objection.The State filed a petition for Appellant's involuntary commitment due to her disorganized thinking and confusion. At a hearing on the petition, the State called Amanda Torres, a licensed clinical professional counselor, to testify by telephone due to technical difficulties with courtroom video capabilities. The district court overruled Appellant's rejection and allowed Torres to testify by telephone. Relying on Torres's testimony, the district court concluded that Appellant suffered from a mental disorder and required commitment. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the district court erroneously overruled Appellant's objection and that the court was statutorily mandated to prohibit Torres's testimony by telephone because it did not satisfy the requirement for two-way audio-video communication and because Appellant objected. View "In re S.E." on Justia Law

In 2013, Craig (age 49) executed an Illinois statutory short-form health care power of attorney, appointing his mother as his agent. In 2016, Craig was hospitalized at McFarland after being charged with burglary and found unfit to stand trial. In 2018, a McFarland psychiatrist sought to involuntarily administer psychotropic medications to Craig under the Mental Health Code, 405 ILCS 5/2-107. Craig alleged that decisions on his medical treatment rested with his agent. A psychiatrist testified that Craig was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type, when he was 25 years old and had been experiencing hallucinations with symptoms of paranoia, inability to sleep, poor impulse control, hypersexuality, physical aggression, and psychomotor agitation; Craig had no understanding of his mental illness and lacked the capacity to make rational treatment decisions. She opined that the benefits of the medications outweighed the potential risks. Without treatment, Craig was unable to live outside a hospital. Craig’s 82-year-old mother declined to consent, believing that the medications caused brain damage, made Craig “like a zombie,” and made him look “like a man without a head.”The trial court granted the petition for involuntary administration of psychotropic medication for a period not to exceed 90 days. The appellate court and Illinois Supreme Court affirmed. The Mental Health Code, which includes strict standards for an order permitting involuntary administration of psychotropic medications, provides a narrow exception to an agent’s authority to make a principal’s health care decisions. View "In re Craig H." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs are a married couple who have each been deaf since early childhood. They appealed the district court’s judgment, entered following a three-day bench trial, on their claims under (1) the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), (2) Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (Section 504), (3) Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and (4) California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act (Unruh Act) against Defendant Doctors Medical Center of Modesto, Inc. (DMC), an acute care hospital. Plaintiffs alleged that DMC failed to afford them effective communication during a series of hospital stays between 2015 and 2017.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment, after a bench trial, in favor of Defendants. The panel affirmed the district court’s dismissal as moot of plaintiffs’ ADA claims for injunctive relief.   As to the Section 504 Rehabilitation Act claims, the panel held that the district court properly ruled that Plaintiffs failed to show that they were denied program benefits on the basis of their disabilities because they did not show that the hospital failed in its affirmative obligation to provide the auxiliary aids necessary to afford them effective communication. The panel held that the district court did not err by failing to apply “primary consideration,” an ADA Title II rule, to the Section 504 claims, because there is no evidence that Section 504 contains an implicit requirement that a covered entity give primary consideration to the requests of the individual with disabilities when determining what types of auxiliary aids to use. Because Plaintiffs did not establish that the hospital engaged in any disability discrimination, their California Unruh Act claims also failed. View "MARK BAX, ET AL V. DOCTORS MED. CTR. OF MODESTO, ET AL" on Justia Law