Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

In 2005, an inmate filed a pro se lawsuit under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. 2671, alleging personal injuries caused by defendants' exposing him to second-hand smoke. The district court dismissed, but news of the dismissal did not reach him for almost a year because of a prison transfer. The district court denied untimely motions to reopen the time for appeal and for reconsideration. The Third Circuit affirmed, holding that it could not relax the timing requirements for filing a motion to reopen the time for appeal under FRAP 4(a)(6), even for prison delay, because those requirements are governed by statute and are jurisdictional. The situation is not one in which time lost due to prison delays can be excluded. While prison delay may make an untimely motion for reconsideration timely, that motion was delayed by clerks' office errors, not by prison delay.

Plaintiffs' father was killed in an auto accident when the driver of a vehicle in which he was a passenger, attempted to flee police officers. Asserting federal constitutional and state tort claims, plaintiffs filed suit in Rhode Island state court against the officers, the city, the police department, and the police chief in his official capacity. The district court dismissed constitutional claims and declined to remand to state court. Following a trial, the court entered judgment for defendants as a matter of law. The First Circuit affirmed, upholding the court's exercise of supplemental jurisdiction and exclusion of deposition testimony of the driver. That he was in prison did not render him automatically "unavailable." The court was within its discretion in denying a continuance to secure his presence.

Plaintiff, who was incarcerated in the custody of TDCJ-CID, sought damages under 48 U.S.C. 1983, asserting that her constitutional rights were violated when her ovary and lymph nodes were removed without her consent during a radical hysterectomy. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the physicians who performed the surgery, holding that they were entitled to qualified immunity. In light of the circumstances, the court could not say that the law was, or was at the time of defendants' conduct, clearly established such that a reasonable official in the physicians' positions would understand that their conduct violated plaintiff's Fourteenth Amendment due process rights. Noting that the law governing claims involving unwanted medical treatment in the prison context was far from certain, the court held that plaintiff failed to rebut defendants' entitlement to qualified immunity on her Fourteenth Amendment claim and summary judgment was appropriate. The court disposed of plaintiff's other claims and affirmed the judgment of the district court.

Plaintiffs, parents and the personal representative of the deceased's estate, sued defendant, a police officer, for use of excessive force under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and Florida's wrongful death statute. Defendant used lethal force against the deceased after the deceased failed to follow defendant's commands and attempted to flee in a vehicle that struck defendant in the process. Defendant subsequently appealed the district court's denial of his motion for summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity. The court held that defendant was entitled to qualified immunity where the use of deadly force was reasonable under the facts and circumstances of the case and there was no clearly established law at the time of the incident that would have given defendant fair notice that his actions violated the Fourth Amendment. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings.

Plaintiff, a minor, brought federal civil rights claims under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and state negligence claims against the County and its employee social workers (collectively, defendants). Plaintiff, sexually assaulted by his 17-year-old foster brother while living in a foster family home, contended that defendants failed to intervene prior to his sexual assault, despite their knowledge of the escalating threats and violence against him. The district court dismissed with prejudice all claims against the County. The court concluded that the district court abused its discretion because the district court denied leave to amend where plaintiff was denied the opportunity to allege additional facts supporting the claim that defendant's constitutional violations were carried out pursuant to County policy or custom and where the County's derivative liability was tied directly to the negligence of, or successful assertion of immunity by, its employees. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's decision and vacated the judgment.

A federal jury awarded Fortin $125,000 in damages against a police officer after finding that the officer negligently used force in arresting Fortin in 2007. In a post-judgment ruling, the district court reduced the award to $10,000, the maximum set by the Maine Tort Claims Act for the personal liability of government employees, Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 14, 8104-D. On appeal, Fortin argued that the MTCA cap is inapplicable here because the officer was covered by an insurance policy that triggered a higher limit under the Act. The First Circuit determined that the issues were unresolved under state law and certified two questions to the Maine Supreme Court. Whether Fortin is limited to recovery of $10,000 depends on the unexplored relationship among several provisions of the MTCA governing damage awards against government employees. Analysis may also require determining what interpretive rule should be applied to ambiguous insurance policies providing MTCA liability coverage.

Plaintiffs, individually and on behalf of their son, sued, inter alia, the Isanti County Deputy Sheriff in his individual and official capacity under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and relevant state law, seeking damages for alleged injuries suffered when the deputy entered their home without a warrant. The deputy was dispatched to plaintiffs' home to conduct a "welfare check on a five-year-old son and an intoxicated mother." The jury returned a verdict in favor of the deputy and the district court denied plaintiffs' motion for a new trial. On appeal, plaintiffs sought a new trial, arguing that the district court gave erroneous jury instructions and made erroneous evidentiary rulings. The court held that the district court did not err in instructing the jury on who bore the burden of proof; in instructing the jury on the emergency aid exception; in admitting the preliminary breath test result for the limited purpose of determining the reasonableness of the deputy's actions after he administered the test; and in excluding the proffered testimony of a subsequent home-entry incident involving the deputy. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Plaintiff, hired as a public school basketball coach in 1999, and made athletic director in 2003, was fired as coach in 2008, following a campaign based on his allegedly abusive and bullying style of coaching. He filed suit for defamation, false light invasion of privacy, civil conspiracy to intentionally interfere with prospective business advantage, and slander per se. The trial court dismissed as a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation under the Citizen Participation Act, 735 ILCS 110/15. The appellate court affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed. The purpose of the Act is to protect citizens who are attempting to speak freely or petition government from retaliatory meritless lawsuits, intended to chill exercise of constitutional rights and impose burdensome expenses. The special summary dismissal under the Act, without discovery, allows attorney fees. For SLAPP protections to apply, plaintiff's claim must be solely based on the movant's rights of petition, speech, association, or participation in government. The Act is not intended to apply to tortious acts and does not create a new privilege concerning defamation. It is possible that defendants could spread lies about plaintiff while at the same time genuinely petitioning government for redress, but such a situation cannot support dismissal as a SLAPP.

This case involved an Oregon statute which adopted a special statute of limitations for abuse victims. Under the statute, an action must be commenced before the person reached age 40 or within five years of discovery of the causal connection between the abuse and the injury. At issue was the effect of this statute on plaintiff's federal civil rights claim under 42 U.S.C. 1983 that he was beaten by teachers at his elementary school from 1986-1988. The court concluded that Oregon's general statute of limitations, rather than the specialized abuse statute, governed plaintiff's claims and that federal, not state law, governed accrual of his claims.

Plaintiffs, Matthew Cantrell's family, filed suit against the City of Murphy and several of its officers after 21-month-old Matthew died of accidental hanging when he was found tangled up in a soccer net in the back yard of his home. This was an interlocutory appeal from the denial of qualified immunity. The court rejected plaintiffs' argument that the officers deprived Matthew of his due process rights under DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, where plaintiffs failed to establish that the officers had a special relationship with Matthew when they separated him from his mother. The court also held that because the officers had probable cause to detain Matthew's mother, the district court did not err in granting the officers summary judgment on this portion of plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment claim. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings.