Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs (Rockland County Probation Department employees and their union) brought a First Amendment retaliation claim against Defendants (the County of Rockland and its Director of Probation). Plaintiffs alleged that Defendants retaliated against them for writing a letter to the Rockland County Legislature by holding department-wide emergency meetings and issuing a “Memorandum of Warning.” The district court granted judgment as a matter of law for the Plaintiffs on two liability issues: (1) whether the Plaintiffs’ letter had spoken on a matter of public concern and (2) whether the Plaintiffs had spoken as private citizens. A jury trial was held on liability issue (3): whether the Defendants had engaged in an adverse employment action. After the jury entered a verdict for the Defendants, the district court granted the Plaintiffs’ renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law. It later granted Plaintiffs’ motion for a permanent injunction prohibiting the Defendants from retaining the Memorandum of Warning or using it against any Plaintiff. Defendants appealed the district court’s decision to grant judgment as a matter of law on Issues (2) and (3). They also challenged the permanent injunction.   The Second Circuit reversed the district court’s judgment and remand the case with directions to enter judgment for the Defendants. The court explained that the trial record contains evidence that could lead a reasonable jury to conclude that the test for adverse action was not met. Indeed, the evidence below could support a conclusion that the Memorandum and the meetings were no more than a “‘petty slight,’ ‘minor annoyance,’ or ‘trivial’ punishment.” View "Bennett v. County of Rockland" on Justia Law

Plaintiff served as the Chief of Police for the Sneads Police Department from March 2006 until October 2018. On October 9, 2018, the five-member Town Council terminated Plaintiff’s employment by a 4-to-1 vote. The Town Council did so under the charge that Plaintiff was disrespectful at best and insubordinate at worst. Plaintiff, on the other hand, claims his firing was in retaliation for things he said, disclosed, and reported, all regarding various matters related to the newer Councilmembers with whom he had a contentious relationship.   Plaintiff filed an eight-count action against the Town of Sneads, the Town Manager, Town Councilmembers, Town Council President, and Town Clerk (collectively, “Defendants”). He brought unlawful-retaliation claims against the Town of Sneads under the Florida Whistle-blower’s Act (“FWA”), the Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”), and the First Amendment. And he brought identical retaliation claims under the First Amendment against each of the five individual defendants. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Defendants on all eight counts, and Plaintiff appealed.   The Eleventh Circuit affirmed. The court held that Plaintiff has not established that he satisfied all three of these requirements for each instance of his speech that he claims were protected under the FWA. Further, the court wrote that because the record evidence shows that the Town of Sneads terminated Plaintiff for insubordination, not his invocation of the FMLA, the court concluded that the district court’s grant of summary judgment as to Plaintiff’s FMLA interference claim was also proper. View "John "Burt" McAlpin v. Town of Sneads Florida, et al" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Defendant, Baptist Health, on her sex-discrimination, retaliation, hostile work environment, constructive-discharge, and negligent-retention claims. After the individual defendant was dismissed as a defendant, Baptist Health moved for summary judgment, and the district court granted its motion.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court first explained that here, Plaintiff presented no evidence that Baptist Health intended to force her to quit. Rather, the record indicates that Baptist Health tried to retain Plaintiff by giving her paid administrative leave, offering to relocate her to a different location, and offering to transfer her to a new department. Thus, the district court did not err in granting summary judgment to Baptist Health on this claim.   Second, the court held that Plaintiff’s sex-discrimination and retaliation claims fail because she has not suffered an adverse employment action. Baptist Health offered for Plaintiff to keep her same job at any one of three locations or to transfer departments. The court wrote that Plaintiff has not shown that transferring to another department would produce a material employment disadvantage.   Third, the court found that the district court did not err in granting summary judgment to Baptist Health on this claim because there is no evidence that the alleged discrimination was based on sex. Finally, the court found that the evidence does not suggest that Baptist Health subjected her to any unreasonable risk of harm. View "Courtnay Bell v. Baptist Health" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appeals from the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of her former employer, respondent Kaiser Foundation Hospitals (Kaiser). The Second Appellate District reversed the judgment. The court explained that as part of a round of employee layoffs, Kaiser planned, at least tentatively, to terminate Plaintiff before Plaintiff became disabled. Kaiser’s plan to terminate Plaintiff before she became disabled, by itself, was not discrimination against Plaintiff because of a disability. But Kaiser did not complete its layoff plans—or, a reasonable jury could find, make its final determination to terminate Plaintiff—until after Plaintiff had become disabled. On the record here, there was evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude that Kaiser’s ultimate decision to terminate Plaintiff was motivated, at least in substantial part, by concerns Kaiser had about Plaintiff’s disability. That allows Plaintiff’s complaint to survive summary judgment. View "Lin v. Kaiser Foundation Hospitals" on Justia Law

While at a bar at the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad, Iraq, Plaintiff was shoved by an intoxicated co-worker. She was reluctant to report the incident, but she eventually acquiesced to requests of the State Department and her employer. Because of her report, Plaintiff’s employer attempted to transfer her to a different position. After initially refusing the transfer, she was fired. Plaintiff filed suit under the Defense Contractor Whistleblower Protection Act (DCWPA). The district court dismissed her complaint without prejudice, allowing leave to amend.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Plaintiff’s action under DCWPA against Valiant Integrated Services, LLC, and The Electronic On-Ramp, Inc. The panel held that to survive a motion to dismiss under the DCWPA, a plaintiff must plausibly allege that: (1) she made a disclosure that she reasonably believed was evidence of a violation related to a Department of Defense contract; and (2) her employer discharged, demoted, or otherwise discriminated against her because of that disclosure. The panel held that Plaintiff did not plausibly allege a reasonable belief that her complaint about the shoving incident encompassed one of the acts described in Section 4701(a)(1)(A)-(C). The panel held that, in the context of a defense contract, a violation of law is related to the contract if it is related to the purpose of the contract or affects the services provided by the defense contractor to the Department of Defense. The panel concluded that, under this standard, Plaintiff’s complaint failed to allege a sufficient nexus between the shove and the Department of Defense-Valiant contract. View "SANA KAPPOUTA V. VALIANT INTEGRATED SERVICES, ET AL" on Justia Law

After prevailing in state court on claims that he was fired in retaliation for exercising his state constitutional right to freedom of expression, Plaintiff filed a federal suit alleging the same set of facts but asserting for the first time a First Amendment claim. The district court dismissed Plaintiff’s suit, finding that Defendants’ factual attack showed that the only remedy not barred by sovereign immunity was impossible to grant and that Kling’s claim was prescribed. On appeal, Plaintiff contends that a factual attack on a district court’s subject matter jurisdiction is improper at the pleadings stage and that his state lawsuit interrupted prescription on his newly asserted federal claim because both rely on the same set of operative facts.   The Fifth Circuit concluded that the district court did not err in dismissing Plaintiff’s official capacity claims as barred by sovereign immunity and accordingly affirmed that ruling in the district court’s decision. However, because there are no clear controlling precedents from the Louisiana Supreme Court as to whether prescription on Plaintiff’s federal claim was interrupted by his state action, the court certified to that court to answer the following:In Louisiana, under what circumstances, if any, does the commencement of a suit in a court of competent jurisdiction and venue interrupt prescription as to causes of action, understood as legal claims rather than the facts giving rise to them, not asserted in that suit? View "Kling v. Hebert" on Justia Law

The appeal raised the question of whether the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) preempts a state rule that discriminates against the formation of an arbitration agreement, even if that agreement is ultimately enforceable.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of a preliminary injunction in favor of Plaintiffs, a collection of trade associations and business groups (collectively, the Chamber of Commerce); the panel held that the FAA preempted AB 51, which was enacted to protect employees from “forced arbitration” by making it a criminal offense for an employer to require an existing employee or an applicant for employment to consent to arbitrate specified claims as a condition of employment. The panel held that AB 51’s penalty-based scheme to inhibit arbitration agreements before they are formed violates the “equal-treatment principle” inherent in the FAA and is the type of device or formula evincing hostility towards arbitration that the FAA was enacted to overcome. Because the FAA’s purpose is to further Congress’s policy of encouraging arbitration, and AB 51 stands as an obstacle to that purpose, AB 51 was therefore preempted. Because all provisions of AB 51 work together to burden the formation of arbitration agreements, the panel rejected California’s argument that the court could sever Section 433 of the California Labor Code under the severability clause in Section 432.6(i) and then uphold the balance of AB 51. View "CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE US, ET AL V. ROB BONTA, ET AL" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed the judgment of the district court granting Defendants' motion to dismiss this case arising from a labor dispute under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), holding that Plaintiff's constitutional rights were not violated by the designation of his union as the exclusive bargaining representative for all employees within Plaintiff's bargaining unit.At issue was whether a public employee's First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and association are infringed when a public employer authorizes a union to serve as the exclusive representative in collective bargaining for employees within that employee's designated bargaining unit. Plaintiff, a law professor, brought this lawsuit against, inter alia, the union that represented his bargaining unit, arguing that Defendants infringed his First Amendment rights by making the union his exclusive representative in negations regarding certain pay cuts. The district court granted Defendants' motions to dismiss. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that there was no merit to Plaintiff's contention that his constitutional rights were infringed by the designation of the union as the exclusive bargaining representative for all employees within Plaintiff's bargaining unit. View "Peltz-Steele v. Umass Faculty Federation" on Justia Law

Plaintiff-Appellant brought suit against Defendant-Appellee the City of Salem, Virginia, alleging that Salem failed to promote her based on her age, in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). Bandy sought a booking-coordinator position at the Salem Civic Center (the Center), but Salem passed her up and instead hired a significantly younger candidate. Following discovery, Salem moved for summary judgment, which the district court granted. Plaintiff appealed.   The Fourth Circuit affirmed the finding that no reasonable jury could find that Salem did not promote Plaintiff because of her age. The court explained that Plaintiff asserted that her employer preferred to hire “young men” and “stacked” the interview committee against her by excluding human resources representatives. These assertions amount to little more than speculation. Human resources remained involved in the hiring process and screened every applicant to ensure that they were minimally qualified. Moreover, Plaintiff was not even among the top three candidates for the position, and one of the candidates ranked ahead of her was, in fact, a woman older than her. Crucially, the evidence demonstrated that the interview committee hired the other employee over Plaintiff for a number of legitimate reasons: his job experience, particularly in promotion and marketing; higher education in sports, communication, and executive leadership; sales background; enthusiasm; and preparation. View "Tammy Bandy v. City of Salem, Virginia" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part the judgment of the court of appeals reversing in part and affirming in part the district court's grant of summary judgment for Defendant, a school district, in this employment dispute, holding that summary judgment was properly granted on all of Plaintiff's claims.Plaintiff brought this action alleging that the suffered a hostile work environment and disparate treatment culminating in constructive discharge during her employment with Defendant. The district court granted Defendant's motion for summary judgment on both claims. The court of appeals reversed in part, concluding that Plaintiff had "presented sufficient evidence of disparate-treatment age discrimination to withstand summary judgment[.]" The Supreme Court reversed in part, holding that Plaintiff established a genuine issue of material fact as to whether she suffered an adverse employment action in the form of constructive discharge. View "Henry v. Independent School District #625" on Justia Law