Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

After completing an orientation program for newly licensed nurses, Bragg was denied a full-time position at Community Hospital, which is operated by Munster. Community transferred her to Hartsfield, another Munster facility, where her pay was lower. Bragg, who is Black, alleged that, during her orientation, after being race-matched to patients, she complained and was subsequently treated differently. Bragg asserts that another supervisor played sexually explicit rap music at the nurses' station when Bragg was present, making graphic hand gestures. Bragg felt this was targeted at her. When white nurses were present, the supervisor played pop and country music. The supervisor allegedly laughingly called a Black patient’s amputated limb a “skinny, brown stick.” Bragg thought that another supervisor made an inappropriate reference to lynching when an oxygen line got wrapped around a Black patient’s neck, stating“let’s not have a hanging.” Bragg claims that all three supervisors gave her poor evaluations and blamed her for problems that were not her fault. Bragg sued under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. 2000e. The district court granted the defendants summary judgment. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, acknowledging that Bragg’s reports of racial insensitivity are typical of the challenges Black women face in the workplace. Bragg’s evidence would not allow a trier of fact to conclude that Community denied her a full-time position and transferred her for impermissible reasons, rather than for its stated concern about deficiencies in her performance. View "Bragg v. Munster Medical Research Foundation, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff was terminated from her employment as a Revenue Officer at the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) for assessed Unauthorized Access of Taxpayer Data (“UNAX”) offenses. After unsuccessfully pursuing an internal Equal Employment Opportunity (“EEO”) complaint, Plaintiff brought suit against the Treasury Secretary in the United States District Court for the Central District of California alleging that her termination was based on impermissible criteria of age and national origin in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”) and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, respectively. The district court granted summary judgment to the Treasury Secretary on the grounds that Plainitff: (1) failed to establish a prima facie case of age discrimination; and (2) failed to show that the IRS Management’s proffered reasons for terminating her were pretext for age or national origin discrimination.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed. The panel wrote that at step one of the legal framework for a discrimination action, the district court found that none of Plaintiff’s evidence established a prima facie case of age discrimination. The panel agreed with the district court that most of Plaintiff’s evidence comprised “circumstantial evidence”—her superior’s alleged exaggeration of her offenses, assignment of menial tasks, selection of draconian penalties. The panel held, however, that the record was not devoid of direct evidence of age discrimination. The panel was satisfied that the record taken as a whole supported Plaintiff’s prima facie case of age discrimination. The panel held that the Secretary’s proffered reasons for its action was sufficient. View "JOAN OPARA V. JANET YELLEN" on Justia Law

Defendant United Parcel Service, Inc., engaged in an extensive back-and-forth to attempt to accommodate Plaintiff Susan Norwood. Yet Plaintiff still sued, alleging Defendant failed to immediately tell her that it approved a possible accommodation and formally offer it to her. The Tenth Circuit found the law imposed no burden on employers to immediately tell employees of approved possible accommodations or to formally offer them those accommodations, rather than informally asking if they would satisfy an employee. Besides challenging Defendant’s good faith during the interactive process, Plaintiff appealed the district court’s decision to exclude expert testimony and draw certain inferences in granting Defendant’s motion for summary judgment. Finding no error in the district court judgment entered in UPS' favor, the Tenth Circuit affirmed. View "Norwood v. United Parcel Service" on Justia Law

At its production plant in Baton Rouge, the Exxon Mobil Corporation requires prospective operators to pass an extensive, multi-pronged training program. If they don’t, they’re fired. Plaintiff didn’t pass his tests, so Exxon let him go. Plaintiff then sued Exxon, insisting he wasn’t fairly trained by staff because he’s black. The district court disagreed and dismissed his suit. On appeal, Plaintiff contends that, first, the district court ignored genuine factual disputes and, second, erroneously ruled that he waived his inadequate training theory.   The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling for different reasons. The court explained that Plaintiff cannot rely on an inadequate training theory. Exxon provided Plaintiff with a handbook detailing the polypropylene unit’s processes and equipment, and scheduled time each workweek for him to study. Exxon also assigned him a trainer, an operator with twenty years of experience, who went over the handbook in detail with him. Thus, because his training—and more importantly, his opportunities—paralleled his classmates, his program necessarily couldn’t be inadequate. Without proper training, no terminated trainee is qualified for the position he was training for. Plaintiff satisfied his burden to show he was qualified for the position of operator trainee, the position he was fired from. However, Plaintiff cannot genuinely allege Exxon failed to train him, so he cannot satisfy the McDonnell Douglas framework. View "Rahman v. Exxon Mobil" on Justia Law

Baro was an ESL teacher for Waukegan Community School District in 2019 when she signed a union membership form—a contract to join the union that represents teachers in the District. The form authorized the District to deduct union dues from her paychecks for one year. Baro alleged she learned later that she was not required to join the union. She tried to back out of the agreement. The union insisted that her contract was valid. The District continued deducting dues from her paychecks.Baro filed suit, arguing that the dues deduction violated her First Amendment rights under the Supreme Court’s 2019 “Janus: decision. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the suit. Baro voluntarily consented to the withdrawal of union dues. The enforcement of a valid private contract does not implicate her First Amendment rights. The “First Amendment protects our right to speak. It does not create an independent right to void obligations when we are unhappy with what we have said.” View "Baro v. Lake County Federation of Teachers Local 504, IFT-AFT" on Justia Law

O’Brien worked at Forum, a think tank, from 2016-2020. She served as its controller and was responsible for human resources tasks. In 2019, O’Brien sued Forum, its President, and its Director (Roman). She alleged a hostile work environment under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. 2000e, and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act. Trial testimony indicated that Roman had made sexual advances toward O’Brien and other female employees. In Title VII cases where no tangible adverse employment action was taken, an employer may escape liability by raising an affirmative defense that the employer exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct any harassing behavior, and the plaintiff unreasonably failed to take advantage of the preventative or corrective opportunities provided The district court held that O’Brien was not entitled to a jury instruction that this defense is unavailable where the harasser functions as the alter ego or proxy of the employer.The Third Circuit upheld a verdict against O'Brien. Although the affirmative defense is not available in an "alter ego" situation, the district court’s refusal to so instruct the jury here was harmless because the jury found that O’Brien was not subjected to sexual harassment. The existence of an affirmative defense was therefore irrelevant. View "O''Brien v. The Middle East Forum" on Justia Law

Plaintiff and Defendant both work for the State of Iowa. Plaintiff is a urologist at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics; Defendant is a professor at the University of Iowa College of Law. After Defendant criticized Plaintiff’s expert testimony in a case unrelated to this one, Plaintiff sued Defendant under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, alleging that Defendant retaliated against him for engaging in constitutionally protected speech. The district court dismissed Plaintiff’s claim on multiple grounds, including that Plaintiff failed to allege plausibly that Linder’s conduct was under color of state law.  Plaintiff argues that his complaint contains ample facts that together plausibly allege that Defendant acted under color of state law. These include that Defendant (1) identified himself as a state employee when he criticized Plaintiff in the newspaper articles, (2) relied on “the prestige of his official position with [UI] to gain credibility with his audience,” and (3) “used the instrumentalities and resources of the State of Iowa to facilitate his retaliatory conduct.”   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court agreed with the district court that Plaintiff failed to plead adequately that Defendant’s retaliatory actions were under color of state law. Contrary to Plaintiff’s insistence, our case law is clear that a state employee, merely by publicly identifying himself as such, does not act under color of state law. Further, even assuming that a public university professor acts in his official capacity or within the scope of his employment when he comments on public affairs, it would not necessarily follow that he acts under color of state law. View "James Brown v. Marc Linder" on Justia Law

Plaintiff worked for a construction company, Performance Contractors (Performance). She sued under Title VII alleging sex discrimination, sexual harassment, and retaliation. The district court granted summary judgment to the construction company. On appeal Plaintiff argued that when Performance prevented her from working at elevation because she was a woman, it effectively demoted her, which amounts to an adverse employment action. Second, Plaintiff argued that her hostile-work environment claim survives summary judgment because Performance knew (or should have known) about the severe or pervasive harassment, and because Performance is not entitled to the Ellerth/Faragher affirmative defense. Third, she argues that a reasonable jury could find that Performance retaliated against her for opposing conduct that she reasonably believed would violate Title VI.   The Fifth Circuit reversed and remanded concluding that Plaintiff raised genuine material fact issues on each claim. The court held that a reasonable jury could find that Plaintiff was suspended and later fired because of her rejection of other employees’ harassment. Further, the court held that Performance was not entitled to summary judgment because reasonable jurors could find that Plaintiff was kept on the ground because she was a woman, and that she otherwise would have been allowed to work at elevation. Moreover, there is a material fact issue about whether Performance effectively implemented its anti-harassment policy. View "Wallace v. Performance Contractors" on Justia Law

Plaintiff was a long-time teacher in the Evergreen School District #114 (District) in Vancouver, Washington. Before the 2019–2020 school year began, he attended two days of teacher training and brought with him a MAGA hat. The question, in this case, is whether the First Amendment was violated when a principal told Plaintiff he could not bring his Make America Great Again (MAGA) hat with him to teacher-only trainings on threat of disciplinary action and when the school board affirmed the denial of the teacher’s harassment complaint filed against the principal.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s summary judgment in favor of Defendants in Plaintiff’s 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 action. The panel first concluded that Plaintiff was engaged in speech protected by the First Amendment because the undisputed facts demonstrated that his MAGA hat conveyed a message of public concern, and he was acting as a private citizen in expressing that message. The record failed to establish, however, that the school district’s Chief Human Resource Officer, took any adverse employment action against Plaintiff, and for this reason, Plaintiff’s First Amendment retaliation claim against that defendant failed as a matter of law.   Further, any violation of Plaintiff’s First Amendment rights by the principal was clearly established where longstanding precedent held that concern over the reaction to controversial or disfavored speech itself does not justify restricting such speech. For these reasons, the panel reversed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the principal. View "ERIC DODGE V. EVERGREEN SCHOOL DISTRICT #114, ET AL" on Justia Law

In 2011, plaintiff R. Kemp was convicted, released from prison, and placed on parole. In 2020, Amazon.com, Inc. (Amazon) offered Kemp a job in Sacramento. Defendant Accurate Background LLC (Accurate) provided a background report to Amazon revealing Kemp’s criminal conviction. Amazon then withdrew its job offer. Because Kemp’s 2011 conviction predated the 2020 report by more than seven years, he filed a complaint alleging Accurate: (1) violated the California Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act (ICRAA); (2) violated the California Consumer Credit Reporting Agencies Act (CCRAA); and (3) derivatively violated the state’s Unfair Competition Law (UCL). Accurate filed a demurrer: Kemp’s parole ended in 2014, which predated the 2020 report by less than seven years. Accurate argued under the ICRAA and the CCRAA, “the term ‘parole’ refers to the end of the parole period,” thus barring liability. Alternatively, Accurate argued the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) preempted the state ICRAA, and therefore Kemp’s ICRAA claim was barred as a matter of law. The trial court overruled Accurate’s demurrer, in part, finding “the plain meaning of ‘from the date of . . . parole’ refers to the start date of conditional release.” The court sustained Accurate’s demurrer, in part, finding “the FCRA preempts the ICRAA claim.” Accurate and Kemp both filed petitions for extraordinary writ relief to the Court of Appeal. The Court held the phrase "from the date of parole" referred to the start date of parole, and the FCRA did not preempt Kemp’s ICRAA claim. Thus, the appellate court directed the trial court to vacate its prior order, which partially sustained Accurate’s demurrer, and to issue a new order overruling the demurrer in its entirety. View "Kemp v. Super. Ct." on Justia Law