Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

In 2013, LeVan was elected to the office of Milton Township Assessor, displacing his political rival, Earl. Shortly after he took office, LeVan discharged a group of Deputy Assessors who had publicly supported Earl in his run for reelection. The dismissed employees sued LeVan under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that the Deputy Assessor position is not one for which political affiliation is a valid job requirement, as the position did not authorize the employees to have meaningful input in policy decisions.The district court concluded that LeVan is not entitled to qualified immunity. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Unless political affiliation is an appropriate job requirement, the First Amendment forbids government officials from discharging employees based on their political affiliation. Taking as true the plaintiffs’ well-pleaded allegations about the characteristics of the Deputy Assessor position, a reasonable actor in LeVan’s position would have known that dismissing the deputies based on their political affiliation violated their constitutional rights. View "Hanson v. LeVan" on Justia Law

In this appeal by allowance, the issue presented for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was whether application of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (“PHRA”) to the judicial branch of our tripartite form of government violated separation of powers principles. On April 3, 1989, the Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas (“CCP”) Office of Adult Probation hired Appellant Michael Renner as a Parole Officer. In July 2011, Appellant informed Lehigh County Chief Probation Officer John Sikora that he had been diagnosed with a serious mental health condition and was hospitalized; he was subsequently absent from work for 4 to 6 weeks. During Appellant’s absence, Sikora telephoned him numerous times to confirm the legitimacy of Appellant’s condition. Upon his return to work, Appellant alleged Sikora and Lehigh County Benefits Manager Mark Surovy, both of whom supervised Appellant, pressured Appellant to resign or take a leave of absence. Appellant confronted Sikora about his hostilities towards him, but Sikora refused to discuss the matter. Subsequently, in March 2014, Sikora terminated Appellant for failing to administer a urine test to an offender under his supervision. Appellant claimed the test was not required and that the reason for his termination was pretextual. Appellant protested his termination to then-President Judge of the CCP Carol McGinley, but Judge McGinley refused to take any action. As a result, Appellant claimed he could not obtain other employment in any other court system, and, in 2014, he filed a charge of unlawful discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which was dual-filed with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission (“PHRC”), against Lehigh County Adult Probation, Sikora, and Surovy. Thereafter, Appellant completed training as a municipal officer, and, subsequently, was offered a police officer position by Northampton and Fountain Hill Boroughs. Appellant alleged that the CCP and Lehigh County learned that Appellant was offered employment as a police officer, and caused an order to be issued banning Appellant from possessing a firearm or taser in the Lehigh County Courthouse, Old Courthouse, and Government Center. As a result, Northampton and Fountain Hill Boroughs rescinded their employment offers. Appellant eventually got his gun possession ban lifted, but as a condition, the CCP and Lehigh County required him to undergo a medical exam, which Appellant contended was a violation of the PHRA. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court concluded that application of the PHRA to the judiciary would violate separation of powers principles, and thus, affirmed the order of the Commonwealth Court. View "Renner v. CCP of Lehigh Co., et al" on Justia Law

In 2008, after being denied tenure, George filed a discrimination lawsuit against Youngstown State University and was reinstated as part of a settlement agreement. As soon as the university’s obligations under the agreement expired, it declined to renew George’s contract and terminated his employment as a professor. George applied to several other positions within the university but was rejected. He then filed employment discrimination and retaliation claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.Following discovery, the district court granted YSU summary judgment, finding that George either failed to show causation, failed to show he was qualified for the job, or failed to show that YSU’s claimed reasons for firing (or not hiring) him were pretextual. The court also dismissed one of George’s failure-to-hire claims— which arose after this lawsuit was filed—based on an administrative exhaustion requirement. The Sixth Circuit reversed. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to George reveals a genuine dispute of material fact as to each of the claims and the district court further erred in enforcing the administrative exhaustion requirement because the defendants expressly waived it below. View "George v. Youngstown State University" on Justia Law

Henderson joined the VA police department Hines VA Hospital in 1986. Henderson filed an employment discrimination action against the Department of Veteran Affairs. After being denied a promotion in 2013, Henderson, who is African American, alleged race and age discrimination and retaliation claims, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e-2, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. 621. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the judgment for the VA, following a remand for a determination of whether the VA’s explanations for not selecting Henderson for a criminal investigator position were a pretext for racial discrimination. The district court acted properly with respect to testimony on subjects not disclosed in Henderson’s interrogatory answer. Henderson failed to explain the substance of the testimony he sought to present so it is not possible to conclude that the district court erred in excluding it. The court’s decision that it would not permit evidence of discriminatory action against other African Americans after the award of the criminal investigator job was proper because some of those actions are in litigation; the slight additional value from the cumulative evidence was outweighed by the risk of jury confusion. View "Henderson v. Wilkie" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit alleging a sex discrimination claim for a failure to promote against the County of Wright and the Wright County Sheriff's Department under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Minnesota Human Rights Act (MHRA).The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the County, holding that plaintiff failed to present evidence that one of the reasons for the chief deputy's actions in not promoting plaintiff was gender animus; plaintiff failed to argue that the interview notes show that the other panelists' negative impressions of her were pretextual, or that the chief deputy was somehow responsible for their negative impressions; and plaintiff failed to point to any evidence of gender animus from the other panelists. The court also held that the district court did not err by concluding that plaintiff failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact as to her cat's-paw theory. View "Pribyl v. County of Wright" on Justia Law

After plaintiff was injured while performing work in the Adult Offender Work Program (AOWP), he filed suit against the county for its failure to accommodate his preexisting physical disability and failure to engage in the interactive process under the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA).The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the county. The court held that an individual sentenced to perform work activities in lieu of incarceration in the absence of any financial remuneration, is precluded, as a matter of law, from being an "employee" within the meaning of the FEHA. The court explained that, while remuneration alone is not a sufficient condition to establish an individual is an employee under the statute, it is an essential one. Because plaintiff earned no sufficient financial remuneration as a result of participation in the AOWP, he could not be deemed an employee under the FEHA. The court did not reach plaintiff's remaining arguments. View "Talley v. County of Fresno" on Justia Law

Two teachers at Roman Catholic elementary schools were employed under agreements that set out the schools’ mission to develop and promote a Catholic School faith community; imposed commitments regarding religious instruction, worship, and personal modeling of the faith; and explained that teachers’ performance would be reviewed on those bases. Each taught religion and worshipped with her students, prayed with her students. Each teacher sued after her employment was terminated. One claimed violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act; the other claimed she was discharged because she requested a leave of absence to obtain breast cancer treatment. The Ninth Circuit declined to apply the Supreme Court's 2012 Hosanna-Tabor “ministerial exception” to laws governing the employment relationship between a religious institution and certain key employees.The Supreme Court reversed. The First Amendment’s Religion Clauses foreclose the adjudication of employment disputes involving those holding certain important positions with churches and other religious institutions. Several factors may be important in determining whether a particular position falls within the ministerial exception. What matters is what an employee does. Educating young people in their faith, inculcating its teachings, and training them to live their faith lie are the core of a private religious school’s mission. The plaintiff-teachers qualify for the exception; both performed vital religious duties, educating their students in the Catholic faith, and guiding their students to live their lives in accordance with that faith. Their titles did not include the term “minister” but their schools expressly saw them as playing a vital role in carrying out the church’s mission. A religious institution’s explanation of the role of its employees in the life of the religion is important. The Ninth Circuit mistakenly treated the Hosanna-Tabor decision as a checklist; that court invested undue significance in the facts that these teachers did not have clerical titles and that they had less formal religious schooling than the Hosanna-Tabor teacher. The Court rejected a suggestion that an employee can never come within the Hosanna-Tabor exception unless the employee is a “practicing” member of the religion with which the employer is associated. View "Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru" on Justia Law

After Costco terminated plaintiff, who has been deaf since birth, she filed suit in Florida state court for violations of the Florida Civil Rights Act of 1992 (FCRA). After Costco removed the case to federal court, the case went to trial, and the jury returned a verdict in favor of Costco on one count of wrongful termination, but against the company on plaintiff's failure-to-accommodate claim. The district court subsequently granted summary judgment to Costco for judgment as a matter of law on the failure-to-accommodate claim.The Eleventh Circuit affirmed, holding that there was insufficient evidence to support plaintiff's failure-to-accommodate claim. In this case, plaintiff failed to point to a specific instance in which she needed an accommodation and was denied one. The court stated that it cannot hold that an employer fails to reasonably accommodate a deaf employee when it provide her with on-demand access to live sign-language interpreters at two, convenient locations within her place of work; when it goes further to provide on-site person interpreters for larger, group meetings; when it arranges a thorough training session on deaf culture, pursuant to the plaintiff's request; and when the plaintiff's general manager—the supervisor who was the sole subject of her sole complaint—resolves to improve his relationship with the plaintiff by attending multiple, one-on-one training sessions. View "D'Onofrio v. Costco Wholesale Corp." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under Title VII against Midwest after it allegedly withdrew his job offer after learning that he was gay. The Eighth Circuit reversed the district court's dismissal based on Williamson v. A.G. Edwards & Sons, Inc., 876 F.2d 69, 70 (8th Cir. 1989), and remanded for further proceedings in light of the Supreme Court's decision in Bostock v. Clayton Cty., 590 U.S. ___, Nos. 17-1618, 17-1623, 18-107, slip op. at 4 (June 15, 2020), which held that it "defies" Title VII for "an employer to discriminate against employees for being homosexual or transgender," because to do so, it "must intentionally discriminate against individual men and women in part because of sex." View "Horton v. Midwest Geriatric Management" on Justia Law

After plaintiff was denied tenure as an assistant professor of Legal Studies at the University of Mississippi, he filed suit against several university officials in their individual capacities, alleging that they violated his substantive due process rights when they evaluated his eligibility for tenure in an arbitrary and capricious manner. A jury subsequently awarded plaintiff over $200,000 in damages for lost wages and past and future pain and suffering.The Fifth Circuit reversed and rendered judgment in favor of defendants, holding that the district court erred when it denied defendants' motions for qualified immunity and concluded that plaintiff had a clearly established property interest. In this case, plaintiff failed to demonstrate that the language in his contract that allegedly guaranteed him a "fair process of tenure review" gave rise to a clearly-established property right. View "Wigginton v. Jones" on Justia Law