Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the court of special appeals affirming the circuit court's dismissal of Plaintiff's malicious prosecution claim and reversing the grant of Defendant's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV) on Plaintiff's discrimination claim, holding that the court of special appeals did not err.Plaintiff sued the Town of Riverdale Park and members of the Riverdale Park Police Department for claims including intentional discrimination on the basis of national origin. The circuit court granted the Town's motion for judgment on the malicious prosecution claim and sent the discrimination claim to the jury. The jury found in favor of Plaintiff and awarded damages. The circuit court granted the Town's motion for JNOV, citing Plaintiff's lack of evidence. The court of special appeals affirmed the dismissal of the malicious prosecution claim but reversed the grant of the motion for JNOV. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that Plaintiff presented sufficient evidence of discrimination to withstand a motion for JNOV. View "Town of Riverdale Park v. Askhar" on Justia Law

Straw claims that he was injured as an infant by contaminated water at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and that his injury resulted in a mental disability. Straw previously sued under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). That action was combined with similar cases in a Multidistrict Litigation proceeding in the Northern District of Georgia, which ruled that Straw’s FTCA claims were barred by North Carolina’s 10-year statute of repose. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed; the Supreme Court denied certiorari.Straw then filed suit, seeking $6,000,000 in compensatory damages, arguing that the rulings of the Georgia district court constituted a judicial taking of his tort claims and the damages he sought in that action. The Claims Court dismissed his complaint, citing lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The Federal Circuit affirmed. By claiming that the Georgia district court and the Eleventh Circuit had caused a taking of his personal-injury cause of action, Straw was effectively asking the Claims Court to overturn the decisions of those courts that his FTCA claim was time-barred. The court noted that Straw’s claim sounded in tort, given the underlying personal bodily harm; tort claims are expressly excluded from the jurisdiction of the Claims Court under the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. 1491. View "Straw v. United States" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, parents of LD, filed suit against the school district and others after their daughter LD, a 13-year-old, 7th grade student, was sexually abused by her teacher, Brian Robeson.The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the school district and the principal. The court concluded that plaintiffs failed to present any evidence that the principal had actual notice of the abuse, and the principal and the school district were entitled to summary judgment on plaintiffs' Title IX and 42 U.S.C. 1983 claims. The court also concluded that the district court did not err by granting summary judgment in favor of the school district and principal on plaintiffs' Nebraska Political Subdivisions Tort Claims Act where plaintiffs' claim arose out of Robeson's sexual assault of LD, an intentional tort to which the Act's intentional tort exception applies. The court further concluded that the district court did not err in granting summary judgment in favor of the principal on plaintiffs' aiding and abetting intentional infliction of emotional distress claim where nothing in the record, even when viewed in the light most favorable to plaintiffs, indicates that the principal encouraged or assisted Robeson in inflicting emotional distress on LD.The court joined its sister circuits in finding that there is no right to a jury trial on the issue of damages following entry of default judgment. The court affirmed the district court's order denying plaintiffs' request for a jury trial on the issue of damages against Robeson. Finally, the court affirmed the $1,249,540.41 amount of damages awarded against Robeson. View "KD v. Douglas County School District No. 001" on Justia Law

Irvin Shell, as administrator of the estate of Annie Ruth Peterson, deceased ("the estate"), appealed separate summary judgments entered in favor of Montgomery-municipal jail employees Terri Butcher and Shayla Payne, respectively, on the basis of State-agent immunity. Annie Peterson was arrested for driving under the influence "of any substance" and transported to the municipal jail. Peterson was not actually under the influence of an intoxicating substance at the time of her arrest; rather, she was suffering from a hemorrhagic stroke. She remained in jail overnight; when jail officers went to retrieve Peterson from her cell, she was weak, “drowsy” and appeared ill. This information was relayed to a jail nurse; the nurse in turn contacted a doctor, who instructed jail staff to transport Peterson to the emergency room. After the bonding process was complete, Peterson was released to a family member who transported Peterson to a local hospital where she was diagnosed with having suffered a stroke; she died three days later on April 16, 2013. The estate sued Butcher and Payne in their individual capacities, alleging that they had been negligent and wanton in failing to obtain medical care for Peterson in a timely manner. The Alabama Supreme Court determined the estate did not demonstrate the trial court erred in entering summary judgment in favor of Butcher and Payne based on State-agent immunity. Accordingly, the trial court’s judgments were affirmed. View "Shell v. Butcher" on Justia Law

Five South Bend officers were assigned to an area of the city that was considered to be a “hot spot.” One drove a fully marked police vehicle. Two officers patrolled in an unmarked car without sirens or lights; two sat in an unmarked car that had sirens and lights. Around 4:30 am, the patrolling car radioed over the tactical channel that they planned to stop a speeding car. The remaining officers promptly acknowledged the report but did not indicate that the traffic stop was an emergency, nor did they request assistance from other officers.After hearing the exchanges, knowing that no one was requesting assistance, Gorny (two miles away) roared through a residential neighborhood at 78 miles per hour, disregarding the 30 mph speed limit, with infrequent use of lights or sirens. On Western Avenue, he accelerated up to 98 mph and reached the Kaley Avenue intersection with an obstructed view. Disregarding the red light, Gorny sped across and crashed into Flores’s car, killing her.The district court dismissed a 42 U.S.C. 1983 substantive due process action. The Seventh Circuit reversed. Flores’s allegations plausibly state claims against Gorny and the city. The law does not provide a shield against constitutional violations for state actors who consciously take extreme, obvious risks. Flores’s complaint plausibly alleges that the city acted with deliberate indifference by failing to address the known recklessness of its officers as a group and Gorny in particular. View "Flores v. City of South Bend" on Justia Law

Plaintiff and his wife filed suit against defendants alleging claims related to the kidnapping and murder of Jacob E. Wetterling. Jacob was abducted at the end of plaintiff's wife's driveway. Plaintiff asserted First Amendment retaliation, a derivative claim for municipal liability, and state law claims for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.The Eighth Circuit concluded that the district court did not err in determining that plaintiff's 42 U.S.C. 1983 was time-barred by the six year statute of limitations under Minnesota law. The court also concluded that the district court did not err in determining that the defamation claim and intentional infliction of emotional distress claim were time-barred by the two-year statute of limitations under Minnesota law. In this case, plaintiff's claims accrued in 2010, when the alleged tortious acts of naming plaintiff as a person of interest and searching plaintiff and his wife's property occurred, regardless of when they believed they had enough evidence to convince a judge or jury and obtain relief. Finally, the court concluded that the district court did not err by denying plaintiff's request to equitably toll the statutes of limitations where plaintiffs lacked diligence in filing, which was not prevented by invincible necessity. Furthermore, no factor outside plaintiff's control prevented the filing. View "Rassier v. Sanner" on Justia Law

In this libel case, the Eleventh Circuit held that New York's "fair and true report" privilege, codified as N.Y. Civ. Rights Law 74, applies to the fair and true publication of the contents of a document that was filed and sealed in a Florida paternity/child custody proceeding.Plaintiff filed suit against Gizmodo and Katherine Krueger, the author of an article published on the Splinter website owned by Gizmodo, over an article entitled "Court Docs Allege Ex-Trump Staffer Drugged Woman He Got Pregnant with 'Abortion Pill.'" The district court concluded that section 74 applied, and that the Splinter article was a fair and true report of the supplement because it was "substantially accurate." Plaintiff does not challenge the district court's finding that the Splinter article was a fair and true report, but he maintains that the section 74 privilege does not apply because the supplement was filed in a paternity/child custody proceeding and sealed. The court held that section 74's fair and true report privilege applies to the Splinter article written by Ms. Krueger about the supplement filed by the mother of plaintiff's child, and that the 1970 decision of the New York Court of Appeals in Shiles v. News Syndicate Co., 261 N.E.2d 251, 256 (N.Y. 1970), does not preclude the application of section 74. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants. View "Miller v. Gizmodo Media Group, LLC" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Keith Sanders, a sergeant with the Montrose County Sheriff’s Office, appealed the denial of his summary judgment motion based on qualified immunity. Plaintiff-appellee Eric Vette filed a verified complaint alleging, among other things, that Sergeant Sanders subjected him to excessive force during the course of his arrest by committing the following acts after Vette had already been apprehended: punching Vette, hitting him in the face with a dog chain, and letting a police dog attack him. Sergeant Sanders moved to dismiss the complaint, or, in the alternative, for summary judgment, arguing he was entitled to qualified immunity. The district court converted Sergeant Sanders’s motion to one for summary judgment and denied it. Sergeant Sanders appealed, invoking the collateral order doctrine as the purported basis for appellate jurisdiction. The Tenth Circuit determined, however, that it lacked jurisdiction over Sergeant Sanders’ appeal to the extent his arguments depended on facts that differed from those the district court assumed in denying his summary judgment motion. Exercising jurisdiction over the abstract issues of law advanced by Sergeant Sanders, the Court held the district court did not err. View "Vette v. Sanders" on Justia Law

The Court of Appeal reversed the trial court's order denying defendant's special motion to strike plaintiff's complaint as a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP), Code Civ. Proc., 425.16. Plaintiff filed suit against defendant for defamation and other torts, alleging causes of action arising from an article about him that defendant had written in Vietnamese.The court concluded that the trial court erroneously determined that defendant had failed to satisfy the first prong of the anti-SLAPP statute, i.e., defendant had not made a threshold showing that plaintiff's action arose from protected activity in connection with an issue of public interest. In this case, the article concerned a matter of public interest because plaintiff was "in the public eye" in the Vietnamese community. Furthermore, plaintiff is collaterally estopped from claiming that the article did not concern an issue of public interest because this issue was decided against him in the prior BBC proceeding. The court also concluded that the trial court erroneously determined that plaintiff had satisfied the statute's second prong, i.e., plaintiff had demonstrated a probability of prevailing on his claims. The court explained that plaintiff has failed to carry his burden of establishing a probability that he can show by clear and convincing evidence that defendant acted with actual malice. Finally, the court concluded that plaintiff cannot establish a probability of prevailing on his second cause of action for violation of the common law of publicity and his third cause of action for civil conspiracy. View "Kieu Hoang v. Phong Minh Tran" on Justia Law

Executing a search warrant, in 2011, eight Tacoma police officers broke open an apartment door with a battering ram. They expected for find Matthew Longstrom, a drug dealer. Instead, they awakened Petitioner Kathleen Mancini, a nurse who had been sleeping after working the night shift. Police nevertheless handcuffed Mancini and took her, without shoes and wearing only a nightgown, outside while they searched. Mancini sued these police for negligence in the performance of their duties. A jury found the police breached a duty of reasonable care they owed to Mancini when executing the search warrant. The Washington Supreme Court found substantial evidence supported the jury’s verdict. The Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals that held to the contrary (granting the officers sovereign immunity) and reinstated the jury’s verdict. View "Mancini v. City Of Tacoma" on Justia Law