Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

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 teacher, filed this action against defendants, a superintendent and principal, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1983 claiming that he was terminated in retaliation for exercising his First Amendment rights. At issue was whether defendants were entitled to qualified immunity and whether plaintiff's First Amendment retaliation claims were barred by res judicata. The court held that plaintiff failed to present any precedent, and the court was aware of none, to suggest that a reasonable principal and superintendent armed with the knowledge they possessed, to include the unsatisfactory performance reviews, would know they could not recommend and/or adopt a recommendation to terminate plaintiff. Accordingly, defendants were entitled to qualified immunity and the court need not address the res judicata issue.

Plaintiff brought this action against two officers seeking damages under 42 U.S.C. 1983. Plaintiff alleged that one officer's use of a police dog constituted excessive force and that the other officer failed to intervene and stop the dog attack, both in violation of the Fourth Amendment. At issue was whether clearly established federal law prohibited the officers from allowing the dog to conduct a five to seven minute attack against plaintiff who ran from his car after a traffic stop, where he was lying face down with his hands exposed, no longer resisting arrest, and repeatedly pleading with the officers to call off the dog because he surrendered. The court concluded that clearly established law did not permit this level of force. As a result, the court reversed the decision of the district court granting qualified immunity to the officers and remanded for further proceedings.

This appeal involved the district court's entry of a preliminary injunction preventing enforcement of Alabama Act No. 3010-761 (Act). The Act would prohibit a state or local government employee from arranging "by payroll deduction or otherwise" the payment of any contribution for "political activity." The district court found that the statute impinged on important free speech rights protected by the First Amendment and that appellees were likely to succeed in showing the Act was both overbroad in its restrictions and unduly vague as to what constituted political activity. The court concluded that the constitutional question before it turned upon a question of state law and therefore delayed final judgment as to the preliminary injunction until the Alabama Supreme Court had an opportunity to render is interpretation of the Act by answering the court's certified questions.

Plaintiff, operator of two pen pal services, brought a civil rights action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1983 alleging that the FDOC's Pen Pal Solicitation Rule, which prohibited inmates from soliciting pen pals, violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Appellants sought to enjoin the FDOC officials from banning all pen pal solicitation correspondence between the entities that appellants operated and Florida inmates, arguing that the rule substantially burdened their programs and deprived them of due process. The court affirmed the district court because the FDOC rule was rationally related to a legitimate penological interest and that the FDOC did not violate appellants' due process rights.

Plaintiff filed a petition for rehearing en banc, which also operated as a petition for panel rehearing. The court granted the petition and vacated its earlier opinion. This appeal involved plaintiff's claim under 41 U.S.C. 1981, for racial discrimination based on Tyson Foods' failure to promote him to shift manager at its Gadsden, Alabama chicken processing plant. Plaintiff challenged the district court's judgment vacating the jury's punitive damages award. Tyson Foods challenged the district court's refusal to enter judgment in its favor based on the law of the case, the district court's denial of its motion for judgment as a matter of law based on insufficient evidence of discrimination, a number of evidentiary rulings the court made, and the court's refusal to order remittitur of the jury's award of compensatory damages. The court addressed each issue and ultimately affirmed the judgment of the district court.

Plaintiff was enrolled in the Counselor Education Program at Augusta State University (ASU), seeking to obtain her master's degree in school counseling. Plaintiff subsequently filed an action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that requiring her to complete a remediation plan addressing what the faculty perceived as deficiencies in her ability to be a multiculturally competent counselor violated her First Amendment free speech and free exercise rights. Plaintiff also filed a motion for a preliminary injunction that would prevent ASU's officials from dismissing her from the program if she did not complete the remediation plan. The district court denied her motion for a preliminary injunction and plaintiff appealed. The court held that because plaintiff failed to establish a substantial likelihood of success on the merits with respect to her free speech and free exercise claims, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying her motion for a preliminary injunction.

Plaintiff filed a complaint seeking declaratory and injunctive relief pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1983 for alleged violations of her rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, claiming that defendant fired her from her job as an editor because of sex discrimination. Plaintiff also claimed that her constitutional rights were violated because defendant terminated her employment due to her medical condition, known as Gender Identity Disorder. The district court granted summary judgment to plaintiff on her sex discrimination claim and granted summary judgment to defendant on plaintiff's medical discrimination claim. Both parties timely appealed. The court held that a government agent violated the Equal Protection Clause's prohibition of sex-based discrimination when he or she fired a transgender or transsexual employee because of his or her gender non-conformity. The court also held that defendant had advanced no reason that could qualify as a governmental purpose, much less an "important" governmental purpose, and even less than that, a "sufficiently important government purpose" that was achieved by firing plaintiff because of her gender non-conformity. Therefore, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court granting summary judgment in favor of plaintiff on her sex-discrimination claim. In light of this decision, which provided plaintiff with all the relief she sought, there was no need to address plaintiff's cross-appeal.

In this Section 1983 case, four homeless plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of two ordinances in the City Code of St. Petersburg, Florida and of the city's enforcement of the ordinances. The trespass ordinance at issue authorized certain city agents to issue a temporary trespass warning for specific city land on which the agent determined that the warning recipient had violated city or state law. The storage ordinance at issue prohibited storage of personal property on city land such as parks and rights-of-way. The district court dismissed all of plaintiffs claims. The court affirmed the district court's rulings, except the court vacated part of the district court's ruling about the trespass ordinance. Plaintiffs have stated claims on the issues of procedural due process under the United States Constitution and on their right to intrastate travel under the Florida Constitution.

Plaintiffs brought an action against the City of Marietta, Georgia, challenging the validity of its zoning ordinance. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the city and against plaintiffs on all claims except for one plaintiff's claim (Covenant) that the city's ordinance, as amended in November 2004, facially violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. 2000cc, by treating religious assemblies less favorably than non-religious assemblies. The court held that claims seeking injunctive relief were moot in light of the passage of the 2008 Ordinance and dismissed those claims for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The court held that, to the extent that RLUIPA claims sought damages, they failed on the merits because all damages stemmed from Covenant's inability to build a church in the R-2 residential zone and Covenant was not entitled to build a church in that zone. The court further held that the district court did not err in concluding that the 2004 Ordinance facially violated the equal terms provision of RLUIPA and did not err in awarding nominal damages for this claim. The court finally held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Covenant's motion to leave to amend the complaint.