Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

A jury found that plaintiff failed to prove her claim that the shooting of her family's dog by a law enforcement officer during the execution of a search warrant of her home was an unconstitutional seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment. On appeal, plaintiff contended that defendants' failure to train its officers regarding non-lethal means to secure dogs and to formulate a plan to restrain plaintiff's dog using non-lethal means rendered the officer's shooting of her dog unconstitutional as a matter of law. The court concluded that a reasonable jury could have found that no amount of planning or training would have changed the outcome in this case. Plaintiff offered no evidence that any non-lethal means of controlling her dog would have allowed the officer to quickly escape the "fatal funnel" and effectively execute the no-knock warrant. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment. View "Carroll v. County of Monroe" on Justia Law

Plaintiff brought suit against the City pursuant to, inter alia, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq., claiming that the City's response to his request for accommodations was insufficient. Plaintiff's severe disability, schizophrenia, required treatment that prevented him from arriving to work at a consistent time each day. The district court granted summary judgment to the City and dismissed plaintiff's claims with prejudice, noting that it could not distinguish between absenteeism and tardiness. The court concluded that the district court did not conduct a sufficiently detailed analysis of the facts that tended to undermine the City's claim that a specific arrival time was an essential function of plaintiff's position before granting summary judgment for the City. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded. View "McMillan v. City of New York" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a white male employed as captain of the City of Buffalo Police Department, sued the Department and its police chief claiming that their failure to promote him was impermissibly motivated by race. Plaintiff claimed racial discrimination after the results of a civil service examination were replaced by the results of an updated version. The court declined to address the 42 U.S.C. 1983, defamation, and equal protection claims because they were insufficiently argued; the court agreed with the district court that Ricci v. DeStefano did not indicate that defendants' actions were prohibited; plaintiff provided no other evidence of unlawful discrimination and his Title VII claim failed; and plaintiff's remaining claims were without merit. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Maraschiello v. City of Buffalo Police Dept." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, manufacturers and distributors of smokeless tobacco products, filed suit challenging the validity of a New York City ordinance governing the sale of flavored tobacco products. Plaintiffs alleged that the ordinance, New York City Administrative Code 17-715, was preempted by the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, 21 U.S.C. 387 et seq., and sought an injunction against enforcement. The district court awarded summary judgment to the City and plaintiffs appealed. The court concluded that the ordinance was a regulation of sale and not a veiled attempt to regulate the manufacture of tobacco products. The ordinance represented an exercise of local police power that Congress specifically allowed in enacting the Act and was therefore not preempted. View "U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Mfg. Co., et al. v. City of New York" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed an order and judgment of the district court granting summary judgment to Hofstra and dismissing her suit claiming harassment and retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e-2000e-17; Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. 1681-88; and corresponding provisions of the New York State Human Rights Law (NYSHRL), N.Y. Exec. Law 290-301. Plaintiff claimed that she experienced harassment and retaliation while employed by Hofstra as a team manager for the university's football program. Because defendants took the needed remedial action in this case, the harassment carried out by some players on the football team could not be imputed to the university or its personnel. The district court erred, however, in its analysis of the McDonnell Douglas factors by holding that plaintiff could not prevail on any of her three retaliation claims based on her supposed failure to demonstrate that she had engaged in protected activity and the requisite causation. Therefore, the court held that plaintiff presented sufficient evidence to withstand a grant of summary judgment with respect to her retaliation claims, but not as to her sexual harassment claims. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded. View "Summa v. Hofstra University" on Justia Law

Plaintiff and others brought claims of hostile work environment based on gender under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e; 42 U.S.C. 1983; and the New York State Human Rights Law, N.Y. Exec. Law 290 et seq. (NYSHRL), as well as claims of retaliation under Title VII and the NYSHRL. Plaintiff subsequently appealed from the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the City. The court concluded that plaintiff's claim of a hostile work environment involving allegations of repeated solicitation of sexual relations in a vulgar and humiliating manner sufficed to warrant a trial; plaintiff's claim of gender discrimination because of hostile work environment also sufficed under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; but the district court properly determined that plaintiff's claims of retaliation failed. Accordingly, the court reversed in part, affirmed in part, and remanded. In a summary order, the court affirmed the dismissal of the claims of the other plaintiffs. View "Desardouin v. City of Rochester" on Justia Law

Defendants appealed the district court's denial of their motion for summary judgment. Plaintiffs' commitments were effected by means of an executive-branch effort aimed at preventing the release of some "sexually violent predators." The court agreed with the district court that there was sufficient evidence in the record to support plaintiffs' procedural due process claims and therefore defeated the motion for summary judgment. The court also concluded that at the time of the Initiative, the constitutional principal that, absent some emergency or other exigent circumstance, an individual could not be involuntarily committed to a psychiatric institution without notice and a predeprivation hearing was firmly established. Because the law pertaining to the involuntary civil commitment of prisoners was firmly established, the district court properly determined that defendants should not enjoy qualified immunity. View "Bailey v. Pataki" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed from the district court's grant of summary judgment denying injunctive relief from New York's statutory handgun licensing requirement. The district court concluded that the statute limited the grant of handgun licenses to domiciliaries of the state and plaintiff was a part-time New York resident who was not a domiciliary of the state. The court held that certification of the statute's interpretation to the New York Court of Appeals was warranted. View "Osterweil v. Bartlett" on Justia Law

Plaintiff sued her employer, alleging violations of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12131 et seq. Plaintiff alleged that her job as a librarian at the Library was terminated because of behavior symptomatic of her chronic mental illness. Because the court concluded that Title II did, in some circumstances, require reasonable departures from standards established by state laws, the court vacated the district court's judgment of dismissal in that respect. Because the court concluded, based principally on the structure of the ADA, that Title II did not apply to employment discrimination, the court affirmed the district court's judgment of dismissal of that claim. View "Mary Jo C. v. New York State and Local Retirement Sys." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a former sergeant with the Hartford Police Department, appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants where plaintiff alleged, inter alia, that defendants wrongfully failed to promote him and defendants instigated several internal affairs investigations into his conduct on the basis of his race or national origin. With respect to plaintiff's discrimination claims, the court held that he failed to introduce factual evidence that defendants' nondiscriminatory reasons for the investigation and failure to promote him were pretextual or that plaintiff's race or national origin was a motivating favor. With respect to Chief Croughwell, although the court agreed with plaintiff that his statement to the press implicated a matter of public concern, the court affirmed the judgment on the district court's alternative ground that Chief Croughwell was protected from liability by qualified immunity. View "Garcia v. Hartford Police Dept." on Justia Law