Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff sued defendant, a general improvement district, arguing that defendant's policy of only allowing people who own or rent real property within defendant's 1968 boundaries to access beaches that it owned and operated was unconstitutional under the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court granted defendant's motion for summary judgment. The court held that the beaches were not a traditional public forum, and that plaintiff's exclusion from beaches did not violate either his First Amendment or Fourteenth Amendment rights. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

Plaintiffs, Washington Medicaid beneficiaries with severe mental and physical disabilities, appealed the district court's denial of their motion for a preliminary injunction. Plaintiffs sought to enjoin the operation of a regulation promulgated by Washington's DSHS that reduced the amount of in-home "personal care services" available under the state's Medicaid plan. The court concluded that plaintiffs have demonstrated a likelihood of irreparable injury because they have shown that reduced access to personal care services would place them at serious risk of institutionalization. The court further concluded that plaintiffs have raised serious questions going to the merits of their Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. 12132, and Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. 794(a), claims, that the balance of hardships tipped sharply in their favor, and that a preliminary injunction would serve the public interest. Accordingly, the court remanded for entry of a preliminary injunction.

Defendant and a group of allegedly similarly situated state prisoners brought suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against defendants, alleging that they were overdetained in violation of federal and state law. At issue was whether state prison officials had a clearly established duty to seek out original court records in response to a prisoner's unsupported assertion that he was being overdetained in violation of the United States Constitution. The court held that there was no clearly established duty on a prison official to review a prisoner's original court records beyond those in his institutional file on the facts of this case. Thus, defendants were entitled to qualified immunity.

Plaintiffs appealed the adverse summary judgment grant in their 42 U.S.C. 1983 action arising out of the nighttime SWAT team search of their home for weapons suspected of being used in a drive-by shooting and stored in their home by their son. Plaintiffs alleged that their Fourth Amendments rights were violated by the issuance and execution of a search warrant whose application failed to disclose that their son was at that time, and for over six months had been, incarcerated and was therefore not present in plaintiffs' home, but moreover could not have been involved in the shooting or the storage of weapons used in it. Because plaintiffs presented sufficient evidence establishing a genuine issue as to whether Santa Maria Police Department Detective Louis Tanore's omission of this material fact was intentional or reckless, as opposed to merely negligent, the court reversed the summary judgment grant in his favor and remanded.

Plaintiff, who had a history of depression and bipolar disorder, filed a complaint against the Board when she was terminated from her position when she failed to complete at least six semester hours of professional development training to renew her certificate. At issue was whether a disabled teacher was a "qualified individual with a disability" under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq. The court held that because plaintiff did not allege that the Board's legal authorization requirement was itself discriminatory, her failure to satisfy such requirement rendered her unqualified and the Board was not required to accommodate her disability. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of the ban on compensation for human organs in the National Organ Transplant Act, 42 U.S.C. 274e, as applied to bone marrow transplants. Plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief to allow harvesting of hematopoietic stem cells which would be extracted by peripheral blood stem cell apheresis (the same technique sometimes used to collect plasma or platelets). The court concluded that Congress made a distinction between body material that was compensable and body material that was not. The distinction had a rational basis, so the prohibition on compensation for bone marrow donations by the aspiration method did not violate the Equal Protection Clause. The court also concluded that when the peripheral blood stem cell apheresis method of bone marrow transplantation was used, it was not a transfer of a "human organ" or a "subpart thereof" as defined by the statue and regulation, so the statue did not criminalize compensating the donor. Therefore, the court need not decide whether prohibiting compensation for such donations would be unconstitutional.

Defendant appealed the district court's preliminary injunction precluding enforcement of California Welfare and Institutions Code 14105.191(f), which amended California's Medicaid Plan and set provider reimbursement rates for the 2009-2010 rate year, and for each year thereafter. Plaintiffs challenged the law under 42 U.S.C 1983 and the Supremacy Clause because the State did not obtain federal approval of its State Plan Amendment (SPA) prior to implementing the rate changes. The court vacated the preliminary injunction and held that plaintiffs have not shown that they have an unambiguously conferred right to bring a section 1983 claim.

Plaintiff and his children (plaintiffs) brought a 42 U.S.C. 1983 suit against defendants for damages resulting from plaintiff's unlawful arrest. Plaintiff was arrested as he stood outside a fair selling promotional tickets for $5 that he had received for free from a radio station. At issue was whether the district court properly granted summary judgment in favor of defendants on the grounds of qualified immunity. The court agreed with the district court that there was no probable cause to arrest plaintiff and his right to be free from unlawful arrest was violated. The court held, however, that the district court's grant of summary judgment on the grounds of qualified immunity for an unlawful arrest was reversed where all reasonably competent officers would have agreed that plaintiff was not committing a crime because there was no scalping law in Nevada; it was simply not a crime to sell tickets to a fair; plaintiff's t-shirt, which had the logo of the radio station, did not suggest fraud; and the ticket buyers were not duped by the sale. The court also held that plaintiffs' substantive due process right to family integrity was not violated where the facts of the case did not come close to rising to the level of conduct that shocked the conscience. Because the court concluded that plaintiffs' right to family integrity was not violated, the court need not reach the question of whether the deputy sheriff was entitled to qualified immunity for the violation of the right to family integrity.

Plaintiffs, both women who were tased during an encounter with officers, filed a suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 seeking damages for the alleged violation of their Fourth Amendment rights. At issue was whether the use of a taser to subdue a suspect resulted in the excessive use of force and whether the officers were entitled to qualified immunity. The court held that, although plaintiffs in both cases have alleged constitutional violations because a reasonable fact finder could conclude that the officers' use of a taser was unconstitutionally excessive, the officers were entitled to qualified immunity on plaintiffs' section 1983 claims because the law was not clearly established at the time of the incidents. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's denial of qualified immunity on these claims. In Brooks, however, the court affirmed the district court's denial of qualified immunity on her state law assault and battery claims against the officers.

Plaintiff brought this suit in 2004, challenging the constitutionality of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, 10 U.S.C. 654(b). While an appeal was pending in this case, Congress enacted the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010, Pub. L. No. 111-321, 124 Stat. 3515. Consequently, the court held that this case became moot when the repeal of section 654 took effect on September 20, 2010. Therefore, the court vacated and remanded with directions to dismiss.