Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

Appellee sued Mary Lafond, DSHS's Child Study and Treatment Center's (CSTC) CEO, and Norman Webster, the Director of Nursing Services, under 42 U.S.C. 1983 for violating her Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process right to safe conditions while in the custody of a state-run mental institution. LaFond and Webster, relying on qualified immunity, appealed the district court's order denying their motion for summary judgment. The court held that the allegations and evidence against LaFond sufficiently supported a constitutional violation that defeated qualified immunity, while those against Webster did not. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's denial of summary judgment as to LaFond and reversed the district court's denial of summary judgment as to Webster. The court remanded for further proceedings.

This appeal concerned the requirements of due process when law enforcement officers charged with felonies were suspended without pay. The officers brought claims under 42 U.S.C. 1983 in federal district court, alleging violations of their Fourteenth Amendment due process rights. The district court subsequently granted defendants' motion to dismiss, holding that the officers had failed to state a claim against the County of Los Angeles, and that the individual defendants were entitled to qualified immunity. The court held that the officers have adequately alleged that defendants' policies caused violations of their constitutional rights and therefore, plaintiffs have stated Monell v. Dept. of Soc. Servs. claims against the county. All individual defendants, however, were entitled to qualified immunity from the claims of two of the officers (Debs and O'Donoghue), whose right to a more substantial post-suspension hearing was not clearly established at the time of the violations. The individually named Civil Service Commissioners were also entitled to qualified immunity from two of the officers' (Wilkinson and Sherr) claims because the Commission was stripped of jurisdiction by the California Court of Appeal in Zuniga v. Los Angeles Civil Service Commission. But those claims could go forward against the Sheriff and the County Supervisors, who were constitutionally required to provide post-suspension procedures for suspended deputy sheriffs who later retired. Therefore, the court remanded for further proceedings.

This case arose when plaintiff sued Lucent Technologies for disability benefits based on grounds of mental disability. At issue was whether 42 U.S.C. 1981 retaliation claims were governed by the four-year statute of limitations applicable to claims "arising under an Act of Congress enacted" after December 1, 1990, 28 U.S.C. 1658, or by the personal injury statute of limitations of the forum state. The court held that the district court erred in applying to plaintiff's section 1981 retaliation claim the two-year statute of limitations governing personal injury claims under California law and not the four-year statute of limitations under section 1658. Consequently, under the proper statute of limitations, the claim was timely. The court also held that the district court erred in ruling that, as a matter of law, plaintiff's intentional infliction of emotional distress claim was time-barred. The court held, however, that the district court correctly dismissed Title VII, abuse of process, and fraudulent concealment claims. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed in part and reversed in part and remanded for further proceedings.

Plaintiff appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of defendant where plaintiff was a former bus driver for defendant and was terminated, subsequently reinstated pursuant to an agreement executed over the course of a grievance process, and then again terminated for an unexcused absence that violated the attendance requirements of the agreement. At issue was whether the district court properly granted summary judgment to defendant on plaintiff's claims that the second termination violated the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), 29 U.S.C. 2612, and plaintiff's due process right to a pretermination hearing under the United States and California Constitutions. The court held that because plaintiff was not an employee of defendant when he made his request for leave, the court affirmed the district court's grant of judgment for defendant on plaintiff's FMLA claim. The court held, however, that because plaintiff received no pretermination hearing, he was denied due process under the United States and California Constitutions. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment for defendant on plaintiff's due process claims and remanded with instructions to grant judgment for plaintiff on these claims.

Plaintiffs, a Christian sorority and fraternity, as well as several of their officers at San Diego State University, brought suit in federal district court challenging the university's nondiscrimination policy under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Plaintiffs subsequently appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment on all counts in favor of defendants. At issue was whether the Supreme Court's holdings in Christian Legal Society Chapter of the University of California, Hastings College of the Law v. Martinez extended to a narrow nondiscrimination policy that, instead of prohibiting all membership restrictions, prohibited membership restrictions only on certain specified bases. The court held that the narrower policy was constitutional. The court held, however, that plaintiffs have raised a triable issue of fact as to whether the narrower policy was selectively enforced in this particular case, thereby violating plaintiffs' rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part and reversed in part, and remanded to the district court for further proceedings.

Plaintiff sued defendants, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the Alaska Department of Transportation (Alaska), and the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company (Alyeska), in federal court, alleging causes of action for inverse condemnation, injunctive relief, nuisance, breach of fiduciary duties, and civil rights violations. At issue was whether the district court properly dismissed the action against the BLM and Alaska on the basis of sovereign immunity. The court held that federal sovereign immunity barred plaintiff's inverse condemnation, injunctive relief, and civil rights violations claims against the United States, but that the Federal Tort Claims Act, 25 U.S.C. 345, could provide a waiver of the government sovereign immunity for plaintiff's nuisance and breach of fiduciary duties claims. Additionally, the court held that the Eleventh Amendment barred plaintiff's action against Alaska in its entirety. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed in part and reversed in part and remanded.

The court agreed to rehear this case en banc to clarify under what circumstances the exhaustion requirement of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 20 U.S.C. 1415(l), barred non-IDEA federal or state law claims. Plaintiff, on behalf of herself and her son, appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants where the district court dismissed her claims for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because plaintiff did not initially seek relief in a due process hearing and therefore, failed to comply with one of the exhaustion-of-remedies requirement of the IDEA. The court held that the IDEA's exhaustion requirement was not jurisdictional and that plaintiff's non-IDEA federal and state-law claims were not subject to the IDEA's exhaustion requirement. Therefore, the court reversed the judgment.

Plaintiff, the mother of Jerry Amaro, filed a 42 U.S.C. 1983 claim against defendants for the use of excessive force, which resulted in injuries that caused Amaro's death. At issue was whether the doctrine of equitable estoppel should apply where a plaintiff believed she had a section 1983 claim but was dissuaded from bringing the claim by affirmative misrepresentations and stonewalling by the police. The court held that equitable estoppel did apply to the circumstances and affirmed the district court's judgment on that issue.

This case stemmed from a so-called bubble ordinance enacted by the Oakland City Council, which made it an offense to knowingly and willfully approach within eight feet of an individual seeking entry to a reproductive health clinic if one's purpose in approaching that person was to engage in conversation, protest, counseling, or various other forms of speech. Plaintiff, a minister who regularly stood outside clinics seeking to engage women in what he called a "friendly conversation" to dissuade them from having an abortion, was convicted on two separate violations of the ordinance and subsequently challenged the ordinance in a 42 U.S.C. 1983 action, contending that the ordinance infringed upon the freedom of speech and violated the federal constitution's Due Process Clause, as well as state and federal guarantees of equal protection of the laws. The court held that the ordinance was facially constitutional. The court also held that Oakland's enforcement policy was a constitutionally invalid, content-based regulation of speech and remanded to the district court in order for that court to craft a remedy that ensured that Oakland would adopt and henceforth apply a policy that enforced the ordinance as written, in an evenhanded, constitutional manner. The court further held that the success of plaintiff's challenge to whether Oakland could apply the ordinance to situations in which doing so would prevent plaintiff from communicating his message depended on Oakland's future enforcement policy and the particular circumstances in which that policy could be applied. Therefore, the court did not reach that challenge but also did not preclude plaintiff from bringing such a challenge in the future. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part and reversed in part, remanding with instructions to grant plaintiff's motion for summary judgment in part and to grant him relief consistent with the opinion.

Appellants appealed the district court's order awarding them attorney fees following settlement of their claims against appellees brought under the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. 3601-3619, and California law. At issue was whether the district court erred by deducting some of the hours billed and lowered the hourly rates requested by appellants. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion either by relying, in part, on its own knowledge and experience, or by setting an hourly rate of $350 for appellants' lawyers. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.