Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs appealed the district court's order granting the District's motion to approve the closure of Wilmot Elementary School and to modify the gifted and talented (GT) requirements for the District. In 1988, plaintiffs filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging race discrimination and other claims. The parties negotiated a settlement and, in 1991, the district court entered a Consent Order disposing of issues remaining in the complaint. In this case, the district court approved closure of Wilmot and modification of the GT program as the proper modification of the Consent Order due to the significant changed circumstances. The court concluded that such modification is suitably tailored where the modifications sought by the school district in light of the (1) demographic changes, (2) decrease in enrollment, (3) cost savings, and (4) educational considerations are in line with the initial Consent Order. Accordingly, the court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in granting the District's motion to approve closure of Wilmot and to modify the GT requirements. The court affirmed the judgment. View "Mays v. Hamburg Sch. Dist." on Justia Law

After the LPD conducted a high-risk traffic stop of plaintiff, he filed suit against the City and three officers involved in the stop under 42 U.S.C. 1983 for deprivation of his constitutional rights. The district court granted defendants' motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity. In this case, an officer relied on an incident report that did not contain information sufficient to create reasonable suspicion that plaintiff had already, was, or was about to commit a crime; Nebraska law permits individuals who are at least 18 years old to open carry handguns in public; the City does not restrict an individual's right to open carry except in certain locations; and the mere report of a person with a handgun is insufficient to create reasonable suspicion. The court concluded that an objectively reasonable officer could not reliably conclude that the young man described in the report could not legally possess a firearm. The incident report also did not adequately make out a case that the young man committed assault; the officers' reports reflect that they were responding to the display of a weapon, not a threat against the clerk; and an objectively reasonable police officer would not mistake a 58-year-old bald, double amputee, male for a young adult with hair. Therefore, the court concluded that plaintiff sufficiently alleges a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. Because the district court erred in granting the officers qualified immunity, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Duffie v. City of Lincoln" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against his former employer, alleging that the company terminated his position and then refused to rehire him because of his age, in violation of federal and Minnesota law. The court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for the employer where plaintiff has not presented a submissible case of age discrimination under Minnesota law. It follows that plaintiff’s claim under the more demanding federal standard fails as well. In this case, plaintiff is understandably frustrated that the employer deviated from written guidelines under which he likely would have been retained as a pharmacist. But plaintiff cannot prevail in this lawsuit by showing sloppy management or arbitrary decisionmaking. The company’s regular practice of ranking all pharmacists together and terminating those with the lowest score is not sufficient evidence of age discrimination to defeat summary judgment. The balance of the evidence does not establish a submissible case. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Noreen v. PharMerica Corp." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, five members of Whittier Alliance, a private neighborhood organization, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against the City and Alliance itself. Plaintiffs claim that the City "commanded and encouraged" the members of the Alliance to adopt an antidefamation bylaw which unconstitutionally restricted the members' First Amendment right to freedom of speech. The district court granted defendants' motion to dismiss for lack of standing and state action. In this case, the antidefamation bylaw restricts plaintiffs' ability as members of the Alliance to vote for the board candidate of their choice, and the antidefamation bylaw prevents plaintiffs from voting for themselves or any other candidates who might be considered malicious critics by the board. The court concluded that plaintiffs have suffered sufficient injury as voting members of the Whittier Alliance; their asserted injury may be traced to the objected bylaw and could be redressed by the relief they seek; and, since they have standing to raise an as applied challenge to the antidefamation bylaw, they may also challenge its overbreadth in a facial challenge. Therefore, plaintiffs have standing to challenge the constitutionality of the bylaw. The court concluded, however, that the adoption of the bylaws did not amount to state action. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Sabri v. Whittier Alliance" on Justia Law

After the school districts sought termination of the Garland County School Desegregation Case Comprehensive Settlement Agreement and relief from the district court’s 1992 order enforcing it, the district court denied the school districts' Rule 60(b)(5) motion. The district court rejected the school districts' argument that the Agreement is no longer just or equitable to give the 1992 order or the Agreement prospective application in light of the repeal of the Arkansas School Choice Act of 1989 (School Choice Act), Ark. Code Ann. 6-18-206 (repealed 2013). The court concluded that the school districts have presented no evidence that they have either fully complied or that there have been changed circumstances in those other areas of the Agreement. Therefore, termination of the entire Agreement would be supported by nothing more than the notion that it is no longer convenient to live with. The court affirmed the judgment. View "W.T. Davis v. Cutter Morning Star Sch." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against the USDA and others, claiming that defendants violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), 15 U.S.C. 1691 et seq., because they denied his debt settlement offers on the basis of his race and in retaliation for his being a member of the Pigford class-action litigation. Plaintiff also alleged that defendants engaged in a conspiracy under 42 U.S.C. 1985(3) to interfere with his civil rights, and that they violated his rights under the Fifth and Thirteenth Amendments. The district court granted defendants' motion to dismiss plaintiff's claims. The court held that a final agency decision by the USDA resolving a complaint under 7 C.F.R. Pt. 15d using the administrative procedures currently in effect does not result in claim preclusion. In this case, the complaint does not contain sufficient allegations to state a plausible claim that Thomas Brown and M. Terry Johnson, both of whom are employed with the USDA’s National Appeals Division, are creditors for ECOA purposes. Accordingly, the court affirmed the dismissal of the ECOA claims with respect to Thomas Brown and M. Terry Johnson, and reversed the dismissal of these claims with respect to the remaining defendants. The court also concluded that plaintiff's conspiracy claims under 42 U.S.C. 1985(3) were properly dismissed pursuant to the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine. Finally, the court reversed the dismissal of the Bivens claims because, when a remedial scheme is created entirely by regulation, it does not preclude a Bivens claim. View "Johnson v. USDA" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a Missouri inmate, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that Missouri Department of Correction officials violated his constitutional rights when they censored his Chinese-language mail and denied him the ability to place telephone calls to China. The district court granted summary judgment to the officials. The court concluded that the restrictions were reasonably related to legitimate penological interests - specifically, security. The court also concluded that both the mail and telephone regulations were neutral and plaintiff had alternative means of communicating with outsiders. Furthermore, he also retained the ability to make domestic calls, send correspondence in English, and receive visitors; the Constitution does not require the State to bear the burden of paying for translation in any event; plaintiff has not demonstrated that there is a readily available alternative that would have eased the restriction on his ability to communicate without imposing financial burdens on the State; and thus the district court correctly rejected plaintiff's First Amendment claim based on the periods where he could neither correspond in Chinese nor international phone calls. The officials, a fortiori, did not violate Yang’s rights during periods when he could correspond in Chinese, but was prohibited from placing international telephone calls. Finally, there is no evidence that differential treatment of foreign-language mail was motivated by race or national origin or that the treatment of Chinese-language mail was a pretext for discrimination. Plaintiff's due process claim was rejected. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Yang v. MO Dep't of Corr." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a pro se complaint against the Department, alleging a sexual harassment claim based on hostile work environment and a retaliation claim. The district court dismissed the complaint under Rule 12(b). In support of her sexual harassment claim based on hostile work environment, plaintiff alleges seven incidents of harassment by two different men over a nearly three-year period. The court found as a matter of law that plaintiff's complaint failed to show harassment so severe or pervasive that they satisfy the high threshold for a sexual harassment claim based on hostile work environment. The court also found that plaintiff's purported "direct evidence" of retaliation fails as a matter of law for lack of causation where she failed to plausibly allege that the retaliation was a but-for cause of the Department's adverse action. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Blomker v. Jewell" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a former police captain, filed suit against the City and city officials under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that the City violated her constitutional right to due procedural process in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment by terminating her employment. The district court granted in part and denied in part defendants' motion for summary judgment. The district court denied the defense of qualified immunity asserted by Chief Burton in response to plaintiff's procedural due process claim. Chief Burton appealed. The court concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to review the denial of qualified immunity because genuine issues of material fact exist regarding Chief Burton's role in the termination of plaintiff. Accordingly, the court dismissed the appeal. View "Bramblet v. City of Columbia, MO" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, an Iowa prison inmate, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against prison officials for deliberate indifference to his serious medical need. Plaintiff alleged that Director Baldwin and Dr. Deol were deliberately indifferent to his need for dentures, and sought declaratory and injunctive relief, as well as compensatory and punitive damages. The district court granted Director Baldwin and Dr. Deol's motion for summary judgment. For the purposes of this appeal, the court will assume that plaintiff suffered from an objectively serious medical need. However, the court concluded that plaintiff failed to establish that Director Baldwin and Dr. Deol deliberately disregarded his need for dentures. The undisputed facts show that the delay in providing plaintiff with dentures was caused by a turnover or shortage of dentists in the prison. The undisputed facts also show that over the time that plaintiff waited for dentures, the IDOC made efforts to secure additional dental staff. Finally, Dr. Deol and Director Baldwin neither created the shortage of dentists nor the general issues with recruitment and retention. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Cullor v. Baldwin" on Justia Law