Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

After officers shot and killed Dirk Smith in his own home, his surviving wife and children filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and Georgia law against the county, the police chief, and the officers. The court chose to exercise pendant appellate jurisdiction over plaintiffs' claims in their cross-appeals. The court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the officers on plaintiffs' illegal entry claim because the officers were authorized to enter the home without a warrant under the exigent circumstances exception where officers believed that an emergency existed. The court concluded that the officers' single use of a taser on Mr. Smith was not unreasonable. However, the court affirmed the district court's denial of summary judgment on plaintiffs’ section 1983 claim against Officers Ings and LePage for shooting Mr. Smith because the officers had “reasonable warning” that fatally shooting an unarmed person suspected of a misdemeanor in his own home merely because he was moving toward them was a constitutional violation; the court affirmed the district court's denial of summary judgment on plaintiffs’ parallel state-law claim; affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment as to the supervisory liability claims where no supervisory liability can arise from the second tasing of Mr. Smith and plaintiffs' section 1983 supervisory liability claim related to the shooting fails because Sgt. Gamble neither participated in the shooting nor had a legally sufficient causal connection to it; and plaintiffs’ state-law supervisory liability claims related to the shooting fail because Sgt. Gamble did not violate a ministerial duty or act with actual malice. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Smith v. LePage" on Justia Law

In 1982, the district court entered a consent decree requiring the City of Jacksonville to hire in its fire department “an equal number of blacks and whites until the ratio of black fire fighters to white fire fighters reflects the ratio of black citizens to white citizens in the City of Jacksonville.” The City stopped complying with the decree in 1992. Plaintiffs filed suit in 2007, fifteen years after the City had stop complying with the decree, seeking a motion to show cause as to why the City should not be held in contempt of the 1982 consent decree. The district court denied plaintiffs’ motion on grounds of laches, and dissolved the decree. The court concluded that, because plaintiffs’ fifteen-year delay prejudiced the City’s ability to defend itself and because a new lawsuit had taken up the cause of fighting racial discrimination in the City’s firefighting department, neither the district court’s application of laches nor its dissolution of the 1982 consent decree was an abuse of discretion. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Coffey v. Braddy" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, an African-American male and licensed, board-certified general surgeon and a specialist, filed suit alleging claims for race discrimination and retaliation in violation of 42 U.S.C. 1981. The district court granted defendants' Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss the federal claims. The court held that plaintiff pled sufficient facts to support his section 1981 discrimination claim. In this case, plaintiff alleged that he was retaliated against by Grady and the Hospital Authority because of his opposition to discriminatory practices, which included subjecting him and other African-American physicians to limited surgery facilities and support staff and the assignment of certain medical cases to white doctors. Accordingly, the court reversed as to this claim. The court affirmed the district court's grant of defendants' motion to dismiss as to the section 1981 discrimination claim. The court remanded for further proceedings. View "Moore v. Grady Memorial Hosp. Corp." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against defendants under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging a violation of his First Amendment rights. Defendants, all city officials, terminated plaintiff from his position as City manager after he reported to law enforcement and other agencies defendants' misconduct and made public disclosures about the same. The district court denied appellants’ motion to dismiss on the basis of qualified immunity. The court concluded that plaintiff pled a plausible First Amendment claim that he spoke as a citizen and not pursuant to his ordinary job duties as City Manager when he made reports to law enforcement and other agencies about city officials' violations of Florida’s campaign finance laws. As to plaintiff's other claims, the court concluded that plaintiff's poorly-drafted complaint does not state plausible claims that he spoke as a citizen and not pursuant to ordinary job responsibilities. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded with instructions to the district court to afford plaintiff an opportunity to amend his complaint. View "Carollo v. Boria" on Justia Law

After plaintiff, an ordained minister, obstructed a police investigation and resisted arrest in a city park, he was arrested and issued a “trespass warning” under City Ordinance 20-30, which prohibited him from re-entering the park for one year. Plaintiff filed suit alleging that section 20-30 violates the First Amendment because it prevented him from re-entering the park to exercise his First Amendment rights. The court rejected plaintiff's contention, concluding that the city did not inevitably single him out based on his expressive activity, and he did not receive his trespass warning because he was engaged in expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment. The court also concluded that section 20-30(g) of the ordinance is not an unlawful prior restraint on speech; it actually permits more speech, not less. View "Wright v. City of St. Petersburg" on Justia Law

The City enacted into law several provisions that, inter alia, prohibit the commercial distribution of sexual devices within the City. Plaintiffs and intervenors brought, in relevant part, a Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause challenge to Ordinance 2009-04-24, codified at section 38-120 of the City’s Code of Ordinances. The district court granted the City’s motion and entered an order upholding the Ordinance against each challenge. The court concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause claim is foreclosed by the court's prior holding in Williams v. Attorney General (Williams IV), and the district court properly entered judgment on the pleadings for the City as to Intervenor-Appellant Henry’s First Amendment claims that the law burdens his artistic expression. The district court committed no reversible error as to any other claim properly raised on appeal. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Flanigan's Enter. v. City of Sandy Springs" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, on behalf of her minor son D.H., filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against school officials, including Assistant Principal Tyrus McDowell, and others, alleging that defendants deprived D.H. of his rights to privacy, to be secure in his person, and to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. On appeal, McDowell challenged the district court’s interlocutory order denying his motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity. The district court found that McDowell’s strip search of D.H., a minor student, violated clearly established constitutional law. The court concluded that McDowell violated D.H.'s constitutional rights. Furthermore, a reasonable official in McDowell’s position would not have believed that requiring D.H. to strip down to his fully naked body in front of several of his peers was lawful in light of the clearly established principle that a student strip search, even if justified in its inception, must be “reasonably related to the objectives of the search and not excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction.” Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court’s denial of McDowell’s motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity. View "D. H. v. McDowell" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit alleging that defendants violated students' constitutional rights when they detained the students for breathalyzer tests prior to entering their Junior/Senior Prom. The district court granted summary judgment for defendants. The court concluded that plaintiffs have not established an actual or reasonable expectation of privacy in the party bus, which they had abandoned once they had exited for the Prom; the bus driver had apparent authority to consent to search the party bus; and therefore, the search of the party bus did not violate plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment rights. The court also concluded that the initial waiting period for the breathalyzer mouthpieces and a trained individual to administer the breathalyzer tests was reasonable, because it was necessary for the testing; detaining a student after he or she was found to be alcohol free was not “reasonably related” to the reason for the detention “in the first place” of determining if the student passengers on the party bus had been drinking; the individual school defendants are entitled to qualified immunity because there was no binding clearly established law at the time; and claims against the remaining defendants have been abandoned or have no merit. The court rejected plaintiffs' remaining claims. Because plaintiffs have not established that they should succeed on any of their allegations concerning their Fourth, First, and Fourteenth Amendment claims, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Ziegler v. Martin Cnty. Sch. Bd." on Justia Law

After Terrance Bowen was beaten to death by his cellmate, Carl Merkerson, at Baldwin State Prison, the administrator of Bowen's estate filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that Bowen's Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment was violated when he was housed in a cell with Merkerson. The district court dismissed the action, holding that it did not state Eighth Amendment claims against the prison officials and that, in any event, the officials were entitled to qualified immunity. The court reversed as to claims against Deputy Warden Doug Underwood and Corrections Officer Cager Edward Davis. In this case, Deputy Warden Underwood and Officer Davis allegedly knew from the population chart and the cell checklist that Merkerson, a convicted murderer, was designated a Level III mental health inmate who had been transferred to Unit K-3, “the lock-down segregation unit for disciplinary, protected custody and mental health individuals,” after assaulting his former cellmate. They also allegedly were aware of the specifics of Merkerson’s severe paranoid schizophrenia, his delusions, and his violent impulses. Therefore, the court concluded that the amended complaint alleges sufficient facts showing that Deputy Warden Underwood and Officer Davis were both aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm existed, and also drew the inference. The court affirmed in all other respects. View "Bowen v. Warden" on Justia Law

After plaintiffs filed suit against Miami-Dade under the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act (DPPA), 18 U.S.C. 2721–2725, the district court dismissed the claims as time-barred. On appeal, plaintiffs argued that their claims were not barred and the district court erred by not applying the discovery rule to 28 U.S.C. 1658(a). In regard to this issue of first impression, the court adopted the reasoning and conclusion of the Eighth Circuit in McDonough v. Anoka Cnty and concluded that a DPPA claim accrues under section 1658(b) when the violation occurs. In this case, the only alleged DPPA violations that implicate Miami-Dade occurred on January 10, 2008 and May 26, 2005. Plaintiffs filed their initial complaint against Miami-Dade on March 7, 2014, well beyond the four-year statute of limitations for DPPA claims. Because the district court properly applied the occurrence rule to section 1658(a), the court affirmed the judgment. View "Foudy v. Miami-Dade Cnty." on Justia Law