Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff, a 53-year-old garbage truck driver, filed suit against USA Waste, his employer of 32 years, alleging wrongful termination based on age discrimination and retaliation. The district court granted summary judgment for USA Waste. The court held that the district court erred by granting summary judgment in favor of USA Waste because plaintiff established a prima facie case under both his age discrimination and retaliation theories, and USA Waste failed to introduce any evidence that it had a legitimate reason for firing him. In this case, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), Pub.L. 99-603, 100 Stat. 3359, did not require proof of employment eligibility from plaintiff, and USA Waste could not make plaintiff's reinstatement contingent on verification of his immigration status because doing so would violate California public policy. Furthermore, plaintiff's use of an attorney was activity protected by California public policy, USA Waste fired plaintiff because he was represented by his attorney at the Settlement Agreement negotiations, and the district court erred by holding that USA Waste provided a legitimate reason for firing plaintiff. Therefore, the court concluded that USA Waste failed to meet its burden as to plaintiff's claim based on retaliation discrimination. The court also held that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it denied plaintiff's oral request for leave to amend the complaint eight months after the filing deadline. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Santillan v. USA Waste of California" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, parents of a student at the District, filed suit alleging claims that the District violated the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 20 U.S.C. 1400 et seq. Plaintiffs argued that the district court misapplied the statute of limitations in 20 U.S.C. 1415(f)(3)(C) to their claims that the District failed to identify their child's disability or assess him for autism in 2006 and 2007. The court concluded, as a question of first impression, that the IDEA's statute of limitations requires courts to bar only claims brought more than two years after the parents or local educational agency "knew or should have known" about the actions forming the basis of the complaint. In this case, the district court barred all claims "occurring" more than two years before plaintiffs filed their due process complaint. Therefore, the court remanded so that the district court could determine when plaintiffs knew or should have known about the actions forming the basis of their complaint. View "Avila v. Spokane School District 81" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a tattoo artist and long-time resident of Long Beach, filed suit against the City, alleging that the City's zoning ordinances violated the First Amendment by unreasonably restricting his ability to open and operate a tattoo shop in Long Beach. The district court entered judgment for the City. The court concluded that the district court inaccurately narrowed plaintiff's claims in its order by framing plaintiff's challenge as only to the conditional use permit (CUP) requirement, when plaintiff also challenged the location restrictions on tattoo shops; ignoring plaintiff's claim that the CUP process vests unbridled discretion in the City; and stating that plaintiff's claim only concerned his desire to open a shop at 316 Elm Street in the East Village Arts District, when this was just one of three locations that plaintiff initially identified in his letter to the City. The court held that plaintiff has standing to bring a facial first amendment challenge to the City's zoning ordinances where he was not required to first apply for, and then be denied, a CUP to bring this claim under a permitting system that allegedly gives City officials unfettered discretion over protected activity; plaintiff has standing to bring an as-applied First Amendment challenge to the City's zoning ordinances where it appeared likely that the City would take action against plaintiff if he opened a tattoo shop without a CUP; plaintiff raised a cognizable claim that the City's zoning ordinances constituted an unlawful prior restraint on speech; and plaintiff raised a cognizable claim that the City's ordinances constituted unlawful time, place, or manner restrictions on speech. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Real v. City of Long Beach" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of ten different state criminal charges, appealed the district court's interlocutory orders requiring an Arizona state corrections official to reimburse petitioner for deposition expenses incurred in his pending habeas proceeding under 28 U.S.C. 2254. Determining that it had interlocutory jurisdiction under the collateral order doctrine, the court concluded that the district court could not order a state to reimburse an indigent habeas petitioner for deposition expenses in a section 2254 habeas proceeding when, as here, the state did not request the deposition. Accordingly, the court reversed the relevant orders and remanded for further proceedings to determine whether petitioner could obtain reimbursement under the Criminal Justice Act (CJA), 18 U.S.C. 3006A, from the federal government. View "Copeland v. Ryan" on Justia Law

M.C. filed suit under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 20 U.S.C. 1400(d)(1)(A), alleging that the district violated the IDEA by (1) failing to adequately document the services provided by a teacher of the visually impaired (TVI), (2) failing to specify the assistive technology (AT) devices provided, and (3) failing to file a response to the due process complaint. The court concluded that the district's failure to adequately document the TVI services and AT devices offered to M.C. violated the IDEA and denied M.C. a free appropriate public education (FAPE); these procedural violations deprived M.C.'s mother of her right to participate in the individualized education program (IEP) process and made it impossible for her to enforce the IEP and evaluate whether the services M.C. received were adequate; and, at the very least, plaintiffs were entitled to have the district draft a proper IEP and receive compensatory education he would have occupied but for the school's violations of the IDEA. Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment and remanded. View "M.C. v. Antelope Valley Union High School District" on Justia Law

The court published an order previously denying the government's motion for a stay of a restraining order pending appeal. The order became moot when this court granted the government's unopposed motion to dismiss its underlying appeal. No party has moved to vacate the published order. The court voted to determine whether it should grant en banc reconsideration in order to vacate the published order denying the stay, and the matter failed to receive a majority of the votes in favor of en banc reconsideration. Therefore, vacatur of the stay was denied. Judge Reinhardt concurred. Judge Bybee, with whom Judges Kozinski, Callahan, Bea, and Ikuta joined, dissented. View "Washington v. Trump" on Justia Law

After plaintiff was acquitted of murder, she filed suit against Detective Karen Thompson and Doe Defendants under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that Thompson violated her constitutional rights to compulsory process and a fair trial by intimidating and attempting to dissuade a key witness from testifying on behalf of the defense, and that Thompson and Doe Defendants conspired to violate her civil rights by orchestrating criminal charges against the key witness. The district court dismissed for failure to state a claim. The court held that plaintiff adequately alleged misconduct by Thompson that rises to the level of substantial interference with a defense witness in contravention of the Compulsory Process Clause of the Sixth Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; plaintiff pleaded a sufficient causal connection between Thompson's misconduct and the witness's unavailability; the fact that plaintiff was eventually acquitted does not render the witness's testimony immaterial, nor does it bar plaintiff's section 1983 action stemming from violations of her rights during the underlying criminal investigation and prosecution; the witness's testimony was material to plaintiff's defense because evidence of third-party culpability would have cast some doubt on the government's evidence at plaintiff's trial; and, likewise, plaintiff sufficiently alleged a plausible claim for civil conspiracy. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "Park v. Thompson" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging four instances of prison employees delivering legal mail addressed to him that had been opened before delivery, and that prison and prison officials maintained a policy or custom of ignoring the improper handling of legal mail. The district court dismissed the complaint at the pre-screening stage pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1915A. The court recognized that prisoners have a protected First Amendment interest in having properly marked legal mail opened only in their presence; a plaintiff need not allege a longstanding practice of violating his First Amendment rights in order to state a claim for relief on a direct liability theory; a plaintiff need not show any actual injury beyond the free speech violation itself to state a constitutional claim; the district court properly dismissed two counts of alleged improper mail opening; the other two instances, however, do state a First Amendment claim; the district court erred in dismissing these two claims at the pre-screening stage; on remand, Defendant Burke may offer a legitimate penological reason for opening plaintiff's legal mail at either summary judgment or trial; and plaintiff waived any challenge to the dismissal of his policy-based claims. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded. View "Hayes v. Idaho Correctional Center" on Justia Law

Petitioner, found guilty of driving under the influence of alcohol and possession of a billy club, appealed the district court's denial of his petition for habeas corpus. Petitioner claimed that the state trial court's failure to suppress his statements regarding the billy club after petitioner stated "I want my attorney" violated his Fifth Amendment rights under the principles set forth in Edwards v. Arizona. Petitioner contended that he was under arrest at the time the agent asked him to take a chemical test and was thus in custody at the time he unambiguously invoked his right to counsel. The court concluded that the Supreme Court has not addressed the question whether a defendant's request for counsel in response to a request to submit to a chemical test constitutes an invocation of his Miranda rights for purposes of any future custodial interrogations. Therefore, the court could not say that the state court's ruling was objectively unreasonable. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Robertson v. Pichon" on Justia Law

The State challenged the district court's grant of habeas relief to petitioner, finding that his state-court guilty plea was based on a violation of his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel. The court held that Tollett v. Henderson does not bar petitioner's ineffective assistance of counsel claim. Tollett, properly understood, provided that although freestanding constitutional claims are unavailable to habeas petitioners who plead guilty, claims of pre-plea ineffective assistance of counsel are cognizable on federal habeas review when the action, or inaction, of counsel prevents petitioner from making an informed choice whether to plead. The court explained that if the deputies unconstitutionally searched petitioner's home, counsel's failure to move to suppress the fruits of that search prevented petitioner from making the informed choice to which he was entitled. The court further held that the state court could reasonably conclude that counsel did not provide ineffective assistance in failing to move to suppress the firearms and ammunition. The court nonetheless concluded that the state habeas courts were not unreasonable in denying the writ where it would have been reasonable for the state courts to conclude that a motion to suppress, if brought, would likely have been denied. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's grant of habeas corpus. View "Mahrt v. Beard" on Justia Law