Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 alleging that MTM's failure to pick him up violated his purported right to non-emergency medical transportation under various federal regulatory and statutory Medicaid provisions.The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's claims, joining its sister circuits in holding that a section 1983 claim may not be brought to enforce an administrative regulation. The court explained that this conclusion is consistent with the principle that federal rights are created by Congress, not agencies of the Executive Branch, as the Supreme Court has affirmed on various occasions. The court also held that none of the statutory provisions invoked by plaintiff clearly and unambiguously create a right to non-emergency medical transportation, as established precedents require for a claim under section 1983. View "Thurman v. Medical Transportation Management, Inc." on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit denied petitioner's application for a certificate of appealability (COA). Petitioner was sentenced to death for shooting and killing a police officer. The court held that petitioner's claims, that his sentence violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments because it was based on the jury's unreliable and inaccurate predictions about his future dangerousness, are procedurally defaulted and substantively meritless. Likewise, petitioner's claim that his sentence violates the Due Process Clause is also procedurally defaulted and substantively meritless. Finally, petitioner's claim that the Eighth Amendment prohibits his execution because of how much time he has spent on death row is unexhausted and unreviewable in federal habeas. View "Buntion v. Lumpkin" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against the unions she was affiliated with, as well as a maritime association, for sexual harassment under federal employment law, arguing that defendant's conduct created a hostile work environment. Plaintiff also filed suit against defendant himself for intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED) under Texas state law. The district court entered a default judgment in plaintiff's favor on the IIED claim and plaintiff ultimately prevailed at trial against the other defendants.The Fifth Circuit first held that a party's failure to file a motion to set aside a default judgment in the district court does not prevent the party from appealing that judgment to the court. On the merits, the court vacated the default judgment on the IIED claim, concluding that plaintiff could not pursue an IIED against defendant in light of the other statutory remedies available to plaintiff. The court explained that a plaintiff generally cannot sustain an IIED claim if the plaintiff could have brought a sexual harassment claim premised on the same facts. In this case, the gravamen of plaintiff's IIED claim is for sexual harassment; plaintiff used defendant's conduct as a basis for her Title VII claims against the other defendants; plaintiff ultimately prevailed on those claims against the union; and the availability of those statutory remedies on the same facts forecloses her IIED claims against defendant. Accordingly, the court remanded for further proceedings. View "Stelly v. Duriso" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against her former employer, UMC, alleging age discrimination in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA). Plaintiff claimed that she and several other elderly employees were fired and replaced by younger respiratory therapists, whom UMC paid at a lower rate. Both parties agreed that plaintiff demonstrated a prima facie case of age discrimination and that UMC articulated a legitimate, non-discriminatory basis for her termination.The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment in favor of UMC, holding that plaintiff failed to adduce sufficient evidence to create a genuine dispute over the veracity of UMC's proffered reasons for plaintiff's discharge. In this case, UMC's articulated reasons for plaintiff's termination were her poor performance and demonstrated lack of effort to change her behavior. The court concluded that plaintiff failed to present sufficient evidence to create doubt as to whether this reason was a mere pretext for discrimination. View "Salazar v. Lubbock County Hospital District" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants in an action brought by the estate of Rosa Bonilla, a woman who committed suicide while in custody. In regard to the episodic acts or omissions claims, the court was reluctant to hold that generalized evidence of an inmate's mental illness invariably indicates a substantial risk of self harm. In this case, the circumstances of Bonilla's arrest, booking, and detention did not raise questions concerning her mental stability or capacity for self-harm; she had no suicidal tendencies; and evidence indicates that Bonilla did not request medical help, and her behavior in detention was unremarkable prior to her suicide. Therefore, the evidence did not give rise to reasonable inferences that the individual defendants were aware of Bonilla's suicidal tendency, much less that they disregarded the risk. Furthermore, plaintiffs' episodic acts or omission claim would fail because Defendants Dickerson and Shafer are entitled to qualified immunity.In regard to claims against Orange County, the court concluded that the record does not support plaintiffs' theory that Orange County has a pervasive policy or custom of allowing detainees to self-classify their risk of self-harm. The court also concluded that there was no policy or custom of unreasonably delaying prescriptions. In this case, a jury would have to resort to impermissible speculation to conclude that there was a "direct causal link" between the alleged constitutional violation—defendants' failure to distribute Xanax to Bonilla during her 10-hour stay—and her death. View "Estate of Rosa Bonilla v. Orange County" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit challenging Texas's physical-examination requirement for vets, which prohibits vets from offering individualized advice to pet owners unless the vet previously examined the animal. The district court rejected plaintiff's arguments and granted defendants' motion to dismiss.After oral argument, another panel of the Fifth Circuit issued its opinion in Vizaline, L.L.C. v. Tracy, 949 F.3d 927 (5th Cir. 2020), holding that general licensing regulations are not automatically immune from First Amendment scrutiny. Bound by Vizaline, the court concluded that plaintiff's First Amendment claims may be entitled to greater judicial scrutiny than Hines I allowed. The court explained that the relevant question is whether the state's licensing requirements regulate only speech, restrict speech only incidentally to their regulation of non-expressive professional conduct, or regulate only non-expressive conduct. As the Vizaline court did, the court reversed and remanded for the district court to make the initial evaluation of whether conduct or speech is being regulated. In regard to plaintiff's equal protection claim, the court agreed with the State that it is rational to distinguish between humans and animals based on the species' differing capabilities. The court explained that the law's differentiating telemedicine rules between medical doctors and veterinarians is a logical distinction. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded. View "Hines v. Quillivan" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal without prejudice of T.B.'s discrimination claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Rehabilitation Act. The court held, on the record before it, that T.B. seeks redress for denial of a free appropriate public education (FAPE) and thus, under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), he was required to exhaust his administrative remedies before bringing this claim to the district court. Because he has failed to do so, his complaint was properly dismissed. The court also held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying T.B.'s motion to reconsider or request to amend. View "T. B. v. Northwest Independent School District" on Justia Law

The en banc court held that 42 U.S.C. 1396a(a)(23) does not give Medicaid patients a right to challenge, under 42 U.S.C. 1983, a State's determination that a health care provider is not "qualified" within the meaning of section 1396a(a)(23). The en banc court vacated the preliminary injunction issued by the district court prohibiting the termination of the Providers' Medicaid provider agreements.The Providers provide family planning and other health services to Medicaid patients, and each of the Providers is a member of Planned Parenthood. This case stemmed from a pro-life organization's release of video recordings of conversations at Planned Parenthood (PP) Gulf Coast headquarters. The videos depict two individuals posing as representatives from a fetal tissue procurement company discussing the possibility of a research partnership with PP Gulf Coast. The release of the videos prompted congressional investigations, which ultimately led to the OIG sending each Provider a Notice of Termination of its respective Medicaid provider agreement. The Providers and Individual Plaintiffs filed suit alleging that the terminations violated rights conferred by section 1396a(a)(23) and sought relief under section 1983.The en banc court held that the Individual Plaintiffs may not bring a section 1983 suit to contest the State's determination that the Providers were not "qualified" providers within the meaning of section 1396a(a)(23). The en banc court rested its decision primarily on two independent bases: (1) the Supreme Court's decision in O'Bannon v. Town Court Nursing Center, 447 U.S. 773 (1980), and (2) the text and structure of section 1396a(a)(23), which does not unambiguously provide that a Medicaid patient may contest a State's determination that a particular provider is not "qualified." Rather, the court held that whether a provider is "qualified" within the meaning of section 1396a(a)(23) is a matter to be resolved between the State (or the federal government) and the provider. In so holding, the en banc court overruled Planned Parenthood of Gulf Coast, Inc. v. Gee, 862 F.3d 445 (5th Cir. 2017), which held that a state agency or actor cannot legitimately find that a Medicaid provider is not "qualified" unless under state or federal law the provider would be unqualified to provide treatment or services to the general public, including Medicaid patients who paid for the care or services with private funds. View "Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas Family Planning and Preventative Health Services, Inc. v. Kauffman" on Justia Law

Kendole Joseph's family filed suit against police officers after Joseph died during the course of an arrest. Plaintiffs alleged violations of Joseph's Fourth Amendment rights, as well as claims of excessive force and failure to intervene. In this case, after a middle school official reported that Joseph was acting "strange" near the school, school resource officers approached Joseph. Joseph ran into a nearby convenience store and jumped behind the check out counter. The school resource officers followed, with twelve additional officers joining them. About eight minutes after Joseph entered the store, the officers apprehended him and carried him to a police car, after which he became unresponsive and was taken to the hospital, where he died two days later.Viewing the facts in the light most favorable to plaintiffs, the Fifth Circuit held that, if a jury found those facts to be true, Officers Martin and Costa violated Joseph's right to be free from excessive force during a seizure by failing to employ a measured and ascending response to the threat Joseph posed. In this case, Joseph was not suspected of committing any crime, was in the fetal position, and was not actively resisting. Nonetheless, Officers Martin and Costa inflicted twenty-six blunt-force injuries on Joseph and tased him twice, all while he pleaded for help and reiterated that he was not armed. Therefore, the actions of Officers Martin and Costa were disproportionate to the situation, in violation of the Fourth Amendment and the clearly established law. They are not entitled to summary judgment on the constitutional claims.However, the court held that nine "bystander officers" are entitled to qualified immunity where plaintiffs failed to meet their burden to show that these officers violated clearly established law. The court dismissed the appeal to the extent it challenges the district court's factfinding; affirmed the denial of summary judgment as to Officers Martin and Costa; and reversed the denial of summary judgment as to the nine bystander officers. View "Joseph v. Bartlett" on Justia Law

After movants, who were the plaintiffs in a separate but similar case, were denied intervention in the district court, they moved to intervene in the Secretary of State's ongoing appeal concerning signature-verification procedures for ballots.The Fifth Circuit denied the motion to intervene because intervention on appeal is reserved for exceptional cases and movants' reasons for intervening do not come close to that high threshold. The court rejected movants' argument in favor of intervention because their appeal needs to be consolidated with the Secretary's appeal. The court explained that, because both movants and the Secretary are appealing from the same order, both appeals have been docketed under the same case number in this court. Therefore, assuming the motion to intervene in the Secretary's appeal is denied, the same merits panel will hear both the Secretary's appeal of the summary judgment and movants' appeal of the denial of their motion to intervene. The court stated that, to the extent movants want their voices heard, the proper procedure is to move to appear as amici curiae, not to move to intervene. Finally, the court declined to strike the motion. View "Richardson v. Texas Secretary of State" on Justia Law