Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff sued Defendant officer, under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, alleging that Defendant violated Plaintiff’s Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights when the officer used a roadblock to stop Plaintiff, who was suspected of committing a minor traffic violation, from fleeing on a bicycle. The district court construed Plaintiff’s allegations as asserting a Fourth Amendment excessive-force claim and found that his claim was plausible.   The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s denial of qualified immunity Defendant. The court held that the question of whether Defendant used excessive force against Plaintiff would be a question for a factfinder. The roadblock was a use of intermediate force that was capable of inflicting significant pain and causing serious injury. Given the circumstances, a jury could conclude that Defendant should have taken additional steps to stop Plaintiff before using an intermediate level of force given Plaintiff’s minor offense and the lack of any safety risk to de Defendant or anyone else. However, even if Defendant did use excessive force, the law as it existed at the time of the incident did not clearly establish that his actions violated the Fourth Amendment. Therefore, Defendant was entitled to qualified immunity. View "PRESTON SEIDNER V. JONATHAN DE VRIES" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, individually and on behalf of her minor daughter, alleged that Defendant, an employee of the Kauai County Police Department, deceived the Hawaii family court when she assisted the non-custodial father of Plaintiff’s daughter in obtaining a temporary restraining order that prevented Plaintiff, the sole custodial parent, from having any contact with her daughter. Plaintiff further alleged that Defendant conspired with the noncustodial father and state officials to extract the daughter from her school and place her in the father’s custody without Plaintiff’s knowledge or court order.The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of Defendant’s motion to dismiss, on the basis of qualified immunity, an action brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 alleging violations of Plaintiff’s right to familial association.The court stated that although Defendant may ultimately prove that Plaintiff’s allegations were false, at the pleading stage, the court must accept all well-pleaded factual allegations as true. When the alleged events in this case occurred, the law clearly established that a parent and child’s constitutional right to familial association is violated when a state official interferes with a parent’s lawful custody through judicial deception. The law also clearly established that a state official cannot remove a child from a lawful custodial parent without consent or court order unless the official has reasonable cause to believe that the child is in imminent danger and, even then, the scope and duration of the removal must be reasonable. Here, Plaintiff plausibly alleged that Defendant violated these rights by deliberately failing to inform the family court of a custody order. View "HANNAH DAVID V. GINA KAULUKUKUI" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s summary judgment for the County of San Bernardino and County investigator in an action brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 alleging Defendants violated Plaintiff’s constitutional rights during his murder investigation and prosecution, resulting in his erroneous conviction for the murder of his wife.   Plaintiff alleged that County of San Bernardino investigator fabricated evidence against him by planting. Plaintiff further alleged claims for municipal liability pursuant to Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658 (1978), against the County, arguing that the County’s customs and policies, and the absence of better customs and policies, resulted in the alleged constitutional violations.   The court held that because the district court erred by failing to find potential civil rights liability as to the investigator, its derivative ruling as to potential County liability under Monell should also be reversed. The court further held that the district court erred by not addressing whether Plaintiff could show that he suffered a constitutional injury by the County unrelated to the individual officers’ liability under Section 1983.   Plaintiff put forth at least two Monell claims that were not premised on a theory of liability: (1) that the County’s policy of prohibiting coroner investigators from entering a crime scene until cleared by homicide detectives resulted in the loss of exculpatory time-of-death evidence, and (2) that the lack of any training or policy on Brady by the Sheriff’s Department resulted in critical exculpatory evidence being withheld by the prosecution. The court, therefore, remanded to the district court to consider these claims. View "WILLIAM RICHARDS V. COUNTY OF SAN BERNARDINO" on Justia Law

Several public-sector employees filed a class action lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 seeking to recover any agency fees taken from their paychecks by the Santa Clara County Correctional Peace Officers Association and Santa Clara County. Specifically, Plaintiffs sought a refund for fees paid before the United States Supreme Court issued its opinion in Janus v. Am. Fed’n of State, Cnty., & Mun. Emps., Council 31, 138 S. Ct. 2448 (2018) (prohibiting public-sector unions from collecting compulsory agency fees).In the district court, Defendants successfully moved for summary judgment, claiming they were entitled to a good-faith defense because their actions were expressly authorized by then-applicable United States Supreme Court law and state law. Plaintiffs appealed.On appeal, Plaintiffs acknowledge that Danielson v. Inslee, 945 F.3d 1096 (9th Cir. 2019) precludes their claim against the Union. The Ninth Circuit held that the rule announced in Danielson also applies to municipalities because "precedent recognizes that municipalities are generally liable in the same way as private corporations in sec. 1983 actions." Thus, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of Plaintiffs' claim against both the Union and the County. View "SEAN ALLEN V. SANTA CLARA CNTY CORR. POA" on Justia Law

Plaintiff was raped by a fellow student two weeks after starting at the University of Washington. Plaintiff later learned that two other students had reported the same individual for unwanted sexual advances and contact. Plaintiff filed Title IX and common-law negligence claims against the University in the district court, which granted summary judgment to the University after finding that the University did not owe Plaintiff a duty of care. Plaintiff appealed.The Ninth Circuit certified two questions to the Washington Supreme Court:1. Does Washington law recognize a special relationship between a university and its students giving rise to a duty to use reasonable care to protect students from foreseeable injury at the hands of other students?2. If the answer to question 1 is yes, what is the measure and scope of that duty? View "MADELEINE BARLOW V. STATE OF WASHINGTON" on Justia Law

The en banc Ninth Circuit court dismissed as moot an appeal from the district court’s summary judgment in favor of California Governor Newsom and state officials in an action brought by a group of parents and a student alleging Defendants violated federal law when they ordered schools to suspend in-person instruction in 2020 and early 2021, at a time when California was taking its first steps of navigating the Covid-19 pandemic.   The en banc court held that this was a classic case in which, due to intervening events, there was no longer a live controversy necessary for Article III jurisdiction. Nor was there any effective relief that could be granted by the court. The parents had not brought a claim for damages; they sought a declaratory judgment that Governor Newsom’s executive orders, to the extent they incorporated guidance on school reopening, were unconstitutional. Relatedly, they sought an injunction against the 2020-21 Reopening Framework. But Governor Newsom has rescinded the challenged executive orders, and the 2020-21 Reopening Framework has been revoked. Schools now operate under the 2021-22 Guidance, which declares that all schools may reopen for in-person learning. And the parents conceded that, since April 2021, there has been no “state-imposed barrier to reopening for in-person instruction.” The actual controversy has evaporated.The en banc court rejected Plaintiffs’ assertion that the case survived under two exceptions to mootness: the voluntary cessation exception and the capable of repetition yet evading review exception. Neither exception applied. View "MATTHEW BRACH V. GAVIN NEWSOM" on Justia Law

In determining whether a police officer’s killing of the decedent arose out of the decedent’s “operation or use of a motor vehicle” pursuant to Arizona Revised Statutes (“A.R.S.”) section 12-820.05(B), the Ninth Circuit certified the question of law to the Arizona Supreme Court pursuant to Rule 27 of the Rules of the Supreme Court of Arizona. This case presents two principal issues of first impression: (1) whether A.R.S. section 12-820.05(B) provides immunity from suit or a defense to liability, and (2) whether the decedent’s “operation or use of a motor vehicle” falls within A.R.S. section 12-820.05(B)’s motor vehicle exception. The court explained that certification is necessary because the central question of state law is dispositive of the instant case, and there is no controlling precedent from the Arizona Supreme Court. Ariz. R. Sup. Ct. 27(a). View "MARIA ADAME V. CITY OF SURPRISE" on Justia Law

Plaintiff was on parole when she was evicted from her apartment. She sent a letter to the parole office about her eviction and provided updated contact information, but the parole office was unable to contact her with the information provided. The parole office then suspended Plaintiff’s parole and issued a “retake warrant.” Plaintiff was arrested seven years later. At the revocation hearing, the parole office decided not to revoke Plaintiff’s parole, retroactively rescinded her parole suspension, restored her parole end date to March 2015, and released her from custody. During the two months she was detained, Plaintiff lost her home, business, and pets.   The Ninth Circuit held that the parole officer permissibly suspended plaintiff’s parole. Plaintiff’s arrest was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment because the parole office had a reasonable belief that she violated her parole. Because the Fourteenth Amendment does not require notice to a parolee before a parole suspension hearing, and because plaintiff was largely responsible for the seven-year delay in her arrest, her arrest did not violate due process. Plaintiff’s state law claims failed because the defendants had no waived immunity for false imprisonment or false arrest, and she could not establish the elements of her negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims. View "ELIZABETH CORNEL V. STATE OF HAWAII" on Justia Law

The California Insurance Commissioner filed an ex parte conservation application to place the California Insurance Company (“CIC I”) in a conservatorship after CIC I’s president attempted to consummate a purchase transaction with Berkshire Hathaway without the Commissioner’s approval, and then attempted to bypass the California insurance regulatory scheme by merging CIC I with the California Insurance Company (“CIC II”), a New Mexico-domesticated shell company formed by the president. The Superior Court granted the Commissioner’s conservatorship application and appointed the Commissioner as Conservator of CIC I. Applied Underwriters, of which the president is the Chief Executive Officer, and CIC II filed separate actions in federal court asserting causes of actions under Section 1983.   The district court dismissed both actions pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1). The Ninth Circuit held that because important considerations of federalism were at stake, the district court’s reliance on Younger abstention as a ground for dismissal was in error. The court held that an insurance conservatorship is not sufficiently akin to criminal prosecution to bring it within the purview of what constitutes a similar, Younger-eligible “civil enforcement proceeding.”   The court held that dismissal of Appellants’ claims was warranted on account of the prior exclusive jurisdiction rule. Further, Appellants’ interests were well represented in the conservatorship action; they had an adequate opportunity to raise constitutional challenges; they failed to sufficiently allege that the conservatorship action was brought in bad faith; they failed to demonstrate irreparable injury arising from extraordinary circumstances which might justify an exception to the prior exclusive jurisdiction rule. View "APPLIED UNDERWRITERS, INC. V. RICARDO LARA" on Justia Law

Petitioner brought suit pursuant to the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (“RLUIPA”), 42 U.S.C. Section 2000cc et seq., the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, and Arizona state law. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment on the pleadings in an action brought by Petitioner, a Muslim inmate who alleged that he is unable to pray five times a day, as the Qur’an requires because he is housed with people who harass him as he prays; and who had asked the prison to accommodate his religious practice by housing him exclusively with other prisoners based on their religious beliefs and practices.   The court held that Petitioner’s RLUIPA claim failed because denying his request to be housed only with Muslims was the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling governmental interest. The court held that Defendants did not violate Petitioner’s First Amendment free exercise rights because denying Petitioner’s request was also reasonably related to a legitimate penological interest—avoiding the potential legal liability of housing inmates based on their religious beliefs and practices. Denying the request was rationally related to avoiding liability because by denying Petitioner’s requested accommodation, the Arizona Department of Corrections Rehabilitation and Reentry completely eliminated its risk of litigation from other prisoners based on that claim. View "SHAYKH MUHAMMAD AL SAUD V. PANNAN DAYS" on Justia Law