Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

Three private contractors providing war-zone security services to the Department of Defense (DOD) appealed a district court order remanding to Nevada state court this suit brought by a group of their employees who guarded DOD bases, equipment, and personnel in Iraq. The guards alleged that their working conditions violated the contractors’ recruiting representations, their employment contracts, and the Theater Wide Internal Security Services II (TWISS II) contract between the contractors and the Department of Defense.The Ninth Circuit reversed. The panel held that the contractors met the limited burden imposed by the federal officer removal statute, 28 U.S.C. Section 1442(a)(1), which permits removal of a civil action against “any officer (or any person acting under that officer) of the United States or of any agency thereof . . . for or relating to any act under color of such office.” To satisfy this requirement, a removing private entity must show that (a) it is a “person” within the meaning of the statute; (b) there is a causal nexus between its actions, taken pursuant to a federal officer’s directions, and the plaintiff’s claims; and (c) it can assert a colorable federal defense. There was no dispute that the contractors, as corporations, were “persons” for purposes of Section 1442(a)(1). The panel held that the contractors sufficiently pleaded that there was a causal nexus between their actions and the guards’ claims. View "NICHOLAS DEFIORE, ET AL V. SOC LLC, ET AL" on Justia Law

A California court sentenced appellant Plaintiff to death. That same year, the California legislature codified a longstanding judicial rule guaranteeing the appointment of postconviction relief counsel to indigent prisoners who had been convicted and sentenced to death. Plaintiff requested the appointment of postconviction habeas counsel 26 years ago. Plaintiff filed this action under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, claiming that by failing to appoint counsel as promised and so preventing him from developing and prosecuting his state habeas corpus petition for over two decades, state officials are violating his procedural due process rights. He sought a declaration that state officials’ “failure to timely appoint counsel is in violation” of his due process rights. The district court dismissed his complaint for failure to state a claim.The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s dismissal. The panel held that Plaintiff has standing because he has adequately shown that the declaratory relief he seeks would redress his injuries. The panel agreed with the district court that abstention under O’Shea v. Littleton, as to Plaintiff’s individual request for declaratory relief, was not appropriate. The panel held that California is under no federal constitutional obligation to appoint postconviction counsel for all indigent capital prisoners. But Plaintiff stated a viable due process claim by alleging that he has been deprived of a valuable property interest for over a quarter century. The panel reversed the district court’s dismissal of Plaintiff’s complaint. However, the panel held that Plaintiff’s complaint, as presently drafted, did not plausibly allege that the state has failed to adequately protect his liberty interest in petitioning for habeas corpus. View "STEPHEN REDD V. PATRICIA GUERRERO, ET AL" on Justia Law

Defendants responded to calls from the decedent’s neighbor that he was driving a pickup truck erratically on a rural field on his own property, that he was drunk and belligerent and may have fired a gun. An hour after thirty officers arrived at the property in marked police cars with their overhead lights on, Defendants used an unmarked armored vehicle to twice execute a pursuit intervention technique (“PIT”) maneuver by intentionally colliding with decedent’s truck in the field. Officers reportedly shot decedent after they thought they heard a gunshot and saw a rifle pointed at them. Decedent’s widow brought this civil suit seeking damages from the officers and the County pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 and state law. The district court granted summary judgment for Defendants.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s summary judgment. The panel first rejected Plaintiff’s argument that Defendants violated decedent’s Fourth Amendment rights by entering the property without a warrant. The officers’ decision not to obtain a warrant before entering the property was not the proximate cause of decedent’s death. The panel next held that a jury could find that Defendants’ second PIT maneuver constituted deadly and excessive force because (1) it created a substantial risk of serious bodily injury, (2) decedent did not pose an imminent threat to the officers or others at that point, and (3) less intrusive alternatives were available. Nevertheless, no clearly established law would have provided adequate notice to reasonable officers that their use of the armored vehicle to execute a low-speed PIT maneuver under these circumstances was unconstitutional. View "APRIL SABBE V. WASHINGTON CNTY BD OF COMM'RS, ET AL" on Justia Law

Kari Lake and Mark Finchem (“Plaintiffs”), the Republican nominees for Governor and Secretary of State of Arizona, filed this action before the 2022 general election, contending that Arizona’s use of electronic tabulation systems violated the federal Constitution. The district court dismissed their operative first amended complaint for lack of Article III standing. Lake v. Hobbs. Plaintiffs’ candidacies failed at the polls, and their various attempts to overturn the election outcome in state court have to date been unavailing. On appeal, they no longer seek any relief concerning the 2022 election but instead seek to bar use of electronic tabulation systems in future Arizona elections.   The Ninth Circuit agreed with the district court that Plaintiffs’ “speculative allegations that voting machines may be hackable are insufficient to establish an injury in fact under Article III. The court explained that even assuming Plaintiffs could continue to claim standing as prospective voters in future elections, they had not alleged a particularized injury and therefore failed to establish the kind of injury Article III requires. None of Plaintiffs’ allegations supported a plausible inference that their individual votes in future elections will be adversely affected by the use of electronic tabulation, particularly given the robust safeguards in Arizona law, the use of paper ballots, and the post-tabulation retention of those ballots. The panel concluded that speculative allegations that voting machines may be hackable were insufficient to establish an injury, in fact, under Article III. View "KARI LAKE, ET AL V. ADRIAN FONTES, ET AL" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a California state prisoner, moved to recall the mandate and reinstate his 2017 appeal of the dismissal of his civil rights action against state agencies and Salinas Valley Prison medical staff and officials.   The Ninth Circuit denied the motion to reinstate the appeal but directed that his filing fees be refunded. The panel first determined that Plaintiff’s motion to recall the mandate, filed 661 days after the mandate became effective, was untimely. The panel next held that the extraordinary remedy of recalling the mandate and ordering reinstatement to prevent injustice or address exceptional circumstances was not necessary given that Plaintiff did not dispute that he had three strikes, was ineligible to proceed IFP under Section 1915(b)’s payment plan, and had not timely paid the filing fee. The appeal therefore was properly dismissed. The panel held that Section 1915 neither permits nor requires the collection of fees from a prisoner who is ineligible for IFP status because he has struck out under Section 1915(g). Plaintiff purported IFP appeal therefore was barred by 1915(g), and the district court was without authority to collect the filing fees from Plaintiff’s prison account. View "LEON MEYERS V. EDWARD BIRDSONG, ET AL" on Justia Law

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the California Institution for Men (“CIM”) suffered a severe COVID-19 outbreak. In an attempt to protect CIM inmates, high-level officials in the California prison system transferred 122 inmates from CIM to San Quentin State Prison, where there were no known cases of the virus. The transfer sparked an outbreak of COVID-19 at San Quentin that infected over two-thousand inmates and ultimately killed over twenty-five inmates and one prison guard. The wife of one of the deceased inmates sued, claiming that the prison officials had violated her husband’s constitutional and statutory rights. The officials moved to dismiss, asserting that the claims were barred by various federal and state immunities, including immunity under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act and qualified immunity. The district court held that the officials were not entitled to immunity at this stage of the proceedings, and the officials filed this interlocutory appeal.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s order denying Defendants’ motion to dismiss on the basis of immunity under the PREP Act and qualified immunity in an action brought against California prison officials arising from the death of a San Quentin inmate from COVID-19; and (2) dismissed for lack of jurisdiction Defendants’ claims asserting immunity under state law. The panel held that Defendants were not entitled to qualified immunity on plaintiff’s Eighth Amendment claim, which adequately alleged that Defendants acted with deliberate indifference to the health and safety of San Quentin inmates, including Hampton. View "MICHAEL HAMPTON, ET AL V. STATE OF CALIFORNIA, ET AL" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, husband and wife, filed a 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 action against several officers of the Tucson Police Department. Two officers (collectively, “Defendants”) are the only remaining defendants. Plaintiffs’ complaint alleged First Amendment retaliation claims arising from Defendants’ investigation of two arsons that occurred at properties connected to the husband. Defendants appealed from the district court’s order denying without prejudice their motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity.   The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s denial of summary judgment as to the First Amendment claims. The panel concluded that Plaintiffs failed to show that Defendants’ conduct violated clearly established law. It was not clearly established that Plaintiff has a First Amendment right to remain silent when questioned by the police. Nor was it clearly established that a retaliatory investigation per se violates the First Amendment. Defendants were therefore entitled to qualified immunity on the First Amendment claims based on the husband's silence and Plaintiffs’ lawsuits and requests for public disclosures. View "GREG MOORE, ET AL V. SEAN GARNAND, ET AL" on Justia Law

=O.B. who was attending the University on a football scholarship, repeatedly and violently assaulted Plaintiff, his fellow student, in an off-campus house where O.B. was living with other university football players. At the time of the assault, university officials knew that O.B. had repeatedly and violently assaulted two other female undergraduates the previous year. Plaintiff sued the University under Title IX. The district court granted summary judgment to the University.   The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s summary judgment. The en banc court held that to obtain damages under Title IX for student-on-student harassment, a plaintiff must show (1) that the educational institution had substantial control over both the harasser and the context in which the known harassment occurs; (2) that the harassment was so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it denied its victims the equal access to education that Title IX is designed to protect; (3) that a school official with authority to address the alleged discrimination and to institute corrective measures has actual knowledge of the discrimination; (4) that the school acted with deliberate indifference to the harassment; and (5) that the school’s deliberate indifference must cause students to undergo harassment. The en banc court held that evidence in the record would support a conclusion by a reasonable factfinder that University officials had actual knowledge or notice of O.B.’s violent assaults and that Erika Barnes, the University’s Title IX liaison within the Athletics Department, was an official who had authority to address O.B.’s assaults and to institute corrective measures. View "MACKENZIE BROWN, ET AL V. STATE OF ARIZONA, ET AL" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs’ neighbor petitioned for a civil harassment restraining order against Plaintiffs and was granted a temporary restraining order. As a result of the TRO, Plaintiff was ordered to surrender his firearms to a California licensed firearms dealer. Certain California laws make it unlawful for any person subject to a “civil restraining order” issued by a California state court (including temporary restraining orders) to possess firearms or ammunition. Plaintiffs claim these laws violate the Second Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution as applied to them. Though Plaintiffs were subject to civil restraining orders when they filed their suit, the orders against them have expired, and in January 2023, a California court denied the latest request to extend them.   The Ninth Circuit dismissed Plaintiffs’ action as moot. The panel rejected Plaintiffs’ argument that, although they were no longer subject to any firearm restrictions, the case fell within the “capable of repetition, yet evading review” exception to mootness. The panel noted that this doctrine is to be used sparingly, in exceptional situations, and generally only where (1) the challenged action is in its duration too short to be fully litigated prior to cessation or expiration, and (2) there is a reasonable expectation that the same complaining party will be subject to the same action again. The panel held that this case was moot because the relevant restraining orders have expired, a three-year-long restraining order is not too brief to be litigated on the merits, and there was no reasonable expectation that Plaintiffs will be subject to the same action again View "MIRANDA WALLINGFORD, ET AL V. ROBERT BONTA, ET AL" on Justia Law

Appellee Gateway Hotel L.P. (“Gateway”) contends that the standard for awarding costs to ADA Defendants is governed by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(d)(1), which allows courts the discretion to award costs to prevailing parties “unless a federal statute . . . provides otherwise.” Appellant contends that the ADA’s fee- and cost-shifting statute “provides otherwise” because it permits ADA Defendants to receive their costs only where there is a showing that the action was frivolous, unreasonable, or groundless. Therefore, he contends that the district court should have granted his motion to retax costs, which would have, in effect, denied Gateway’s application for costs. The district court denied Appellant’s motion because it concluded that the decision in Brown was irreconcilable with the United States Supreme Court’s intervening opinion in Marx v. General Revenue Corp., 568 U.S. 371 (2013) and was therefore effectively overruled.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed. The panel held that Brown v. Lucky Stores was effectively overruled by Marx v. General Revenue Corp. The panel held that, accordingly, the fee- and cost-shifting provision of the ADA, 42 U.S.C. Section 12205, does not “provide otherwise” within the meaning of Rule 54(d)(1). Rule 54(d)(1), therefore, governs the award of costs to a prevailing ADA defendant and allows such an award in the court’s discretion, thereby keeping the court’s prior award of costs to the defendant intact. View "ORLANDO GARCIA V. GATEWAY HOTEL L.P." on Justia Law