Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

In the case at hand, DeWitt Lamar Long, a practicing Muslim and inmate at Halawa Correctional Facility in Hawaii, brought a legal action against several prison officials under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. He alleged that his First Amendment rights to freely exercise his religion were violated and that he was unconstitutionally retaliated against for engaging in protected First Amendment activity. Specifically, Long claimed that he was denied meals consistent with his Islamic faith, that his meal during Ramadan was delivered early and thus was cold and potentially unsafe by the time he could break his fast, and that he was transferred from a medium-security facility to a high-security facility in retaliation for filing grievances.The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed in part, reversed in part, and vacated in part the district court’s judgment. The appellate court found that the district court erred in dismissing Long's claims for injunctive relief without allowing him a chance to amend his complaint to demonstrate the need for such relief. The court also vacated the district court’s decision to grant summary judgment in favor of Sergeant Lee, holding that the delivery of Long's evening meal at 3:30 p.m. during Ramadan substantially burdened his free exercise of religion. The court remanded the case to allow the district court to evaluate whether the burden was justified.However, the appellate court affirmed the district court's summary judgment in favor of Chief of Security Antonio regarding Long’s claim that he was transferred from a medium-security facility to a high-security facility in retaliation for filing grievances. The court agreed with the district court that the sequence of events leading to the transfer was insufficient to show retaliatory intent. The court also affirmed the district court’s judgment after a bench trial in favor of Sergeant Sugai and Chief of Security Antonio on Long’s free exercise of religion and retaliation claims. View "LONG V. SUGAI" on Justia Law

In a case involving the Department of Child and Family Services of the County of Los Angeles and individual social workers, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a mixed ruling. The case arose from the removal of two minor children from their parents' custody following an anonymous report that the parents were using medical marijuana to treat one child's severe autism. The court affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s judgment.The Circuit Court reversed the district court's summary judgment for the defendants on the parents' claim of judicial deception. The court concluded that the application submitted by the defendants in support of the warrant for removal contained misrepresentations and omissions and a reasonable trier of fact could find these misrepresentations material.The Circuit Court also reversed the district court's summary judgment for defendants on the parents' intentional infliction of emotional distress claim and their Monell claim, which argued that the county had an unofficial policy of encouraging social workers to omit exculpatory information from warrant applications.However, the Circuit Court affirmed the district court’s judgment on the Fourth Amendment claim concerning the social worker's interview of one child at her school, finding that the social worker was entitled to qualified immunity. The court also found no error in the district court's handling of a jury question during trial.The court remanded the case for further proceedings on the claims of judicial deception, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and the Monell claim.The case was remanded for further proceedings on these issues. View "SCANLON V. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES" on Justia Law

A group of current and former inmates, or their representatives, filed a class action lawsuit against Kate Brown, the Governor of Oregon, and Patrick Allen, the Director of the Oregon Health Authority, claiming that the state's COVID-19 vaccine rollout plan, which prioritized corrections officers over inmates, violated their Eighth Amendment rights. The defendants moved to dismiss the claim, asserting immunity under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act. The district court denied the motion, and the defendants appealed.The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's decision, finding that the defendants were immune from liability for the vaccine prioritization claim under the PREP Act. The court held that the statutory requirements for PREP Act immunity were met because the "administration" of a covered countermeasure includes prioritization of that countermeasure when its supply is limited. The court further concluded that the PREP Act's provisions extend immunity to persons who make policy-level decisions regarding the administration or use of covered countermeasures. The court also held that the PREP Act provides immunity from suit and liability for constitutional claims brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, even if those claims are federal constitutional claims. View "MANEY V. BROWN" on Justia Law

In this case, the plaintiff, Desiree Martinez, sued Channon High, a City of Clovis police officer, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that Officer High violated her due process rights by disclosing her confidential domestic violence report to her abuser, Kyle Pennington, who was also a Clovis police officer. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of qualified immunity to Officer High.The appellate court held that while Officer High did violate Ms. Martinez's due process rights under the state-created danger doctrine by disclosing her confidential domestic violence report to Mr. Pennington, the right was not clearly established at the time of the violation. The court explained that state actors are generally not liable for failing to prevent the acts of private parties, but an exception applies where the state affirmatively places the plaintiff in danger by acting with deliberate indifference to a known or obvious danger. In this case, Officer High's disclosure of Ms. Martinez's confidential report to Pennington, whom she knew was an alleged abuser, placed Ms. Martinez in actual, foreseeable danger. However, it was not clearly established in 2013 that Officer High’s actions violated Ms. Martinez’s substantive due process rights. The court clarified that going forward, an officer would be liable under the state-created danger doctrine when the officer discloses a victim’s confidential report to a violent perpetrator in a manner that increases the risk of retaliation against the victim. View "MARTINEZ V. HIGH" on Justia Law

In this case decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the court considered whether the claims filed by Adriana Holt, her children, and her mother Beatriz Lukens against Orange County and several deputy sheriffs were barred by the applicable statutes of limitations. The plaintiffs alleged unlawful search and arrest and brought claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and California state law. The case involved multiple filings and dismissals in different courts, raising the question of whether the tolling provision of the supplemental jurisdiction statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1367, applied to their claims.The court held that the plaintiffs' claims were not tolled and were therefore properly dismissed as untimely. The court reasoned that § 1367 tolls the applicable statute of limitations for a federal-law claim that is contained in the same federal court complaint as a supplemental state-law claim and that is “voluntarily dismissed at the same time as or after the dismissal of the [supplemental] claim.” However, this tolling provision does not apply when the supplemental claim is voluntarily dismissed, as occurred in Holt's first suit, or when a supplemental claim is dismissed for improper joinder, as occurred in the separate class action.Finally, the court also held that the plaintiffs' state-law claims were not tolled by a Covid-19 pandemic emergency tolling order and rule because the limitations periods for those claims had already lapsed before either the order or rule went into effect. Therefore, the court affirmed the lower court's dismissal of the plaintiffs' claims as time-barred. View "HOLT V. COUNTY OF ORANGE" on Justia Law

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of a preliminary injunction in favor of the plaintiffs, a coalition on homelessness and seven current or formerly homeless residents of San Francisco, who sought to prevent the City and County of San Francisco from enforcing any ordinance that punishes sleeping, lodging, or camping on public property. The plaintiffs argued that such enforcement violated the Eighth Amendment. On appeal, the defendants argued, for the first time, that the enforcement actions did not leave unhoused individuals with nowhere else to go, but instead required them to relocate from specific encampment sites and only at certain times. The Ninth Circuit deemed this argument waived as it was not brought up in the lower court and even if it was considered, the argument would not change the outcome as the defendants' enforcement of the laws were no narrower in scope than the laws at issue in prior cases, Martin v. City of Boise and Johnson v. City of Grants Pass. The court held that the defendants have yet to show that the preliminary injunction was improper based on the arguments and evidentiary record before the district court. View "Coalition on Homelessness v. City of San Francisco" on Justia Law

In this case, Alexander Hebrard, an inmate in Oregon, brought a complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that he was disciplined in prison without due process of law. Hebrard claimed that he was found guilty of prison rule violations without sufficient evidence and was denied the opportunity to present a defense. As a result of his alleged wrongful conviction, Hebrard was fined, had money confiscated from his prison account, was placed in segregated housing, lost visitation rights, and had earned-time credits revoked. In his lawsuit, Hebrard sought damages for all these sanctions, except for the revocation of his earned-time credits. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of Hebrard's complaint as barred by Heck v. Humphrey. Under Heck, a claim for damages that would necessarily imply the invalidity of the length of an inmate's sentence must be dismissed unless the inmate first challenges his sentence in a habeas corpus proceeding and obtains relief. The Ninth Circuit determined that even though Hebrard did not seek relief for the revocation of his earned-time credits, his claim nonetheless implicated the validity of his disciplinary conviction, which in turn affected the length of his sentence. The court concluded that Hebrard needed to obtain habeas relief before filing this § 1983 action. Because he did not do so, his claim was barred by Heck. View "Hebrard V. Nofziger" on Justia Law

In a case involving a putative class of plaintiffs who alleged that the Superior Court of Los Angeles County and Judge Eric C. Taylor set cash bail that they could not afford and unlawfully detained them pretrial, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of the action. The court held that actions against state courts and state court judges in their judicial capacity are barred by Eleventh Amendment immunity. The Superior Court of California was found to have sovereign immunity as an arm of the state. The court concluded that the exception in the Ex parte Young case did not apply because the Superior Court cannot be sued in an individual capacity. The court also held that Judge Taylor had Eleventh Amendment immunity because state court judges cannot be sued in federal court in their judicial capacity under the Eleventh Amendment. The court overruled any interpretation of a previous case (Wolfe v. Strankman) that suggested the Ex parte Young exception allowed injunctions against judges acting in their judicial capacity, finding such interpretation to be clearly irreconcilable with a more recent Supreme Court decision (Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson). The court concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to resolve claims brought against state courts or state court judges acting in a judicial capacity due to Eleventh Amendment immunity. View "MUNOZ V. SUPERIOR COURT OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY" on Justia Law

In the case before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, a plaintiff named Robert A. Stanard, who was an inmate in the federal prison system, sued several prison officials, claiming they violated his Eighth Amendment rights by denying him treatment for Hepatitis C, and his Fifth Amendment rights by discriminating against him due to his pre-trial status. Stanard sought damages under Bivens, a precedent that allows individuals to sue federal officers for constitutional rights violations. The district court dismissed Stanard’s complaint, and he appealed.The Ninth Circuit partly affirmed and partly reversed the district court’s decision. First, the court reversed the dismissal of Stanard’s Eighth Amendment claim. The court found that his claim was not a new context for a Bivens action because it was similar to a previous case, Carlson v. Green, where the Supreme Court recognized a Bivens remedy for prison officials who were deliberately indifferent to an inmate's medical needs. The court rejected the defendants' argument that the prison officials in Stanard's case denied him care due to a Bureau of Prisons policy, while the officials in Carlson acted so inappropriately as to evidence intentional maltreatment causing death, holding that the difference in degree was not a meaningful difference that would create a new context.However, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of Stanard’s Fifth Amendment claim. The court found that this claim did present a new Bivens context because it involved disparate treatment of pre-sentencing and post-sentencing inmates, a situation not previously addressed in Bivens cases. Given that this was a new context, the court then determined that special factors counseled against extending a Bivens remedy. Specifically, the existence of alternative remedial structures, such as the Bureau of Prisons' administrative remedy process, indicated that Congress, rather than the courts, should decide whether to create a new damages remedy. View "STANARD V. DY" on Justia Law

In this case, Randon L. Miller, the owner of Sushi Brokers, LLC, a sushi restaurant in Scottsdale, Arizona, was cited and arrested by Scottsdale Police Officer Christian Bailey for violating a COVID-19 emergency executive order prohibiting on-site dining issued by the Arizona Governor. The charges were later dismissed. Miller subsequently brought a lawsuit against Officer Bailey and the City of Scottsdale, alleging constitutional violations including retaliatory arrest in violation of the First Amendment, and false arrest in violation of the Fourth Amendment.The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the district court’s summary judgment in favor of Officer Bailey and the City of Scottsdale. The court held that Officer Bailey had probable cause to arrest Miller under Arizona Revised Statutes § 26-317 for violating the emergency order, given that officers had observed on-site dining at the restaurant and there were prior calls reporting violations. The court also rejected Miller’s argument that the warnings he received prior to the enactment of an executive order requiring notice and an opportunity to comply before any enforcement action did not qualify. The court found that Miller had sufficient notice and opportunity to comply given the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. View "MILLER V. CITY OF SCOTTSDALE" on Justia Law