Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971), did not require the district court to abstain from hearing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus challenging the conditions of pretrial detention in state court. The Ninth Circuit held that the State has acted in good faith throughout this litigation with respect to the substantive merits of petitioner's claim; petitioner's case fell within the irreparable harm exception to Younger where he has been incarcerated for over six months without a constitutionally adequate bail hearing; and petitioner has properly exhausted his state remedies as to his bail hearing. Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment of the district court and remanded with instructions to grant a conditional writ of habeas corpus, providing that the writ issue unless the California Superior Court conducts a new constitutionally compliant bail hearing within fourteen days after the issuance of the district court's order conditionally granting the petition. View "Arevalo v. Hennessy" on Justia Law

The administrative exhaustion requirement justifies tolling the statute of limitations, but it does not justify creating a new accrual rule. The potential unfairness of limitations running during exhaustion is better addressed by equitable tolling. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment dismissing plaintiff's 42 U.S.C. 1983 action alleging excessive force and sexual assault claims against ten Arizona Department of Corrections officers. The panel held that plaintiff's claims accrued when the alleged assault occurred in 2010 because he knew of his injuries at that time; equitable tolling was not applicable in this case where neither his 2014 complaint allegations, his sworn affidavits, nor the letters and grievances he wrote from 2010 to 2014, provide competent summary judgment evidence that he took any steps to inquire into the delay in hearing from the Criminal Investigation Unit for nearly four years; and thus plaintiff's claims were time-barred. View "Soto v. Sweetman" on Justia Law

The administrative exhaustion requirement justifies tolling the statute of limitations, but it does not justify creating a new accrual rule. The potential unfairness of limitations running during exhaustion is better addressed by equitable tolling. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment dismissing plaintiff's 42 U.S.C. 1983 action alleging excessive force and sexual assault claims against ten Arizona Department of Corrections officers. The panel held that plaintiff's claims accrued when the alleged assault occurred in 2010 because he knew of his injuries at that time; equitable tolling was not applicable in this case where neither his 2014 complaint allegations, his sworn affidavits, nor the letters and grievances he wrote from 2010 to 2014, provide competent summary judgment evidence that he took any steps to inquire into the delay in hearing from the Criminal Investigation Unit for nearly four years; and thus plaintiff's claims were time-barred. View "Soto v. Sweetman" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against defendants, alleging that her termination from the police department violated her constitutional rights to privacy and intimate association. The Ninth Circuit held that plaintiff has put forth sufficient evidence to survive summary judgment on her section 1983 claim for violation of her constitutional rights to privacy and intimate association. In this case, a genuine factual dispute existed as to whether defendants terminated plaintiff at least in part on the basis of her extramarital affair. Furthermore, these rights were clearly established at the time. Therefore, the panel reversed the district court's grant of qualified immunity on her privacy claim and remanded that claim for further proceedings. The panel affirmed summary judgment on plaintiff's due process claim because any due process rights she might have had were not clearly established at the time of the challenged action, and thus defendants were entitled to qualified immunity. Finally, the panel affirmed summary judgment on plaintiff's sex discrimination claim because the evidence indicated that defendants' disapproval of her extramarital affair, rather than gender discrimination, was the cause of her termination. View "Perez v. City of Roseville" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against defendants, alleging that her termination from the police department violated her constitutional rights to privacy and intimate association. The Ninth Circuit held that plaintiff has put forth sufficient evidence to survive summary judgment on her section 1983 claim for violation of her constitutional rights to privacy and intimate association. In this case, a genuine factual dispute existed as to whether defendants terminated plaintiff at least in part on the basis of her extramarital affair. Furthermore, these rights were clearly established at the time. Therefore, the panel reversed the district court's grant of qualified immunity on her privacy claim and remanded that claim for further proceedings. The panel affirmed summary judgment on plaintiff's due process claim because any due process rights she might have had were not clearly established at the time of the challenged action, and thus defendants were entitled to qualified immunity. Finally, the panel affirmed summary judgment on plaintiff's sex discrimination claim because the evidence indicated that defendants' disapproval of her extramarital affair, rather than gender discrimination, was the cause of her termination. View "Perez v. City of Roseville" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment on the pleadings in an action challenging a city ordinance that limits the rights of landlords to commence and conduct buyout negotiations. The panel held that the Ordinance did not prevent plaintiffs, an individual property owner and several landlord organizations, from commencing buyout negotiations if a tenant refuses to sign the disclosure form; the Disclosure Provision did not violate plaintiffs' First Amendment rights; the creation of a publicly searchable database of buyout agreements did not violate landlords' right to privacy under the California Constitution; the Ordinance did not violate landlords' rights to equal protection or due process; and the Condominium Conversion Provision did not violate landlords' "liberty of contract." View "San Francisco Apartment Assoc. v. City and County of San Francisco" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of an action alleging violations of plaintiff's First and Fifth Amendment rights under the implied cause of action theory adopted by the Supreme Court in Bivens v. Six Unknown Federal Narcotics Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), as well as state law claims. Neither the Supreme Court nor this court have expanded Bivens in the context of a prisoner's First Amendment access to court or Fifth Amendment procedural due process claims arising out of a prison disciplinary process, and the circumstances of plaintiff's case against private defendants plainly presented a "new context" under Ziglar v. Abbasi, 137 S. Ct. 1843, 1854 (2017). The panel also held that plaintiff had alternative means for relief against the alleged violations of his First and Fifth Amendment rights by the private defendants. In a memorandum opinion, the panel addressed plaintiff's remaining arguments. View "Vega v. United States" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's order on remand denying petitioner's claims that the California state court improperly denied his motion for a new trial based on the State's prosecutorial misconduct. Petitioner was convicted of raping and killing an eighteen-month-old girl. The panel held that the district court properly denied further discovery in light of its finding that there was no good cause to permit additional discovery because petitioner received the adverse inference he desired and further discovery into the State's alleged spoliation of evidence would not affect the decision of the remaining witness intimidation claim of the habeas petition. The panel also held that the district court did not clearly err in weighing the credibility of the witnesses in light of the evidence adduced at the hearing. View "Earp v. Davis" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment and attorney's fees in favor of plaintiffs in a 42 U.S.C. 1983 action challenging a public school's policies. The policies prohibited, among other things, picketing on school district property, and prohibited strikers from coming onto school grounds, even for reasons unrelated to an anticipated teachers' strike. Plaintiffs also filed state law claims. The panel held that the government speech doctrine did not authorize the government's suppression of contrary views. In this case, no reasonable observer would have misperceived the speech which the school district sought to suppress—speech favoring the teachers' side in the strike—as a position taken by the school district itself. The panel also held that, because the school district's policies were neither reasonable nor viewpoint neutral, they failed even the non-public forum test and thus violated the First Amendment rights of Union members. Furthermore, the policies violated rights of Union members under the Oregon Constitution, and the school district was properly held liable for the actions of its security officer in barring Plaintiff Boyer from the school parking lot because she had a sign on the back windshield of her car supporting the teachers. View "Eagle Point Education Association v. Jackson County School District No. 9" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's complaint alleging that the temporary appointment of then-Lieutenant Governor Brian Schatz as the United States senator from Hawaii violated their rights under the Seventeenth Amendment. The panel held that plaintiffs' failure to seek an injunction did not foreclose the availability of the "capable of repetition, yet evading review" exception to mootness; a temporary appointment to the United States Senate under Hawaii Revised Statute 17-1 lasts, at most, two years and five months; the controversy over the legality of such an appointment was one of inherently limited duration; and plaintiffs had not demonstrated that expedited review would have been unavailable in a case like theirs. View "Hamamoto v. Ige" on Justia Law