Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

Rogers Group, Inc. brought suit in district court against the City of Fayetteville, seeking to prevent the enforcement of the City's ordinance regulating rock quarries in or near the City's corporate limits. The district court granted Rogers Group's motion for a preliminary injunction to enjoin the ordinance prior to its enforcement date. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed. The City then repealed the ordinance. Rogers Group moved for attorneys' fees and costs, arguing that it was a prevailing party. The district court granted the motion, concluding that Rogers Group was entitled to a fee award under 42 U.S.C. 1988 even though the court never reached the constitutional claims because the allegations in the complaint raised a substantial constitutional claim sufficient to confer jurisdiction. The Eighth Circuit affirmed, holding that Rogers Group was a prevailing party entitled to an award of attorneys' fees pursuant to section 1988 even though the district court never reached its constitutional claims.

Plaintiff-Appellant Cinnamon Hills Youth Crisis Center ran a residential treatment facility in St. George, Utah for young people with mental and emotional disorders. It wanted to expand its operations with a "step-down" program hereby participants would live in a separate facility with more responsibility and autonomy that other students in preparation for reentry to society. Cinnamon Hills applied to the City for a zoning variance to use the top floor of a hotel it owned for the program, the City denied its request. Cinnamon Hills subsequently sued the City for discrimination against the disabled. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the City, and Cinnamon Hills appealed. Upon review of the district court record, the Tenth Circuit found that Cinnamon Hills could not prove by the evidence on record, instances of discrimination as it alleged. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the district court's decision in dismissing Cinnamon Hills' claims.

Plaintiffs filed suit in federal court seeking damages for the 31 months during which they were barred from improving their shoreline property by the moratorium imposed by local officials on new projects. Plaintiffs asserted that the moratorium violated their substantive and procedural due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment, and sought damages against the city under 42 U.S.C. 1983. The court concluded that the moratorium ordinances were validly enacted, nonarbitrary, and manifestly related to the city's legitimate municipal interests. Accordingly, the court held that the city did not violate plaintiffs' constitutional rights.

Geoff Livingston and 134 other homeonwers or renters (collectively Plaintiffs) in a Fairfax County subdivision brought an inverse condemnation suit against the County and the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) after their homes were flooded during a severe storm. The circuit court dismissed the suit on demurrer, holding that a single occurrence of flooding could not support an inverse condemnation claim under Va. Const. art. I, 11. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that because the facts alleged in Plaintiffs' complaint, if taken as true, established that their homes and personal property were damaged by VDOT's operation of, and failure to maintain, the relocation of a tributary stream, the circuit court erred in dismissing their inverse condemnation suit on VDOT's demurrer. Remanded.

Plaintiff appealed the district court's dismissal of its complaint, alleging that Arlington County's sign ordinance violated the First Amendment. Plaintiff had commissioned a painting described as including "happy cartoon dogs, bones, and paw prints" and the county subsequently notified plaintiff that the painting violated the sign ordinance. The court agreed with the district court that the ordinance was a content-neutral restriction on speech that satisfied intermediate scrutiny. Finding no merit to the other constitutional challenges, the court affirmed the judgment.

The City of Jefferson City annexed property on which a fireworks retailer's business was located. The City had an ordinance banning the sale of fireworks within its city limits. The retailer filed suit seeking compensation for a regulatory taking or, in the alternative, for a declaration that Tenn. Code Ann. 13-7-208(b), which allows pre-existing nonconforming businesses to continue to operate despite a "zoning change," permitted it to continue to sell fireworks. The trial court dismissed the retailer's complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. The court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that because the City's ordinance banning the sale of fireworks was not a "zoning change" or "zoning restriction" under the test announced in Cherokee Country Club, Inc. v. City of Knoxville, the retailer did not qualify for relief under section 13-7-208(b)(1).

Pin Ups, an adult entertainment business, brought this appeal from an order of the trial court denying its petition for an interlocutory injunction against the Board's "Hours of sale and operation" ordinances. As Pin Ups alleged a violation of free speech rights under the Georgia Constitution, the trial court erred in applying the rational basis test. Such laws could be upheld only "if it furthers an important government interest; if the government interest is unrelated to the suppression of speech; and if the incidental restriction of speech is no greater than is essential to the furtherance of that interest." Therefore, the court held that, inasmuch as the trial court made its ruling based upon an incorrect legal standard, the court must reserve its decision and the court remanded the case to that court for it to evaluate Pin Ups's request for injunctive relief using the correct legal standard.

The City filed a complaint in eminent domain against Zara Thomas, trustee of two revocable trusts, and a motion for an order of immediate possession, seeking to procure a portion of Thomas's property for the purpose of constructing a bike trail. The circuit court granted the City's motion for order of immediate possession, and the City commenced construction on Thomas's property. Thomas appealed. The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal without prejudice, holding that the order did not conclude the parties' rights as to the subject matter in controversy, and therefore, was not a final and appealable order, as the circuit court had not yet addressed the issue of Thomas's right to just compensation and the amount of damages.

Plaintiff sued defendant, a general improvement district, arguing that defendant's policy of only allowing people who own or rent real property within defendant's 1968 boundaries to access beaches that it owned and operated was unconstitutional under the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court granted defendant's motion for summary judgment. The court held that the beaches were not a traditional public forum, and that plaintiff's exclusion from beaches did not violate either his First Amendment or Fourteenth Amendment rights. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

After the fiscal court voted to discontinue maintenance on a county road, Appellant, who owned property and lived on the road, erected a locked gate blocking the road and provided a key to each property owner on the road. Appellees, a non-profit association known as Preserve Rural Roads of Madison County, filed suit against Appellant to force him to remove the gates. The circuit court granted Appellees' motion for summary judgment, finding that Appellees had standing and that Appellant was without legal right or ownership to prohibit others from using the road. The court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) Rural Roads had associational standing in this matter; (2) the discontinuance of maintenance on the county road did not affect any public easement rights; and (3) the lower courts' decisions in this case, holding that the county road is a public road and that Appellant could not block the road with gates, did not constitute an unlawful taking of Appellant's land.