Justia Civil Procedure Opinion Summaries

Appellant complaint, filed in 2021, repeated the claims she had made against the defendants in her 2018 complaint. The district court dismissed her 2018 complaint because the D.C. statutory limitations period had run. In both of her complaints Appellant alleged that in 2004, when she was 14 years old and a student at a KIPP charter school in the District of Columbia, one of her teachers began having sexual relations with her. She further alleged that this man continued to abuse her after she enrolled in another school and that they began living together in Maryland. She claimed that she ended her relationship with him in 2009. At issue is whether, as the district court ruled, res judicata barred Appellant’s second action.   The DC Circuit reversed and remanded. The court explained that the District of Columbia’s Sexual Abuse Statute of Limitations Amendment Act went into effect on May 3, 2019. The new and expanded limitations period extends to “the date the victim attains the age of 40 years, or 5 years from when the victim knew, or reasonably should have known, of any act constituting sexual abuse, whichever is later.” Here, the court held that the district court did not decide whether the old or the new D.C. statute of limitations applied to several of Appellant’s claims. The court wrote that the district court also concluded that its interpretation of the new Act depended on constitutional avoidance, which the DC Circuit determined to be inapplicable. View "Shanique Perez v. Kipp DC Supporting Corporation" on Justia Law

Plaintiff sued his former employer for allegedly underpaying him for overtime hours. Plaintiff worked in Florida, but he sued Waste Pro USA, Inc., and its subsidiary, Waste Pro of Florida, Inc., as one of several named plaintiffs in a purported collective action in the District of South Carolina. That court dismissed Plaintiff’s claims against Waste Pro USA and Waste Pro of Florida for lack of personal jurisdiction, and it denied as moot his motion to sever his claims and transfer them to a district court in Florida. Instead of appealing or seeking other relief in the South Carolina court, Plaintiff filed a complaint in the Southern District of Florida, alleging the same claims. The Florida district court granted summary judgment in favor of Waste Pro USA and Waste Pro of Florida because it determined that Plaintiff’s complaint was untimely.   The Eleventh Circuit affirmed. The court explained that Plaintiff had “alternate ways of preserving his cause of action short of invoking the doctrine of equitable tolling.” He could have filed a motion for reconsideration of or for relief from the dismissal order and argued that transfer was in the interest of justice. He also could have appealed the dismissal. “The right to appeal generally is regarded as an adequate legal remedy [that] forecloses equitable relief.” The court wrote that a diligent plaintiff would have filed a protective action or pursued a legal remedy in the South Carolina proceeding. Further, to the extent Plaintiff will suffer irreparable harm if equitable tolling does not apply in this case, that is the consequence of his own failure to pursue his remedies at law. Equity will not intervene in such circumstances. View "Anthony Wright v. Waste Pro USA Inc, et al." on Justia Law

Police officers shot and killed a teenage boy. His parents, Plaintiffs, sued the officers and the City of Benton, Arkansas, under Section 1983 and state law. After the district court dismissed the case on the pleadings, the Eighth Circuit court reversed and remanded in part. The district court then granted Defendants’ motion for summary judgment. The parents argued that the parties genuinely dispute how their son moved the gun before being shot and that this dispute is material.   The Eighth Circuit reversed and remanded. The court explained that the parents identified a genuine dispute of material fact about whether their son pointed his gun at the officers. A jury could conclude, based on the expert’s testimony, that Plaintiffs’ son “never pointed the gun at the officers” but instead “moved his gun in compliance with commands to drop his gun.” This precludes summary judgment. The district court’s dismissal of Plaintiffs’ excessive force claim is reversed. Because the district court relied on its excessive-force conclusion to dismiss Plaintiffs’ Monell and state-law claims, those decisions are vacated. View "Piper Partridge v. City of Benton, Arkansas" on Justia Law

The City of Balch Springs Police Department hired an officer who a jury later convicted of murdering a teenage boy while on duty. Plaintiff (the boy’s father) sued the City under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983. The district court granted the City’s motion for summary judgment, reasoning that the department’s use-of-force policy was constitutional and also that Plaintiff’s training, supervisory, and disciplinary theories of liability lacked factual support.   The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court’s ultimate judgment. Plaintiff argued that the City’s policy is facially unconstitutional because it contains “no immediacy requirement necessary to justify an officer’s use of deadly force” and because it calls “for an officer to use the officer’s own subjective beliefs in determining whether deadly force was justified.” The court explained that a local government’s official, written policy is itself unconstitutional only if it affirmatively allows or compels unconstitutional conduct. The City’s policy passes muster under that standard. It does not affirmatively allow officers to use deadly force absent an immediate threat, and it does not affirmatively allow officers to rely on subjective factors when evaluating whether to use deadly force. Likewise, the prior constitutional violations that Plaintiff relies on are too dissimilar and generalized to establish a pattern. For that reason, Plaintiff cannot show that the City’s training, supervisory, and disciplinary failures (if any) arose from deliberate indifference. In turn, he cannot satisfy Monell’s third element. View "Edwards v. Balch Springs, Texas" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part the judgment of the district court denying three plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment in this suit brought to challenge the City of Des Moines' use of the state's income offset program to collect automated traffic citation penalties and granting summary judgment in favor of the City, holding that the district court erred in granting summary judgment as to a preemption claim and a claim for unjust enrichment.Specifically, the Supreme Court held that the district court properly dismissed Plaintiffs' claims that, among other things, the City's use of the income offset program amounted to an unconstitutional taking and that their right to procedural due process was violated. As to Plaintiffs' contention that the City's use of the program was preempted by state law, however, the district court reversed in part, holding that the district court erred in dismissing one plaintiff's preemption claim with respect to his requests for declaratory and injunctive relief and in dismissing two plaintiffs' claim for unjust enrichment. The Court remanded this case for further proceedings. View "Livingood v. City of Des Moines" on Justia Law

The complaint, filed in September 2021, alleged that “San Francisco’s criminal legal system is in a state of crisis,” as over 400 criminal defendants had cases pending past their statutory deadline for trial. Of the defendants, 178 were in jail, typically locked in cells for 23 hours a day.The trial court dismissed, reasoning that, under the “Ford” decision, one department of a superior court may not restrain the implementation of a judgment entered by another department. On appeal, the defendants challenged the plaintiffs’ taxpayer-standing cause of action based on Penal Code provisions that impose a duty on the courts (and others) to expedite criminal proceedings, including by prioritizing them over civil cases, and to follow specific procedural steps before a criminal trial may be continued beyond statutory time limits.The court of appeal reversed. Ford is not relevant; the plaintiffs did not seek to review, revise, or reverse any decision in an individual criminal case. The court rejected the defendants’ alternative legal challenges, noting that courts must implement calendar management procedures, in accordance with local conditions, to ensure that criminal cases are assigned before the last day permitted for trial. With respect to standing the court stated that the plaintiffs adequately pleaded “waste” or “illegal expenditure” of public funds and did not impermissibly challenge a discretionary act. View "Raju v. Superior Court" on Justia Law

This appeal arises from the tragic death of a man who died while in custody. Appellants appealed the district court’s orders dismissing their claims against the Sheriff and granting summary judgment to the Fulton County Sheriff’s Department Officers, NaphCare, and a NaphCare employee.   The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the claims against the Sheriff and its grant of summary judgment to both the Officers and the employee. However, the court vacated and remanded the district court’s summary judgment in favor of NaphCare. The court explained that in Appellants’ response to NaphCare’s motion for summary judgment, Appellants relied mainly on the medical report and deposition of Dr. Timothy Hughes but also referred to the report and deposition of two other witnesses, as required by O.C.G.A. Section 9-11-9.1. Dr. Hughes’s report concluded the failure of NaphCare medical staff to properly screen, examine, and treat the decedent was the proximate cause of his death. This testimony is supported by the other witnesses. The court agreed with Appellants that, based on Dr. Hughes’s testimony, there is enough of a genuine issue of material fact for NaphCare’s liability to reach a jury. Dr. Hughes did not solely rest his argument on NaphCare’s failure to sedate the decedent. It was the failure of the staff to follow through with the decedent at all that was the problem. While this included the need for sedation, it also included immediate classification to suicide watch and observation. View "April Myrick, et al v. Fulton County, Georgia, et al" on Justia Law

Plaintiff has been incarcerated on death row in Arkansas since 1997. After he was denied relief in state court under Arkansas’s postconviction DNA testing statute, Plaintiff filed this federal lawsuit against several Arkansas officials under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983. Defendants moved to dismiss the complaint on both standing and immunity grounds. The district court denied the motion, and Defendants appealed.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that while Plaintiff does not expressly allege that the Attorney General currently possesses any of the DNA evidence he wants to test, Act 1780 provides the Attorney General an opportunity to play a critical role in the statute’s implementation. And here, the Attorney General responded to Plaintiff’s Act 1780 petition by opposing it in state court. The Attorney General “thereby caused,” in part, Plaintiff’s ongoing injury of being denied access to DNA testing that might prove his innocence. As such, Plaintiff has sufficiently alleged an injury in fact that was caused by Defendants and that would be redressed by the relief he seeks in his Section 1983 action. He has standing to bring his procedural due process challenge to Act 1780. Further, the court found that Defendants here are not immune from suit under the Eleventh Amendment because Plaintiff seeks prospective declaratory and injunctive relief and has alleged a sufficient connection between the defendants and Act 1780’s enforcement. View "Stacey Johnson v. Tim Griffin" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Zephryn Hammond appealed the grant of summary judgment in favor of defendant University of Vermont Medical Center on plaintiff’s claims of employment discrimination and retaliatory discharge. Defendant terminated plaintiff’s employment in April 2019. In October 2019, plaintiff filed a complaint alleging that defendant had discriminated and retaliated against plaintiff based on plaintiff’s race and disabilities in violation of the Vermont Fair Employment Practices Act (FEPA). The civil division concluded plaintiff had established a prima facie case that plaintiff’s termination was motivated by racial discrimination. However, it ruled that defendant had articulated a legitimate basis for the termination decision, namely, the performance issues identified in plaintiff’s evaluations and during the disciplinary process, and plaintiff had failed to prove that defendant’s proffered reasons were pretextual. The court determined that plaintiff failed to establish a prima facie case that plaintiff’s termination was the result of disability discrimination. Finally, the court concluded that the fact that plaintiff was terminated shortly after complaining of possible racial and disability discrimination created a prima facie case of retaliation, but that defendant offered legitimate nondiscriminatory reasons for termination and plaintiff had failed to show that the stated reasons were false. It therefore granted summary judgment to defendant on each of plaintiff’s claims. Finding no reversible error in the civil division's judgment, the Vermont Supreme Court affirmed. View "Hammond v. University of Vermont Medical Center" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed the district court’s grant of summary judgment to his former employer, the Georgia Department of Public Safety (“Department”). Plaintiff argued that the district court erred in concluding that he failed to make out a prima facie case of Title VII race discrimination regarding (1) the Department’s investigation of an incident stemming from his alleged intoxication at work and (2) the Department’s failure to promote him to corporal while he was on administrative leave. Plaintiff also raised a separate evidentiary argument, alleging that the district court erred in refusing to admit a document he alleges is from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”).   The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the grant of summary judgment on the investigation claim for different reasons than those relied upon by the district court. Further, the court concluded the district court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to admit the document allegedly from the EEOC. The court wrote that Plaintiff has forfeited any arguments as to the district court’s findings that the purported EEOC document was inadmissible because it contained ultimate legal conclusions and an unsupported expert opinion because he did not challenge either of these grounds in his opening brief. Further, no extraordinary circumstances apply to warrant consideration because a refusal to consider the issue would not result in a miscarriage of justice, the issue is not one of substantial justice, the proper resolution is not beyond any doubt, and the issue does not present significant questions of general impact or of great public concern. View "Clyde Anthony v. Georgia Department of Public Safety" on Justia Law