Justia Civil Procedure Opinion Summaries

A Virginia statute required the automatic suspension of residents’ driver’s licenses if they failed to pay certain court fines and fees. in 2016, a group of indigent Virginians who lost their licenses when they were unable to pay court debts initiated a putative class action against the Commissioner of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles (“Commissioner”), alleging that the Commonwealth’s license-suspension scheme was unconstitutional. The plaintiffs raised several claims under the Fourteenth Amendment: that the statute’s requirement of automatic suspension without notice or a hearing violated their procedural due process rights; and that the statute’s enforcement against those who were unable, not unwilling, to pay violated both their substantive due process rights and their equal protection rights. As relief, the plaintiffs sought preliminary and permanent injunctions preventing the statute’s enforcement and requiring license reinstatement to the “hundreds of thousands of Virginians” with suspended licenses. Plaintiffs then petitioned for attorney’s fees under 42 U.S.C. Section 1988(b), which provides that the district court, “in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party” in Section 1983 actions “a reasonable attorney’s fee as part of the costs.”   The Fourth Circuit vacated the district court’s denial of attorney’s fees and remanded. The court held that Plaintiffs here prevailed” in every sense needed to make them eligible for a fee award. The court explained that the named plaintiffs sought not only reinstatement of their own licenses but also class certification, a declaratory judgment that Section 46.2-395 was unconstitutional, and hence permanent license reinstatement for hundreds of thousands of Virginians. Those are precisely the kinds of considerations that bear on the “extent of a plaintiff’s success” – a critical factor in assessing a reasonable fee award in any fee litigation under Section 1988. View "Damian Stinnie v. Richard Holcomb" on Justia Law

Petitioner and her son entered the United States illegally after fleeing alleged gang violence in Honduras. They sought asylum and related relief but were denied; their appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) was likewise dismissed. Petitioner then moved the BIA to reopen her and her son’s removal proceedings. The BIA denied her motion. Petitioner petitioned for a review of that denial.   The Fifth Circuit dismissed the petition in part and denied it in part, explaining that the court lacked jurisdiction over the BIA’s refusal to reopen Petitioner, and it otherwise rejects her claims on the merits. The court explained that there is no per se rule that every family-based PSG is cognizable. Congress did not make persecution based on “family” a statutorily enumerated ground for asylum or withholding of removal. The court wrote that Petitioner was required to put forward at least some evidence of the social distinction of her son’s nuclear family in Honduran society. Because she did not, she failed to make out a prima facie case of eligibility for withholding of removal or asylum. The consequence is that she failed to demonstrate any prejudice caused by allegedly ineffective counsel. The BIA did not err in denying her motion to reopen proceedings on her withholding-of-removal and asylum claims. Moreover, the court explained that attempting to raise a due process claim through an argument about the BIA’s failure to reopen sua sponte does not bring the claim within the court’s jurisdiction. View "Garcia-Gonzalez v. Garland" on Justia Law

High-level officials in the California prison system transferred 122 inmates from the California Institution for Men, where there was a widespread COVID-19 outbreak, 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 ultimately killed one prison guard and over twenty-five inmates. The guard’s family members sued the prison officials, claiming that the officials violated the guard’s due process rights. The officials moved to dismiss, arguing that they were entitled to qualified immunity. The district court denied the motion with respect to some of the officials, who then filed an interlocutory appeal.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of Defendants’ motion to dismiss. The panel held that based on the allegations in the complaint, Defendants were not entitled to qualified immunity. Plaintiffs sufficiently alleged a violation of the guard’s substantive due process right to be free from a state-created danger, under which state actors may be liable for their roles in creating or exposing individuals to danger they otherwise would not have faced. The panel held that the unlawfulness of defendants’ alleged actions was clearly established by the combination of two precedents: L.W. v. Grubbs, 974 F.2d 119 (9th Cir. 1992), which recognized a claim under the state-created danger doctrine arising out of a prison’s disregard for the safety of a female employee who was raped after being required to work alone with an inmate known to be likely to commit a violent crime if placed alone with a woman; and Pauluk v. Savage, 836 F.3d 1117 (9th Cir. 2016). View "PATRICIA POLANCO, ET AL V. RALPH DIAZ, ET AL" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed the district court’s judgment dismissing her claims of age, race, and gender discrimination and retaliation under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. Section 621 et seq., Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. Section 2000e et seq., and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, 42 U.S.C. Section 1981. On appeal, Plaintiff argued that the district court applied an incorrect legal standard to her retaliation claim and that it erroneously concluded that she had failed to demonstrate that Defendants’ race-neutral explanations for not selecting her for two internal promotions were pretextual.   The Second Circuit affirmed. The court held that Plaintiff has not demonstrated that Defendants’ explanations for her non-promotions were pretextual. Second, the court held that although the district court applied an incorrect standard to her retaliatory hostile work environment claim, Plaintiff has nevertheless failed to make out a prima facie case of retaliation and did not demonstrate that her employer’s non-retaliatory explanations were pretextual. The court explained that Defendant’s evidence supporting summary judgment established that Plaintiff received negative performance evaluations because she was not adequately or timely completing her duties and had become increasingly challenging to work with. The court wrote that Plaintiff has not rebutted this showing with evidence demonstrating that the reasons the NYCTA provided for the poor performance reviews were pretextual. Instead, she argues that the performance reviews must have been retaliatory due to their temporal proximity to her complaints. But she offers nothing more to establish causation. View "Carr v. New York City Transit Authority" on Justia Law

Plaintiff received his third citation for Driving While Intoxicated (“DWI”). As a term of his probation, Plaintiff, an alcoholic, was required to attend weekly substance abuse classes. Some of these classes conflicted with shifts that Plaintiff was scheduled to work as an operator at a plant owned by Defendant La Grange Acquisitions, L.P. Plaintiff informed his supervisors that he was an alcoholic and that several of the court-ordered substance abuse classes would conflict with his scheduled shifts. When Plaintiff was unable to find coverage for these shifts, La Grange, citing this scheduling conflict, terminated Plaintiff. After exhausting his administrative remedies, Plaintiff sued La Grange under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), 42 U.S.C. Sections 12112 et seq., for intentional discrimination, failure to accommodate, and retaliation. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of La Grange on all three claims.   The Fifth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that here, the facts suggest only that a reasonable employer might have found that Plaintiff might have been seeking accommodation for his disability. To hold that La Grange was required to determine whether Plaintiff had a disability and needed accommodation in this situation would place the initial burden of identifying an accommodation request on the employer, not the employee. We cannot find that Plaintiff’s terse references to his struggles with drinking and self-identification as an alcoholic, made while discussing the legal implications of a recent DWI, were enough to place a legal responsibility on La Grange to probe whether Plaintiff was requesting a disability accommodation. View "Mueck v. La Grange Acquisitions" on Justia Law

Plaintiff sued several prison officials under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 for deliberate indifference after she was assaulted by a fellow inmate and co-defendant. She appealed the district court’s dismissal of one prison staff member, the grant of summary judgment to other staff members, and the denial of her motion to alter or amend the judgment.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that under Nebraska law, Plaintiff had four years to sue after her cause of action accrued. Plaintiff’s Section 1983 claims started to accrue when she was assaulted in September 2016, the moment she could “sue and obtain relief.”. When Plaintiff sought to sue Defendant in December 2020, more than four years later, her claims were time-barred. The court explained that it is not persuaded by Plaintiff’s arguments to the contrary, so the district court did not err. Moreover, the court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it denied Plaintiff’s motion, considering she had notice of what she needed to do to comply with the local rules and neglected to do so. View "Christine Bordeaux v. Cheryl Bicknase" on Justia Law

In 2005, a federal district court entered a permanent injunction against several pro-life advocates enjoining them from entering the public sidewalk within fifteen feet of the entrance of any abortion clinic in the Western District of New York. Twelve years later, in 2017, Plaintiff, who was not a named party to the 2005 permanent injunction, started sidewalk counseling near the Planned Parenthood facility in Rochester, New York. After Defendants, the New York Attorney General and the City of Rochester decided that Plaintiff was bound by the 2005 permanent injunction, he sued, seeking a declaratory judgment that he was not bound by the injunction. He also moved for a preliminary injunction to prevent Defendants from applying the injunction to his counseling activities. The district court dismissed his suit for failure to state a claim and denied his motion for a preliminary injunction.   The Second Circuit reversed the judgment of the district court insofar as it dismissed Plaintiff’s complaint and vacated the judgment insofar as it denied Plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction. The court remanded for further proceedings. The court held that a person who is not a named party to an injunction or legally identified with a named party is bound by the injunction only from acting for the benefit of, or to assist, an enjoined party in violating the injunction. The allegations in Plaintiff’s complaint do not establish that he so acted and therefore state a claim for declaratory relief. View "Havens v. James" on Justia Law

Brothers pleaded guilty to conspiring to participate in a racketeering enterprise, in violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (“RICO”) Act. The district court ordered the forfeiture of various real properties and financial accounts linked to the RICO conspiracy. Several third parties came forward to claim an interest in one or more of the forfeited assets, including the brothers’ sister, Ilana Bangiyeva (“Bangiyeva”), and one brother’s wife, Irina Alishayeva (“Alishayeva”). The court rejected most of Bangiyeva’s claimed ownership interests. As to Alishayeva the court granted a life estate in and the exclusive use of one of the properties after finding that she owned a one-third interest in that property as a tenant in common with the Government, which owned the remaining two-thirds interest. Bangiyeva appealed.   The Fourth Circuit affirmed the final order of forfeiture in that respect. Additionally, the Government cross-appealed, asserting that the district court erred as a matter of law in granting Alishayeva a life estate in the relevant property at the expense of the Government’s majority ownership interest. The court agreed with the Government and vacated that part of the final order of forfeiture and remanded for further proceedings. The court explained that in granting Alishayeva full and exclusive use of the 110-37 69th Ave. property for the remainder of her life and marriage, the district court accorded the Government less than the full bundle of property rights that it would otherwise be entitled to as a tenant in common under New York state law. The district court was without legal authority to do so. View "US v. Ilana Bangiyeva" on Justia Law

This consolidated case concerns three appeals from orders entered by magistrate judges in the Western District of Pennsylvania in cases filed under 42 U.S.C. 1983. One case was involuntarily dismissed without prejudice for failure to prosecute; in the others, magistrates entered summary judgment for all defendants.Under 28 U.S.C. 636, precise limits govern a magistrate judge’s jurisdiction absent parties’ consent. A magistrate judge can oversee pretrial discovery even without the consent of the parties, but he cannot grant summary judgment or involuntarily dismiss a case; those limits dissolve if the parties voluntarily consent to a magistrate judge’s final judgment jurisdiction.The Third Circuit dismissed one appeal for lack of jurisdiction because all parties did not consent and, therefore, the magistrate judge lacked the power to involuntarily dismiss the case. However, the magistrate judges were empowered to enter summary judgment in the other cases because all parties either expressly or impliedly consented. The court then affirmed summary judgment based on the plaintiffs’ failure to exhaust administrative remedies. View "Prater v. Pennsylvania Department of Corrections" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs asserted claims in district court under Section 1983 against various officials for failing to protect a man in custody, claiming violations of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. They also have claims against individual defendants under a theory of bystander liability and a claim against the Sheriff for supervisory liability. And, against Culberson County, Plaintiffs asserted a claim under Section 1983 and Monell v. Department of Social Services of New York City, 436 U.S. 658 (1978), on the basis that its policies related to jail-suicide prevention caused a violation of Schubert’s constitutional rights. But, this interlocutory appeal concerns only the failure-to-protect claims against Appellants.   The Fifth Circuit vacated the district court’s judgment and held that Plaintiffs failed to plausibly allege Appellants possessed the requisite subjective knowledge. The court explained that although Plaintiffs alleged that the man in custody was cooperative and appeared truthful in his responses, Plaintiffs also alleged: the Sheriff was still required to conduct a mental-health screening form in accordance with TCJS; and, because “the form had not been completed,” the Sheriff “had to operate on the belief that the man was suicidal” and “was required to put the man on suicide watch.” The court explained that it requires that a defendant have “actual knowledge of the substantial risk of suicide.” Plaintiffs failed to allege that the man did or said anything to indicate he was suicidal. Because Plaintiffs failed to allege sufficient facts to plausibly show the Sheriff was subjectively aware of the risk of suicide, their allegations do not state a failure-to-protect claim against him. View "Edmiston v. Borrego" on Justia Law