Justia Civil Procedure Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff brought suit in state court against the officers for violation of his rights under the Fourth Amendment to the Federal Constitution and under Article I, Section 8 of the Iowa Constitution and for conspiracy to violate his federal and state constitutional rights. He also brought claims against the chief of police and the City of Des Moines for deliberate indifference under federal and state law. Defendants timely removed the suit to federal court. Plaintiff moved for summary judgment on all counts except for the number of damages; Defendants filed a cross-motion for summary judgment on the basis of federal qualified immunity and state immunity.   On appeal, Defendants argue that the district court erred in denying the individual officers qualified immunity on Plaintiff’s federal law claims, in denying the officers state immunity on his Iowa law claims, and in denying summary judgment to the City on his deliberate indifference claim.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court reasoned that even combined with the fact that the stop occurred in an area known for criminal activity as well as a momentary display of nervousness on the part of a passenger, there is not enough here to justify the stop. The officers argue that there is no clearly established right to drive with a nervous passenger through a high-crime neighborhood with a temporary tag.  These facts, in isolation, do not support a conclusion that Plaintiff’s vehicle was connected to unlawful activity in general, much less to the specific kind of unlawful activity for which the officers pulled him over. View "Jared Clinton v. Ryan Garrett" on Justia Law

Without notice to appellant A.I. (mother of the minor R.O.), the juvenile court followed its usual practice of converting what was scheduled as a contested jurisdictional confirmation hearing into an uncontested jurisdictional hearing because mother did not appear as ordered. It did so over mother’s counsel’s objection. The Court of Appeal concluded this routine practice denied mother her due process rights. The Court therefore reversed and remanded the matter for a new jurisdictional hearing. View "In re R.O." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs sued Harris County and its Sheriff to enjoin enforcement of Harris County’s allegedly unconstitutional felony-bail system. While doing so, plaintiffs served subpoenas duces tecum on county district judges (Felony Judges)—the non-party movant-appellants here— seeking information about their roles in creating and enforcing Harris County’s bail schedule. The Felony Judges moved to quash on several grounds, including sovereign immunity, judicial immunity, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 45’s undue-burden standard, and the “mental processes” rule. The district court denied the motion in part and granted it in part, denying sovereign immunity, judicial immunity, and the mental processes rule and allowing the bulk of the subpoenas to proceed.   The Fifth Circuit reversed explaining that the sovereign immunity bars these subpoenas and the mental processes rule might also apply. The court explained that Plaintiffs and their amicus marshal a variety of cases at common law and the Founding era in an attempt to show that sovereign immunity does not apply to third-party subpoenas. But as the Felony Judges note, these cases fail to show that subpoenas commonly issued over the objection of a public official entitled to sovereign immunity. Thus, because Burr United States v. Burr, arose in a different context and answered a question not asked in this case, it does not tip the balance when weighed against the nature of sovereign immunity as interpreted by the Supreme Court and applied by the Fifth Circuit and others in analogous contexts. View "Russell v. Jones" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Courthouse News is a national “news service that reports on civil litigation in state and federal courts throughout the country.” When Missouri switched to an e-filing system, same-day access became the exception, not the rule. Newly filed petitions remain unavailable until court staff processes them, which can sometimes take “a week or more.” Courthouse News sued the Circuit Clerk for St. Louis County and the Missouri State Courts Administrator, alleging First Amendment violations. In their motion to dismiss Defendants asked the district court to either abstain under Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971), or rule that Courthouse News’s complaint failed to state a First Amendment claim. The district court decided to abstain and never ruled on the merits.   At issue on appeal is: First, does sovereign immunity protect state-court officials who run an e-filing system that delays public access to newly filed civil petitions? Second, should federal courts abstain from hearing this type of case anyway? The Eighth Circuit reversed concluding that the answer to both is no. The court explained that the case-at-issue does not resemble the classic Younger situation: a litigant runs to federal court to cut off an impending or actual state-court proceeding that is unlikely to go well. Here, the dispute about who gets to see newly filed petitions and when, and neither is the subject of any pending state-court proceeding. The court reasoned that if Courthouse News eventually prevails on its constitutional claim, declaratory relief would mitigate this concern to some degree by giving Missouri courts “the widest latitude in the ‘dispatch of [their] own internal affairs.’” View "Courthouse News Service v. Joan Gilmer" on Justia Law

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson retained Respondents Willoughby & Hoefer, P.A., and Davidson, Wren & DeMasters, P.A., (collectively, the Law Firms) to represent the State in litigation against the United States Department of Energy (DOE). Wilson and the Law Firms executed a litigation retention agreement, which provided that the Law Firms were hired on a contingent fee basis. When the State settled its claims with the DOE for $600 million, Wilson transferred $75 million in attorneys' fees to the Law Firms. Appellants challenged the transfer, claiming it was unconstitutional and unreasonable. The circuit court dismissed Appellants' claims for lack of standing, and the South Carolina Supreme Court certified the case for review of the standing issue. The Supreme Court reversed the circuit court's finding that Appellants lacked public importance standing and remanded the case for the circuit court to consider the merits of Appellants' claims. View "South Carolina Public Interest Foundation, et al. v. Wilson" on Justia Law

King County, Washington petitioned the Washington Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus to compel the presiding judge of Pierce County Superior Court to turn over court reporters’ backup audiotapes and to search court employees’ private files and devices for records responsive to a records request. The Supreme Court dismissed the petition because it failed to demonstrate why the Court should grant the extraordinary remedy: the superior court presiding judge was not the proper subject of a writ of mandamus to turn over audiotapes or other records under GR 31 or GR 31.1. Furthermore, the Court found King County had a plain, speedy and adequate remedy that precluded the issuance of a writ of mandamus. View "King County v. Sorensen" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs brought suit challenging a Texas law, which was later amended so as to moot their claims before the merits were adjudicated. Nevertheless, the district court determined that their fleeting success in obtaining a preliminary injunction rendered them “prevailing parties” under 42 U.S.C. Section 1988.   The Fifth Circuit disagreed, and accordingly reversed. The court explained that in light of the subsequent authorities from the Supreme Court and the court, the court declined Plaintiffs’ request to apply Doe’s outdated holding. Where a plaintiff’s sought-for preliminary injunction has been granted and the case is thereafter mooted before a final adjudication on the merits, Dearmore applies. As such, the legislature passed the bill with a veto-proof majority shortly thereafter, but Plaintiffs provided nothing to the district court or this court evincing that the legislature had the preliminary injunction in mind when it completed the passage of H.B. 793. And “[t]he mere fact that a legislature has enacted legislation that moots an [action], without more, provides no grounds for assuming that the legislature was motivated by” the “unfavorable precedent.” Am. Bar Ass’n v. FTC 636 F.3d 641, 649 (D.C. Cir. 2011).   The court wrote that the introduction of the ameliorative statute here, however, predated the district court’s action, and given the bill’s speedy passage through both houses and overwhelming legislative support, there is no basis to infer that the Texas legislature was motivated by a desire to preclude attorneys’ fees. View "Amawi v. Paxton" on Justia Law

Texas recently enacted such a ban on new entrants in a market with a more direct connection to interstate commerce than the drilling of oil wells: the building of transmission lines that are part of multistate electricity grids. The operator of one such multistate grid awarded Plaintiff NextEra Energy Capital Holdings, Inc. the right to build new transmission lines in an area of east Texas that is part of an interstate grid. But before NextEra obtained the necessary construction certificate from the Public Utilities Commission of Texas, the state enacted the law, SB 1938, that bars new entrants from building transmission lines. NextEra challenges the new law on dormant Commerce Clause grounds. It also argues that the law violates the Contracts Clause by upsetting its contractual expectation that it would be allowed to build the new lines   The Fifth Circuit concluded that the dormant Commerce Clause claims should proceed past the pleading stage. But the Contracts Clause claim fails as a matter of law under the modern, narrow reading of that provision. The court explained that limiting competition based on the existence or extent of a business’s local foothold is the protectionism that the Commerce Clause guards against. Thus, the court reversed the Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal of the claim that the very terms of SB 1938 discriminate against interstate commerce. Further, the court held that SB 1938 did not interfere with an existing contractual right of NextEra. NextEra did not have a concrete, vested right that the law could impair. It thus fails at the threshold question for proving a modern Contracts Clause violation. View "NextEra, et al v. D'Andrea, et al" on Justia Law

At issue were several statements in articles published by Morgan Simon on Forbes.com that connected CoreCivic to the detention of separated families at the U.S. border and characterized its lobbying efforts as pushing for punitive criminal and immigration laws. Simon’s firm is Candide Group. CoreCivic filed suit against Simon and Candide Group (collectively “Candide”) for defamation and defamation by implication. Candide made a special motion to strike CoreCivic’s complaint under California’s antiSLAPP Act, Cal. Civ. Proc. Code Section 425.16.   The Ninth Circuit held that the special motion provision of California’s anti-SLAPP statute applied in federal court, and affirmed in part the district court’s order granting Candide Group, LLC’s motion to strike the defamation complaint. The panel held that the court’s prior precedents control. In United States ex rel. v. Lockheed Missiles &Space Co., the court held that California’s anti-SLAPP statute applied in federal diversity actions because there was “no ‘direct collision’” between the statute and the relevant rules, and the twin purposes of Erie favored its application.   The panel turned to the merits of Candide’s anti-SLAPP motion. Because CoreCivic did not contest on appeal that the suit implicated Candide’s First Amendment rights, the panel needed only to determine–applying the 12(b)(6) standard–whether CoreCivic stated a claim for defamation under California law. The panel concluded that CoreCivic failed to plausibly plead a defamation or a defamation by implication claim based on statements about its connection to the separation of immigrant families at the U.S. border, and affirmed the district court’s dismissal of those claims. View "CORECIVIC, INC. V. CANDIDE GROUP, LLC" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a sheriff’s department employee, had an affair with the wife of a county administrator. The mistress allegedly conducted a smear campaign against Plaintiff’s wife and, when the affair ended, against Plaintiff as well. The sheriff’s department fired Plaintiff and a local prosecutor declined to prosecute the mistress for harassment. Suspecting the county administrator had a hand in both actions, Plaintiffs sued the mistress, the county administrator, and a host of other county officials for violating state and federal law. The district court entered a summary judgment in favor of the officials and certified that judgment as final even though claims against the mistress remained pending.   The Eleventh Circuit dismissed the appeal, finding that the district court abused its discretion when it determined that the summary judgment warranted certification under Rule 54(b). The determination in this case that there was no just reason for delay rested on a single factual finding—that “[t]his litigation could potentially remain pending for quite a lengthy time due to the COVID-19 pandemic.” The court wrote that there is no indication that the delays here would cause anything other than inconvenience. Indeed, if pandemic-related delays alone justified an immediate appeal, Rule 54(b) certifications” would cease to “be reserved for the unusual case. View "Chase Peden, et al v. Glenn Stephens, et al" on Justia Law