Justia Civil Procedure Opinion Summaries

This case involves the Boston Parent Coalition for Academic Excellence Corp., which challenged the temporary admissions plan for three selective public schools in Boston. The admissions plan was based on students' grade point averages (GPAs), zip codes, and family income, rather than on standardized test scores. The Coalition claimed that the plan had a disparate impact on White and Asian students and violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Massachusetts law.The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit found that the Coalition's claim lacked merit. It held that the Coalition failed to show any relevant disparate impact on White and Asian students, who were over-represented among successful applicants compared to their percentages of the city's school-age population. The court also found that the Coalition failed to demonstrate that the plan was motivated by invidious discriminatory intent. It pointed out that the Plan's selection criteria, which included residence, family income, and GPA, could hardly be deemed unreasonable.The court noted that any distinction between adopting a criterion (like family income) notwithstanding its tendency to increase diversity, and adopting the criterion because it likely increases diversity, would, in practice, be largely in the eye of the labeler. It emphasized that the entire point of the Equal Protection Clause is that treating someone differently because of their skin color is not like treating them differently because they are from a city or from a suburb.The court also rejected the Coalition's appeal of the district court's denial of its motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b), which sought relief from the judgment based on newly discovered evidence that some members of the School Committee harbored racial animus. The court found that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion, as the Coalition had failed to show that the newly discovered evidence was of such a nature that it would probably change the result were a new trial to be granted.The court therefore affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Boston Parent Coalition for Acad. Excellence Corp. v. The School Committee of the City of Boston" on Justia Law

Ricardo Campbell, a student of the Career Development Institute, Inc., was dismissed from its vocational nursing program. Following his dismissal, Campbell filed a writ under section 1094.5 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The trial court denied the petition, stating that the Institute's policies did not necessitate a hearing. In response, Campbell appealed this decision, with the Court of Appeal of the State of California, Second Appellate District Division Eight, vacating the previous judgment for reconsideration in light of a recent Supreme Court ruling on the doctrine of fair procedure.The Court of Appeal noted that the Institute's student handbook and school catalog outlined student discipline procedures, but did not require a hearing or any other opportunity for students to be heard before being dismissed. Campbell was dismissed following an incident reported by three nurses at his clinical placement, which was followed by a letter from the Institute's director of nursing stating that Campbell had been dismissed. The Institute also claimed that this was not the first problem it had with Campbell, although the dismissal letter only mentioned the said incident.The trial court had previously ruled that because the Institute was not a state actor and Campbell did not argue that a statute required the Institute to provide hearings, the Institute could only be subject to administrative mandamus if its own rules and regulations required hearings. The court concluded that Campbell was not entitled to relief under section 1094.5 as the Institute's procedures did not require it to provide hearings.The Court of Appeal remanded the case for the trial court to consider whether the doctrine of fair procedure applies and, if so, whether Campbell was entitled to more process under this doctrine. The Court of Appeal advised that if the court finds Campbell was entitled to a hearing, it must address the merits of his petition. The Court of Appeal vacated the judgment and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "Campbell v. Career Development Institute" on Justia Law

This case involves Delta Charter Group, Inc. (Delta), a public charter school operating within Concordia Parish in Louisiana. The case has its roots in a 1965 lawsuit against the Concordia Parish School Board for operating segregated schools in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court approved a desegregation plan, but the Board has yet to achieve unitary status, and Delta, which had intervened in the ongoing desegregation case, was required by a 2013 consent order to comply with the Board's desegregation decree. A second consent order in 2018 outlined a race-based enrollment process for Delta, giving the highest enrollment preference to black students.Four years later, Delta moved to discontinue the race-based enrollment process, arguing that it was unconstitutional. The district court declined to modify the order under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(5), which allows courts to modify or dissolve a consent decree if applying it prospectively is no longer equitable. Delta failed to show a significant change in factual conditions or in law that would justify modification. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the judgment of the district court, stating that Delta had forfeited any argument that the district court had abused its discretion by failing to adequately brief the argument on appeal. The court did not offer any opinion on the underlying constitutional merits, as Delta had forfeited any available argument that the district court should have applied Rule 54(b) and that it had abused its discretion in denying relief under Rule 60(b)(5). View "Delta Charter v. Sch Bd Concordia Prsh" on Justia Law

Plaintiff-Appellant Gracie Ann Forth appealed the grant of summary judgement entered in favor of Defendant-Appellee Laramie County School District Number 1 (“LCSD1”) on Forth’s claim under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (“Title IX”). Forth alleged that while she was a student at Johnson Junior High School (“JJHS”), a school within LCSD1, one of her seventh-grade teachers, Joseph Meza, sexually abused her over several years beginning in 2014. Forth alleged principals at JJHS had actual notice that Meza posed a substantial risk of abuse and were deliberately indifferent to these risks, thereby violating Title IX. On LCSD1’s motion, the district court concluded LCSD1 did not have actual notice Meza posed a substantial risk of abuse before it learned that Forth had reported him to the police. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded after review, that the district court erred in finding Forth failed to establish such notice by LCSD1 during the period before LCSD1 learned of her police report, and erred in concluding LCSD1 (in lacking such notice) was not deliberately indifferent during that period. The summary judgment was reversed and the matter remanded for the district court to address in the first instance. View "Forth v. Laramie County School District" on Justia Law

Dr. William Morgan, Dr. Carol Zippert, Morris Hardy, Leo Branch, Sr., and Carrie Dancy, each of whom is or was a member of the Greene County Board of Education ("the Board"), petitioned the Alabama Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus directing the Greene Circuit Court to enter a summary judgment in their favor on the individual-capacity claims asserted against them by Dr. Rhinnie B. Scott. Scott had been an employee of the Board for over two decades. For most of that time, she served as "Vocational Director." During the 2007-2008 school year, Scott was asked by the president of the Board at that time, Elzora Fluker, to serve as "Acting Principal" at Greene County High School ("GCHS"). During a search for a school principal in the 2010-2011 school year, Scott was tapped to serve as "Instructional Leader" for GCHS in addition to her regular function of Vocational Director. The purpose of such designation was for Dr. Scott to serve as the leader of the school until a principal was selected. At the time of that decision, the period of time of the designation was thought to be only a few weeks at most. Problems arose, however, with the selection, and Dr. Scott ended up having to serve in the position for the entire 2010-2011 school year. Scott filed a grievance with the Board in 2014 concerning her claim that she had not been compensated for her service as "Instructional Leader," which she deemed to be service as the de facto acting principal, at GCHS during the 2010-2011 school year. Additionally, Scott presented a claim that she had been "underpaid by approximately $1,664.00" each year since 2007 because, she asserted, the Board had "inadvertently reduc[ed] the annual pay for the Vocational Director." The Board denied Scott's grievance claims. Because Scott conceded that no genuine issues of material fact remained to be decided with respect to her individual-capacity claims against the Board members, the Board members were entitled to summary judgment concerning those remaining claims. Therefore, the Supreme Court granted the Board members' petition for a writ of mandamus. View "Ex parte Morgan, et al." on Justia Law

The Supreme Court dismissed this appeal of the circuit court's orders, the latter of which denied Appellants' motion for summary judgment, in this action alleging that Petitioners acted negligently in their handling of an incident where S.D. was inappropriately touched by a fellow student in the hallway of a high school, holding that the orders appealed from did not present an appealable ruling.In their notice of appeal, Petitioners asserted that the individual defendants were entitled to dismissal pursuant to W. Va. Code 29-12A-5(b)(2) because the order at issue found that the individual defendants did not act maliciously, in bad faith, or in a wanton or reckless manner. Petitioners further contend that the board of education was immune from liability pursuant to W. Va. Code 29-12A-5(a)(4). The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, holding that the orders presented in this appeal were interlocutory, did not fall within the collateral order doctrine, and did not otherwise present an appealable ruling. View "Kanawha County Board of Education v. S.D." on Justia Law

Parents Defending Education, an association of parents, brought this action to challenge a policy adopted by the Linn Mar Community School District in Iowa. The disputed policy is entitled “Administrative Regulations Regarding Transgender and Students Nonconforming to Gender Role Stereotypes.” The policy sets forth regulations for the District that “address the needs of transgender students, gender-expansive students, nonbinary, gender nonconforming students, and students questioning their gender to ensure a safe, affirming, and healthy school environment where every student can learn effectively.” The parents who seek to participate in this case are anonymous; the pleadings identify them by a letter of the alphabet. The district court determined that Parents Defending failed to establish Article III standing because the organization did not show injury, causation, or redressability on its claims.   The Eighth Circuit dismissed the appeal in part as moot and reversed on one claim. The court concluded that at least Parent G has alleged an injury in fact sufficient to confer Article III standing. Parent G asserts that her son wants to “state his belief that biological sex is immutable.” Because of the policy, however, Parent G states that her son remains silent in school “when gender identity topics arise” to avoid violating the policy. This student’s proposed activity “concerns political speech” and is “arguably affected with a constitutional interest.” Thus, Parent G has standing to bring a claim challenging the policy based on the First Amendment. Therefore, Parents Defending has standing as an association to pursue the claim on behalf of a member. View "Parents Defending Education v. LinnMar Community School Dist., et al" on Justia Law

=O.B. who was attending the University on a football scholarship, repeatedly and violently assaulted Plaintiff, his fellow student, in an off-campus house where O.B. was living with other university football players. At the time of the assault, university officials knew that O.B. had repeatedly and violently assaulted two other female undergraduates the previous year. Plaintiff sued the University under Title IX. The district court granted summary judgment to the University.   The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s summary judgment. The en banc court held that to obtain damages under Title IX for student-on-student harassment, a plaintiff must show (1) that the educational institution had substantial control over both the harasser and the context in which the known harassment occurs; (2) that the harassment was so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it denied its victims the equal access to education that Title IX is designed to protect; (3) that a school official with authority to address the alleged discrimination and to institute corrective measures has actual knowledge of the discrimination; (4) that the school acted with deliberate indifference to the harassment; and (5) that the school’s deliberate indifference must cause students to undergo harassment. The en banc court held that evidence in the record would support a conclusion by a reasonable factfinder that University officials had actual knowledge or notice of O.B.’s violent assaults and that Erika Barnes, the University’s Title IX liaison within the Athletics Department, was an official who had authority to address O.B.’s assaults and to institute corrective measures. View "MACKENZIE BROWN, ET AL V. STATE OF ARIZONA, ET AL" on Justia Law

Creighton Preparatory School expelled Plaintiff after he made lewd remarks about a teacher. Plaintiff sued Creighton under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 on the theory that the school had discriminated against him by failing to perform an “adequate and impartial investigation.” The district court granted Creighton’s motion to dismiss. It first dismissed the Title IX claim because Plaintiff had failed to “allege [that] his sex played any part in the disciplinary process at all.” Then, with the federal question gone, it declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s breach-of-contract claim.The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that Plaintiff does not allege that Creighton faced external pressure to punish male students, much less gave in by expelling him. The court reasoned that without an allegation of that kind, the complaint fails to plausibly allege the sort of “causal connection between the flawed outcome and gender bias” required to make an erroneous outcome theory work.Further, the court wrote that treating men and women differently can support an inference of sex discrimination, but it requires identifying a similarly situated member of the opposite sex who has been “treated more favorably.” For Plaintiff, he had to find “a female accused of sexual harassment” who received better treatment. There are no female students at Creighton, an all-boys school, let alone any who have faced sexual-misconduct allegations. The court explained that to the extent that Plaintiff argues that believing them over him raises an inference of discrimination, there is nothing alleged that the school did so because of his sex. View "Elijah Wells v. Creighton Preparatory School" on Justia Law

The University of Iowa expelled graduate student John Doe after investigating two accusations of sexual misconduct brought against him by different complainants. The Iowa Board of Regents affirmed the decision. Doe sued the University and University officials, claiming, in part, discrimination on the basis of sex under Title IX, 20 U.S.C. Section 1681(a), and procedural due process violations, 42 U.S.C. Section 1983. The district court granted qualified immunity to the University officials, dismissed the procedural due process claims against them, and granted the University summary judgment on the remaining claims.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that it is not convinced that institutional efforts to prevent sexual misconduct on campus, including educational programs that challenge students to evaluate the impact of gender norms on rape culture, amount to evidence of external pressure on the University that supports an inference of bias. The court held that Doe failed to provide “sufficient evidence to allow a reasonable jury to find that [the University] disciplined him on the basis of sex.” Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment on Doe’s Title IX claim. Further, the court explained that the University provided adequate notice of the charges. Therefore, the court wrote that because Doe failed to show the University officials’ conduct violated his federal rights, it affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Doe’s claims against the University officials. View "John Doe v. University of Iowa" on Justia Law