Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

Following their termination from appointed county positions, plaintiffs brought suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that they were terminated without due process of law. The positions were "unclassified" and not protected under the Tennessee Civil Service Merit System. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the county and its officials. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, holding that plaintiffs had no legitimate property right to their positions and nothing for the Due Process Clause to protect. Plaintiffs, in their positions five to 21 years, never previously challenged the unclassified nature of their jobs

Plaintiff-Appellant Louanne Cypert brought suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and several anti-discrimination statutes alleging that Defendant Independent School District No. I-050 of Osage County's (Prue Public Schools) failure to renew her employment contract violated her First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Specifically, Plaintiff claimed the District discriminated against her because of her age. The district court granted the District summary judgment, finding that Plaintiff's non-renewal hearing satisfied her Fourteenth Amendment claim to due process, and that she failed to show her speech was the motivating factor that led to the District's non-renewal, and that she failed to show the District's non-renewal resulted from discrimination. In the fall of 2008, the local School Board became concerned about the Districtâs finances. It initiated an investigation and began terminating employment contracts. Plaintiff's contract was one of the terminated contracts. On appeal, Plaintiff proffered evidence of the Board's keeping younger, lesser-qualified personnel on staff at the time of her termination. Upon review of the trial court's record and the applicable authority, the Tenth Circuit found that Plaintiff's proffered evidence of discrimination did not amount to the requisite proof that her civil and constitutional rights were violated. The Court affirmed the lower court's grant of summary judgement in favor of the District.

Plaintiff-Appellant Terry Winne appealed a district court's order that dismissed his complaint for failing to state a claim under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). In 1999, Winne began working for the City of Lakewood, Colorado as an emergency dispatcher. In 2005, he was injured in an automobile accident, requiring that he take medication for headaches. A change in his medication in January 2008 caused him to âsuffer cognitive problems,â and he was placed on intermittent FMLA leave throughout âthe spring and summer.â On August 11, 2008, the City transferred Winne to the police departmentâs records section after a psychiatrist found him unfit for his dispatcher duties. Roughly two weeks later, the City fired Winne, âeven though he still had available FMLA leave.â The City stated âthat the termination was because of his attendance.â Upon review, the Tenth Circuit found that Plaintiff's complaint failed to allege the material elements necessary for his FMLA claim. The Court affirmed the district court's dismissal of his case.

Plaintiff, an African-American firefighter for the City of New Haven, alleged that the firefighter promotion exams challenged in Ricci v. DeStefano were arbitrarily weighted, yielding an impermissible disparate impact. The district court dismissed the claim as "necessarily foreclosed" by Ricci. The court vacated the judgment of the district court and remanded for further proceedings, but expressed no view as to whether dismissal was warranted based on other defenses raised by the city.

Plaintiffs brought this action challenging the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Pub. L. 111-148, 124 Stat. 119, amended by Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (HCERA), Pub. L. No. 111-152, 124 Stat. 1029 (Act). The government subsequently appealed the district court's ruling that the individual mandate was unconstitutional and the district court's severability holding. The state plaintiffs cross-appealed the district court's ruling on their Medicaid expansion claim. The court held that the Act's Medicaid expansion was constitutional. The court also held that the individual mandate was enacted as a regulatory penalty, not a revenue-raising tax, and could not be sustained as an exercise of Congress's power under the Taxing and Spending Clause; the individual mandate exceeded Congress's enumerated commerce power and was unconstitutional; and the individual mandate, however, could be severed from the remainder of the Act's myriad of reforms. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part and reversed in part the judgment of the district court.

This appeal concerned the requirements of due process when law enforcement officers charged with felonies were suspended without pay. The officers brought claims under 42 U.S.C. 1983 in federal district court, alleging violations of their Fourteenth Amendment due process rights. The district court subsequently granted defendants' motion to dismiss, holding that the officers had failed to state a claim against the County of Los Angeles, and that the individual defendants were entitled to qualified immunity. The court held that the officers have adequately alleged that defendants' policies caused violations of their constitutional rights and therefore, plaintiffs have stated Monell v. Dept. of Soc. Servs. claims against the county. All individual defendants, however, were entitled to qualified immunity from the claims of two of the officers (Debs and O'Donoghue), whose right to a more substantial post-suspension hearing was not clearly established at the time of the violations. The individually named Civil Service Commissioners were also entitled to qualified immunity from two of the officers' (Wilkinson and Sherr) claims because the Commission was stripped of jurisdiction by the California Court of Appeal in Zuniga v. Los Angeles Civil Service Commission. But those claims could go forward against the Sheriff and the County Supervisors, who were constitutionally required to provide post-suspension procedures for suspended deputy sheriffs who later retired. Therefore, the court remanded for further proceedings.

Petitioner Patricia Kalar petitioned the Supreme Court to challenge the reduction of her benefits by Respondent New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services. The Department conducted an inquiry into Petitioner's income and expenses as part of a mandatory, periodic "recertification" process for determining Petitioner's food stamp benefits. At the last inquiry, the Department determined that Petitioner's food stamp benefit should be reduced. Petitioner argued on appeal that the Department erred in its calculation that served as the basis of its reduction determination. Upon review, the Supreme Court could not conclude that the reduction in Petitioner's benefits was due to miscalculations by the Department. The Court affirmed the Department's decision.

Appellant appealed the denial of her application for Social Security Administration (SSA) disability benefits where the ALJ concluded that she retained the ability to perform her past relevant work and was therefore not disabled. The court held that the ALJ was not required to give controlling weight to the opinions of appellant's treating physician. The court also held that because there was substantial evidence in the record to support the ALJ's findings, the court declined to disturb the ALJ's decision on the ground that the ALJ failed to comply with the SSA Commissioner's policies in evaluating the severity of appellant's fibromyalgia and that the ALJ failed to give adequate weight to appellant's statements and the statements of her family and friends. The court further held that the ALJ's hypothetical to the vocational expert was proper and there was no evidence in this case to support a finding that bias impacted the ALJ's decision. Accordingly, the Commissioner's final decision to deny appellant's application for benefits was affirmed.

Appellant appealed the district court's order, which affirmed the decision of the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration (Commissioner), denying appellant's application for disability benefits (DIB) under Title II of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. 401 et seq. At issue was whether the ALJ committed legal error by failing to correctly apply the requisite five-step sequential evaluation process. The court held that the ALJ's failure to follow the mandated procedure was more than a mere oversight in opinion writing and that the ALJ was required to follow one of two paths at step five of the sequential process and there was no record indicating that the ALJ followed either path. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's order affirming the Commissioner's decision and instructed the district court to remand the case to the Commissioner for further proceedings.

American citizen-civilians alleged that they were detained and illegally tortured by U.S. military personnel while in Iraq in 2006 and released from military custody without being charged with a crime. At the time they worked for a privately-owned Iraqi security services company. Plaintiffs sought damages and brought a claim to recover personal property that was seized. The district court denied motions to dismiss. The Seventh Circuit affirmed in part, holding that plaintiffs alleged sufficient facts supporting Secretary Rumsfeld's personal responsibility for the alleged torture and that he is not entitled to qualified immunity on the pleadings. The law was clearly established in 2006 that the alleged treatment was unconstitutional. No reasonable public official could have believed otherwise. A "Bivens" remedy is available for alleged torture of civilian U.S. citizens by U.S. military personnel in a war zone. The court noted that U.S. law provides a civil remedy for aliens who are tortured by their own governments. Claims by aliens, alleging torture by U.S. officials, are distinguishable. The Administrative Procedure Act's "military authority" exception precludes judicial review of military actions affecting personal property in a war zone.