Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed a lower court's ruling in a case involving Sarah Felts, who had been blocked on Twitter by Lewis E. Reed, the then-President of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen. Felts sued Reed in his official capacity under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that her First and Fourteenth Amendment rights had been violated. The district court ruled in favor of Felts, granting her declaratory relief, nominal damages, costs, and attorney’s fees. On appeal, the Board’s new President, Megan E. Green, challenged the district court's ruling.The court held that the act of blocking Felts on Twitter constituted a final municipal policy decision in the area of the City’s business associated with the office of the President of the Board of Aldermen. It also held that Reed administered the account under color of law as an official government account, and that blocking Felts violated her First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The court further concluded that Reed, as the President of the Board of Aldermen, had the authority to establish the final social media policy for his office and that his decision to block Felts was a deliberate choice of a guiding principle and procedure to silence online critics. Therefore, the City of St. Louis was held liable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The court affirmed the district court's judgment granting Felts declaratory relief and nominal damages. View "Felts v. Green" on Justia Law

In this case, the Supreme Court of the State of Nevada considered whether the Nevada State Engineer had the authority to combine multiple existing hydrographic basins into one "superbasin" for the purposes of water administration and management based on a shared source of water. The State Engineer had combined seven basins into one superbasin, the Lower White River Flow System (LWRFS), after determining that the waters of these basins were interconnected such that withdrawals from one basin affected the amount of water in the other basins. The State Engineer also found that the previously granted appropriations of water exceeded the rate of recharge in the LWRFS. Various entities who owned water rights throughout the new superbasin challenged the State Engineer's decision, claiming that he lacked the authority to manage surface waters and groundwater jointly and that his decision violated their due process rights.The Supreme Court of the State of Nevada held that the State Engineer indeed had the authority to manage surface waters and groundwater conjunctively and to jointly administer multiple basins. The court also found that the State Engineer did not violate the rights holders' due process rights because they received notice and had an opportunity to be heard. The court reversed the lower court's decision that had granted the rights holders' petitions for judicial review and remanded the matter back to the lower court for further proceedings to determine whether substantial evidence supported the State Engineer's factual determinations. View "Sullivan v. Lincoln County Water District" on Justia Law

In this case, the plaintiff, Desiree Martinez, sued Channon High, a City of Clovis police officer, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that Officer High violated her due process rights by disclosing her confidential domestic violence report to her abuser, Kyle Pennington, who was also a Clovis police officer. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of qualified immunity to Officer High.The appellate court held that while Officer High did violate Ms. Martinez's due process rights under the state-created danger doctrine by disclosing her confidential domestic violence report to Mr. Pennington, the right was not clearly established at the time of the violation. The court explained that state actors are generally not liable for failing to prevent the acts of private parties, but an exception applies where the state affirmatively places the plaintiff in danger by acting with deliberate indifference to a known or obvious danger. In this case, Officer High's disclosure of Ms. Martinez's confidential report to Pennington, whom she knew was an alleged abuser, placed Ms. Martinez in actual, foreseeable danger. However, it was not clearly established in 2013 that Officer High’s actions violated Ms. Martinez’s substantive due process rights. The court clarified that going forward, an officer would be liable under the state-created danger doctrine when the officer discloses a victim’s confidential report to a violent perpetrator in a manner that increases the risk of retaliation against the victim. View "MARTINEZ V. HIGH" on Justia Law

The case revolves around two developers, SAS Associates 1, LLC and Military 1121, LLC, who filed a complaint against the City Council of Chesapeake, Virginia, alleging that their equal protection rights were violated when their rezoning applications were denied by the council. The developers owned several parcels of land in Chesapeake and sought to combine them to create a 90-acre development involving housing units, commercial space, and a conservation district. Their plans required rezoning, which was denied by the Council citing community opposition and the ability to develop under existing zoning classifications. The developers filed a complaint alleging that their application was denied even though similar applications from other developers were approved, and the council's reasons for denial were irrational and arbitrary.The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld the district court’s decision to dismiss the developers' claim. The Court of Appeals found that the developers failed to demonstrate that they were treated differently from others who were similarly situated and that the unequal treatment was the result of discriminatory animus. Furthermore, the court highlighted that zoning decisions are primarily the responsibility of local governments and that the Developers did not provide any valid comparators to support their claim of discriminatory treatment. The court noted the lack of any evidence to infer discriminatory intent on the part of the City Council members and ruled that the Developers' disagreement with the Council's decision does not render the Council's judgment call pretextual. The court affirmed the judgment of the district court dismissing the complaint. View "SAS Associates v. City Council of Chesapeake" on Justia Law

In the case before the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Leslie Fisher sued officers Randall Jordan, Matthew Rice, and John Trefelet of the Michigan State Police for violating federal and state law by arresting her without probable cause. Fisher and her husband were arrested after the officers executed a search warrant and found marijuana growing in their garage. All charges against Fisher were eventually dismissed in state court. She then filed a federal lawsuit against the arresting officers.The officers moved for summary judgment, invoking qualified immunity in response to Fisher's federal claims of arrest and prosecution without probable cause under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and governmental immunity for her state claims of false arrest, false imprisonment, and malicious prosecution. The district court granted summary judgment to the officers, concluding that they had probable cause to arrest Fisher.On appeal, the Sixth Circuit affirmed the district court's decision. The court found that the officers had probable cause to believe that Fisher had committed the crime of possession of at least 5,000 grams of marijuana with the intent to distribute, based on various pieces of evidence. This included the fact that Fisher lived at and owned the site of the marijuana cultivation operation, and that she admitted to using marijuana grown by her husband. The court also found that the large quantity of marijuana in the Fishers' garage supported probable cause to infer intent to distribute.The court further concluded that the officers were entitled to governmental immunity from Fisher's state law claims, as the probable cause analysis for federal Fourth Amendment claims is the same under Michigan law. Since the officers had probable cause to suspect that Fisher possessed an illegal quantity of marijuana with the intent to distribute, they were entitled to governmental immunity from Fisher's state law claims. View "Fisher v. Jordan" on Justia Law

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit was presented with a case involving police officers who shot and killed Schaston Hodge after he refused to pull over his vehicle, led the officers on a chase, and exited his car with a gun in his hands. The officers' actions were captured on their bodycam footage. Hodge's mother, Shandra Hodge, filed a suit against the officers, Joshua Engleman and Robert Litvin, as well as the Texas Department of Public Safety (TDPS) and the City of Dallas, alleging excessive force and failure to train and supervise. The district court granted the officers' motion to dismiss based on qualified immunity (QI), treating the dismissal as an implicit conversion to summary judgment, even though the footage was not included in the pleadings.On appeal, the Fifth Circuit agreed with the lower court's decision. The court found that the bodycam footage showed a complete account of the incident, including Hodge raising a gun and pointing it at one of the officers. The court concluded that the officers' use of deadly force was reasonable given the circumstances they faced. As a result, the court held that the officers did not violate Hodge's Fourth Amendment rights and were entitled to QI. Therefore, the court affirmed the summary judgment in favor of the officers. View "Hodge v. Engleman" on Justia Law

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of a preliminary injunction in favor of the plaintiffs, a coalition on homelessness and seven current or formerly homeless residents of San Francisco, who sought to prevent the City and County of San Francisco from enforcing any ordinance that punishes sleeping, lodging, or camping on public property. The plaintiffs argued that such enforcement violated the Eighth Amendment. On appeal, the defendants argued, for the first time, that the enforcement actions did not leave unhoused individuals with nowhere else to go, but instead required them to relocate from specific encampment sites and only at certain times. The Ninth Circuit deemed this argument waived as it was not brought up in the lower court and even if it was considered, the argument would not change the outcome as the defendants' enforcement of the laws were no narrower in scope than the laws at issue in prior cases, Martin v. City of Boise and Johnson v. City of Grants Pass. The court held that the defendants have yet to show that the preliminary injunction was improper based on the arguments and evidentiary record before the district court. View "Coalition on Homelessness v. City of San Francisco" on Justia Law

In this case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit dismissed an appeal by police officer Rudy Guillen, who was seeking qualified immunity in a lawsuit brought against him by Akeem Bagley. Bagley had sued Guillen under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging excessive force, unlawful arrest, and illegal detention in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The lawsuit stemmed from an incident in which Guillen had pulled Bagley over for a minor traffic violation and subsequently tased him. The district court had granted Guillen qualified immunity as to Bagley’s unlawful arrest and illegal detention claims, but denied it as to Bagley’s excessive force claim.On appeal, the court held that at the time of the conduct in question, it was clearly established that an officer may not use force on a suspect who is complying with his commands. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Bagley, the court found that Bagley had presented sufficient evidence of excessive force to defeat qualified immunity at the summary judgment stage. Accordingly, the appeal was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. View "Bagley v. Guillen" on Justia Law

In the case before the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, Young Israel of Tampa, Inc., an Orthodox Jewish synagogue, sued the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority (HART) for rejecting its proposed advertisement for a Chanukah on Ice event. The synagogue argued that HART’s policy, which prohibited advertisements that “primarily promote a religious faith or religious organization,” violated the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Young Israel on two grounds: 1) HART’s policy violated the First Amendment because it discriminated on the basis of viewpoint, and 2) even if the policy was viewpoint neutral, it was unreasonable because it lacked objective and workable standards and was inconsistently and haphazardly applied. The court subsequently issued a permanent injunction against HART, prohibiting it from rejecting any advertisement on the ground that it primarily promotes a religious faith or religious organization, including any future policies.On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision, but on narrower grounds. The appellate court concluded that HART's policy was unreasonable under the Supreme Court's decision in Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky because it failed to define key terms, lacked any official guidance, and vested too much discretion in those who applied it. The court declined to address the question of whether the policy constituted impermissible viewpoint discrimination. However, the court concluded that the permanent injunction issued by the district court needed to be revised to apply only to HART’s current policy, rather than any future policies, and remanded the case to the district court for that purpose. View "Young Israel of Tampa, Inc. v. Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority" on Justia Law

In the early morning hours of August 1, 2018, Gwendolyn Adams and Glenn Tyler Bolden were pursued in a high-speed chase by Michael William Becker, a peace officer employed by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). Becker suspected Adams and Bolden of wrongdoing, although his suspicions were unfounded. The pursuit resulted in a catastrophic accident that caused severe injuries and, ultimately, the death of Adams's son, D'son Woods.Adams and Bolden filed a lawsuit against the CDCR, alleging negligence causing wrongful death, assault and battery, and violation of the Tom Bane Civil Rights Act. The CDCR sought summary judgment, arguing that Becker was not acting within the scope of his employment during the pursuit. The trial court agreed and entered judgment in favor of CDCR.On appeal, the Court of Appeal of the State of California Fourth Appellate District Division Three reversed and remanded the case. The appellate court found that whether Becker was acting within the scope of his employment when he pursued Adams and Bolden was a question of fact that should be decided by a jury. The court noted that Becker’s actions may have been influenced by his role as a peace officer, and it was not clear whether he was acting as a private citizen or a law enforcement officer during the pursuit. Therefore, the trial court erred in granting summary judgment to the CDCR. View "Adams v. Dept of Corrections and Rehabilitation" on Justia Law