Sixth Circuit: Inner City Contracting LLC v. Charter Twp. of Northville

 Despite being a disappointed bidder for a government contract, the plaintiff alleged a specific injury, and therefore the claim isn't presumptively disfavored for purposes of standing. The dignitary harm in racial discrimination and the lost profits from the contract suffice for Article III standing.

A corporation's claim of racial discrimination falls within the zone of interests of the statute prohibiting racial discrimination in contract awards. Supreme Court holding saying that a corporation has no racial identity referred to constitutional standing, not statutory standing.  

Claims against state government entities must be under the general statute (S1983), as there is no cause of action against states under the particular statute.  Under the general statute, establishing that a contract was awarded to a higher bidder of a certain race states a claim absent any proffer as to the racial identity of the plaintiff corporation.

Private company reviewing bids and making a recommendation wasn't a state actor for purposes of the statute. Lack of investigation of bidding process insufficient for municipal liability.  No equal protection or due process claim where alleged discrimination was by the private entity of a private-public collaboration. No property interest in a lost contract bid, where the state actor had discretion to accept the bid.

Inner City Contracting LLC v. Charter Twp. of Northville

 

Fifth Circuit: Sligh v. City of Conroe

Police dog's directed attack was a violation of pedestrian's constitutional rights, but not a clearly established violation of constitutional rights for liability purposes, since precedent cited was of a non-resisting suspect.  Similarly, claims against bystander officers and the municipality were not against clearly established law.  Police knowledge that pedestrian was a mental patient insufficient for a claim under the disability act.

Sligh v. City of Conroe

First Circuit: Ciarametaro v. City of Gloucester

 

As city officials might reasonably have concluded that the value of the harbormaster's expert testimony was outweighed by the city's interests, the right to testify in the matter was not clearly established, and the officials are entitled to qualified immunity.

 Ciarametaro v. City of Gloucester

Seventh Circuit: Alhadji Bayon v. Marshall Berkebile

 As the facts still in dispute bear on the objective reasonableness of the force used by the police officers to arrest the plaintiff, the appellate court has no jurisdiction over an interlocutory claim arising from a denial of qualified immunity,

Alhadji Bayon v.  Marshall Berkebile

Ninth Circuit: Estate of Clemente N. Aguirre v. County of Riverside

Issue of qualified immunity for a police officer is for trial, since the use of deadly force against an armed individual in a volatile situation is unconstitutional absent proof of threat to others.

Estate of Clemente N. Aguirre v. County of Riverside

Sixth Circuit: Bretton Westmoreland v. Butler Cnty.

For pretrial detainees, a Fourteenth Amendment deliberate indifference claim requires something like objective reckless indifference rather than the subjective possession of sufficient knowledge to infer a risk of harm.

DISSENT:

Circuit precedent compels a subjective element; civil law negligence standard is categorically beneath the threshold of a constitutional due process claim; requiring an intentional action begs the question of sufficient knowledge; these facts would satisfy even the majority's novel test.

Bretton Westmoreland v. Butler Cnty.

Sixth Circuit: Laborers' Int'l Union of N.A. v. Terease Neff

 The court whose employees have joined a union is a state, not county, entity for purposes of sovereign immunity, given its constitutional and statutory designation within the state.  The fact that the state has mandated that the county fund the operations of the court and that the county has discretion in setting the salary levels of the employees supports this, as the mandate is from the state.  As the elected state judge exercises ultimate authority in discharging and retaining employees and sets salaries in the first instance, the employment functions of the court are a state matter.  

The Contracts Clause is an insufficient basis for S1983 claims.  

A Takings Clause injunction would require that there was no remedy sounding in contract; mere breach of contract doesn't state a claim for damages under the Clause.  

CBA term in preamble holding that it remains in force until union is decertified or another agreement is reached insufficient to defeat as a matter of law a specific end date in the terms.

Laborers' Int'l Union of N.A. v. Terease Neff

Fifth Circuit: Arnone v. County of Dallas

 A prosecutor elected within a county and acting within a county is, however, a state officer as opposed to a county officer when deciding questions of or setting policy relevant to the revocation of deferred adjudication in individual cases.  

Arnone v. County of Dallas

Eighth Circuit: Leroy Leftwich v. County of Dakota

 Absent a showing of delioberate indifference or subjective awareness of risk to the detained arrestee, there is no issue for trial on the S1983 claim.

Absent a policy of mental health screening, using personal assessment to answer the mental health questions on the intake form was a discretionary act, rather than ministerial in nature, as was the staff's personal meeting with the arrestee.  County's decision to have a formal mental health assessment 72 hours later was policymaking, not operational, and therefore incurred statutory public entity immunity.

Court did not abuse its discretion in denying aleave to amend to a party who did not notice the depositions witnesses who could provide the information that ws the basis of the motion to amend prior to the last date to amend the claim.

http://media.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/21/08/201821P.pdf

Seventh Circuit: Jerry Smith, Jr. v. Melvin Finkley

 

Given issues of material fact about whether plaintiff was surrendering to police or lunging for gun and whether plaintiff was an immediate threat to safety of officers or others, court has no jursdiction to decide either aspect of the issue of qualified immunity on interlocutory appeal.  The fact that the plaintiff wasn't combative or armed complicates the application of relevant precedent that asks if the right was clearly established

An appeal of the sufficiency of the evidence for the denial of quualified immunity can't be decided on interlocutory review.

DISSENT (CJ)

Some of the benefit of qualified immunity is lost if the case is allowed to go to trial; the question is conceptually separate from the underlying claim.  The evidence establishes the historical facts of this situation, and the appellate courts can resolve the issues of law arising from those facts.

http://media.ca7.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/rssExec.pl?Submit=Display&Path=Y2021/D08-18/C:20-1754:J:Sykes:dis:T:fnOp:N:2749716:S:0

Eighth Circuit: Ka'Torah Prowse v. Walter Washington

 

When an administrative appeal is filed under the statute, and the petitioner maintains that the papers were filed on certain dates and in a certain order, but this is contradicted by the receipt stamps on the documents, the issue presents a question for trial; the date stamps are not dispositive.

https://ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/21/08/201995P.pdf

Sixth Circuit: James Williams v. Brian Maurer

 

Since the defts didn't move for summary judgment on the False Arrest claim along with the plaintiff in the S1983 claim, summary judgment for the plaintiff isn't reviewable at the interlocutory stage, since it doesn't relate to the assertion of qualified immunity.  Pendent jurisdiction would be inapporpriate, as the False Arrest claim isn't logically subsumed in the related claim being decided in the present appeal.

Claim arising from nighttime warrantless entry under exigent circumstances presents a genuine issue for the finder of fact, since the tip leading to the entry was anonymous, not specific as to location, and was only superficially corroborated.  Warrantless entry without reaonable belief of exigent circumstances violates clearly established law.

A claim arising from excessive force asks whether the level of force used was gratuitous, not at the level of injury that the plaintiff sustained.  The right to be free of excessive force used in an unconstitutional warrantless forced entry is clearly established.

https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/21a0184p-06.pdf

Seventh Circuit: Robert Bless v. Cook County Sheriff's Office

 

Court did not abuse discretion in quashing deposition of city sherriff, since the sherriff was not personally involved in the employment matters at issue, and the plaintiff did not describe the admissible evidence that might result from the deposition beyond the existence of a conversation at a political event.

Employment action was too attenuated from the employer's gaining knowledge of political activity to support a claim for political retaliation, and the nondiscriminatory bases offered by the employer for the action were insufficiently rebutted..  Claim of racial dicrimination doesn;t present a genine issue of material fact for trial, since there were decisionmakers outside of the protected class and the nondiscriminatory reasons for the action were insufficiently rebutted.

http://media.ca7.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/rssExec.pl?Submit=Display&Path=Y2021/D08-17/C:20-2733:J:Kanne:aut:T:fnOp:N:2748733:S:0

Seventh Circuit: Kimberly Nelson v. City of Chicago

 

Loss of employment is insufficient harm to establish a claim under substantive due process, as employment is not a fundamental right.

Negligence in not listening to emergency radio dispatches doesn't state a substantive due process claim for a police officer later injured due to lack of assistance.  The state-created danger exception to the private danger exclusion in due process analysis can't be invoked here, since it only applies when the state disables people from protecting themselves.

Disregarding a known risk to a public employee or altering work records after the fact are insufficiently conscience-shocking to state a substantive due process claim, and the emotional injury from the latter is insufficient to support a S1983 claim.

Plaintiff did not identify procedural shortcomings in protections sufficient to state a claim under procedural due process.

Monell claim against the municipality wasn't supported by showing of pattern or practice beyond individual acts subject to respondeat superior, which is not a basis for liability in S1983.

Kimberly Nelson v.  City of Chicago

Fifth Circuit: Newbury v. City of Windcrest

 

Plaintiff's clam that rudeness was gender-based is unsubstantiated by the record.  Two confrontations and a hostile encounter do not suffice for a constructive discharge claim under the statute.  A record reflecting resignation from the position precludes a sufficient showing for retaliatory discharge or gender discrimination.  While a work assignment might have sufficed for retaliation, sufficient causation wasn't established. 

Insufficient proof for Monell claim against municipality arising from police bodycam appearing to remotely activate when inside the plaintiff's house, given technical evidence and lack of showing that there's a general policy to surreptitiously record off-duty officers.

Newbury v. City of Windcrest

Eighth Circuit: Business Leaders In Christ v. The University of Iowa

 

Summary judgment based on qualified immunity for the defts was in error, since it was clearly established in both Supreme Court and Circuit precedent that university organizations were limited public forums not to be subjected to unreasonable or viewpoint-based discrimination.  The fact that the policy was unevenly enforced actually reinforces the suggestion of viewpoint discrimination.

As similar cases have been decided on Free Speech grounds, though, the relevant law on Free Exercise was not clearly established.

CONCURRENCE/DISSENT:

Unequal enforcement precludes a finding of facially neutral law of general applicability; the Free Exercise right was sufficiently clearly established.

Business Leaders In Christ  v.  The University of Iowa

Ninth Circuit: James O'Doan v. Joshua Sanford

 

Office entitled to qualified immunity for tripping body-throw maneuver used on naked gentleman making threatening gestures.

Given the ordinary and reasonable inference that people know what they are doing, the police offices had sufficient probable cause for the arrest, given the illegal conduct that they had witnessed, despite the claim by others at the scene that the plaintiff was experiencing a medical episode; the probable cause was not dissipated by the time the plaintiff was released from the hospital, since from the police officers' perspective, the conduct seems inconsistent with the asserted condition.

While the explanation for the plaintiff's actions was ambiguous, this did not mean that it was obvious that the story offered by the plaintiff and others at the scene.

Omission of claimed medical condition from report's supporting affidavit wasn't a deliberate fabrication, as precedent requires that the officer either knew or had cause to know of actual innocence, or used coercive and abusive investigatory techniques.

DISSENT:

Given the exculpatory asserted medical condition, the determination of probable cause required an assessment of the credibility of the varying claims, and reconstructing and judging the reasonableness of these determinations is a matter for the jury.  

(Samples of questions that the plaintiff's lawyer might ask on cross.)

James O'Doan v. Joshua Sanford 

Eighth Circuit: L.G. v. Keisha Edwards

 

The right of a student in a school setting to be free of an unlawful seizure at the behest of police consisting of a brief detention and interrogation was not clearly established in circuit precedent, set forth in a robust consensus, or obviously clear, at least as asserted against a deft with a minor and ministerial role in the seizure.

L.G.  v.  Keisha Edwards

Second Circuit: Tardif v. City of New York

 

Not providing timely and adequate medical services to detained individual prior to arraignment doesn't violate the disability act, since the disability requiring medication is the reason for the service, not the obstacle for which a reasonable accomodation would have to be provided.  Plaintiff was not denied medical services because of the disability.

At summary judgment, the defendant was not required to provide a nondiscriminatory theory for not providing the medication.

Limiting the testimony rebutting a claim of pecuniary motivation to the social justice motivations for participating in the protest rather than allowing testimony about past work for social justice was not an abuse of discretion.

State law permits a police officer to use an objectively reasonable amount of justifiable force in any non-arrest situation; the contact does not in itself give rise to a claim for assault, and the justification is not limited to the circumstances enumerated in state law.

Since the question of objective reasonableness of force looks to the Fourth Amendment, it was error to instruct the jury that the subjective mental state was at issue; where subjective mental state was potentially dispositive, the error is not harmless.

Tardif v. City of New York

Fifth Circuit: Anokwuru v. City of Houston

 

S1983 False arrest claim was immunized by an intervening indictment from the grand jury and the lack of a specific claim that the officers involved had deliberately or recklessly provided false information to the magistrate or the grand jury.

Circuit precedent does not recognize a freestanding malicious prosecution complaint under S1983.

Equal protection claim dismissed for lack of comparators or discriminatory intent.

A claim against the municipality for inadequate training that relies on a single incident must demonstrate the complete lack of training.

No abuse of discretion in denying leave to amend the fourth amended complaint.

Sua sponte dismissal of claims upheld, since magistrate had recommended it and plaintiff briefed the issue -- so long as the plaintiff has a fair opportunity to plead their best case.

Anokwuru v. City of Houston