Fourth Amendment Tag

Monday Morning Review: Local Governments in the Federal Appellate Courts

Posted 17 Nov 2014 in Monday Morning Review

Here are last week's published decisions involving local governments:

Fourth Circuit

West v. Murphy, No. 13-2014 (Nov. 14, 2014): The court affirmed that defendants were entitled to qualified immunity in 1983 action challenging strip searches of arrestees on Fourth-Amendment grounds.

Sixth Circuit

Williams v. City of Cleveland, No. 13-4162 (Nov. 10, 2014): The court ruled that plaintiff stated a plausible Fourth-Amendment claim when it alleges that jail required detainees to undress in presence of other detainees and sprayed their naked genitals with delousing solution.
Misewicz v. City of Memphis, No. 14-5053 (Nov. 14, 2014): The court affirmed grant of summary judgment for City in challenge under Fair Labor Standards Act regarding overtime pay.
S.L. v. Pierce Twp. Bd. of Trustees, No. 13-3892 (Nov. 17, 2014): The court affirmed summary judgment orders for defendants in case arising out of arrest of juvenile.

Monday Morning Review: Local Governments in the Federal Appellate Courts

Posted 10 Nov 2014 in Monday Morning Review

Here are the last two weeks' published decisions involving local governments:

Second Circuit

Golodner v. Berliner, No. 12-1173 (Oct. 27, 2014): In 1983 action alleging that City and City officials retaliated against Golodner for exercising his First-Amendment rights, the court affirmed that defendants were not entitled to summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity.
Berman v. City of New York, No. 13-598 (Oct. 29, 2014): The court certified two questions to the New York Court of Appeals in suit challenging City law that regulates debt-collection agencies.
Harris v. O'Hare, No. 12-4350 (Oct. 30, 2014): In suit claiming that officers violated the Fourth Amendment when they entered yard and shot and killed family dog, the court found that there was insufficient evidence of exigent circumstances to permit warrantless search.
Floyd v. City of New York, No. 13-3088 (Oct. 31, 2014): The court ruled that public-sector unions may not intervene into litigation concerning City's "stop-and-frisk" policy where the parties to the ligitation have agreed to settlement.

Sixth Circuit

Hotels in the Hot Seat: Supreme Court Accepts Hotel Registry Case

Posted 03 Nov 2014 in Case Notes

Cities and states from California to Maine have confronted the problem of hotels that are crime magnets.

One solution that some evidence suggests effectively deters crime is ordinances or state laws that require hotels to keep detailed information about guests that are subject to police inspection. These ordinances and laws generally do not require police to obtain a warrant. In Los Angeles v. Patel a Los Angeles ordinance requires hotel and motel operators to keep specific information about their guests and allows police to inspect the registries without warrants. Motel operators claim this ordinance is facially invalid under the Fourth Amendment. The first issue the Supreme Court will decide in this case is whether facial challenges to ordinances and statutes are permitted under the Fourth Amendment.

Monday Morning Review: Local Governments in the Federal Appellate Courts

Posted 20 Oct 2014 in Monday Morning Review

Here are last week's published decisions involving local governments:

Sixth Circuit

Cass v. City of Dayton, No. 13-4409 (Oct. 16, 2014): In 1983 action alleging that officer used excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment, the court affirmed summary judgment for defendants because officer's conduct was objectively reasonable and did not violate Fourth Amendment.

Seventh Circuit

Swisher v. Porter County Sheriff's Dept., No. 13-3602 (Oct. 15, 2014): The court reversed the judgment for defendants because Plaintiff, who brought 1983 action alleging he was denied proper medical care while he was a pretrial detainee, had no duty to exhaust administrative remedies at the jail because jail's grievance procedure was not clear.

Ninth Circuit

Supreme Court Long Conference Results Are In!

Posted 06 Oct 2014 in Case Notes

Last Monday’s Supreme Court “long conference” did not disappoint. The Supreme Court granted a total of 11 petitions.

At least four of those cases are relevant to local government. Housing discrimination. For the third time the Court has accepted a case involving this issue of whether disparate-impact (as opposed to disparate treatment) claims can be brought under the Fair Housing Act (FHA). It remains to be seen if Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project will settle like its predecessors, Mt. Holly v. Mt. Holly Citizens in Action and Magner v. Gallagher. The 11 federal circuits that have decided this issue have all held that disparate-impact claims are actionable. The Supreme Court is expected to rule to the contrary. Local government have been sued for disparate impact under the FHA and have sued other entities. Fourth Amendment search. In its second Fourth Amendment case of the term, Rodriguez v. United States, the Court will decide whether a police officer violates the Fourth Amendment by extending (for just a few minutes) an already-completed traffic stop for a dog sniff. The Eighth Circuit held the search in this case was reasonable. The police officer waited seven or eight minutes after the traffic stop was completed before deploying his sniffer dog because he wanted backup given that there were two people in the stopped car. Employment discrimination.

Monday Morning Review: Local Governments in the Federal Appellate Courts

Posted 23 Sep 2014 in Monday Morning Review

Here are last week's published decisions involving local governments:

Second Circuit

Chabad Lubavitch of Litchfield County, Inc. v. Litchfield Hist. Dist. Comm'n, No. 12-1057 (Sept. 19, 2014): The court ruled, in Religious Land Use and Instiutionalized Persons Act challege to historic district's denial of application to modify property for religious use, that district court: (i) erred in finding that rabbi lacked standing; and (ii) applied the wrong standard to determine that the historic district was entitled to summary judgment under RLUIPA.

Sixth Circuit

United Pet Supply, Inc. v. City of Chattanooga, No. 13-5181 (Sept. 18, 2014): The court found that: (i) private animal-welfare employee that contracted with City may not assert qualified immunity; (ii) officers may not assert qualified-immunity defense to "official capacity" suits; (iii) seizure of animals without prior hearing did not violate procedural due process; (iv) revocation of permit without hearing did violate due process; (v) that warrantless animal seizure did not violate Fourth Amendment because of exigent circumstances; and (vi) seizure of records without warrant violated clearly established Fourth-Amendment right and therefore officer was not entitled to qualified immunity.
Finn v. Warren County, No. 13-6629 (Sept. 16, 2014): In action alleging inadequte medical care in violation of the Eighth Amendment and state law claims including negligence after Finn died in his cell, the court reversed grant of summary judgment for officer, remanded for trial on negligence claim, and otherwise affirmed judgment below.

Seventh Circuit

Monday Morning Review: Local Governments in the Federal Appellate Courts

Posted 16 Sep 2014 in Monday Morning Review

Here are last week's published decisions involving local governments:

Ninth Circuit

Butler v. Nat. Comm. Renaissance of Cal., No. 11-55806 (Sept. 12, 2014): The court affirmed that 1983 action challenging warrantless search of apartment was untimely.

Eleventh Circuit

West v. Davis, No. 13-14805 (Sept. 8, 2014): The court found that district court improperly granted summary judgment for security guard in case in which West challenged the actions of a security guard at courthouse security checkpoint; district court should have applied standard for "seizures" under the Fourth Amendment.

D.C. Circuit

Supreme Court and Local Governments: What Will the Court Accept Next?

Posted 16 Sep 2014 in Case Notes, Commentary

While the Supreme Court’s next term officially begins on October 6, its “long conference” is September 29. At this conference the Court will review a backlog of petitions that have been piling up over the summer. SCOTUSblog complies a list of petitions that it thinks have a reasonable chance of being granted. Eight of the petitions the Court will consider either during the “long conference” or at a later conference directly involve or impact local governments.

Public nuisance. A Brighton, Michigan, ordinance presumes that an unsafe structure will be demolished as a public nuisance if the cost of repairing it exceeds its value. The owner has no right to repair the structure. Brighton property owners wanted to repair two unsafe structures even though Brighton estimated it would cost almost double the property value do so. In Bonner v. City of Brighton, Michigan, the property owners claim the ordinance violates substantive and procedural due process. Employment. Under federal employment law to bring a discrimination claim a plaintiff must prove that an “adverse action” occurred, and to bring a retaliation claim a plaintiff must prove a “materially adverse action” occurred. The question in Kalamazoo County Road Commission v. Deleon is whether either can be proven when an employer grants an employee’s request for a job transfer (and the new position turns out to be less desirable than the old position). The International Municipal Lawyers Association (IMLA) filed an amicus brief in this case.

IMLA Files Brief in Wyatt v. Gonzalez

Posted 03 Sep 2014 in IMLA Briefs

On Friday, IMLA filed its brief in Wyatt v. Gonzalez, a petition stage Supreme Court case, which involves a question of whether immaterial discrepancies in a police officer’s recollection of a stressful event amounted to a “genuine issue for trial” where the plaintiff offered no contradictory evidence. In this case, the police officer was trapped inside a vehicle controlled by someone who had already committed several dangerous felonies. The officer shot and killed the driver of the van, after he resisted verbal commands and non-lethal force. The plaintiffs did not dispute that the driver of the van “stomped” on the accelerator with the officer trapped inside. Nonetheless, the Ninth Circuit ruled that summary judgment on the plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment claim was inappropriate because the parties disputed how fast the van was traveling at the time the officer employed deadly force. IMLA’s brief argues that the Ninth Circuit’s focus on the speed of the van is misguided, as that particular fact is not material for the purposes of the summary judgment analysis.

Monday Morning Review: Local Governments in the Federal Appellate Courts

Posted 27 Aug 2014 in Monday Morning Review

Apologies that this edition is delayed. I was tied up with a significant filing for the past week. The courts were busy too. Here are the last two weeks' published decisions involving local governments:

First Circuit

Penn v. Escorsio, No. 13-2309 (Aug. 22, 2014): The court affirmed the district court's denial of qualified immunity at the summary judgment stage to corrections officers alleged to be deliberately indifferent to risk that detainee could commit suicide. The court found that the issues presented on appeal were purely factual, and the court had no jurisdiction to decide them on interlocutory appeal.

Second Circuit

Fourth Amendment Tag

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