Last Week in Federal Appeals (No. 23)
Last Week in Federal Appeals (No. 23)
Appellate decisions from the week of November 8-12, 2021
“But a government agency cannot simply end-run judicial review by sitting on its hands and allowing a claimant’s request to languish in a bureaucratic black hole. … For those who do not understand the Ifa faith, the deprivation of beads or a prayer mat may seem insignificant. That, however, misses the entire point of our religious-liberty jurisprudence. From our Founding, this Nation has made religious freedom a bedrock principle of our ordered liberty. Indeed, if anything, we must be especially solicitous of religious claimants who run against fashionable trends. Insulated from the rebukes of the electorate, it is our constitutional duty to protect the religious freedom of minority adherents as vigorously as anyone else’s. And if the Constitution cannot be put away and forgotten even in a pandemic, then we certainly cannot allow it to slip through mere bureaucratic cracks.”
~Judge Thapar, Byrd v. Haas
Decision Summaries:
Second Circuit
Torcivia v. Adler
The Second Circuit held that a Suffolk County Police Department Policy under which officers seize a citizen’s guns during the course of an investigation where (1) there is an alleged domestic violence incident and (2) the citizen is transported for emergency mental evaluation falls within the “special needs” exception to the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on warrantless seizures. The panel explained that the policy is related to domestic violence and suicide prevention rather than ordinary law enforcement.
Sixth Circuit
Byrd v. Haas
A Michigan prisoner who converted to the Ifa faith requested—five times since 2015— that the state prison system allow for group Ifa religious services and provide nine items essential to his faith (as it does for other religions). The government never responded to his requests. The Sixth Circuit reversed a district court’s decision granting qualified immunity to prison officials, rejecting the argument that a failure to act is not a constitutional violation. The panel explained that a multi-year failure to respond was the equivalent of denying the prisoner’s request.
Monroe v. FTS USA, LLC
The Sixth Circuit reaffirmed the mandate rule, a longstanding principle that, on remand from the Court of Appeals, the parties are generally not free to raise new arguments that were not raised in the original trial-court proceedings unless the reviewing court’s remand was “general” rather than “specific.” Here, because the Sixth Circuit’s original remand was limited to a damages recalculation, the panel held that the district court was correct to preclude FTS from challenging various non-damages aspects of the original judgment.
Sexton v. Cernuto
The Sixth Circuit affirmed a district court decision refusing to grant qualified immunity to two supervisors of a State work-release program. The plaintiff alleged that one supervisor worked to isolate her from other program participants so that the other supervisor could sexually assault her.
Ninth Circuit
Doe v. Garland
The Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court decision dismissing a plaintiff’s lawsuit against the Department of Justice based on its failure to remove press releases related to the plaintiff’s earlier guilty plea and sentencing from its website. The panel rejected claims under the Privacy Act, the constitutional right to privacy, and the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
Eleventh Circuit
Karantsalis v. City of Miami Springs
The Eleventh Circuit reversed a district court decision holding that the plaintiff had waited too long to file a claim against the City under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Even though the plaintiff was diagnosed with MS in 2008, the panel held that the plaintiff’s ADA cause of action did not accrue until 2017, when he began to suffer from severe mobility issues.
D.C. Circuit
Truck Trailer Manufacturers Association v. EPA
The D.C. Circuit struck down an Obama-era EPA and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (“NHTSA”) regulation setting greenhouse gas emission and fuel efficiency standards for heavy-duty trailers. The panel explained that, because federal statutes give the EPA and NHTSA authority only over “motor vehicles,” the Agencies cannot regulate trailers that do not have a motor and are not “vehicles” with respect to fuel-economy standards (because they use no fuel themselves).
In The News:
Justice Gorsuch, joined by Justice Sotomayor, dissented from the Supreme Court’s decision refusing to review a case brought by the ACLU. The ACLU appealed from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court’s refusal to turn over certain documents. Justices Gorsuch and Sotomayor took umbrage at the government’s claim that the Supreme Court had no jurisdiction to review the decision.
The Supreme Court granted certiorari last week in Morgan v. Sundance, Inc., which considers whether, under the Federal Arbitration Act, a consumer must show prejudice when arguing that a company waived its right to arbitration by waiting too long to request it.
State Decisions of Interest:
The Oklahoma Supreme Court threw out a $465 million verdict against Johnson & Johnson related to the opioid epidemic; it rejected the government’s argument that the company violated public nuisance law by overstating the benefits and understating the dangers of opioids.
The Washington Supreme Court ruled that Governor (and former Democratic Presidential candidate) Jay Inslee violated the State constitution in 2019 when he vetoed a single sentence of a bill rather than an entire subsection or appropriation item.
Any opinions expressed here are my own. This article is not legal advice; if you have a legal issue, you should consult an attorney.
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