Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

John Doe appealed from a contempt order and an order compelling him to comply with a grand jury subpoena for financial records that the Bank Secrecy Act, 31 C.F.R. 1010.420, required him to maintain. The district court held that requiring Doe to produce the subpoenaed documents, over his objections, did not violate his right against self incrimination pursuant to the "required records" doctrine. The court concluded that the required records exception to the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination still exists. The Act's requirement at issue here are "essentially regulatory," the subpoenaed records are "customarily kept," and the records have "public aspects" sufficient to render the exception applicable. Because Doe could not lawfully excuse his failure to comply with the subpoena, the district court was within its discretion to impose sanctions for his non-compliance. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "In Re: Grand Jury Subpoena dated February 2, 2012" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against her former employer, Andalex, alleging claims of discrimination, retaliation, and hostile work environment under federal and state law, as well as claims that Andalex failed to notify her of her right to continuing health care coverage under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (COBRA), 29 U.S.C. 1166 et seq. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Andalex and dismissed her claims. The court affirmed the district court's judgment except with respect to plaintiff's retaliation claims. Based on the discrepancies between the EEOC statement and subsequent testimony, a reasonable juror could infer that the explanation given by Andalex was pretextual, and that, coupled with the temporal proximity between the complaint and the termination, the complaint at issue was a but-for cause of defendant's termination. Accordingly, there was sufficient evidence to require denial of the summary judgment motion on the retaliation claims. View "Kwan v. The Andalex Group LLC" on Justia Law

Entergy filed suit against Vermont seeking a declaratory judgment that Vermont's Electrical Energy Generating Tax was unconstitutional. On appeal, Entergy challenged the district court's grant of Vermont's motion to dismiss based on lack of subject matter jurisdiction. At issue was whether the Tax Injunction Act, 28 U.S.C. 1341, denied the federal courts jurisdiction to review Entergy's challenges to the Generating Tax. The Act prohibits federal courts from interfering with state taxation schemes so long as the state courts offer an adequate forum to litigate the validity of the tax. The court concluded that the Act applied to the Generating Tax and that Vermont provided a plain, speedy, and efficient mechanism for raising Entergy's objections to the validity of the tax. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Entergy Nuclear v. Shumlin" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs appealed from the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the NYPD on plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment challenge to NYPD Interim Order 52 (IO-52). IO-52 requires the administration of a breathalyzer test to any officer whose discharge of his firearm within New York City resulted in death or injury to any person. The court concluded that the immediate objectives of IO-52 testing were personnel management of, and public confidence in, the NYPD; the identified objectives qualified as "special needs" for purposes of Fourth Amendment reasonableness review because they were distinct from normal law enforcement concerns and incompatible with the warrant and probable cause requirements for law enforcement searches; and the special needs greatly outweighed officers' reduced expectation of privacy with respect to alcohol testing at the time of any firearms discharge causing death or personal injury, thereby rendering warrantless, suspicionless IO-52 testing constitutionally reasonable as a matter of law. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's award of summary judgment to the NYPD on plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment challenge to IO-52. View "Lynch v. City of New York" on Justia Law

NYPPP filed suit against election officials and others to enjoin enforcement of New York State Election Law 14-114(8) and 14-126(2). Section 14-114(8) imposed a $150,000 aggregate annual limit on certain political contributions by any person in New York State. Section 14-126(2) made it a misdemeanor to fail to file required statements or to knowingly and willfully violate any other provision of the Election Law. NYPPP would be prevented from receiving more than $150,000 from any individual contributor in any calendar year. The court concluded that NYPPP had a substantial likelihood of success on the merits; there were important public interests at stake which were weighed against the hardships suffered by NYPPP; and the hardships faced by NYPPP and its donors from the denial of relief was significant. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's order denying the preliminary injunction. View "New York Progress and Protection PAC v. Walsh, et al." on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for conspiring to bomb the United States embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. At issue was whether the Speedy Trial Clause of the Sixth Amendment prevented the United States from trying, on criminal charges in a district court, a defendant who was held abroad for several years in the CIA and the Department of Defense while his indictment was pending. The court concluded that the district court did not err in determining, pursuant to the Supreme Court's four-factor balancing test under Barker v. Wingo, that the nearly five-year delay between defendant's capture and his arraignment, during which time he was interrogated as an enemy combatant and detained at Guantanamo Bay, did not constitute a violation of the Speedy Trial Clause; the district court did not err in charging the jury with a conscious avoidance instruction or in formulating that instruction; and defendant's sentence of life imprisonment was neither procedurally nor substantively unreasonable. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Ghailani" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, acting as administratrix of her daughter's estate, filed a complaint against the County and others, seeking damages for the daughter's death. The parties subsequently negotiated a settlement. In this separate action, plaintiff and her attorney alleged that the County intentionally delayed approving the settlement in retaliation for their protected First Amendment activities. The court affirmed the judgment of the district court dismissing the complaint because plaintiffs had no right to have the settlement approved at all, much less by a certain date. View "Dorsett v. County of Nassau" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, on behalf of herself and her three children, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against defendants, alleging that the removal of the children from plaintiff's home without a court order violated their rights to due process of law and to freedom from unreasonable seizures. The court held that the state official who takes a child into custody without parental consent or court order was entitled to qualified immunity if there was an objectively reasonable basis to believe that there was an imminent threat of harm to the child. Based upon the evidence in the record - including the history of domestic violence between plaintiff and the children's father, the violation of the protective order, and the Superior Court's finding that the children were in immediate physical danger - defendants' decision to take the children into state custody was objectively reasonable. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants based upon qualified immunity. View "Doe v. Whelan" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, visual artists who sell their works on sidewalks and in public parks, filed suit against the City challenging the 2010 revisions to vending regulations. The court affirmed the district court's holding that the vending regulations were valid content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions subject to intermediate scrutiny where the City's interests - alleviating congestion and improving circulation, promoting the aesthetics of the parks, and ensuring that the parks were available to the public for a wide range of activities - were significant, and the regulations were narrowly tailored. The court also affirmed the district court's issue of a protective order in response to plaintiffs' request to depose Mayor Bloomberg and former Deputy Mayor Skyler. View "Lederman v. N.Y.C. Dep't of Parks & Recreation" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12181 et seq., alleging that his neighborhood diner violated the ADA by having a wheelchair inaccessible entrance and other barriers that made the diner wheelchair-inaccessible. The court concluded that plaintiff had standing to challenge the diner's inaccessible entrance even though he had never attempted to enter the diner; plaintiff alleged that the step deterred him from frequenting the diner; the diner had not indicated an intent to remedy this barrier; and plaintiff's testimony and proximity to the diner created a reasonable inference that he would frequent the diner were the violation remedied. Because plaintiff had standing to pursue injunctive relief as to the diner's entrance, he had standing to seek removal of all barriers inside the diner related to his disability that he would likely encounter were he able to access the diner. The court rejected defendants' claims that the district court incorrectly determined that constructing a permanent ramp was readily achievable where defendants failed to support their assertion. The court rejected defendants' remaining claims and affirmed the district court's grant of injunctive relief to plaintiff, as well as compensatory damages and attorneys' fees. View "Kreisler v. Second Avenue Diner Corp." on Justia Law