Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff filed suit alleging that the School Board violated his constitutional right to free speech when three of its schools removed banners for plaintiff's tutoring business from their fences. The schools removed the banners after they discovered that plaintiff's tutoring business shares a mailing address with his pornography business. The district court concluded that the schools did not remove the banners based on their content and granted summary judgment for the schools. The court affirmed on different grounds, concluding that the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment does not protect plaintiff because the banners are “government speech.” Despite the lack of historical evidence in the record, the banners exhibit strong indicia of government endorsement and control. View "Mech v. School Bd. of Palm Beach Cnty." on Justia Law

Over 25 years ago, a representative of a class of homeless persons, filed a lawsuit against the City of Miami under 42 U.S.C. 1983. The parties subsequently entered into a settlement agreement. In this appeal, plaintiff, on behalf of a class, seeks attorney fees for opposing modifications proposed by the City of Miami to such an agreement. The court affirmed the district court's denial of fees given that modification proceedings do not trigger an award of attorneys’ fees under the agreement. In this case, the parties’ agreement limited future attorneys’ fees to enforcement proceedings. View "Peery v. City of Miami" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit challenging the facial validity of Florida's no-surcharge law under the First Amendment. Florida makes it a second-degree misdemeanor for “[a] sellor or lessor in a sales or lease transaction” to “impose a surcharge on the buyer or lessee for electing to use a credit card,” Fla. Stat. 501.0117(1)–(2), while the State expressly allows “the offering of a discount for the purpose of inducing payment by cash.” The court concluded that it must strike down section 501.0117 as an unconstitutional abridgment of free speech. The court concluded that Florida’s no-surcharge law directly targets speech to indirectly affect commercial behavior. It does so by discriminating on the basis of the speech’s content, the identity of the speaker, and the message being expressed. Because the at-best plausible justifications on which the no-surcharge law rest provide no firm anchor, the law does not pass under any level of heightened First Amendment scrutiny View "Dana's Railroad Supply v. Attorney General" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against defendant in his individual capacity, alleging excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Defendant, a deputy with the sheriff's office, was providing back-up during a drug bust of a vehicle in which plaintiff was a passenger when he perceived that the vehicle was trying to run him down and fired shots at the car as he was falling to the ground. The district court denied defendant's motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity. The court concluded that case law did not put defendant on notice that his use of deadly force violated any clearly established rights. Accordingly, the court concluded that defendant is entitled to qualified immunity as a matter of law and reversed the district court's judgment. View "Singletary v. Vargas" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, five university employees, filed suit claiming that their grievance alleging mismanagement by their supervisor which preceded their termination is entitled to First Amendment protection. Plaintiffs claimed that they were terminated in retaliation for submitting a memorandum to university officials complaining about what they perceived to be poor leadership and mismanagement by the director of the Counseling and Testing Center of Georgia State University. The district court found that plaintiffs' memorandum constituted employee speech on an issue related to their professional duties, which is not subject to First Amendment protection. The court found that the district court correctly concluded that the speech for which plaintiffs seek First Amendment protection was made by them as employees and not as citizens, and on matters related to their employment and not public concern. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants. View "Alves v. Board of Regents" on Justia Law

After plaintiff was terminated from his position as head football coach, plaintiff filed suit against the School District under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. 2000e et seq., and related federal laws, alleging that the school district committed racially discriminatory employment decisions. The court concluded that, although plaintiff produced sufficient evidence that could lead a reasonable jury to infer that he was treated unfairly, he has failed to produce any evidence suggesting that his treatment was on account of his race. The school district argued that it terminated plaintiff because he committed recruiting violations that resulted in ineligible students being enrolled at the high school to play football. The court rejected plaintiff's contentions and affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the school district. View "Flowers v. Troup Cnty. Sch. Dist." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, claiming that Florida law denies due process because it permits the State to keep intellectually disabled people like him involuntarily committed indefinitely without periodic review. The district court concluded that the statutory scheme was constitutional, concluding that Fla. Stat. 393.11 contains an implicit requirement that if a committed person no longer meets the admission criteria, the APD must petition the circuit court to order release. The court certified questions to the Florida Supreme Court about Florida’s scheme for the involuntary commitment of the intellectually disabled. Florida law contains no requirement, explicit or implicit, that the APD review the continuing commitment of intellectually disabled persons. Neither does Florida law require that the APD petition the admitting circuit court to release a person who no longer meets the criteria for commitment. Therefore, the court held that Florida's statutory scheme is unconstitutional because it does not provide periodic review of the propriety of ongoing commitment by someone with the duty to consider and the authority to order release when appropriate. The court noted that it is sympathetic to the State of Florida’s interest in involuntarily admitting the intellectually disabled to residential services in order to “prevent or reduce the severity of developmental disabilities” and to “enable individuals with developmental disabilities to achieve their greatest potential for independent and productive living.” Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "J.R. v. Hansen" on Justia Law

AEA, a public-sector union, and related parties filed suit under 28 U.S.C. 1983 challenging the constitutionality of Alabama Act No. 2010-761, Ala. Code 17-17-5. Act 761 “prohibit[s] a state or local government employee from arranging by payroll deduction or otherwise the payment of any contribution to an organization that uses any portion of those contributions for political activity.” AEA claims that Act 761 violates the First Amendment rights of AEA and its members because the subjective motivations of the lawmakers in passing the Act was to retaliate against AEA for its political speech on education policy. AEA pursued its claim through subpoenas seeking files of four certain lawmakers. At issue on appeal are the lawmakers' petitions for writs of mandamus and their appeals, all challenging the district court’s refusal to quash AEA’s subpoenas. The court concluded that it has jurisdiction to hear the appeals under 28 U.S.C. 1291, and that the district court abused its discretion in refusing to quash AEA’s subpoenas. The court’s precedent applying United States v. O’Brien recognizes that, when a statute is facially constitutional, a plaintiff cannot bring a free-speech challenge by claiming that the lawmakers who passed it acted with a constitutionally impermissible purpose. The court concluded that the O’Brien rule applies here, which means that AEA has no valid federal claim to justify intruding upon the lawmakers’ legislative privileges. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "In re: Mike Hubbard" on Justia Law