Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

The First Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Medina & Medina, Inc. in this employment discrimination lawsuit, holding that summary judgment was properly granted as to Plaintiff’s discriminatory wage disparity claims and gender-based hostile work environment claims but improperly granted as to Plaintiff’s federal and Puerto Rico age-based hostile work environment claims and retaliation claims.The district court held that Plaintiff failed to produce sufficient evidence to survive summary judgment as to any of her claims. The First Circuit held (1) based on the evidence proffered by both parties, summary judgment was appropriate on Plaintiff’s discriminatory wage disparity and and gender-based hostile work environment claims; (2) where Plaintiff produced evidence that she was taunted about her age nearly every single day for over two years, summary judgment was not appropriate as to Plaintiff’s age-based hostile work environment claim; (3) there was a genuine issue of fact that precluded summary judgment on Plaintiff’s claims of retaliation; and (4) Plaintiff’s supplemental claims brought pursuant to Puerto Rico law were properly disposed of upon summary judgment. View "Rivera-Rivera v. Medina & Medina, Inc." on Justia Law

The First Circuit reversed the judgment of the bankruptcy court allowing The Patriot Group, LLC to amend its pleadings in its adversary complaint requesting denial of the discharge in bankruptcy of Steven Fustolo’s debt and denying Fustolo’s discharge pursuant to the newly added claim, holding that the allowance of this belated amendment failed to satisfy the prescripts of due process underlying Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(b)(2) and was therefore an abuse of discretion. Specifically, the Court held that Appellant did not receive adequate notice of an unpleaded claim and did not provide his implied consent. Therefore, the bankruptcy court’s order must be reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings. View "Fustolo v. Patriot Group LLC" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of a complaint filed by George Gillis against William Chase in this third complaint against Chase, Gillis III, seeking to reopen Gillis I.Gillis was operating a truck at a construction site when he struck and fatally injured Edward Hansen. Gillis was charged with motor vehicle homicide in state court but was acquitted after a trial. Gillis then sought vindication by filing lawsuits. Gillis I asserted that William Chase, the police chief when Hansen’s death occurred, violated his constitutional rights by knowingly charging him with a crime without probable cause. The district court dismissed the case for failure to state a claim. In Gillis II, Gillis sued two different defendants, and the case was dismissed on summary judgment. Gillis III, against Chase alone, sought to reopen Gillis I. Gillis argued that Chase conspired to charge Gillis in the criminal case as the result of undue influence exerted by a defendant in Gillis II. The district court found that Gillis III was time barred and failed to state a claim. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that the district court’s judgment was not in error. View "Gillis v. Chase" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment in favor of the Town of Camden, Maine on Plaintiff’s complaint claiming that Camden deprived him of his procedural due process rights when Camden laid him off because it violated the recall provision in his collective bargaining agreement (CBA).Plaintiff, a police dispatcher with Camden for thirty-one years, was laid off after Camden moved its police department’s dispatch operations to the Knox County Sheriff’s Department in the Town of Rockland. Plaintiff sued Camden pursuant to 42 .U.S.C. 1983. The jury returned a verdict in favor of Camden, determining (1) the CBA conditioned an employee’s recall right on the written submission, after layoff, of the employee’s mailing address and telephone number; and (2) Plaintiff had not contacted the town manager with his contact details after his layoff. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that the jury’s determination undid Plaintiff’s case because, without a right to recall, there was no deprivation of a protected property interest and no violation of Plaintiff’s due process rights. View "Clukey v. Town of Camden, Maine" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed the entry of a jury verdict awarding over $1.3 in compensatory damages and $1.3 million in punitive damages to Plaintiff, a black female former employee of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), who claimed that her supervisors at the MBTA conspired to terminate her employment because of her race.The Court held (1) the evidence was sufficient to support the compensatory damages award for wrongful termination and to justify the punitive damages amount; (2) the trial judge committed clear error in imposing a sanction for removing the entry of default, but the MBTA failed to show that it was prejudiced by the default sanction order; (3) MBTA failed to show that it was prejudiced when the trial judge allowed a hostile work environment theory not explicitly pled in the complaint to go to the jury; and (4) MBTA waived its claim that it should be able to take advantage of Buntin v. City of Boston, 857 F.3d 69 (1st Cir. 2017), decided while this case was on appeal. View "Dimanche v. Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority" on Justia Law

The First Circuit vacated Virgilio Diaz-Jimenez’s (Diaz) conviction and remanded the cause for further proceedings, holding that the search of Diaz’s home was unconstitutional, and the error was prejudicial.Diaz and Hector Serrano-Acevedo (Serrano) were convicted of armed bank robbery and possession of a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence. On appeal, Diaz argued that the government’s warrantless search of his home violated his Fourth Amendment rights and that the district court erred by denying his motion to suppress evidence uncovered during the search. Serrano argued that certain statements made during trial were impermissible hearsay. The First Circuit vacated Diaz’s conviction and affirmed Serrano’s conviction, holding (1) the district court erred by denying Diaz’s motion to suppress, and the error was not harmless; and (2) if there was any error in the admission of the statements challenged by Serrano, it was harmless. View "United States v. Serrano-Acevedo" on Justia Law

On the facts of the case, the constitutional speedy trial clock began to run from the date of the original indictment rather than from the date of an additional charge first brought in a superseding indictment.A federal grand jury indicted Defendant on twelve counts of wire fraud. Approximately six years later, the government filed a superseding indictment containing the same twelve wire-fraud counts as the original indictment and adding a new count for bank fraud. The district court granted Defendant’s motion to dismiss the original indictment and the added bank-fraud count on Sixth Amendment speedy trial grounds. The government appealed, arguing that, with respect to the bank-fraud charge, the district court should have measured the period of delay from the filing of the superseding indictment, not from the filing of the initial indictment. The First Circuit disagreed, holding that the bringing of an additional charge does not reset the Sixth Amendment speedy trial clock to the date of the superseding indictment where the additional charge and the charge for which the defendant was previously accused are based on the same act or transaction, or common scheme or plan, and where the government could have, with diligence, brought the additional charge at the time of the prior accusation. View "United States v. Handa" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed Defendant’s convictions of drug offenses and failure to appear for arraignment, holding that, contrary to Defendant’s argument on appeal, Defendant’s counsel did not suffer from a conflict of interest arising from violation of attorney-client privilege and a local rule of professional conduct.The Court held that, under the rules set forth in Cuyler v. Sullivan, 446 U.S. 335, 348 (1980), and United States v. Soldevila-Lopez, 17 F.3d 480, 486 (1st Cir. 1994), Defendant failed to show an actual conflict of interest that adversely affected his lawyer’s performance. Further, “any tension in the lawyer’s mind between client loyalty and professional self-preservation” would have been addressed by a stipulation joined by Defendant, and the following colloquy demonstrated that Defendant understood his rights and the consequences of proceeding as he chose to do. View "United States v. Tirado" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed the order of the district court granting summary judgment to Defendants - the Town of Abington, Massachusetts and leaders of the Abington Police Department (Department) - on Plaintiff’s federal and state law claims in which he alleged that Defendants retaliated against him while he was an officer in the Department.The Court held that the district court did not err in granting summary judgment as to (1) Plaintiff’s claims that he brought under 42 U.S.C. 1983 for retaliation against him for exercising his First Amendment rights; (2) Plaintiff’s other section 1983 claim that Defendants impermissibly retaliated against him for his protected union activity; and (3) Plaintiff’s pendent Massachusetts law claims. Finally, the district court did not abuse its discretion in granting the Massachusetts Office of Attorney General’s motion to quash a deposition subpoena. View "Delaney v. Town of Abington" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed Defendant’s convictions of arson, wire fraud, and the use of fire in furtherance of a federal felony, holding that any alleged errors during trial were, whether individually or collectively, harmless.On appeal, Defendant argued that the prosecution violated his Confrontation Clause rights when an investigator testified that the cause of the fire was incendiary, rather than electrical, because the investigator relied on conclusions drawn by Defendant’s insurer’s electrical expert without calling that expert to the stand. Defendant also argued that this was a violation of Fed. R. Evid. 703. The First Circuit held (1) any such violation, if one occurred at all, of Defendant’s Confrontation Clause rights was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt; and (2) any error under Fed. R. Evid. 703 was harmless. View "United States v. Saad" on Justia Law