Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs Eshow and Safar were arrested for an allegation of fraud that was mistakenly reported and almost immediately retracted. Safar was also briefly incarcerated. Plaintiffs filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and state law, against the police officer and prosecutor who, at different stages of the criminal process, learned that no crime had occurred and yet failed to take steps to withdraw an arrest warrant. Given the absence of an established duty to act, the Fourth Circuit affirmed the award of qualified immunity to the officer on the section 1983 claims. The court affirmed the grant of absolute immunity to the prosecutor because the prosecutor's decision whether to withdraw an arrest warrant was intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process. However, the court reversed as to the state law claims, remanding to the district court to dismiss the state law claims without prejudice to plaintiffs' right to advance their case in state court. View "Safar v. Tingle" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against Cava, alleging a Title VII retaliation claim for reporting alleged sexual harassment between employees. Plaintiff's supervisor concluded, after an investigation, that plaintiff made up the allegations. The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment against plaintiff, holding that neither plaintiff nor amici have cited any case holding that the opposition clause protects employees' pretending to oppose Title VII violations by intentionally fabricating allegations, and the court was not aware of any; while the case law plaintiff and amici presented favor liberally interpreting the statute to further the goal of encouraging employees to come forward, they did not favor rewriting a statute that conditions liability on the existence of a retaliatory motive; and there was no genuine dispute of fact regarding the reasonableness of Cava's investigation into whether plaintiff fabricated her conversation with an employee. View "Villa v. Cavamezze Grill, LLC" on Justia Law