Justia U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Defendants were charged with, inter alia, four counts of creating and one count of distributing animal crush videos. On appeal, the government challenged the district court's dismissal of counts one through five. Congress revised 18 U.S.C. 48 to make it a crime to knowingly create, sell, market, advertise, exchange, or distribute an animal crush video. The district court concluded that section 48 was facially invalid. However, the court concluded that section 48 incorporates Miller v. California obscenity and thus by its terms proscribes only unprotected speech. The court rejected defendants' arguments under R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul and held that Congress has a significant interest in preventing the secondary effects of animal crush videos, which promote and require violence and criminal activity. Furthermore, section 48 serves the government interest in a reasonably tailored way. Thus, section 48 is a permissible regulation of a subset of proscribable speech. The court reversed and remanded. View "United States v. Richards, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, tour guides, filed suit challenging the City's requirement that those conducting tours for hire in the city have a tour guide license. Plaintiffs claimed that the City's requirement violated their First Amendment rights and sought a declaratory judgment and injunctive relief. The court concluded that the content-neutral requirement promoted the government's interest in requiring licensees to know the city and not be felons or drug addicts. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the City. View "Kagan, et al. v. City of New Orleans" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit in state court against Verizon, alleging that Verizon discharged her in retaliation for complaining of discrimination and harassment pursuant to Texas law. Verizon moved to federal court based on diversity. The court held that the exhaustion of administrative remedies requirement is only a condition precedent. When the court considered the appeal on the merits, the court found no merit based on the absence of causation between plaintiff's complaints and her discharge; the decisionmaker had no knowledge of the alleged protected activity claimed by plaintiff; and although the Verizon executive terminating her had no knowledge of her complaint, she did not have knowledge of a complex commission-generating scheme in which plaintiff was implicated and from which she profited. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court granting summary judgment to defendants. View "Gorman v. Verizon Wireless Texas, L.L.C., et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against federal officials and others after they were sexually assaulted while being transported from an immigration detention center. Plaintiffs claimed violations of their Fifth Amendment due process right to freedom from deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of serious harm, alleging that the officials knew of violations of a contractual provision requiring that transported detainees be escorted by at least one officer of the same gender, and that the officials understood the provision aimed to prevent sexual assault. On appeal, Defendants Robertson and Rosado, federal officials who worked as ICE Contracting Officer's Technical Representatives (COTRs), challenged the denial of their motion to dismiss based on qualified immunity. The court concluded that plaintiffs properly alleged that Robertson and Rosado had actual knowledge both of the violations of the Service Agreement provision and of that provision's assault-preventing objective. However, because the complaint did not plausibly allege the violation of a clearly established constitutional right, Robertson and Rosado were entitled to qualified immunity and the district court erred in denying their motion to dismiss. View "Doe, et al. v. Robertson, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against a Louisiana state court judge under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and 1985, alleging a deprivation of civil rights. The judge presided over a custody proceeding between plaintiff and his ex-wife. Plaintiff moved to recuse the judge based on his suspicion that the judge had a social relationship with his ex-wife. The motion was denied. Plaintiff later renewed the recusal motion and the judge issued an order recusing himself, citing his friendship with the ex-wife. Plaintiff then filed this suit seeking monetary damages. Plaintiff alleged that the judge and his ex-wife conspired to make false statements at the first recusal hearing. The court concluded that when the judge testified, he was testifying as a witness in an adversarial proceeding and thus was absolutely immune from section 1983 liability. The court also concluded that the section 1985 claim was inadequately pled because a violation under section 1985 required class-based, invidiously discriminatory animus behind the conspirator's action. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Moffett v. Bryant" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit for damages under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics against ten federal officers, in their individual capacities, based on their alleged roles in contributing to the death of ICE Special Agent Zapata and the serious injury of Agent Avila. The agents were ambushed and shot by drug cartel members in Mexico using weapons they allegedly obtained unlawfully in the United States. The court concluded that the district court did not explicitly rule on defendants' qualified immunity defense; the district court failed to make an initial determination that plaintiffs' allegations, if true, would defeat qualified immunity; and the district court did not identify any questions of fact it needed to resolve before it would be able to determine whether defendants were entitled to qualified immunity. Because the district court did not fulfill its duty under Backe v. LeBlanc, Wicks v. Miss. State Emp't Servs., Helton v. Clements, and Lion Boulos v. Wilson, the court had jurisdiction to review the district court's discovery order and vacated it. The court remanded with instructions for the district court to follow the procedures outlined in Backe, Wicks, Helton, and Lion Boulos. View "Zapata, et al. v. Melson, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against his former employer, Cleco, alleging race discrimination and retaliation claims under Title VII and 42 U.S.C. 1981. On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's grant of summary judgment to Cleco. Plaintiff claimed that he was issued a Disciplinary Warning in retaliation for his reporting of a coworker's racially hostile statements. Cleco asserted that the warning was issued because plaintiff sent a mass email disclosing that his coworker's son overdosed on pills. The court concluded the district court erred in granting summary judgment on plaintiff's retaliation claim based on the Disciplinary Warning where plaintiff had demonstrated that there was a genuine dispute of material fact that Cleco's stated reasons were pretextual. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment on plaintiff's retaliation claim arising from the Disciplinary Warning and remanded for further proceedings. The court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment on the remaining retaliation and discrimination claims. View "Willis v. Cleco Corp." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against an elementary school principal who did not allow him to distribute religious material to other adults at his son's in-class winter party. On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's dismissal of his constitutional claim based on qualified immunity. The court found that plaintiff failed to establish that a right to distribute religious gifts was clearly established for the purpose of qualified immunity analysis. Accordingly, plaintiff's allegations were not sufficient to overcome the principal's qualified immunity defense. The district court did not address the actual constitutionality of the principal's conduct and the court concluded that it need not reach the question. The court affirmed the district court's judgment. View "Morgan, et al. v. Plano Indep. Sch. Dist., et al." on Justia Law

In this nearly fifty-year-old desegregation case, the United States appealed the district court's order implementing a freedom of choice plan intended to desegregate the formerly de jure African-American middle school and high school in the Cleveland School District. At issue was the district court's adoption of a plan that abolished attendance zones and a majority-to-minority transfer program and implemented a freedom of choice plan that allowed each student in the district to choose to attend any junior high or high school. The court concluded that, given the available statistics that not a single white student chose to enroll at the schools after the district court's order, and that historically, over the course of multiple decades, no white student has ever chosen to enroll in the school, the district court's conclusion that a freedom of choice plan was the most appropriate desegregation remedy at those schools certainly needed to be expressed with sufficient particularity to enable the court to review it. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for a more explicit explanation of the reasons for adopting the freedom of choice plan, and/or consideration of the alternative desegregation plans proposed by the parties. View "Cowan v. Bolivar County Bd. of Educ." on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of her former employer, UTHSC, on her sexual harassment, discrimination, and retaliation claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e et seq. The court concluded that plaintiff failed to include a specific sex discrimination claim on her EEOC intake sheet and consequently did not exhaust her administrative remedies on that claim; plaintiff's subsequent claim regarding sex discrimination not based upon harassment fell outside the scope of the EEOC investigation and could not reasonably be expected to grow out of her initial charge of sexual harassment; the incidents described by plaintiff were insufficient to demonstrate pervasive hostility toward her as a matter of law, and therefore, the district court properly granted summary judgment for UTHSC on plaintiff's sexual harassment claim; and a jury could reasonably conclude that UTHSC's reasons for not renewing plaintiff's contract was pretextual. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Hague v. UT Health and Science Center" on Justia Law