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

Plaintiffs, employers at a terminal for a trucking company, brought claims of race discrimination, retaliation, and hostile work environment against defendant, their employer. At issue was whether the district court properly granted summary judgment in favor of defendants and dismissed each of plaintiff's claims. The court held that summary judgment was proper where the chief district judge's opinion granting summary judgment was thorough and well-reasoned, based on evidence that plaintiffs properly presented and where the district court had no duty to "comb the entire record" for evidence.

Defendants, a husband and wife, filed a suit in federal court alleging that the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi ("U.S. Attorney"), who prosecuted defendants for fraud, bribery, and tax evasion charges, violated 42 U.S.C. 1983 and statutes prohibiting government officials from releasing private tax records obtained in the course of their duties when he included defendants' federal tax records obtained during a criminal investigation in the complaint he filed with the Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance about the husband's conduct. At issue was whether prosecutorial immunity extended to a prosecutor's post-trial transfer of private federal tax records to a state ethics commission. The court held that the U.S. Attorney did not have prosecutorial immunity in this case where there was no case precedent extending immunity to post-trial conduct relating to a new action before a new tribunal and where the policies underlying prosecutorial immunity did not justify immunity in this context.