Justia U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs, parents of minor child A.R., filed suit against a real estate agency and its agent for disability discrimination under the Fair Housing Act (FHA), 42 U.S.C. 3601 et seq. Plaintiffs alleged that defendants made housing unavailable on the basis of disability; provided different terms, conditions, and privileges of rental housing on the basis of disability; expressed a preference on the basis of disability; and misrepresented the availability of rental housing on the basis of disability. The district court granted summary judgment to defendants. The court held, however, that the district court erred because there was sufficient evidence presented that A.R. qualifies as disabled under the FHA; the FHA’s prohibition against statements that “indicate[ ] any preference, limitation, or discrimination based on . . . handicap,” pursuant to section 3604(c), may be violated even if the subject of those statements does not qualify as disabled under the FHA; and the “ordinary listener” standard is not applicable to claims under section 3604(d) for misrepresenting the availability of housing. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded. View "Rodriguez v. Village Green Realty, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against the Sheriff's Department and others, alleging that he was severely beaten by deputy sheriffs while being detained in a holding cell. The district court granted summary judgment to defendants based on failure to exhaust administrative remedies. The court vacated the district court's judgment, remanding for further proceedings because failure to exhaust under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 42 U.S.C. 1997e(a), is an affirmative defense, and because the evidence adduced by defendants - principally in the form of a conclusory affidavit - does not suffice to establish the defense as a matter of law. The court need not consider plaintiff's remaining arguments. View "Hubbs v. Suffolk Cnty. Sheriff's Dept." on Justia Law

CFF, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting adoption, filed suit against the DMV after the DMV rejected CFF's application for a "Choose Life" custom license plate. The district court concluded that DMV violated CFF's First Amendment rights and, in the alternative, that the entire license plate program was unconstitutional on its face because it afforded the DMV Commissioner unbridled discretion over which custom plates to approve. The court concluded, however, that the content of New York’s custom license plates constitutes private speech and that the plates themselves are a nonpublic forum; CFF’s facial challenge fails because New York’s custom plate program did not impermissibly vest the DMV Commissioner with unbridled discretion in approving custom plate designs; and that program, as applied in this case, was reasonable and viewpoint neutral, which is all that the First Amendment requires of restrictions on expression in a nonpublic forum. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "Rex v. Martinez" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a Polish man of Jewish descent, filed suit against his employer, Mangia, and other individuals, alleging discrimination on the basis of religion and national origin, retaliation, conspiracy, wrongful termination, and violation of various New York State and City laws. A jury found Mangia liable and awarded nominal damages of $1 and punitive damages in the amount of $900,000. After the verdict, plaintiff applied for an award of attorneys' fees and costs and Mangia moved for remittitur of the punitive damages award. The district court vacated the jury's liability verdict, conditionally granted Mangia's motion for a new trial on the issue of punitive damages, and denied plaintiff's application for fees and costs. The court reversed the district court's ruling insofar as it vacates the liability verdict and award of nominal damages in the amount of $1 where, inter alia, the district court's rejection of the jury's conclusion that plaintiff was subject to a hostile work environment was essentially grounded in the type of evidence weighing and credibility determinations that are not permitted by Rule 50(b). The court affirmed the district court's ruling to the extent it vacated the award of punitive damages where no reasonable jury could conclude that Mangia's conduct was driven by an evil motive or intent, or that it involved a reckless or callous indifference to plaintiff's federally protected rights. The court remanded to the district court to determine what fees and costs, if any, plaintiff may recover given the highly unusual facts of this case. View "Wiercinski v. Mangia 57, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a software engineer, filed suit under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12112, and the New York State Human Rights Law, N.Y. Exec. Law 296, against his employer for disability discrimination, alleging that the employer did not accommodate his deafness by arranging that all video files stored on its corporate intranet be captioned when posted and that all audio files be posted with transcripts. The court concluded that the employer provided plaintiff with reasonable accommodations by providing an American Sign Language interpreter. There is no evidence that the interpreters the employer provided were unqualified or that the use of interpreters was somehow inconsistent with plaintiff’s position as a software engineer. Plaintiff's objection - that he had to look back and forth between an interpreter and his screen - did not, without more, make that accommodation unreasonable. The court held that the ADA imposes no liability for an employer’s failure to explore alternative accommodations when the accommodations provided to the employee were plainly reasonable. In this case, because the employer provided reasonable accommodation to plaintiff, any failure to engage in an interactive process - even if supported by the record - did not give rise to a discrimination claim. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the employer. View "Noll v. Int'l Bus. Mach. Corp." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against FBI agents alleging that they violated Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 18 U.S.C. 2510‐2522, when they listened to her private calls with her husband. The agents had an authorized wiretap on the telephone of plaintiff's husband as part of an investigation into a conspiracy to commit securities fraud. The calls were intercepted during the authorized wiretap. The district court denied defendants' motion to dismiss. The court reversed and remanded, holding that the complaint does not plausibly state a claim because it recites only legal conclusions. The court also concluded that the district court, in its qualified immunity analysis, should have assessed the reasonableness of the agents' minimization efforts as they relate to each defendant. View "Drimal v. Makol" on Justia Law

Plaintiff was convicted of rape and murder in 1986 and later acquitted of those charges in 2005. Plaintiff filed suit for, inter alia, due process violations and malicious prosecution under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against the County and NCPD. Plaintiff's claims were tried jointly with two other individuals whose convictions for the rape and murder of the same victim had also been vacated. The jury found in favor of defendants and plaintiff appealed. The district court denied plaintiff's motion for a separate trial on the ground that the statements attributed to the other two plaintiffs were admissible not on the issue of whether the detectives had probable cause to prosecute plaintiff but rather on the lack-of-malice element of plaintiff's malicious prosecution claim. Therefore, the district court's ruling that corroborating statements were made relevant to the malice element of plaintiff's malicious prosecution claim was not error. There was no abuse of discretion in the district court's conclusion that the introduction of statements that were relevant on the issue of malice, and most of which did not explicitly or implicitly mention plaintiff, did not unfairly prejudice him. The court rejected plaintiff's remaining contentions and affirmed the judgment. View "Kogut v. County of Nassau" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs challenged, on statutory and constitutional grounds, the telephone metadata program under which the NSA collects in bulk "on an ongoing daily basis" the metadata associated with telephone calls made by and to Americans. The NSA aggregates those metadata into a repository or data bank that can later be queried. The district court granted defendants' motion to dismiss and denied plaintiffs' request for a preliminary injunction. The court concluded that the plaintiffs have standing to sue; the court disagreed with the district court insofar as it held that plaintiffs are precluded from bringing suit against the government and hold that they have a right of action under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 702; on the merits, the court concluded that § 215 of the PATRIOT Act, Pub. L. No. 107-56, section 215, does not authorize the telephone metadata collection program; the court did not address the constitutionality of the program; and the court declined to conclude that a preliminary injunction is required, leaving it to the district court to reconsider, in the first instance, the propriety of preliminary relief in light of a correct understanding of the governing law. Therefore, the district court erred in ruling that section 215 authorizes the telephone metadata collection program. The telephone metadata program exceeds the scope of what Congress has authorized and therefore violates § 215. The court vacated and remanded for further proceedings. View "ACLU v. Clapper" on Justia Law

A 1999 suit alleged that plaintiffs had been arrested on misdemeanor charges and were strip searched, without individualized suspicion, in violation of their federal and state constitutional rights. Nassau County conceded liability. The Second Circuit instructed the court to certify a class as to liability and to consider whether to certify a class as to damages. The district court certified both classes, granted summary judgment on liability, and held a bench trial on damages. In 2012, before the district court entered judgment, Nassau County moved to vacate the summary judgment and to dismiss the action based on the Supreme Court’s 2012 decision Florence v. Bd. of Chosen Freeholders, that “every detainee who will be admitted to the general population [of a jail] may be required to undergo a close visual inspection while undressed. The court granted the motion as to the federal claim, but determined that Florence did not warrant vacatur of the concession of liability with respect to the state claim, and awarded $11.5 million. While appeal was pending, Nassau County moved to stay enforcement pending appeal. The district court ruled that the obligation to deposit the funds with the court would be stayed for 180 days, or indefinitely, if Nassau County posted a bond. The Second Circuit stayed the requirement of deposit or bond. View "In re: Nassau Cnty Strip Search Cases" on Justia Law

Cox was convicted in 2001 on narcotics and firearms charges and was sentenced to 540 months’ imprisonment. On appeal, Cox’s conviction and sentence were affirmed. In 2004, he sought a new trial, arguing that the government knowingly allowed witnesses to testify falsely to his transactions in guns of a type that had not yet been manufactured. The district court denied the motion. Later in 2004, Cox unsuccessfully moved, under 28 U.S.C. 2255 to set aside the convictions. The district court later vacated the firearms convictions and resentenced Cox on the narcotics convictions. Cox appealed. The Second Circuit affirmed. In 2011, Cox filed another section 2255 motion, seeking to overturn the narcotics convictions, claiming ineffective assistance of counsel in their failure to detect and protest the failure to disclose exculpatory evidence. The district court denied the motion, finding the claims time-barred because they “relate[d] only to the original sentencing,” and procedurally barred as first raised on collateral review; Cox had not demonstrated cause and actual prejudice or actual innocence to excuse his failure to raise them previously. The Second Circuit denied certificates of appealability. On some claims, Cox failed to make a substantial showing of denial of a constitutional right; others are procedurally barred. View "Cox v. United States" on Justia Law