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

Plaintiffs appealed from the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the NYPD on plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment challenge to NYPD Interim Order 52 (IO-52). IO-52 requires the administration of a breathalyzer test to any officer whose discharge of his firearm within New York City resulted in death or injury to any person. The court concluded that the immediate objectives of IO-52 testing were personnel management of, and public confidence in, the NYPD; the identified objectives qualified as "special needs" for purposes of Fourth Amendment reasonableness review because they were distinct from normal law enforcement concerns and incompatible with the warrant and probable cause requirements for law enforcement searches; and the special needs greatly outweighed officers' reduced expectation of privacy with respect to alcohol testing at the time of any firearms discharge causing death or personal injury, thereby rendering warrantless, suspicionless IO-52 testing constitutionally reasonable as a matter of law. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's award of summary judgment to the NYPD on plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment challenge to IO-52. View "Lynch v. City of New York" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, acting as administratrix of her daughter's estate, filed a complaint against the County and others, seeking damages for the daughter's death. The parties subsequently negotiated a settlement. In this separate action, plaintiff and her attorney alleged that the County intentionally delayed approving the settlement in retaliation for their protected First Amendment activities. The court affirmed the judgment of the district court dismissing the complaint because plaintiffs had no right to have the settlement approved at all, much less by a certain date. View "Dorsett v. County of Nassau" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, on behalf of herself and her three children, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against defendants, alleging that the removal of the children from plaintiff's home without a court order violated their rights to due process of law and to freedom from unreasonable seizures. The court held that the state official who takes a child into custody without parental consent or court order was entitled to qualified immunity if there was an objectively reasonable basis to believe that there was an imminent threat of harm to the child. Based upon the evidence in the record - including the history of domestic violence between plaintiff and the children's father, the violation of the protective order, and the Superior Court's finding that the children were in immediate physical danger - defendants' decision to take the children into state custody was objectively reasonable. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants based upon qualified immunity. View "Doe v. Whelan" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, visual artists who sell their works on sidewalks and in public parks, filed suit against the City challenging the 2010 revisions to vending regulations. The court affirmed the district court's holding that the vending regulations were valid content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions subject to intermediate scrutiny where the City's interests - alleviating congestion and improving circulation, promoting the aesthetics of the parks, and ensuring that the parks were available to the public for a wide range of activities - were significant, and the regulations were narrowly tailored. The court also affirmed the district court's issue of a protective order in response to plaintiffs' request to depose Mayor Bloomberg and former Deputy Mayor Skyler. View "Lederman v. N.Y.C. Dep't of Parks & Recreation" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12181 et seq., alleging that his neighborhood diner violated the ADA by having a wheelchair inaccessible entrance and other barriers that made the diner wheelchair-inaccessible. The court concluded that plaintiff had standing to challenge the diner's inaccessible entrance even though he had never attempted to enter the diner; plaintiff alleged that the step deterred him from frequenting the diner; the diner had not indicated an intent to remedy this barrier; and plaintiff's testimony and proximity to the diner created a reasonable inference that he would frequent the diner were the violation remedied. Because plaintiff had standing to pursue injunctive relief as to the diner's entrance, he had standing to seek removal of all barriers inside the diner related to his disability that he would likely encounter were he able to access the diner. The court rejected defendants' claims that the district court incorrectly determined that constructing a permanent ramp was readily achievable where defendants failed to support their assertion. The court rejected defendants' remaining claims and affirmed the district court's grant of injunctive relief to plaintiff, as well as compensatory damages and attorneys' fees. View "Kreisler v. Second Avenue Diner Corp." on Justia Law

Press intervenors appealed the district court's decision denying them access to court proceedings and a sealed internal police document (Report) and continuing to redact parts of hearing transcripts. The court concluded that the district court erred by declining to order release of the full transcript of the contempt hearing, but that given the minimal relevance of portions of the Report that were not testified to at the contempt hearing to the substance of that proceeding, the Report did not become a judicial document to which the First Amendment right applied. Accordingly, the court affirmed as to the Report, reversed as to the hearing transcript; and remanded for further proceedings. View "Newsday v. County of Nassau" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, representative of the estate of her deceased son, filed suit against the City of New York, police officers, and others, alleging that they were liable for her son's death. A jury found in favor of defendants. The court held that, where a municipality acted in a governmental capacity, a plaintiff could not recover without proving that the municipality owed a "special duty" to the injured party. The plaintiff bears the burden of proving a special relationship, and where the plaintiff failed to meet this burden, the analysis ended and liability could not be imputed to the municipality that acted in a governmental capacity. The distinction between nonfeasance and misfeasance was irrelevant to the analysis and the existence of a special relationship was a question of law that could be properly submitted to the jury. In this instance, the court found no error entitling plaintiff to a new trial and affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Velez v. City of New York" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against New York state prison officials alleging that they substantially burdened his First Amendment right to free exercise of religion in violation of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. 2000cc-1, and that they infringed his due process and First Amendment rights in violation of 42 U.S.C. 1983. This appeal arose when defendants instigated a disciplinary proceeding against plaintiff, an inmate and a Muslim, after an interaction in which plaintiff gave Chaboty a Quran. The court concluded that plaintiff's RLUIPA claim must fail because RLUIPA did not authorize monetary damages against state officers in their official capacities, and did not create a private right of action against state officers in their individual capacities. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's RLUIPA claim. View "Washington v. Gonyea" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against the City of New York and police officers, asserting claims of constitutional torts involving arrest without probable cause and malicious prosecution. In regards to the timeliness of plaintiff's suit against the John Doe officers, the court concluded that plaintiff waived the arguments he raised on appeal by failing to raise them in the trial court. The court concluded that plaintiff's claims of municipal liability against the City should not have been dismissed by reason of Officer Symon's entitlement to qualified immunity and the untimeliness of plaintiff's suit against the Doe defendants. Accordingly, the court vacated the judgment in favor of the City and remanded those claims for further consideration. View "Askins v. City of New York et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 after her arrest and detention pursuant to a material witness warrant. On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's denial of her motion for reconsideration as to the individual defendants. Plaintiff argued that the district court erred in finding that detaining an individual for two days pursuant to a material witness warrant was a prosecutorial function entitled to absolute immunity. The court agreed and held that defendants were not entitled to absolute prosecutorial immunity with respect to plaintiff's allegation that she was unlawfully detained for investigative interrogation. In the absence of any discovery by plaintiff, the record was insufficiently developed at this stage. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for further proceedings. View "Simon v. City of New York, et al." on Justia Law