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

The provision of a New York City licensing scheme (Rule 5-23), under which an individual with a "premises license" for a handgun may remove the handgun from the designated premises only for specified purposes, did not violate the Second Amendment, the Commerce Clause, the fundamental right to travel, or the First Amendment. The Second Circuit applied intermediate scrutiny and held that the burdens imposed by the Rule did not substantially affect the exercise of core Second Amendment rights, and the Rule contributed to an important state interest in public safety substantial enough to easily justify the insignificant and indirect costs it imposed on Second Amendment interests. The court also held that the Rule did not violate the dormant Commerce Clause by hindering interstate commerce; the right to travel interstate where nothing in the Rule prevented plaintiffs from engaging in intrastate or interstate travel; or the First Amendment where plaintiffs failed to demonstrate how the ability to join a specific gun club, or the ability to transport their licensed firearms to a shooting club outside of New York City, qualified as expressive association. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's denial of plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment and for a preliminary injunction. View "New York State Rifle & Pistol Assoc. v. City of New York" on Justia Law

Citizens United filed suit challenging the regulations promulgated by the Attorney General's office that required non-profit organizations to disclose their donors on a yearly basis. The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of all claims, except the due process claim, for failure to state a claim. The court found that the mere requirement on a tax‐exempt organization to disclose its donor list to a state's authority charged with regulating non‐profits did not impermissibly chill speech or assembly rights. Furthermore, it did not operate as a prior restraint on non‐profits' solicitation of donations. Finally, the court reversed the dismissal of the due process claim for lack of ripeness and remanded so that the claim could be dismissed with prejudice for failure to state a valid claim. View "Citizens United v. Schneiderman" on Justia Law

The public access TV channels in Manhattan are public forums and MCAC's employees were sufficiently alleged to be state actors taking action barred by the First Amendment to prevent dismissal of the claims against MCAC and its employees, but not against the City. In this case, the Second Circuit held that public access channels, authorized by Congress to be "the video equivalent of the speaker's soapbox" and operating under the municipal authority given to MNN in this case, are public forums, and, in the circumstances of this case, MNN and its employees are subject to First Amendment restrictions. In regard to municipal liability, the court held that the complaint did not allege actions by the City that suffice to make it liable for plaintiffs' federal claims. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal for failure to state a valid claim against the City, reversed as to MCAC and its employees, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Halleck v. Manhattan Community Access Corp." on Justia Law

The public access TV channels in Manhattan are public forums and MCAC's employees were sufficiently alleged to be state actors taking action barred by the First Amendment to prevent dismissal of the claims against MCAC and its employees, but not against the City. In this case, the Second Circuit held that public access channels, authorized by Congress to be "the video equivalent of the speaker's soapbox" and operating under the municipal authority given to MNN in this case, are public forums, and, in the circumstances of this case, MNN and its employees are subject to First Amendment restrictions. In regard to municipal liability, the court held that the complaint did not allege actions by the City that suffice to make it liable for plaintiffs' federal claims. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal for failure to state a valid claim against the City, reversed as to MCAC and its employees, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Halleck v. Manhattan Community Access Corp." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, employees of the Rensselaer County Jail, filed suit alleging violations of their right to privacy in health information under the Fourteenth Amendment and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), 18 U.S.C. 1030. The district court dismissed all CFAA claims and granted summary judgment to defendants on the Fourteenth Amendment claims. The Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the CFAA claims, because plaintiffs failed to plead damages. The court vacated the district court's grant of summary judgment on the right to privacy in medical records claims, holding that even individuals with non-stigmatizing medical conditions have a right to privacy in their medical records, even if their interest in privacy might be less. The court remanded for further proceedings. View "Hancock v. County of Rensselaer" on Justia Law

The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's complaint sua sponte on the ground of res judicata. Plaintiff filed the present case after the dismissal of his first case, alleging nearly identical claims with a single additional claim that defendants terminated his employment in retaliation for filing the first case. The court held that the termination claim could have been raised in the prior action and was, and that res judicata precluded plaintiff from asserting the claim in this subsequent action. In this case, the termination claim was reasonably related to the original administrative charge so the exhaustion requirement would not have foreclosed raising the claim added in the first case. Nonetheless, the court also held that the requirement to exhaust administrative remedies did not disturb the court's holding that the termination claim was barred by res judicata. View "Soules v. Connecticut" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against Stony Brook under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e et seq., alleging discrimination and retaliation when he was terminated from his employment as an electrician. The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment on the issue of whether plaintiff was an employee of Stony Brook. The court held, according to precedent, that a trial court did not commit error by submitting the question of whether plaintiff was defendant's employee to the jury, whether by general verdict or by special question. The court rejected plaintiff's contention that the district court erred when it instructed the jury to use the factors in Cmty. for Creative Non‐Violence v. Reid, 490 U.S. 730, 751–52 (1989), to determine whether plaintiff was a Stony Brook employee. The court held that the evidence presented disputed issues of fact regarding several of the Reid factors, and the balancing of those factors and others that pointed both in favor of and against employee status also presented a disputed issue requiring resolution by the fact‐finder. The court rejected plaintiff's remaining arguments. View "Knight v. State Univ. of N.Y. at Stony Brook" on Justia Law

The Second Circuit reversed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's third amended complaint against the Department and others. Plaintiff alleged that he was subjected to discrimination and retaliation after he filed complaints against the Department with OSHA. The court held that the district court erred in holding that administrative exhaustion must be pleaded in the complaint. Rather, administrative exhaustion under Title VII was an affirmative defense. Accordingly, the court remanded for further proceedings. View "Hardaway v. Hartford Public Works Department" on Justia Law

WD filed suit against OGS, alleging that defendants violated its rights under the First Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause, and the New York State Constitution by denying WD's applications to participate as a food truck vendor in the Lunch Program based on its ethnic-slur branding. The Second Circuit reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment for defendant, holding that defendants' action violated WD's equal protection rights and its rights under the New York State Constitution. In this case, it was undisputed that defendants denied WD's applications solely because of its ethnic-slur branding. In Matal v. Tam, 137 S. Ct. 1744 (2017), the Supreme Court clarified that this action amounted to viewpoint discrimination and, if not government speech or otherwise protected, was prohibited by the First Amendment. The court rejected defendants' argument that their actions were unobjectionable because they were either part of OGS's government speech or permissible regulation of a government contractor's speech. View "Wandering Dago, Inc. v. Destito" on Justia Law

After receiving the answer to two certified questions from the Nevada Supreme Court, the Second Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's defamation suit. The Nevada Supreme Court held that a hyperlink to source material about a judicial proceeding may suffice as a report within the common law fair report privilege, and that the online petition, as it existed when plaintiff's complaint was filed, fell within the purview of Nevada's fair report privilege. The state court also held that, pursuant to Delucchi v. Songer, 396 P.3d 826 (Nev. 2017), Nevada's anti-SLAPP statute covers communication that is aimed at procuring any governmental or electoral action, result or outcome which is truthful or is made without knowledge of its falsehood, even if that communication was not addressed to a government agency. In this case, plaintiff failed to allege knowledge of falsity, much less facts to support such a conclusion. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's denial of plaintiff's request for additional discovery and the district court's application of the anti‐SLAPP statute to this case. View "Adelson v. Harris" on Justia Law