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

The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiffs' claims alleging violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Rehabilitation Act, and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1983. The district court determined that the claims were barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, collateral estoppel, the statute of limitations, qualified immunity, and lack of standing. The district court also dismissed some claims for failure to state a claim.The court concluded that, under both federal and Connecticut law, the issue at the core of the parties' dispute is whether DCF reasonably accommodated plaintiffs' actual or perceived disabilities in providing services and programs to assist their reunification with their children. The court explained that the issue was actually litigated and necessarily determined by Connecticut courts. Therefore, the district court correctly granted DCF's motion to dismiss on collateral estoppel grounds. The court did not reach the merits of the parties' arguments regarding the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, Connecticut's statute of limitations, or plaintiffs' standing to seek prospective injunctive relief. View "Watley v. Department of Children and Families" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against the City of New York, the New York City Police Department, and various officers and officials, after confrontations with the officers during Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in 2012. Plaintiff alleged that the City violated the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) in failing to reasonably accommodate her epilepsy by timely administering medication during her pre-arraignment detention following her arrest, and that Sergeants Giovanni Mattera and Thomas McManus committed assault and battery under New York law when, during separate demonstrations, each officer used force against plaintiff.The Second Circuit concluded that the district court properly granted summary judgment on the ADA claim because there was no evidence demonstrating the City delayed administering medication "by reason of" plaintiff's disability, as required under the statute. In regard to the state law assault and battery claims, the court held that the district court correctly determined, contrary to plaintiff's contention, that a justification instruction was warranted on those claims because New York law permits a police officer, even in a non-arrest situation, to use an objectively reasonable degree of force in the performance of a public duty, including crowd control. However, the court concluded that the district court, in providing that justification charge, erroneously instructed the jury that it could consider an officer's subjective intent, which is contrary to New York's objective reasonableness inquiry. Furthermore, although the error was prejudicial as it relates to the assault and battery claims involving Sergeant Mattera and warrants a new trial, the error was harmless as to the claims against Sergeant McManus given that his subjective good faith was never raised, or even at issue, during the trial. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Tardif v. City of New York" on Justia Law

Article III is satisfied so long as a party with standing to prosecute the specific claim in question exists at the time the pleading is filed. If that party (the real party in interest) is not named in the complaint, then it must ratify, join, or be substituted into the action within a reasonable time. Only if the real party in interest either fails to materialize or lacks standing itself should the case be dismissed for want of subject-matter jurisdiction.Two Cayman Islands investment funds filed a class action in 2016, alleging that numerous banks had conspired to manipulate certain benchmark interest rates. A year later, the banks discovered that the two plaintiff funds had been dissolved years earlier, and that the case was actually being prosecuted by a separate entity, Fund Liquidation. Fund Liquidation maintains that it was assigned the dissolved entities' claims, but the district court dismissed the case with prejudice.The Second Circuit vacated, concluding that although the dissolved funds lacked standing at the time the case was commenced, Article III was nonetheless satisfied because Fund Liquidation, the real party in interest, has had standing at all relevant times and may step into the dissolved entities' shoes without initiating a new action from scratch. The court explained that its precedent and Article III does not require application of the nullity doctrine. Accordingly, the court remanded for further proceedings. View "Fund Liquidation Holdings LLC v. Bank of America Corp." on Justia Law

A court need not wait until it is defrauded before it may impose monetary sanctions on a party who knowingly prosecutes a frivolous claim in bad faith. That remains true even if the misbehaving litigant made only a single misrepresentation to the court.In this contract dispute, plaintiff appealed the district court's dismissal of its breach of contract claim and denial of its request for leave to file a fourth amended complaint. Defendant cross-appealed the denial of the district court's motion for sanctions related to plaintiff's misrepresentations to the district court during the litigation.The Second Circuit vacated the district court's order denying sanctions and remanding for further proceedings. The court concluded that the district court misconstrued the court's precedent regarding the court's inherent power to impose sanctions – which makes clear that even a single bad-faith filing may warrant monetary sanctions, regardless of whether that conduct actually misled the court. The court affirmed in all other respects in a separately filed summary order. View "International Technologies Marketing, Inc. v. Verint Systems, Ltd." on Justia Law

The Second Circuit affirmed defendant's 20-year sentence imposed after he pleaded guilty to participating in the affairs of a criminal enterprise, specifically, the "MS-13" street gang, through a pattern of racketeering consisting of, among other crimes, murder and a separate count of discharging a firearm during a crime of violence. Defendant relied on Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. 591 (2015); United States v. Davis, 139 S. Ct. 2319 (2019); and United States v. Barrett, 937 F.3d 126 (2d Cir. 2019), arguing for the first time on appeal that neither of the charged racketeering offenses are violent crimes and that his firearm conviction is therefore legally invalid.The court concluded that defendant failed to show plain error because Davis's effect on the court's decision in United States v. Ivezaj, 568 F.3d 88 (2d Cir. 2009), which held that a RICO offense based on two violent racketeering predicates is a violent crime for the purposes of 18 U.S.C. 924(c), is unclear. The court also concluded that defendant's sentence was not substantively unreasonable where the district court specifically considered defendant's effort to cooperate with the authorities and his personal characteristics. Furthermore, the sentence that was imposed was hardly excessive for such a crime, and was in line with defense counsel's request. View "United States v. Martinez" on Justia Law

The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's complaint against the New York Times. Plaintiff alleged defamation based on the Times's print and online articles about gender bias, favoritism, and groping at the Justice Department. The article details a Times investigation into a series of complaints, using records derived from an EEOC complaint and a sex discrimination and retaliation suit. One of the declarations described an incident between plaintiff and an intern. Plaintiff alleged that the language from this declaration was false and defamatory per se and that the fair report privilege did not apply.The court concluded that the district court performed the proper choice-of-law analysis, applying New York law to the conflict; correctly reasoned that New York was the state with the most significant interests in the litigation and applied New York's fair report privilege; and then properly dismissed plaintiff's complaint as barred by the fair report privilege because the alleged defamatory statement was attributed to an official proceeding. View "Kinsey v. New York Times Co." on Justia Law

The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's order affirming the bankruptcy court's denial of debtor's request to discharge her educational loans pursuant to 11 U.S.C. 523(a)(8). On appeal, debtor argues that she was deprived of due process because the bankruptcy court accepted the joint pretrial memorandum as agreed to and approved by all parties on July 31, 2018 and ultimately adopted it as the bankruptcy court's Pretrial Order, while declining to adopt other versions of the pretrial memorandum submitted unilaterally by debtor in the interim.The court held that the bankruptcy court did not abuse its discretion in basing its Pretrial Order on the joint pretrial memorandum edited by both parties; it was not an abuse of discretion to disallow debtor from unilaterally modifying that joint pretrial memorandum, as the interests of justice in this case did not so require; and debtor failed to make the factual showing to establish "undue hardship" under Brunner v. N.Y. State Higher Educ. Servs. Corp., 831 F.2d 395, 396 (2d Cir. 1987), in order to discharge her educational loans. View "Tingling v. Educational Credit Management Corp." on Justia Law

Plaintiff and Church United filed suit against Vimeo, alleging that the company discriminated against them by deleting Church United’s account from its online video hosting platform. Plaintiffs claimed that Vimeo discriminated against them based on sexual orientation and religion under federal and state law. The district court concluded that Vimeo deleted Church United's account because of its violation of one of Vimeo's content policies barring the promotion of sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE) on its platform.The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiffs' claims, agreeing with the district court that Section 230(c)(2) of the Communications Decency Act provides Vimeo with immunity from suit. The court concluded that, under Section 230(c)(2), Vimeo is free to restrict access to material that, in good faith, it finds objectionable. In this case, plaintiffs' conclusory allegations of bad faith do not survive the pleadings stage, especially when examined in the context of Section 230(c)(2). The court explained that Section 230(c)(2) does not require interactive service providers to use a particular method of content restriction, nor does it mandate perfect enforcement of a platform's content policies. Indeed, the fundamental purpose of Section 230(c)(2) is to provide platforms like Vimeo with the discretion to identify and remove what they consider objectionable content from their platforms without incurring liability for each decision. View "Domen v. Vimeo, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs Cho and Ulug, individual named plaintiffs in a putative securities class action, appeal the district court's grant of judgment on the pleadings and dismissal of their claims against defendants. Plaintiffs argue that they should be permitted to rely on the successful appeal by the lead plaintiffs in this case, and that the district court erred in granting judgment on the pleadings and dismissing their claims.The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment and concluded that Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure Rule 3 requires that individual named plaintiffs in a class actions – who, unlike absent class members, have chosen to litigate their claims personally – indicate individually their intent to appeal; Cho and Ulug's failure to appeal the district court's first dismissal of their claims rendered that decision final as to them, and the district court properly dismissed their attempt to renew their claims after the lead plaintiffs successfully appealed; Cho and Ulug's claims against the newly added defendant are barred by res judicata; and the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying reconsideration. View "Cho v. BlackBerry Ltd." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a prisoner serving a life sentence in Connecticut's Northern Correctional Institute, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that the conditions of his confinement violate his rights under Article I, Section 10 (the Bill of Attainder Clause) of the Constitution, as well as the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution. On appeal, current and former Connecticut Department of Correction officials appeal the district court's judgment and permanent injunction principally granting plaintiff's motion for summary judgment and denying defendants' motion for summary judgment.The Second Circuit held that the district court erred by deciding disputed issues of material fact in granting summary judgment in favor of plaintiff on his claims under the Eighth Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; the district court correctly concluded that, with respect to plaintiff, Conn. Gen. Stat. 18-10b is an unconstitutional bill of attainder; and plaintiff's unreviewable classification score of Risk Level 5 violates his rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because the difference in his treatment compared to that of other similarly-situated inmates lacks a rational basis. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded. View "Reynolds v. Quiros" on Justia Law