Justia U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

After his termination, plaintiff, a tenured university professor at Georgia Tech, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against Georgia Tech's President and others. On appeal, defendant challenged the district court's grant of defendants' motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6). The court concluded that plaintiff was afforded adequate procedural due process prior to revocation of his tenure and termination of his employment with Georgia Tech where the pre-termination procedures afforded plaintiff satisfied the established guidelines for minimum procedural due process. Plaintiff received prior, written notice of the charges against him, he presented argument and evidence on his own behalf, he had a right to appeal his termination to the Board of Regents, and he submitted a written appeal to the Board of Regents. The court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Laskar, Ph.D. v. Peterson, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against the School District, her former employer, for violations of the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), 29 U.S.C. 2601 et seq., and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq. The court held that the School District is not an "arm of the State," and instead operates more like a county or similar political subdivision to which Eleventh Amendment immunity does not extend. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's finding that the School District was entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity. In regards to plaintiff's ADA retaliation claim, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the School District where the district court did not abuse its discretion by declining to construe plaintiff's ADA retaliation claim as being based on different facts than the ones actually pled in her ADA count. Even when construed liberally, plaintiff's complaint did not give the School District notice that her ADA retaliation claim was based on her request for FMLA leave. View "Lightfoot v. Henry Cnty. Sch. Dist." on Justia Law

Jose Morabito, an Argentinian national, filed a charge of discrimination with the EEOC, alleging that RCCL violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12112, when RCCL refused to renew his employment contract after he was diagnosed with HIV and Kaposi Sarcoma, even though he had been declared fit for duty. In this appeal, the EEOC challenged the district court's denial of its application for enforcement of an administrative subpoena issued to RCCL. The court concluded that the disputed portions of the subpoena are aimed at discovering members of a potential class of employees or applicants who suffered from a pattern or practice of discrimination, rather than fleshing out Mr. Morabito's charge. Even if the information sought has some tenuous relevance to the charge filed by Mr. Morabito, the court found no error in the district court's holding that compliance with the subpoena would be unduly burdensome to RCCL. The district court's weighing of the burden to RCCL and the likely irrelevance of the information to Mr. Morabito's charge was not an abuse of discretion, especially in light of the jurisdictional issues raised by RCCL. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Royal Caribbean Cruises, LTD." on Justia Law

In consolidated appeals, the Jefferson County Board of Education and the Madison City Board of Education ask the court to recede from its opinion in Stewart v. Baldwin Cnty. Bd. of Educ., which held that school boards in Alabama are not arms of the state and therefore not entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity. The court declined to read Versiglio II in a way which violates the court's prior panel precedent rule and creates interpretive problems for panels in the future; although the court recognized the principle of state sovereign immunity law in Stewart, the court did not find it determinative, and held that Alabama school boards could not assert Eleventh Amendment immunity; the court's precedent does not provide a basis for it to conclude that Stewart has been abrogated; the court noted that the Alabama courts do not view state sovereign immunity and Eleventh Amendment immunity as one and the same; and the Alabama Supreme Court's Ex Parte Madison Cnty. Bd. of Educ. decision agrees with Stewart. The court concluded that both cases before it concern employment-related decisions and under Stewart, local school boards in Alabama are not arms of the state with respect to such decisions. Consequently, the Jefferson County Board of Education and the Madison City Board of Education are not immune under the Eleventh Amendment from suits challenging those decisions under federal law; the district court's dismissal of the complaint in Walker (Case Nos. 13-14182 and 13-14927) is reversed; and the district court's denial of the motion of dismiss in Weaver (Case No. 13-14624) is affirmed. View "Walker, et al. v. Jefferson Cnty. Bd. of Educ., et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. 2671-2680, against the United States, alleging that they experienced various health problems after being exposed to toxic substances in the drinking water while living at Camp Lejeune, a military base in North Carolina. The United States argued that the North Carolina statute of repose, N.C. Gen. Stat. 1-52(16), precluded plaintiffs from bringing the case. The district court disagreed and certified two questions for interlocutory appeal. The court held that the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), 42 U.S.C. 9568, does not preempt North Carolina's statute of repose. The court also held that North Carolina's statute of repose applies to plaintiffs' claims and does not contain an exception for latent diseases. Accordingly, the court remanded for further proceedings. View "Bryant, et al. v. United States" on Justia Law

After victims of a terrorist kidnapping in Colombia (plaintiffs) received a nine-figure default judgment against their captor (FARC), they attempted to collect through a series of ex parte garnishments and executions against third parties with purported illicit ties to the captor. Third-party claimants appealed the various orders granting plaintiffs' motions seeking to collect on their judgment using claimants' assets and denying the motions filed by claimants seeking relief. The court concluded that plaintiffs should have provided formal notice of the garnishment and execution proceedings to the owners of the property, as Florida law provides; the district court incorrectly concluded that no process was due to the owners of the property here; ultimately, claimants bear their share of the blame for either sitting on their rights to challenge the allegations against them or simply failing to rebut the changes; and, therefore, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court with the exception of the turnover judgment against Brunello Ltd.'s account. View "Stansell, et al. v. Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia, (FARC), et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a Florida resident, wanted to file suit against his doctor for medical negligence. Before filing suit, plaintiff had to comply with Florida's presuit requirements. At issue was whether the presuit authorizations in Fla. Stat. 766.1065, requiring that plaintiff execute a written authorization form for release from protected health information, is preempted by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), 45 C.F.R. 164.508, 164.5. The court concluded that the written authorization form required in section 766.1065 fully complied with HIPAA and, therefore, there was no federal preemption of section 766.1065. The court reversed the judgment of the district court holding otherwise. View "Murphy v. Dulay, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, individually and on behalf of their deaf son and his deaf sister, filed a disability discrimination suit against defendants after the son was hospitalized and was not offered or provided with a trained sign language interpreter. The district court dismissed the individual claims asserted by plaintiffs and the sister for lack of standing, and granted summary judgment to defendants on the claims that plaintiffs brought on the son's behalf for damages and injunctive relief. The court concluded that the district court properly dismissed the claims that defendants denied benefits to, or discriminated against plaintiffs or the sister, because of their association with the son, where plaintiffs and the sister lacked standing under the Rehabilitation Act (RA), 29 U.S.C. 701 et seq., and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq.; the district court properly concluded that the son lacked standing to seek injunctive relief where there is no immediate threat of future injury; and the son has not presented sufficient evidence to demonstrate a genuine issue of material fact about whether defendants acted with deliberate indifference. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "McCullum, et al. v. Orlando Regional Healthcare, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against defendant under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that defendant subjected her to an unreasonable seizure and for using excessive force in the course of the seizure in violation of her Fourth Amendment rights. Plaintiff's claims arose from an incident where she was asked to remove her suit jacket at a security checkpoint in a courthouse. The district court granted summary judgment to defendant. The court concluded that the district court erred in applying the substantive due process/shock the conscience test rather than the well-established objective reasonableness standard under the Fourth Amendment. Therefore, the court reversed on this claim. The court concluded that the district court properly entered summary judgment in favor of defendant on plaintiff's state law claim on the ground of official immunity under the Georgia Constitution and affirmed on this claim. The court remanded for further proceedings. View "West v. Davis" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed a judgment in favor of his former employer and against his complaint of racial discrimination and retaliation. At issue was whether the district court erred when it entered a judgment as a matter of law based on inconsistent jury verdicts. The court held that, to determine whether to grant a judgment as a matter of law, the district court should have considered only the sufficiency of the evidence in support of the verdict, not the consistency of that verdict with another. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for the district court to reinstate the jury verdict against the employer for retaliation. The court affirmed summary judgment against plaintiff's claim of discrimination against plaintiff's supervisor.View "Connelly v. Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Trans., et al." on Justia Law