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

The Eleventh Circuit held that sexual harassment—both hostile housing environment and quid pro quo sexual harassment—is actionable under the Fair Housing Act of 1968, provided the plaintiff demonstrates that she would not have been harassed but for her sex.In this case, plaintiff filed suit against the property manager and the property's owner, alleging sexual harassment claims under the Act and state law. The district court found no guidance from the court on this question and therefore dismissed the complaint based on the ground that plaintiff's claims were not actionable under the Act. The court vacated the district court's order dismissing plaintiff's complaint and remanded for reconsideration. View "Fox v. Gaines" on Justia Law

Spencer sued Sheriff Benison under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that Benison violated his Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights by ordering him to remove cones and vehicles that were preventing Spencer’s neighbor from completing construction that Spencer claimed encroached on his property. The district court found that Benison acted outside the scope of his discretionary authority and was not entitled to qualified immunity on Spencer’s individual capacity claims and that Spencer had presented adequate evidence of a constitutional violation to sustain his section 1983 claims against Benison in both his individual and official capacities.The Eleventh Circuit reversed. Benison was acting within the scope of his discretionary authority when he ordered Spencer to remove the cones and vehicles. It was a legitimate job-related function for Benison, an Alabama sheriff, to seek the removal of cones and vehicles for the purposes of achieving public safety, given that traffic was backing up and customers were unable to access a business. Benison properly carried out his duties by verbally commanding Spencer to remove the cones and vehicles and by threatening arrest should he fail to comply. Spencer failed to present adequate evidence of a constitutional violation; he did not demonstrate that Benison’s actions caused him to be deprived of a constitutionally-protected property interest. View "Spencer v. Benison" on Justia Law

Assuming without deciding that a general default judgment can be the basis of collateral estoppel under Florida law in an 11 U.S.C. 523(a)(2)(A) proceeding as to each of the claims asserted in a multi-count complaint, the Eleventh Circuit held that estoppel does not apply here. The court explained that each of the claims that could have satisfied the requirements of section 523(a)(2)(A) contained alternative factual allegations that did not do so. In such a scenario—one so far not addressed by Florida law—the court predicted that Florida courts would not afford preclusive effect to a general default judgment that does not specify its grounds.In this case, defendant's fraudulent misrepresentation claim cannot serve as the basis for collateral estoppel against debtor under section 523(a)(2)(A), because the default judgment as to this claim could have been based on a "should have known the falsity" theory, as opposed to an "actual knowledge of falsity" theory. Furthermore, because neither negligence nor constructive fraud suffices under section 523(a)(2)(A), the default judgment on the negligent misrepresentation claim does not have collateral estoppel effect under Florida law. Investment fraud under Fla. Stat. 517.301 also does not have collateral estoppel effect under section 523(a)(2)(A). Nor does the conspiracy to defraud claim. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "Harris v. Jayo" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed defendant's 60-month sentence for conspiracy to possess cocaine with intent to distribute and possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. Although the court agreed with defendant that the district court committed a Jones error, the court concluded that the record is sufficient to permit appellate review of the sentencing issue he raises.On the merits, the court acknowledged that there is daylight between the standards under USSG 2D1.1(b)(1) and USSG 5C1.2(a)(2), and that application of a firearm enhancement does not necessarily preclude safety-valve relief. However, the court affirmed the sentence because, on this record, the district court's factual findings under section 2D1.1(b)(1) foreclosed relief under section 5C1.2(a)(2). The court remanded for the sole purpose of correcting a clerical error. View "United States v. Sanchez Carrasquillo" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against Sixt on behalf of a putative class of Sixt customers, alleging that Sixt breached its own contract with him and violated two state consumer-protection statutes. In this case, plaintiff had used Orbitz.com to book a rental car from Sixt. When plaintiff picked up the rental car from Sixt, he signed an entirely separate agreement with Sixt which did not contain an arbitration provision.The Eleventh Circuit explained that a customer making an airline, hotel, or car-rental reservation on Orbitz.com agrees to a contract that includes an arbitration provision, and that provision requires the customer to arbitrate disputes related to, among other things, "any services or products provided." At issue is whether that phrase refers to services and products provided by Orbitz or by anyone.Reading the "any services or products provided" clause in the light of neighboring provisions and the larger contractual context—and applying a dose of common sense—the court concluded that it refers only to services and products provided by Orbitz. The court affirmed the district court's denial of Sixt's motion to compel arbitration because the underlying dispute does not relate to services or products provided by Orbitz. Rather, it relates only to those provided by Sixt, a company that does business through Orbitz. View "Calderon v. Sixt Rent a Car, LLC" on Justia Law

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, Pub. L. No. 116-136, 134 Stat. 281 (2020) (CARES Act), among other things, imposed a 120-day moratorium on evictions for rental properties receiving federal assistance. The CDC then issued a temporary eviction moratorium on September 4, 2020, that suspended the execution of eviction orders for nonpayment of rent. Before the CDC's order was originally set to expire on December 31, 2020, Congress enacted the Consolidated Appropriations Act, which extended the CDC's order through January 31, 2021. The CDC's order was then extended again through March 31, 2021, and again through June 30, 2021, and again through July 31, 2021.Plaintiffs, several landlords seeking to evict their tenants for nonpayment of rent and a trade association for owners and managers of rental housing, filed suit alleging that the CDC's orders exceeds its statutory and regulatory authority, is arbitrary and capricious, and violates their constitutional right to access the courts.The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction based on plaintiffs' failure to show an irreparable injury. The court declined to find that the CDC's order is unconstitutional, and failed to see how the temporary inability to reclaim rental properties constitutes an irreparable harm. Furthermore, the court explained that, without any information about a tenant’s financial or employment picture, the court has no way to evaluate whether she will ever be able to repay her landlord; to decide otherwise based solely on the CDC declaration would be to conclude that no one who signed the declaration is likely to repay their debts after the moratorium expires. Given the lack of evidence and the availability of substantial collection tools, the court could not conclude that the landlords have met their burden of showing that an irreparable injury is likely. View "Brown v. Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services" on Justia Law

After the district court entered a preliminary injunction requiring Fulton County Jail officials to provide regular out-of-cell time to female inmates with psychiatric disabilities and to improve the sanitary conditions in their cells, the officials appealed. The officials argue that the district court abused its discretion in granting plaintiffs' request for a preliminary injunction because neither the traditional requirements for a preliminary injunction nor the Prison Litigation Reform Act's (PLRA) additional need-narrowness-intrusiveness requirements were satisfied. The Eleventh Circuit concluded that the preliminary injunction expired by operation of law under the terms of the PLRA and thus dismissed the appeal as moot and vacated the preliminary injunction order. View "Georgia Advocacy Office v. Jackson" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit vacated its previous opinion and substituted it with this opinion. This revised opinion does not reach the Title IX question and reaches only one ground under the Equal Protection Clause instead of the three Equal Protection rulings the court made in the August 7 opinion.Plaintiff, a recent high school graduate and a transgender young man, filed suit against the school board through his next friend and mother, alleging violations of his rights under Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 and the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.The court affirmed the district court's entry of judgment in favor of plaintiff on the equal protection claim under the heightened intermediate scrutiny standard, concluding that the school district's policy barring plaintiff from the boys' restroom violates the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection, because the school district assigns students to sex-specific bathrooms in an arbitrary manner. In this case, the school board has not met its "demanding" constitutional burden by showing a substantial relationship between its policy for excluding transgender students from certain restrooms and student privacy. The court affirmed the district court's award of damages because plaintiff undoubtedly suffered harm as a result of this violation. Because plaintiff prevails on his equal protection claim, which fully entitles him to the relief granted by the district court, the court declined to reach his Title IX claim. View "Adams v. School Board of St. Johns County, Florida" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction and 15 year sentence for being a felon in possession of a firearm based on the district court's finding that he was a career criminal. The court concluded that defendant's prior drug convictions under Virginia Code 18.2-248 qualified as serious drug offenses under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA). The court also concluded that there was no clear error in crediting the testimonies of law enforcement officers and thus in denying defendant's motion to suppress. Finally, the court concluded that defendant's remaining claims of error are foreclosed by Supreme Court and Circuit precedent. View "United States v. Stancil" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against the hotel alleging a violation of 42 U.S.C. 1981, which prohibits racial discrimination in contracting. Plaintiff claimed that one of the hotel's employees falsely accused him of engaging in inappropriate behavior at the pool, that the employee did so because she harbored animus against Arabs, and that employee's accusation led to his eviction.The Eleventh Circuit vacated the district court's dismissal of the complaint, concluding that, at this preliminary stage, plaintiff's allegations plausibly allege a circumstantial case of racial discrimination. The court explained that plaintiff adequately alleged that he was treated differently from comparators who were similarly situated to him in all material respects. In this case, he and his fiancée were hotel guests, sat by the pool, and behaved entirely appropriately; other, non-Arab hotel guests sat by the pool and acted similarly; and the towel attendant singled out him and his fiancée, fabricated a story about them, and caused them to be evicted. Furthermore, plaintiff has sufficiently alleged that the towel attendant intended to cause him a contractual injury based on the attendant's racial animus. The court noted that a cat's-paw theory of liability under section 1981 is not inconsistent with the stricter causal standard. The court remanded for further proceedings. View "Ziyadat v. Diamondrock Hospitality Co." on Justia Law