The high-profile police-shooting case of Edwards v. City of Balch Springs ended with an affirmance of dismissal on qualified-immunity grounds. Among other holdings, the opinion succinctly captures the challenge in scrutinizing official use-of-force policies in this setting: “[A] written policy … Continue reading
In a case about a school district’s liabilty for a student’s assault of another student, the Fifth Circuit declined to recognize a “state-created danger” exception to district officials’ immunity. The Court summarized: The Due Process Clause of the … Continue reading
The recent Crane v. City of Arlington opinion declined to dismiss a traffic-stop case on qualified immunity grounds, noting significant factual dispute about how the situation escalated into a tragic shooting. No. 21-10644 (revised Oct. 4, 2022). The Dallas Morning … Continue reading
Strong feelings were voiced about the Fifth Circuit’s panel opinion in Ramirez v. Guardarrama, 844 F. App’x 710 (5th Cir. 2021) (per curiam). The vote against en banc review was 13-4, with several opinions: Judge Jolly, who had been on … Continue reading
“Hard cases make bad law,” says the old adage; whether that holds true for Taylor v. Riojas, will remain to be seen. The Supreme Court reversed a qualified-immunity ruling in a case involving what it saw as “shockingly unsanitary” prison … Continue reading
A vocational school (RRCC) sought to recover damages from the federal government’s civil forfeiture of $4 million from it, arguing that the seizure without notice put it out of business. the Fifth Circuit found the school’s claims barred by sovereign … Continue reading
Ironshore, an excess insurance carrier, alleged that the Schiff Hardin law firm made negligent misrepresentations to it while reporting on litigation involving Dorel – the firm’s client and Ironshore’s insured. The Fifth Circuit made “an Erie guess that the Supreme … Continue reading
Litigation continues on the Texas tollroads, most recently producing a defamation lawsuit in BancPass v. Highway Toll Administration LLC, arising from letters sent by a company’s competitors to Google and Apple. The defendant unsuccessfully argued that the letters were immune from … Continue reading
Continuing a theme in cases involving attorney liability (most notably the recent Stanford-related opinion in Troice v. Proskauer Rose, 816 F.3d 341 (5th Cir. 2015)), the Fifth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the law firm involved in a disputed foreclosure: “Under … Continue reading
In Ortega v. Young Again Products, the plaintiff sued a judgment creditor and its counsel, claiming that they took assets that belonged to him rather than the judgment debtor. No. 12-20592 (Nov. 27, 2013, unpublished). The Fifth Circuit recognized that Texas … Continue reading
The Court affirmed almost all of a series of immunity rulings by the district court in the consolidated litigation against the Corps of Engineers arising from Hurricane Katrina. In re Katrina Canal Breaches Litigation (March 2, 2012). While most of the … Continue reading
Phillips v. ERCOT addresses a dispute between ERCOT and the liquidating trust of Entrust Energy, a supplier of electriciity to end users, who went into bankruptcy after receiving a large bill in the wake of Winter Storm Uri. In resolving … Continue reading
February 2024 has been a busy month for en banc votes. The recent vote by the full court about a stay in U.S. v. Abbott, as well as votes to deny en banc review of Baker (a takings case about … Continue reading
By a 9-7 margin, the full Fifth Circuit held that qualified immunity barred the wrongful-arrest claims of a Laredo “citizen-journalist.” Villarreal v. City of Laredo, No. 20-40359 (Jan. 23, 2024). The breakdown of votes appears below:
Whatever your views of the remarkable civil-rights issue presented by Wilson v. Midland County (the intersection between some highly technical immunity rules and the bizarre injustice of a county employee working simultaneously for the prosecution and the courts), one can … Continue reading
The Chitimacha Indian tribe owns a casino. The casino’s former CFO sued the tribe for allegedly violating his civil rights by reporting him to law enforcement. He sued in state court, the defendants removed, and the district judge both denied … Continue reading
For those who had doubts about the matter, Foley Bey v. Prator confirms that the search of a fez is protected by qualified immunity if conducted as part of courthouse security, notwithstanding the plaintiffs’ appeal to the U.S.-Morocco Friendship Treaty of … Continue reading
The Fifth Circuit granted mandamus relief as to an effort to subpoena Texas AG Ken Paxton for a deposition in a case about potentially overzealous enforcement of now-constitutional antiabortion laws. The panel majority concluded: (1) that the district court lacked … Continue reading
A surprising amount of case law addresses not whether a particular legal conclusion is correct, but whether it is “correct enough”–qualified immunity, for example, as well as mandamus cases about whether a “clear error” occurred in applying the law. Another … Continue reading
The plaintiffs in Lee v. Andrew Lawrence Collection LLC sought to register the trademark “THEEILOVE” – a phrase associated with the alma mater of Jackson State University. Then they sued that university’s licensing agent and some licensees. The defendants successfully … Continue reading
Preble-Rich, a Haitian company, had a contract with a Haitian government agency to deliver fuel. A payment dispute developed and Preble-Rich started an arbitration in New York, pursuant to a broad clause in the parties’ contract (“In the event of … Continue reading
While Solis v. Serrett deftly summarizes the Baroque case law about qualified immunity and use of force, it will be remembered for its constructive use of hyperlinks — links to the relevant video footage about the incidents in question. Particularly … Continue reading
Walmart sued the U.S. government, seeking declaratory judgments on several issues about the enforcement of laws related to opioids. In the meantime, the the US brought an enforcement action against Walmart in Delaware. The panel in Walmart, Inc. v. U.S. … Continue reading
The Fifth Circuit recently released its opinion on the emergency-stay motions of early September in the high-profile challenge to Texas’s “heartbeat law,” Whole Womens Health v. Jackson, No. 21-50792 (Sept. 10, 2021). In addition to identifying problems with the application … Continue reading
The plaintiffs in Quadvest LP v. San Jacinto River Auth. alleged that a state-created river authority violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act by unreasonably restraining the market for wholesale raw water in Montgomery County. Procedurally, the Fifth Circuit concluded … Continue reading
The full Fifth Circuit declined to grant en banc review to State of Texas v. Rettig, 987 F.3d 518 (5th Cir. 2021), which involved constitutional challenges by certain states to two aspects of the Affordable Care Act. They contended that the … Continue reading
Recent orders set these matters for en banc reconsideration: US v. Dubin, in which the panel held: “An issue of first impression for our court is whether David Dubin’s fraudulently billing Medicaid for services not rendered constitutes an illegal ‘use’ … Continue reading
In Williams v. Reeves, 953 F.3d 729 (5th Cir. 2020), “[t]he plaintiffs in this lawsuit are low-income African-American women whose children attend public schools in Mississippi. They filed suit against multiple state officials in 2017, alleging that the current version … Continue reading
The Fifth Circuit found that the Ex Parte Young exception to Eleventh-Amendment immunity (Mr. Young appears to the right) did not apply to the Texas Attorney General’s potential enforcement of a statute that was in conflict with a City of … Continue reading
In the 1200s, Henry III was protected from suit by sovereign immunity, as chronicled by the prolific Bracton; In the 1780s, “Brutus,” the Anti-Federalist, debated with Alexander Hamilton about whether the Constitution would undermine sovereign immunity by allowing debilitating federal-court lawsuits against … Continue reading
Cleveland v. Bell was a wrongful death claim, asserted under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which turned on the allegation that a prison nurse was indifferent to the decedent’s calls for help. The trial court denied qualified immunity to the nurse … Continue reading
Sometimes, simply stating the issue gives a strong indication as to the answer. Such was the case in McGlothlin v. State Farm, which examined whether two Mississippi statutes were “repugnant” to one another (synonyms for “repugnant,” according to one online … Continue reading
Texas’s robust attorney-immunity doctrine defeated claims about the Allen Stanford scheme in Troice v. Greenberg Traurig LLP., No. 17-11464 (April 17, 2019). The Fifth Circuit declined to certify the state-law issue, citing “the substantial treatment of the issues by the … Continue reading
Veritext, a national court reporting service, challenged restrictions on its pricing practices (volume discounts, etc.) imposed by the Louisiana Board of Examiners of Certified Shorthand Reporters. The Fifth Circuit rejected Veritext’s constitutional claims but found that it had stated a viable … Continue reading
In Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter remarked: “If I had a world of my own . . . Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And … Continue reading
The Fifth Circuit recently denied en banc rehearing in the high-profile qualified immunity case of Jauch v. Choctaw County, where the panel denied immunity to a sheriff who had been sued over a lengthy period of pretrial detention. From one perspective, a chart of … Continue reading
Melton v. Phillips, No. 15-10604 (Nov. 13, 2017), a difficult qualified immunity case that required en banc review to resolve, features a concurrence with the unusual verb “cross-pollinated” to describe a confluence of two lines of authority. That perspective on the … Continue reading
While it does not do so every day, or for that matter even every year, Fifth Circuit opinions draw powerful boundary lines around government activity. One recent example is St. Joseph Abbey v. Castille, 712 F.3d 215 (5th Cir. 2013), about … Continue reading
Plaintiffs alleged that a terrible crime would have been averted with a faster response to a 9-1-1 call. The Fifth Circuit, applying City of Dallas v. Sanchez, 494 S.W.3d 722 (Tex. 2016), found a lack of proximate cause (and thus, immunity … Continue reading
Attorney Martinez sued another law firm (“HLG”) for various torts related to the firm contacting his clients about alleged overbilling. The firm asserted absolute immiunity as a defense and the Fifth Circuit agreed, in a fact-specific holding, that the evidence … Continue reading
Defendants moved for summary judgment, on the ground of qualified immunity, in a case arising from a fatal police shooting. The district court “disregarded the testimony of [Officer] Copeland and two eyewitnesses, finding that because there was ‘no video evidence … Continue reading
A class sought damages from attorneys involved in Allen Stanford’s business affairs. The Fifth Circuit, reversing the district court, found the claims barred by attorney immunity under Cantey Hanger LLP v. Byrd, 467 S.W.3d 484 (Tex. 2015): “Plaintiffs alleged that, in representing … Continue reading
A set of “kaleidoscopic claims” about the Houston ISD’s contracting process produced several RICO holdings of note in Ramirez Group v. Houston ISD, No. 13-20753 (May 18, 2015): To show the requisite injury, “[a] plaintiff need not show that the other … Continue reading
Earlier this year, the Fifth Circuit largely affirmed a series of rulings about governmental immunity in litigation about flood damage from Hurricane Katrina, allowing some cases to proceed and finding the government immune as to others. On rehearing, the Court found … Continue reading
Recent opinions from the Fifth Circuit cover all of the basic elements of claims under Section 1 and Section 2 of the Sherman Act, as well as other issues in antitrust law. For further reference, see the jury instructions and questions from Retractable Technologies, Inc. v. … Continue reading
