American Law’s Worst Moment—2020

AUSTIN SARAT

Austin Sarat—Associate Provost and Associate Dean of the Faculty and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence & Political Science at Amherst College—explains why the police murder of George Floyd was the worst moment of 2020 in American law. Professor Sarat proposes that we remember the event and that date—May 25—as “infamous,” a word reserved for rare and atrocious events like the bombing of Pearl Harbor, in an attempt to capture the brutality and inhumanity of the act.

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D. D. v. Los Angeles Unified School District

Docket: 19-55810

Opinion Date: December 31, 2020

Judge: Kermit Victor Lipez

Areas of Law: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law, Education Law

Plaintiff, an elementary school student who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and severe, disability-related behavioral issues, filed suit under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) alleging that the school district denied him equal access to a public education because of his disability. The district court dismissed the complaint, concluding that plaintiff failed to exhaust his claim through the administrative procedures prescribed by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), as required when a plaintiff seeks relief under other federal statutes for the denial of a free appropriate public education (FAPE). The Ninth Circuit vacated the district court's dismissal and held that a close review of plaintiff's allegations reveals that the gravamen of his ADA claim is discrimination separate from his right to a FAPE. Therefore, the panel concluded that plaintiff's ADA claim is not subject to IDEA exhaustion. Finally, the panel concluded that there is nothing untoward—or inconsistent with Fry v. Napoleon Cmty. Sch., 137 S. Ct. 743 (2017)—in plaintiff's having followed resolution of his IDEA claims with a lawsuit alleging non-FAPE-based violations of another statute.

Christian v. Umpqua Bank

Docket: 18-35522

Opinion Date: December 31, 2020

Judge: Richard A. Paez

Areas of Law: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law, Labor & Employment Law

The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment for the Bank on plaintiff's claim of gender harassment under Title VII and the Washington Law Against Discrimination. Plaintiff, a former employee of the Bank, alleged that a bank customer stalked and harassed her in her workplace and that the Bank failed to take effective action to address the harassment. The panel held that to establish sex discrimination under a hostile work environment theory, a plaintiff must show she was subjected to sex-based harassment that was sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of employment, and that her employer is liable for this hostile work environment. Because the panel concluded that a trier of fact could find that the harassment altered the conditions of plaintiff's employment and created an abusive working environment, it turned to the question of the Bank's liability. In this case, there is more than enough evidence to create a genuine issue of material fact as to the sufficiency of the Bank's response. Because a jury reasonably could conclude that the Bank ratified or acquiesced in the customer's harassment, the panel held that the district court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of the Bank. The panel remanded for further proceedings.

United States v. Dixon

Docket: 19-10112

Opinion Date: December 31, 2020

Judge: Kim McLane Wardlaw

Areas of Law: Criminal Law

Defendant appeals the district court's partial denial of his motion to suppress evidence resulting from a search of his vehicle. At issue was whether the insertion of a car key into a lock on the vehicle's door for the sole purpose of aiding the police in ascertaining its ownership or control is a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. The Ninth Circuit has previously held that it was not, applying the "reasonable expectation of privacy" test from Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 360 (1967) (Harlan, J., concurring). See United States v. $109,179 in U.S. Currency, 228 F.3d 1080, 1087–88 (9th Cir. 2000). However, in light of recent Supreme Court authority tying the Fourth Amendment's reach to the law of trespass, the panel must conclude that because "[t]he Government physically occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information," United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400, 404 (2012), it conducted a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. Therefore, a Fourth Amendment search occurs when an officer physically inserts a key into the lock of a vehicle for the purpose of obtaining information, as occurred in this case when an officer inserted the key specifically to learn whether defendant exercised control over the vehicle. On the record before the panel, it is unclear whether the officer had probable cause to believe that the particular vehicle into which he inserted the key was owned or controlled by defendant. The panel remanded for the district court to conduct an evidentiary hearing and to rule on the suppression motion in light of the Jones and Jardines principles. Finally, the panel held that the district court erred in finding that defendant was categorically ineligible for an acceptance-of-responsibility reduction on the ground that defendant did not accept responsibility for the greater offense of possession with intent to distribute. The panel explained that USSG 3E1.1(a) does not require that defendant admit to all the charged offenses. Consequently, in the event the district court upholds the search on remand and reinstates defendant's conviction, the district court shall conduct a resentencing so that it may make a factual finding regarding acceptance of responsibility in the first instance.

Hall v. United States Department of Agriculture

Docket: 20-16232

Opinion Date: December 31, 2020

Judge: Eric D. Miller

Areas of Law: Government & Administrative Law, Public Benefits

As part of its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress enacted the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (Families First Act), which provides for emergency assistance to households participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's order denying a motion for a preliminary injunction brought by a putative class of Californians, who normally receive the maximum monthly allotment of SNAP benefits, seeking to bar the USDA from denying California's request under section 2302(a)(1) of the Families First Act to issue emergency allotments to households already receiving maximum SNAP benefits. After determining that plaintiffs had Article III standing, the panel held that the USDA, which administers SNAP, correctly interpreted the statute by concluding that it allows households receiving less than the maximum monthly allotment of SNAP benefits to be brought up to the maximum but does not permit those already receiving the maximum to be given any additional benefits. When the panel examined the Families First Act as a whole, as well as other statutes addressing emergency SNAP benefits, three considerations lead it to conclude that the government's reading of section 2302(a)(1) is more consistent with the overall statutory scheme. Therefore, because plaintiffs were unlikely to succeed on the merits of their claims, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying a preliminary injunction.

Doe v. Trump

Docket: 19-36020

Opinion Date: December 31, 2020

Judge: Daniel P. Collins

Areas of Law: Immigration Law

Proclamation No. 9945, which restricts entry of immigrant visa applicants who cannot demonstrate that they either (1) will acquire qualifying healthcare coverage within 30 days of entry or (2) have the ability to pay for reasonably foreseeable healthcare expenses, was within President Trump's statutory authority. The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's order enjoining the Proclamation's implementation. The panel assumed that, to the extent plaintiffs have Article III standing, they may assert an ultra vires cause of action to challenge the Proclamation on constitutional and statutory grounds. Because the panel concluded that plaintiffs' claims are likely to fail on the merits, the panel has no obligation to reach the consular nonreviewability issue and declined to do so. The panel held that the Proclamation is a lawful exercise of the President's delegated authority under section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) where it comports with the textual limitations of section 212(f) as set forth in Trump v. Hawaii, 138 S. Ct. 2392, 2407 (2018). Furthermore, plaintiffs failed to show a likelihood of success on their claims that the Proclamation conflicts with other statutes such as the Affordable Care Act, the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act, the public charge provision of the INA, and the Violence Against Women Act. Finally, the panel rejected the district court's contention that, to the extent section 212(f) allows the President to impose additional entry restrictions based on "domestic policymaking" concerns, section 212(f) itself violates the nondelegation doctrine. Contrary to what the district court concluded, the panel stated that it makes no difference whether the additional entry restrictions are imposed under section 212(f) based on assertedly domestic policy concerns. Therefore, the panel concluded that the district court abused its discretion in granting the preliminary injunction enjoining the Proclamation's implementation.

Alpert v. NationStar Mortgage LLC

Docket: 19-35867

Opinion Date: December 31, 2020

Areas of Law: Insurance Law, Real Estate & Property Law

The Ninth Circuit filed an order deferring submission and certifying the following questions to the Washington State Supreme Court: 1. Should the filed rate doctrine apply to claims by a Washington homeowner against a loan servicer arising from the placement of lender placed insurance on the Washington homeowner's property where the servicer purchased the insurance from a separate insurance company who filed the insurance product with the Washington State Office of the Insurance Commissioner? 2. In the event the filed rate doctrine does apply to this type of transaction, do the damages requested by plaintiff fall outside the scope of the filed rate doctrine, or rather do they "directly attack agency-approved rates," such that they are barred under McCarthy Finance, Inc. v. Premera, 347 P.3d 872, 875 (Wash. 2015)?