Justia U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Hess, a 17-year-old student, was required to participate in a ride-along with Hammond Officer Garcia. Her complaint describes a day-long sequence of inappropriate comments and questions punctuated by unwelcome physical sexual contact. Garcia allegedly rubbed his arm against her breast, repeatedly placed his hand on Hess’s thigh, put his hand on her buttocks, stated that Hess wanted to become a prostitute, and, while in a secluded location, asked another officer if he wanted to have sex with Hess. After Hess’s ride along, another female classmate participated in the course-required ride with Garcia. When the classmate told Hess that Garcia had acted inappropriately, the girls reported their experiences.Hess sued Garcia and Chief Doughty in their individual capacities under 42 U.S.C. 1983. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the claim against Doughty for lack of allegations of the requisite level of involvement in the alleged violations. The court reversed the dismissal of the claim against Garcia. It is well established that sexual assault by a government official acting under the color of law can violate the Equal Protection Clause as sex discrimination, the Fourth Amendment right “of the people to be secure in their persons,” and the right to bodily integrity protected by the Due Process Clause. The court rejected arguments that the alleged conduct was simply “boorish” and not serious enough to implicate the Constitution. Sexual assault is an intentional act that never serves a legitimate governmental purpose. View "Hess v. Garcia" on Justia Law

The Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians is a federally recognized tribe in northwestern Wisconsin. In 2013 the Tribe’s Community Health Center hired Mestek as the Director of Health Information. In 2017 the Health Center implemented a new electronic health records system. Mestek soon raised questions about how the new system operated, expressing concern to management that the Center was improperly billing Medicare and Medicaid. An eventual external audit of the Center’s billing practices uncovered several problems. After receiving the audit results in 2018, Bae, the head of the Health Center, called Mestek into her office to ask if she was “loyal.” Mestek answered yes, but persisted in her efforts to uncover billing irregularities. A month later, Mestek learned that she was being fired in a meeting with the Medical Director and the HR Director. Mestek sued the Health Center and six individuals (in both their personal and official capacities) under the False Claims Act’s anti-retaliation provision, 31 U.S.C. 3730(h). The district court dismissed.The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The doctrine of tribal sovereign immunity precluded Mestek from proceeding; the Health Center is an arm of the Tribe. The individual employee defendants also properly invoked the Tribe’s immunity because Mestek sued them in their official capacities. View "Mestek v. Lac Courte Oreilles Community Health Center" on Justia Law

Snowden, staying at a hotel, received a call asking him to visit the lobby to pay for the room. When Snowden arrived, DEA Agent Henning pushed him into a door and onto the ground. Snowden did not resist. Henning punched him several times. Snowden suffered two black eyes and a fractured left eye socket.Snowden sued Henning, alleging a Fourth Amendment excessive force claims. The court construed the complaint to allege a “Bivens” claim (an implied damages remedy against federal officers for certain constitutional violations), then dismissed that claim, noting factual distinctions between Snowden’s case and Bivens–the location of the arrest, the presence of a warrant, and the number of officers involved. Bivens involved allegations concerning the rights of privacy implicated in an unlawful warrantless home entry, arrest, and search, the court reasoned, while Snowden alleged excessive force incident to a lawful arrest, and special factors weighed against recognizing a new Bivens context, including the availability of an alternative remedy.The Seventh Circuit reversed. While the Supreme Court has declined to extend the Bivens remedy beyond specific Fifth and Eighth Amendment contexts, Snowden’s claim does not present a new context. Agent Henning operated under the same legal mandate as the Bivens officers and is the same kind of line-level federal narcotics officer. Like Bivens, Snowden seeks damages for violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. The legal landscape of excessive-force claims is well-settled. Nor does allowing a Bivens claim here risk a “disruptive intrusion” into the “functioning of other branches.” View "Snowden v. Henning" on Justia Law

Deputy Deeren announced his candidacy for Sheriff of Trempealeau County in 2017. In early 2018, officials within the Sheriff’s Department discovered that Deeren had failed to disclose information about his arrest record when he applied to become a deputy. Deeren had been asked in a 2015 job interview whether he had any prior contact with law enforcement; he failed to disclose that he had been arrested and charged with criminal sexual assault in 2007. After the Department learned of the arrest in 2018, Deeren was again asked about his prior contacts with law enforcement. Deeren again omitted his 2007 arrest and, when confronted, refused to answer questions about it. Then-Sheriff Anderson and Chief Deputy Reinders sought to terminate Deeren for dishonesty and insubordination. Deeren ultimately resigned from the Department and lost the sheriff’s race to Semingson, another deputy in the Department.Deeren filed suit, alleging that Anderson, Reinders, and Semingson engaged in several retaliatory actions against him in response to his candidacy and in violation of the First Amendment. The district court granted the defendants summary judgment. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Deeren failed to offer evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude that any defendant engaged in a single act of unconstitutional retaliation. View "Deeren v. Anderson" on Justia Law

Emad, an active member of Milwaukee’s Islamic community for 25 years, practices Salah by praying five times each day in a state of physical purity. Emad also participated every Friday afternoon in congregational prayer known as Jumu’ah. Although most often led by an imam at a mosque, Jumu’ah can be held in other locations but must occur in a group setting. From March 2018 to May 2019, Emad was an immigration detainee. He was one of 175 Muslim detainees. The jail had a written policy that “[p]ersonal worship may be done in your cell.” It was not permitted in the dayroom areas. The cell contained a toilet, leaving Emad unable to pray in a clean environment in accordance with Salah. The jail also prohibited all “[g]roup activities led by inmates,” which kept Emad from participating in Jumu’ah. Emad asserts that the jail has long permitted Christian inmates to pray freely within the facility and to gather in the dayroom and library for Bible studies and group prayer.Emad sued under 42 U.S.C. 1983. The district court granted the defendants summary judgment. The Seventh Circuit reversed, characterizing Emad’s allegations as “unsettling” but stating that it is essential to know precisely how Emad may have experienced discrimination and what role each named defendant played in favoring Christian prayer over Muslim prayer. The court remanded for development of the factual record. View "Emad v. Dodge County" on Justia Law

In November 2021, the Illinois General Assembly passed Public Act 102-667, which added a provision to the state’s Health Care Right of Conscience Act. The new provision purported to be a “declaration of existing law” that “shall not be construed as a new enactment.” The underlying lawsuit relates to COVID-19 vaccine mandates imposed by several Illinois state agencies. In October 2021, the plaintiffs, who work for these agencies, sued their employers and Governor J.B. Pritzker in Illinois state court, asserting the vaccine mandates were unlawful. The defendants then removed the case to federal court. In response to similar lawsuits, Illinois passed Public Act 102-667 on November 8, 2021. The district court determined that the new provision, by its terms, did not change and instead merely clarified existing law. The defendants then moved under 28 U.S.C. Section 1292(b) to certify the following question for interlocutory appeal: Whether, given [the district] court’s correct determination that Section 13.5 is a declaration of existing law that did not change the HCRCA, [the district] court cannot grant Plaintiffs any meaningful relief. The district court certified this exact question for appeal.   The Seventh Circuit reversed and remanded with instructions to dismiss Plaintiffs’ challenges to Public Act 102-667 for lack of standing. The district court is free on remand to issue a proper final judgment pursuant to Rules 54(a) and 58(a), which would cover all the claims in the plaintiffs’ amended complaint. Plaintiffs could then invoke 28 U.S.C. Section 1291 and notice an appeal on any issues not resolved by this interlocutory appeal. View "Illinois Department of Corrections v. Alvin Boone" on Justia Law

Plaintiff’s criminal history included a 1998 guilty plea to felony mail fraud. After maintaining an otherwise clean record for 24 years, he decided he wanted a gun. But 18 U.S.C. Section 922(g)(1) bars gun possession for anyone who, like Plaintiff, has a conviction for “a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year.” So he brought this suit under 18 U.S.C. Section 925A to challenge the constitutionality of Section 922(g)(1) as the law applied to him. Relying on pre-Bruen framework, The district court granted a motion from the government and dismissed the case.   The Seventh Circuit remanded to allow the district court to undertake the Bruen analysis. The court explained the parties may be unable altogether to find answers to certain questions, may find incomplete information in response to others, and perhaps in some instances, may identify substantial historical information pertinent to one or another dimension of the required inquiry. In the end, the district court will have to give the best answer available to whether the government has carried its burden of “affirmatively proving that its firearms regulation is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms.” View "Patrick Atkinson v Merrick B. Garland" on Justia Law

Defendant was charged with violating 18 U.S.C. 922(a)(6), which makes it a crime to "knowingly to make any false or fictitious oral or written statement" in connection with certain firearm purchases. Initially, Defendnat entered a guilty plea, but then sought to withdraw his plea, arguing that 18 U.S.C. 922(n), which makes it a crime to purchase or receive a firearm while under indictment for a felony, violates the Second Amendment. The district court granted Defendant's motion and dismissed the indictment. The government appealed.On appeal, the Seventh Circuit reversed. Defendant was not charged under 18 U.S.C. 922(n). The government is permitted to enact a law that penalizes providing an untruthful answer, which is the question the court was presented with. Whether Section 922(n) violates the Second Amendment remains unresolved. View "USA v. John Holden" on Justia Law

Defendant was arrested on several counts of sex trafficking a minor, child pornography and cyberstalking. A jury convicted Defendant on all counts, and he was sentenced to forty years in prison.Defendant appealed on two issues. First, the district court erred in admitting his confession to detectives. However, each of the challenged statements were made after Defendant was Mirandized. While Defendant indicated prior to this point that he would "rather have a lawyer," even if that statement invoked his right to counsel, subsequent re-initiation of the conversation by Defendant waived his right to counsel.Second, Defendant claimed the district court erred in refusing to provide a limiting instruction related to three threatening voicemails Defendant left for members of the victim's family. These statements were "other acts" admissible under Fed. R. Evid. 404(b)(1). View "USA v. Khalil Jackson" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a lieutenant in the Kankakee Fire Department (“KFD”)—was attacked by another firefighter while responding to a fire at a senior living facility. The City suspended the other firefighter for twenty-four hours without pay, ordered him to complete an anger management course, and directed him to avoid working on the same shift as Plaintiff for three months. Plaintiff experienced ongoing physical and mental injuries from the incident, causing her to take leave from work and apply for workers’ compensation. She returned to work six months later but permanently left her position shortly after. She then filed a lawsuit, alleging that Defendants, among other things, retaliated against her for certain protected activities under Title VII and condoned aggressive and inappropriate behaviors as part of a “code of silence” that resulted in her attack. The district court granted summary judgment for Defendants, and this appeal followed.   The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The court explained that on the merits, Plaintiff’s claim fails because none of her evidence, separately or taken together, creates a genuine dispute regarding whether Defendants had a practice of condoning aggressive behavior, resulting in a constitutional injury. Further the court wrote that the record does not support Plaintiff’s contention that there was such a high risk of constitutional injury from the other firefighter that the “single incident” theory of municipal liability applies here. The court held Plaintiff failed to create a genuine dispute of material fact precluding summary judgment regarding her Fourth Amendment Monell claim and her Title VII retaliation claim. The district court, therefore, properly granted summary judgment to Defendants. View "Michelle Giese v. City of Kankakee" on Justia Law