Source: https://blog.imla.org/tag/appeals/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 20:37:37+00:00

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May a city require adult bookstores but not other establishments to close between midnight and 10am every night and all day Sunday?
Fourth Circuit: Can a County Limit Waste Disposal to Public Landfills?
The dumping or depositing by any person at any place other than at the designated facilities of any acceptable waste generated within the County is prohibited.
The County crafted the ordinance to further many public benefits: to conserve resources, to prevent pollution, and to protect the public health, safety, and well-being. For the public landfill, the ordinance also ensured a revenue stream.
But for a private landfill operator located just two miles from the County line, the ordinance was a real problem. The ordinance led to a significant decrease in its business.
The operator sued the County. It argued that the County ordinance violates the dormant-commerce clause and the equal-protection clause of the federal constitution. Is the operator correct?
In Sandlands C&D LLC v. County of Horry, No. 13-1134 (Dec. 3, 2013), the Fourth Circuit ruled against the operator. It upheld the district court’s grant of summary judgment for the County.
Police forced open the door of a residence by mistake, realized their mistake immediately (in fact before the door opened—for remember that Beckman tried to check the forward motion of the battering ram), and left immediately. With the door open in front of him he couldn’t have avoided seeing into the apartment without closing his eyes (which would have been dangerous). But having learned before looking that it was the wrong apartment, he wasn’t using his eyes to search for anything. Seeing can be searching, but isn’t always. Even before the door fell open, Beckman knew there was nothing to search for in the plaintiff’s apartment. . . . If you know you’re in the wrong place—a place you’re not authorized to search or want to search—the unavoidable glance through the open door is not a search.
Eagle Cove believed that its religion required it to hold its Bible camp in only one place: on its lake-side property in Oneida County, Wisconsin. But the County had zoned the property for residential use only.
When Eagle Cove asked the County to re-zone the property, the County refused.
When Eagle Cove asked for a conditional use permit so that it could hold the Bible camp anyway, the County denied that too.
Did the County’s denials violate the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act? In Eagle Cove Camp & Conference Center v. Town of Woodboro, No. 13-1274 (Oct. 30, 2013), the Seventh Circuit said “no.” It affirmed the grant of summary judgment for the County and for the Town of Woodboro.
Can a local government obtain federal trademark protection for its official insignia?
No trademark by which the goods of the applicant may be distinguished from the goods of others shall be refused registration on the principal register on account of its nature unless it . . . [c]onsists of or comprises the flag or coat of arms or other insignia of the United States, or of any State or municipality, or of any foreign nation, or any simulation thereof.
The court rejected Houston’s argument that read in context, the statute does not prevent the City from registering its own seal. It also rejected D.C.’s claim that it may register the mark because of international treaty requirements.
Dawkins v. Fulton County Government, No. 12-11951 (Sept. 30, 2013) (declining to apply equitable estoppel to extend Family Medical Leave Act coverage for County employee who brought claim that did not qualify under FMLA).
The Ninth Circuit issued its decision Friday in Pacific Shores Properties, LLC v. City of Newport Beach, No. 11-55460. In the case, plaintiffs alleged that a City ordinance violated the Fair Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, and the Equal Protection Clause because the ordinance had the practical effect of prohibiting new group homes for recovering alcoholics and drug users from opening in most residential districts. Although the district court had granted summary judgment for the City, the Ninth Circuit today reversed that decision. It concluded that the plaintiffs had created a triable issue of fact as to whether the City enacted the ordinance to discriminate against them, and whether its enactment and enforcement harmed them.
I wrote an amicus brief on behalf of the League of California Cities, which urged the court to find that evidence of arguably discriminatory intent or motive in adopting a city ordinance was not, standing alone, enough to invalidate a facially neutral ordinance. But, the court found the district court should have taken into account circumstantial evidence of discriminatory motivation—as expressed by individual council members participating in the decision—when reviewing what was otherwise a facially neutral ordinance restricting group homes. It also found, among other things, that the plaintiffs were not required to identify similarly situated individuals who were treated better than those subjected to the ordinance.
Velez v. City of New York, No. 12-1965-cv (Sept. 18, 2013) (in a case where a police informant was killed and his representative brought suit against City, finding that district court properly required jury to find a “special relationship” between informant and police, and that no new trial was required).
Carver v. Nassau County Interim Finance Authority, No. 13-0801 (Sept. 20, 2013) (in suit challenging wage freeze for County employees under New York law and federal Contracts Clause, federal district court abused its discretion by exercising pendent jurisdiction over state-law claim). More coverage here.
Nuveen Municipal High Income Opportunity Fund v. City of Alameda, No. 11-17391 (Sept. 19, 2013) (affirming summary judgment for the City in securities action brought by purchasers of municipal bonds offered to finance City’s cable and Internet system; purchasers had not shown a link between the City’s alleged misrepresentations and the purchasers’ economic loss). Coverage is available here and here.
Pacific Shore Properties, LLC v. City of Newport Beach, No. 11-55460 (Sept. 20, 2013) (finding that district court improperly granted summary judgment to City in challenge to ordinance that allegedly had the practical effect of prohibiting group homes for recovering alcoholics and drug users from opening in most residential zones). See our coverage here, and more coverage here.
Ninth Circuit: Local Government’s Tenant-Protection Program Is Constitutional.
Your community’s housing conditions are in crisis. Too many landlords ignore codes. They disregard tenants’ concerns. And their properties are hardly habitable. But they continue to collect rent—from tenants with little capacity to protect themselves.
So your local government fashions an innovative program, one that empowers tenants. It allows tenants living in troubled properties to withhold a portion of their rent and to use it for needed repairs.
Landlords sue. They claim that your program violates their federal substantive due process rights. Do they have a winning constitutional argument?
Not according to the Ninth Circuit, which ruled Monday in Sylvia Landfield Trust v. City of Los Angeles, No. 11-55904, slip op. (Sept. 9, 2013), that the City of Los Angeles’s Rent Escrow Account Program is constitutional.

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