Source: http://blogs.extension.iastate.edu/planningBLUZ/category/federal-courts/page/2/
Timestamp: 2014-09-02 11:34:01
Document Index: 713184849

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1983', '§ 1985', '§ 1986', '§ 1983', '§ 1985', '§ 1986']

The Midwest Planning BLUZ » Federal courts
Narrowly tailored. A regulation “‘need not be the least restrictive or least intrusive means’” of furthering the government’s interest…but at the same time the government ‘may not regulate expression in such a manner that a substantial portion of the burden on speech does not serve to advance its goals.’” Whether a numerical limit on gathering without a permit is constitutional depends on the specifics of the space at issue because different spaces can accommodate groups of different sizes without interfering with orderly, fair use of the space; however, the court determined that “considering the size and layout of the space and the fact that groups of twenty-five may gather without a permit at Monument Circle to eat lunch, at least, Smith seems likely to succeed in showing that the fourteen-person limit on demonstrations without a permit is not narrowly tailored.” The court also found fault with the provision of the permit policy that requires a permit anytime the demonstration has been advertised or the public has been invited, even if the group ultimately is made up of fewer than fifteen people. To disallow a protest attended by fewer than fifteen people simply because the public was invited and no permit was obtained likely goes too far in restricting speech. Similarly, the five-hour time limit on being on Commission property without a permit may be too restrictive as it applies to lone individuals or small groups.
Federal 7th circuit, First Amendment Freedom of Speech
Adult Entertainment Regulations, Federal 7th circuit, First Amendment Freedom of Speech
Federal courts, First Amendment claims, RLUIPA
Federal 6th Circuit, ripe for adjudication, RLUIPA
Federal 6th Circuit dismisses defamation, other claims
Rondigo, LLC, Dolores Michaels v. Township of Richmond, Michigan
(Federal 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, March 28, 2013)
Rondigo, LLC is a Michigan limited liability company in Macomb County owned by Dolores Michaels. Rondigo and Michaels (the plaintiffs) have operated a farm in Richmond Township since 2004. In February 2006, the plaintiffs began composting on the farm and started constructing a driveway to assist with the composting. The Supervisor of Richmond Township, Gordon Furstenau, issued a stop-work order. The Township filed suit in state court in regards to the driveway’s construction, which they claimed violated several zoning ordinances.
The Michigan Department of Agriculture also received complaints from neighbors about the farm’s odor. So the Department inspected the farm in October 2006 and ordered the plaintiffs to submit a compost operations plan by December 2006. The Department inspected the farm again in January 2007 and found that the plaintiffs had been stockpiling leaves. The Department advised them to remove the piles because runoff from the leaves could negatively impact groundwater in the area. The plaintiffs did not remove the piles, allegedly because they could not do so without the driveway. The Department sent a letter in April 2007, saying it would refer the matter to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) if the leaves were not removed. So the plaintiffs filed an emergency motion with the state court to remove the bar on the driveway’s construction. The court granted the motion, but the plaintiffs did not remove the leaves. So the matter was referred to the MDEQ.
In January 2008, the plaintiffs filed this suit against Richmond Township, Furstenau, Four Township Citizens’ Coalition, more than 20 Macomb County residents, 2 Department employees, and 3 MDEQ employees. “The plaintiffs asserted five claims: (1) a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim that the defendants violated the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights; (2) a 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) claim that the defendants conspired to deprive the plaintiffs of their constitutional rights; (3) a 42 U.S.C. § 1986 claim that the defendants knowingly failed to prevent the violation of the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights; (4) a civil-conspiracy claim under Michigan state law; and (5) a defamation claim under Michigan state law.” The plaintiffs also asserted that the Township’s zoning ordinances were unconstitutionally vague. The district court dismissed all these claims, so the plaintiffs appealed to the 6th Circuit.
First, the plaintiffs argued that the district court erred in holding that “res judicata” bars their claims against the Township and Furstenau. Under Michigan law, “res judicata” bars an action if it involves the same parties as a prior action and if the matter could have been resolved in that prior action. The plaintiffs could have asserted their claim against the Township and Furstenau in state court. The plaintiffs did not pursue many of the claims they used as defenses against the Township’s complaint. The claims previously brought before the state court and the claims presented in this case arose from the same events. So “res judicata” precludes the plaintiffs from asserting their claims against the Township and Furstenau because these claims could have raised in a prior state action.
Next, the plaintiffs argued that the district court erred in dismissing their § 1983 claims against the Four Township’s Citizens’ Coalition and the Macomb County residents. The plaintiffs cannot maintain these claims against these defendants, however, because they are not state actors. Also, the plaintiffs did not appeal the dismissal of their § 1985(3) or § 1986 claims against these defendants. Therefore they waived these claims. The plaintiffs do appeal the dismissal of their state-law claims, but they failed to develop their argument against the dismissal. So the plaintiffs waived these claims as well.
Finally, the plaintiffs argued that the district court erred in dismissing their defamation and civil-conspiracy claims against the Department and MDEQ employees. In regards to the defamation claim, “the plaintiff must allege that the defendant made a false and defamatory statement about the plaintiff. But a qualified privilege protects the defendant from the defamation claim if the defendant had an interest or duty to make the statement to someone having a corresponding interest or duty.” The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants made defamatory statements to state employees and to the plaintiffs’ neighbors. But these statements were made while investigating complaints about the farm. The defendants had an interest in communicating with their co-workers and the plaintiffs’ neighbors to facilitate the investigation. And the employees and neighbors had a shared interest in the investigation. So the plaintiffs did not overcome the qualified privilege, which protects the defendants from the plaintiffs’ defamation claims. Additionally, a civil-conspiracy claim cannot “exist in the air.” So the plaintiffs cannot maintain civil-conspiracy claims because there were no other claims left in this case.
The 6th Circuit Court affirmed the dismissal of the plaintiffs’ claims by the district court.
Federal courts, Procedural Issues
defamation, Federal 6th Circuit, res judicata
Federal courts, Junkyards, Takings
failure to exhaust administrative remedies, Federal 6th Circuit, junkyards, Takings
Warren (MI) holiday display does not violate First/Fourteenth Amendments
Freedom from Religion Foundation, Inc. v. City of Warren, Michigan
(Federal 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, February 25, 2013)
For the past several years between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, the City of Warren, Michigan has put up a holiday display in its civic center, which includes both secular and religious symbols, such as a lighted tree, reindeer, wreaths, snowmen, a mailbox for Santa, a “Winter Welcome” sign, and a nativity scene. In 2010, the Freedom from Religion Foundation and one of its members, Douglas Marshall, wrote letters asking Mayor James Fouts to remove the nativity scene, which the City refused. So in 2011, the Foundation instead asked the City to add the Foundation’s sign with the following words: “At this season of THE WINTER SOLSTICE may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, [n]o heaven or hell. There is only our natural world, [r]eligion is but [m]yth and superstition [t]hat hardens hearts [a]nd enslaves minds…State/Church KEEP THEM SEPARATE.” The City refused again via a letter from Mayor Fouts, so the Foundation filed a lawsuit based on the freedom-from-establishment and free-speech guarantees of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The district court rejected these claims, so the Foundation appealed to the U.S. 6th Circuit Court.
In the letter, Mayor Fouts wrote: “When I allowed a display in city hall celebrating Ramadan, the Moslem holy season, I received many calls objecting but I would never have allowed a sign next to the Ramadan display mocking or ridiculing the Moslem religion. In my opinion, Freedom of Religion does not mean “Freedom Against or From Religion.” [...] Your non-religion is not a recognized religion. Please don’t hide behind the cloak of non-religion as an excuse to abuse other recognized religions. You can’t make a negative into a positive. Clearly, your proposed display in effect would create considerable ill will among many people of all recognized faiths. During this holiday season, why don’t we try to accomplish the old adage of ‘Good will toward all’?”
To address this, the court turned to the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” which prohibits government from favoring one religion over another or from favoring religion over irreligion. Two safe harbors have been identified in the past: “(1) a government may provide benefits to faith-based entities if the benefits are available to secular and religious entities alike; and (2) a government may invoke the divine through words and symbols if they have religious and historical meanings or faith-based and solemnizing effects, and in the process offer at most incidental benefits to any one faith or to faith in general.” A similar suit to this one from Pawtucket, Rhode Island (Lynch) had been brought before the courts previously, which held that “in the context of all components of the display…the display was ‘no more an advancement or endorsement of religion’ than the recognition of Christmas as a national holiday.” Five years later, County of Allegheny upheld a holiday display in front of a city hall that included a Christmas tree, a menorah, and a “salute to liberty” sign, but invalidated a nativity scene displayed by itself in the county courthouse. So this court concluded that “if the multi-purpose, multi-symbol Pawtucket and Allegheny County displays did not offend the Establishment Clause, then neither does the Warren display.”
Even so, the Foundation claimed that Warren’s rejection of its sign betrayed the City’s lack of religious neutrality. But the court reasoned that only one of the objects in the holiday display was religious. Some of the other objects were pagan symbols (i.e. the tree); some were connected to the winter season; and some embodied the holidays’ commercialism. So none of the secular symbols had roots in one faith or in faith in general. The variety of symbols in the Warren display reflected not just the demands of the First Amendment’s “Establishment Clause but also the demands of democracy in an increasingly pluralistic country.” This is “why some cities no longer have such displays, [and] why others have made a point of featuring symbols connected to other faiths.” After all, Warren did feature a Ramadan sign one year. “The key lesson of Lynch and Allegheny County is that a city does not run afoul of the Establishment Clause by including a [nativity scene] in a holiday display that contains secular and religious symbols.”
The Foundation also argued that the Mayor’s letter showed that the City’s purpose in putting up a holiday display was to advance religion. The Foundation focused their argument on the Mayor’s objection that the sign would “counter the religious tone of the Nativity Scene.” However, “[j]ust as a court may not isolate a creche in deciding whether a holiday display amounts to an impermissible establishment of religion…it also may not isolate two sentences in a letter to show what the City meant by a particular action.” The point of the letter was to illustrate that the sign would be offensive to religious and nonreligious alike. The Religion Clauses protect both the religious and nonreligious, and the Supreme Court has long permitted exhibits like the Warren holiday display. The Foundation pointed out as well that Warren located its display in the City’s principal government building, “[b]ut that does not doom the display.” The permitted Allegheny County display appeared on public property and was more faith-centered than this one.
The Foundation separately argued that the City violated its free-speech rights by its refusal to add the sign to the display. The First Amendment prohibits governments from making any law “abridging the freedom of speech” of individuals. The court held that this “guarantee prevents governments from restricting the speech of individuals; it does not empower individuals to abridge the speech of government.” Warren’s holiday display is government speech. “The City erected, maintained, took down and stored the display each year and covered the costs in doing so. The City reserved final approval of all components of the display to itself.” The City held full authority over what to include. “And it could choose to deny a message disparaging any one religion or religion in general.” Governments must still comply with the Establishment Clause, which is why Warren could not put up a holiday display that contained only a nativity scene.
Neither does the Warren display violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits States and cities from denying individuals equal protection of the law. “To the extent the Foundation means to claim that the City’s government speech commemorating the holiday disparately treats its preferred message, the answer is: welcome to the crowd. Not everyone, we suspect, is happy with the City’s holiday display from one year to the next. And the Foundation, like everyone else, is free to urge the City to add or remove symbols from the display each year or to try to elect new officials to run the City.” After rejecting the above First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment claims raised by the Foundation, the district court’s ruling was affirmed by the U.S. 6th Circuit Court.
Federal courts, First Amendment claims, Fourteenth Amendment
Federal 6th Circuit, First Amendment Establishment clause
Federal 6th Circuit, First Amendment, inflatable signs, signs
Federal courts, Michigan courts, Transportation
Federal 6th Circuit, immunity from zoning
Due Process, Equal Protection claims, Federal courts, Rezoning
Equal Protection, Federal 6th Circuit, liberty interests, procedural due process, Rezoning, substantive due process
Nebraska CA: actual usage, not physical capacity controls scope of legal nonconforming useCounty board limited to consideration of need for improvements in creating rural improvement zoneAnnouncing Spring 2013 Intro to Planning and Zoning workshopsCourt affirms decision to approve renovation of historic hotelSign company had no vested right to have permit processed under old ordinance	Tag Cloud