Tenth Circuit

Prisoner Plaintiff

Knighten v. Ramsey (22-5078)

Questions Presented

  1. Whether Ramsey is entitled to qualified immunity because he used de minimis force.
  2. Whether Ramsey is entitled to qualified immunity when he used objectively reasonable force under the circumstances.
  3. Whether Ramsey is entitled to qualified immunity when no clearly-established precedent places the reasonableness of his conduct beyond debate such that every reasonable deputy would know that his conduct violated the constitution.

Clinic

University of Colorado Law School Appellate Advocacy Practicum

Briefing

Result

Affirmed (in Clinic’s favor).  Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s disagreement of Deputy Ramsey’s motion to dismiss which claimed an entitlement to qualified immunity. Tenth Circuit held that Knighten sufficiently alleged an excessive force claim. Weighing the Kingsley v. Hendrickson factors, the court found that pushing Knighten out of his wheelchair was a disproportionate use of force in relation to the demands of the situation, which required little to no force. Next, Tenth Circuit held that this violated a clearly established right, citing Estate of Booker v. Gomez, 745 F.3d 405 (10th Cir. 2014) and Colbruno v. Kessler, 928 F.3d 1155 (10th Cir. 2019).

Section 1983 (Non-Prisoner)

Irizarry v. Yehia (21-1247)

Questions Presented

  1. Whether Officer Yehia violated Mr. Irizarry’s clearly established First Amendment right to record police in the discharge of their duties in public by retaliating against him for filming a routine traffic stop from a public street.

Clinic

University of Colorado Law School Appellate Advocacy Practicum

Briefing

Result

Reversed and remanded (in Clinic’s favor).  Tenth Circuit determined that Irizarry plausibly alleged that by driving his car at him and trying to obstruct his police recording, Officer Yehia committed a constitutional violation by retaliating against him for engaging in protected First Amendment activity — this satisfied the first prong of qualified immunity. It further concluded that Irizarry also showed that Officer Yehia violated his clearly established right to be free from retaliation for filming the police performing their public duties — this satisfied the prong number two.

Handy v. Fisher (20-1260)

Questions Presented

  1. In their brief opposing the Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment, the Handys cited an on-point case which would have given officers notice that their conduct here violated the Fourth Amendment. The district court did not acknowledge or analyze that case in its opinion. Did the district court err in granting the officers qualified immunity on the sole ground that the Handys had failed to show that the officers violated clearly established law?

Clinic

University of Colorado Law School Appellate Advocacy Practicum

Briefing

Result

Dismissed (likely in Clinic’s favor).  Case was dismissed as final settlement of the parties.

Labor & Employment Discrimination

Wise v. DeJoy (22-1224)

Questions Presented

  1. Did the district court err in finding that no reasonable juror could find that Ms. Wise had made out a failure-to-accommodate claim against USPS?
  2. Did the district court err in finding that no reasonable juror could find that Ms. Wise had made out a retaliation claim against USPS?

Clinic

University of Colorado Law School Appellate Advocacy Practicum

Briefing

Result

Affirmed in part and reversed in part (in Clinic’s favor).  Tenth Circuit held that given the potential inferences from the evidence, the district court erred in granting summary judgment to the Postal Service on the failure-to-accommodate claim involving the heavy packages and the gurney. Since the Postal Service did not deny that the gurney itself weighed twenty pounds even when empty, a factfinder could reasonably find that the weight restriction had applied when the gurney was loaded with mail. However, Tenth Circuit also held that the district court properly granted summary judgment to the Postal Service on the retaliation claim because except for temporal proximity, Wise presented no other valid evidence of pretext.

Note: Circuit Judge Tymkovich dissented in part because he concluded that the Postal Service adequately accommodated Wise’s disability. Because the accommodation required Wise to seek assistance when items exceeded her weight limit, it necessarily involved an interactive component but Wise failed to adequately engage the interactive process.

Merrill v. Pathway Leasing (21-1295)

Questions Presented

  1. Whether the lower court erred by not conducting a threshold joint employer analysis before analyzing whether the Plaintiffs were “employees” for purposes of the FLSA?
  2. Whether the lower court erred in finding that the Plaintiffs were not “employees” for purposes of the FLSA?

Clinic

University of Colorado Law School Appellate Advocacy Practicum

Briefing

Result

Affirmed.  Tenth Circuit discerned no error in the district court’s post-trial decision to forego a joint employment analysis because the court explicitly assumed, as Plaintiffs contended, that Pathway and XPO were joint employers. Though Tenth Circuit determined that the district court — when applying the six-factor “economics realities” test in Baker v. Flint Engineering & Construction Co., 137 F.3d 1436 (10th Cir. 1998) to assess classification under the Fair Labor Standards Act under the totality of circumstances — made a legal error in analyzing the “degree of skill” factor and failed to consider Pathway and XPO collectively when analyzing the “integral to business” factor, it held that the district court properly determined that Plaintiffs were independent contractors “in business for themselves.” Baker, 137 F.3d at 1443 (citations omitted).

Cirocco v. McMahon (18-1096)

Questions Presented

Ms. Cirocco brought this Title VII suit alleging sex discrimination and retaliation by her federal-agency employer.  The district court dismissed her case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, holding that she had not exhausted her claims because she had not cooperated in the agency’s administrative process.  It is undisputed that Ms. Cirocco met all statutory and regulatory deadlines prior to filing suit and that the agency itself did not dismiss her claims for failure to cooperate in the administrative process.  The issues are:

  1. Whether Ms. Cirocco exhausted her Title VII discrimination claim.
  2. Whether Ms. Cirocco exhausted her Title VII retaliation claim.
  3. Alternatively, whether exhaustion of administrative remedies is a jurisdictional prerequisite to filing suit under Title VII.

Clinic

Georgetown Appellate Courts Immersion Clinic

Briefing

Result

Affirmed and remanded (in Clinic’s favor).  Tenth Circuit affirmed on failure to exhaust administrative remedies, but remanded to vacate district order and to dismiss case without prejudice.

Other Civil

Hennessey v. University of Kansas Hospital (22-3000)

Questions Presented

  1. Did the Hospital Authority meet its burden to show it was entitled to sovereign immunity when it made no argument and provided no evidence in its motion as to any of the four arm-of-the-state factors?
  2. Did the district court err when it nevertheless found that the Hospital Authority was an arm of the state and dismissed Ms. Hennessey’s pro se complaint, when it based its decision on only three of the four arm-of-the-state test factors, and based its findings with respect to those factors on facts that the Supreme Court and Circuits have found to be legally irrelevant?
  3. If enough information is not available in the present record to determine whether the Hospital Authority is an arm of the state, did the district court err in dismissing the pro se complaint without ordering discovery?

Clinic

University of Colorado Law School Appellate Advocacy Practicum

Briefing

Result

Reversed and remanded (in Clinic’s favor).  In response to Hennessey’s procedural argument that the burden is on the University of Kansas Hospital Authority to demonstrate it is an arm of the state and it failed to meet this burden by not presenting any evidence and not arguing the factors governing the arm-of-the-state analysis, Tenth Circuit joined every other circuit to consider the issue and held the burden falls on the entity asserting it is an arm of the state. It determined that UKHA did not meet its burden. Furthermore, Tenth Circuit held that while its precedent permits a district court to raise the arm-of-the-state issue sua sponte, the district court erred in concluding that UKHA is not autonomous under the language of the University of Kansas Hospital Authority Act. It also determined that the district court erred in its analysis of the financial factor of the Steadfast test.

Serna v. Denver Police Department (21-1446)

Questions Presented

  1. Whether the 2018 Farm Bill, which declared that “no State or Indian Tribe shall prohibit” the interstate transportation of hemp, contains an implied private right of action to enforce that prohibition?
  2. Whether the District Court abused its discretion by dismissing Mr. Serna’s complaint with prejudice without first offering him an opportunity to amend?

Clinic

University of Colorado Law School Appellate Advocacy Practicum

Briefing

Result

Affirmed. Tenth Circuit held that contrary to Serna’s view, the language in § 10114(b) of the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (the 2018 Farm Bill) does not create a private cause of action because its text addresses regulated entities and grants no private rights to a protected class of which Serna is a member. Serna therefore cannot state a claim under § 10114(b), and the district court properly dismissed that claim under Rule 12(b)(6). Tenth Circuit held that the district court also properly denied leave to amend given that Serna only vaguely requested an amendment, he did not comply with the procedural requirements for filing such a request, and his proposed amendment would have been futile.

C.W. v. Denver County School District (19-1407, 19-1429)

Questions Presented

Believing that he was denied a free appropriate public education, C.W. filed a due process complaint and completed the administrative-complaint procedures established by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to challenge that denial.  20 U.S.C. § 1415(b)(6), (7)(A).  The School District does not dispute that C.W. exhausted the administrative process on his IDEA claims, nor that the IDEA cannot provide C.W. the compensatory damages remedies available to him under the other federal statutes—the federal Rehabilitation Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and 42 U.S.C. § 1983—under which he also sued.  Yet when C.W. filed suit in the district court, that court held that he failed to exhaust his non-IDEA claims through the IDEA’s administrative process and therefore could not pursue them in court.  The issues presented are

  1. Whether C.W. exhausted his non-IDEA claims.
  2. Whether C.W. was required to exhaust his non-IDEA claims, which seek only compensatory damages, a remedy not available under the IDEA.

Clinic

Georgetown Appellate Courts Immersion Clinic

Briefing

Result

Dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.  Tenth Circuit held that case did not meet finality requirement.