June 21, 2011
John Stone, Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group
As a rule, the State's failure to protect an individual from private violence does not amount to a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as a deprivation of life or of a liberty interest. See DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dep't of Soc. Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 197 (1989) (State owed no duty to child whose abuse it was investigating to protect him from beating by his father, despite claim that special relationship existed between the child and the State). The rationale for this principle is that the duty owed by the Government, especially in the realm of law enforcement, is to the public at large rather than to any particular individual.
An exception to this general rule exists where public officials have in some way assisted in creating or increasing the danger to the victim. For example, repeated and sustained inaction by Government officials in the face of potential acts of violence might constitute prior assurances to an offender that rise to the level of an affirmative condoning of private violence such as would amount to a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, even if there is no explicit approval or encouragement. In other words, under the right set of facts, Government officials can commit a substantive due process violation by implicit encouragement of the offender's actions.
Topics:
legal research,
Fourteenth Amendment,
public law,
42 U.S.C. § 1983,
John M Stone,
civil rights liability,
government defendant,
Pearce v. Estate of Longo,
state's failure to protect,
law enforcement,
inaction,
private violence,
due process claim,
state-created danger,
causal link,
failure to train theory
March 15, 2011
John Stone, Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group
A recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit suggests that requiring a teacher to have a relatively large class size may not merely adversely impact the effectiveness of the teacher and the learning by the students—it may also constitute discrimination against teachers who have been determined to be disabled. Sepúlveda‑Villarini v. P.R. Dep't of Educ., 628 F.3d 25 (1st Cir. 2010). The author of the opinion in Sepúlveda‑Villarini was retired Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, The Honorable David Souter, sitting by designation.
The plaintiffs in the case were two public school teachers in Puerto Rico. Despite some different details, the teachers' circumstances were largely similar. Sepúlveda alleged that he had suffered a stroke while teaching, requiring heart bypass surgery, and that his doctor had ordered him to apply for accommodations upon returning to work. For five school years, the school accommodated Sepúlveda by providing him a classroom on the first floor, a reduced class size of 15 pupils in most of those years, and a rest period. Then, after the Secretary for the Puerto Rico Department of Education had issued instructions to keep class size at a minimum of 20, the school director enlarged Sepúlveda's class to 30 but provided an inexperienced teacher to share his duties. Sepúlveda claimed that the new arrangement was an unreasonable refusal to accommodate his disability, resulting in emotional consequences with physical symptoms requiring treatment, and he sought monetary and equitable relief.
Topics:
legal research,
Rehabilitation Act,
discrimination,
Sepulveda‑Villarini,
plausibility,
public law,
Americans with Disabilities Act,
John M Stone,
class size
October 26, 2010
John Stone, Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group
In the typical case in which an employee sues under federal or state employment discrimination laws for a racially hostile environment in the workplace, the racially charged conduct emanates only from fellow employees or supervisors. A recent case demonstrates, however, that an employer may be found liable under such provisions even if the harassing atmosphere is caused by the employer's having honored or acquiesced in the racial preferences and biases stated by the employer's customers, with whom the plaintiff employee normally would interact as part of a job. What might be called the "customer made us do it" defense has not been well received by most courts. See, e.g., Johnson v. Zema Sys. Corp., 170 F.3d 734, 744 (7th Cir. 1999) (evidence of segregated sales force supported Title VII claim); Ferrill v. Parker Group, Inc., 168 F.3d 468, 477 (11th Cir. 1999) (employer's practice of assigning "get‑out‑the‑vote" phone calls based on race violated Title VII); see also Fernandez v. Wynn Co., 653 F.2d 1273, 1276‑77 (9th Cir. 1981) (rejecting customer- preference defense in sex discrimination context and relying on EEOC holding that Title VII does not permit the accommodation of the racially discriminatory policies of foreign nations).
Topics:
legal research,
42 U.S.C. § 2000e,
public law,
John M Stone,
hostile workplace environment,
Civil Rights Act,
privacy interests of patient
