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Short Circuit: A Roundup of Recent Federal Court Decisions

Measles outbreaks, navigable rivers, and a winey circuit split.

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Please enjoy the latest edition of Short Circuit, a weekly feature written by a bunch of people at the Institute for Justice.

This week on the Short Circuit podcast: the panel looks at the Sixth Circuit's look at a Cincinnati councilman's bribery conviction.

  1. Allegation: In 2013, Long Island, N.Y. school bus driver has medical emergency, crashes into parked car. (No students harmed.) He passes three breathalyzers, and a medic tells the officer he really needs to be taken to the hospital. He's arrested anyway, suffers renal failure, and nearly dies. Despite passing drug tests, he's charged with DUI. Jury: Which was false arrest/malicious prosecution. Pay him $515k. Second Circuit (unreported): And pay his lawyers $850k.
  2. What do you call it when DEA agents put up a video camera that records the exterior of your property 24/7—without a warrant for 50 days? Second Circuit: As long as you don't call it a "search," call it whatever you want.
  3. Following measles outbreak in 2018-19 (the worst in 25 years), New York—the epicenter of the outbreak—repeals its religious exemption for its vaccination requirement for students attending public, private, or parochial schools. Amish parents and schools challenge the law, alleging that it violates their right to direct the religious upbringing of their children. Second Circuit: The Supreme Court has upheld vaccination requirements for 120 years, this one isn't any different.
  4. D.C.-area property management companies use targeted advertising to promote their rental housing to people aged 50 or younger. Fifty-five-year-old D.C. resident doesn't see the advertising, which she says might have led her to rent one of the units. Instead, she bought a home. She files a class action alleging age discrimination. Fourth Circuit: Not being targeted by targeted advertising is not an injury in fact. No standing.
  5. Allegation: After the air conditioning breaks at a Virginia prison, pretrial detainee complains about the heat and suggests other inmates do so as well. For his trouble, he gets 125 days in solitary. He sues for First Amendment retaliation. Fourth Circuit: And that very much states a claim. Case un-dismissed.
  6. Third Circuit: New Jersey's alcohol regulations (which, among other things, allow retailers to ship wine to consumers only if the retailer has a physical location in New Jersey) absolutely discriminate against interstate commerce, but we're pretty sure the Supreme Court has said that's okay in this context.
  7. Allegation: Innocent man spends nearly two years in hellish jail conditions after being accused of murder by a jailhouse informant who was high on meth (or withdrawing). Fifth Circuit: This Jackson, Miss. detective (as well as all officers everywhere) had "fair warning" that it's unconstitutional to rely on such an accusation (which was amply contradicted by other evidence), manipulate a photo lineup, and withhold the other evidence from a grand jury. It is also noted that, while we can't do anything with it, the argument that the doctrine of qualified immunity is itself unlawful is preserved.
  8. Three female Texas former inmates allege they were groped and sexually harassed by a guard and bring claims under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. District court: No claims under the Eighth Amendment, but yes under the Fourteenth Amendment. Fifth Circuit: Nope, it was the Eighth Amendment.
  9. Harris County, Tex. sheriff's office employees allege a new overtime policy violates their civil rights in a long list of ways. One is that the cut in comp violates their freedom of association by denying them time "to enjoy private activities at their leisure." Fifth Circuit (unpublished): What? Dismissal affirmed.
  10. The latest Sixth Circuit news regarding a Rowan County, Ky. clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples after Obergefell v. Hodges is that she and qualified immunity will not be exchanging nuptials.
  11. Allegation: Seeking to apprehend man who fired a gun in a Bottineau County, N.D. bar, officers mistakenly confront unrelated man who has a similar name (wrong middle name, wrong ethnicity, wrong build) and shoot him dead without warning. Eighth Circuit to his pro se mother: One can't bring constitutional claims against the feds. The tort claims are dismissed (without prejudice) for failure to exhaust administrative remedies.
  12. Des Moines, Iowa driver passes a police car and extends his middle finger for a stately eleven blocks as they tail him. At which point the officers arrest him (ostensibly for cutting off another car) and engage in the sort of manhandling you'd expect of cops who'd been on the receiving end of an eleven-block bird. First and Fourth Amendment litigation ensues. Eighth Circuit: And at the summary-judgment stage, we agree with the district court that the officers aren't entitled to qualified immunity. Might be they had absolutely no basis for the stop. (Some longform local journalism on the incident can be enjoyed here.)
  13. Ninth Circuit (over a partial dissent): Arizona's alcohol regulations (which, among other things, allow retailers to ship wine to consumers only if the retailer has a physical location in Arizona) absolutely do not discriminate against interstate commerce. (Longtime Short Circuit readers will remember a contrary Third Circuit opinion on exactly this question about 30 lines up from this one. This may be the first circuit split to break out within a single edition of Short Circuit.)
  14. Washington State man who is on supervised release is charged with assault and reincarcerated—without a jury trial. Man: Which I concede is fine under the Sixth Amendment. But Article III, Section 2, using slightly different wording, also guarantees jury trials, and there is no on-point precedent saying I can't invoke that. Ninth Circuit: There is now.
  15. Kirkland, Wash. church held a health insurance plan for its employees that excluded abortion coverage. Its carrier, however, then said the plan was no longer available. This was after the state passed the "Parity Act," requiring abortion coverage if an employer's plan covered maternity care, but before regulations clarifying the Act did not affect conscience-based objectors like the church. So, does the church have standing to challenge the Act because it indirectly made the original plan unavailable? Ninth Circuit (2021) (unpublished): Seems like it. Case undismissed. Ninth Circuit (2025): I guess not. There's other plans out there that exclude abortion. Just go get one. Dissent: They assumed there's standing from last time and no one briefed it this time. "Imagine everyone's surprise when they read the majority opinion."
  16. For more than 20 years, Montana, the United States, and hydroelectric dam owners have litigated about which government owns the riverbeds where the dams sit, and, thus, to whom the dam owners must pay rent. The case has gone from the Montana Supreme Court to SCOTUS and now to the Ninth Circuit. The question is whether the rivers (on a segment-by-segment basis) were "navigable in fact" at Montana's statehood in 1889. If yes, title goes to Montana; if no, the U.S. And the court says the feds have it.
  17. Powerful rare earth magnets make for a fun desk toy. They can also lead to necrosis in the intestines, sepsis, and death, when people (children) swallow them. To combat this, the CPSC limited the size and strength of magnets that could be sold. Tenth Circuit (2016): The CPSC ignored data showing that a rule might be unnecessary, so the rule is struck down. The CPSC went back to the drawing board and crafted a new rule. Tenth Circuit (2025): The new rule is fine, and following our recent precedent, the CPSC is constitutionally structured.
  18. Feds get a warrant to test DNA of a biker arrested at a Las Vegas, N.M. saloon to show he was illegally carrying a gun. Uh oh! The warrant was based largely on statements of an off-duty officer at the saloon that contradict what he said at the time of the arrest. District court: That violates the constitutional rule that warrants can't be based on intentionally false statements; DNA suppressed. Gov't: Surely, that rule doesn't apply to an off-duty officer? Tenth Circuit: It surely does, at least when he was involved in the investigation as this fellow was.
  19. And in en banc news, a D.C. Circuit panel decided to stay its mandate for at least 12 months in a case where it had earlier set aside a rule affecting an air tour management program. The panel said little about how in the meantime a majority of the full en banc court denied en banc review but nevertheless described the mic drop portion of the panel's opinion (that CEQ rules are not binding) as dicta.

Friends, here at IJ we believe that federal agents should not mistakenly SWAT raid an innocent family's home because agents couldn't be bothered to double check that they had the right address. Importantly, Congress shares this belief. In the wake of a series of wrong-house raids in 1973, it enacted legislation guaranteeing a remedy to victims of assault, battery, false arrest, and other intentional torts by federal law enforcement. So, we're happy to say that on April 29th the Supreme Court will hear Martin v. U.S. and consider whether lower courts have been ignoring Congress and inventing spurious reasons to kick righteous claims out of court. Click here for case info. And click here for our just-filed merits brief.