Justia Military Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff appealed from the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of defendant on his claims that defendant committed employment discrimination, in violation of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA), 38 U.S.C. 4301, et seq. Plaintiff claimed that his military service was a motivating factor in defendant's decision to discharge him and that defendant terminated him without cause. The court held that plaintiff failed to present sufficient evidence to allow a reasonable jury to find that defendant was hostile to his membership in the uniformed services; that the timing of plaintiff's termination failed to support his argument that his membership in the uniform services was a motivating factor in defendant's decision; and that defendant's reason for termination have not varied. Therefore, the court concluded that the district court properly granted summary judgment in favor of defendant on this claim. The court also held that defendant's decision to discharge plaintiff was not arbitrary and there was no evidence to suggest that defendant tried to evade the statute and that plaintiff had notice that his conduct would constitute cause for discharge. Therefore, the court also affirmed summary judgment on this claim. View "Rademacher v. HBE Corp." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, formerly a colonel in the North Carolina Army National Guard, commenced this action against his former colleagues alleging that they violated his Fourth Amendment rights by wrongfully intercepting, reading, and forwarding his e-mails while he was deployed in Kuwait. Plaintiff appealed the district court's order denying his motion for relief from judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(6). The court held that the district court reasonably found that plaintiff had not demonstrated "extraordinary circumstances" to justify granting a Rule 60(b)(6) motion. The court also rejected plaintiff's alternative argument that the district court should have treated plaintiff's Rule 60(b)(6) motion as a new complaint. Accordingly, under the circumstances of the case, the court could not conclude that the district court abused its discretion in denying plaintiff's March 31, 2008 motion to reopen the September 14, 2007 judgment under Rule 60(b)(6).

Plaintiff, formerly a colonel in the North Carolina Army National Guard, commenced this action against his former colleagues alleging that they violated his Fourth Amendment rights by wrongfully intercepting, reading, and forwarding his e-mails while he was deployed in Kuwait. Plaintiff appealed the district court's order denying his motion for relief from judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(6). The court held that the district court reasonably found that plaintiff had not demonstrated "extraordinary circumstances" to justify granting a Rule 60(b)(6) motion. The court also rejected plaintiff's alternative argument that the district court should have treated plaintiff's Rule 60(b)(6) motion as a new complaint. Accordingly, under the circumstances of the case, the court could not conclude that the district court abused its discretion in denying plaintiff's March 31, 2008 motion to reopen the September 14, 2007 judgment under Rule 60(b)(6). View "Aikens v. Ingram, Jr. et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, four Afghan and five Iraqi citizens captured and subsequently held in Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively, by the United States military sued defendants, seeking damages and declaratory relief as the result of their treatment while in U.S. custody. Each plaintiff asserted two Bivens claims, namely, defendants tortured him in violation of his due process right under the Fifth Amendment and defendants' conduct constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Plaintiffs also brought claims under the ATS based on defendants' alleged infliction of "prolonged arbitrary detention," "torture," and "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." Plaintiffs appealed the dismissal of their constitutional claims and ATS claims. The court held that defendants were protected from plaintiffs' constitutional claims by qualified immunity. The court also held that, even if defendants were not shielded by qualified immunity and plaintiffs could claim the protections of the Fifth and Eighth Amendments, the court would decline to sanction a Bivens cause of action because special factors counseled against doing so. The court further held that plaintiffs' claim under the ATS alleged a violation of the law of nations, not of the ATS, and therefore, did not violate a statute of the United States within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. 2679(b)(2)(B). The court finally held that because plaintiffs have not alleged a cognizable cause of action, they have no basis upon which to seek declaratory relief. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment of dismissal. View "Ali v. Rumsfeld" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed a district court order dismissing for lack of subject matter jurisdiction his suit against defendants, asserting that federal constitutional and state common law torts arising out of allegations that defendant fraudulently enlisted plaintiff into the National Guard. At issue was whether plaintiff's suit was barred by the doctrine of intra-military immunity in Feres v. United States because it sought monetary damages for injuries arising out of or were in the course of activity incident to military service. The court held that the Feres doctrine did not bar a discharged serviceman, who remained in the Individual Ready Reserve, from suing active duty National Guard recruiters whom he accused of forging his signature on re-enlistment papers where the alleged injury was not incident to the plaintiff's service. The court also held that defendants met the prima facie test as federal employees under the Westfall Act, 28 U.S.C. 2671, and remanded for further factual determinations on this issue.

Plaintiffs, two non-profit organizations, sought injunctive and declaratory relief to remedy the delays in the provision of mental health care and adjudication of service-connected death and disability compensation claims by the Department of Veterans Affairs ("VA"). At issue was whether these delays violated veterans' due process rights to receive the care and benefits they were guaranteed by statute for harms and injuries sustained while serving our country. While the court affirmed the district court's ruling, with respect to various claims for specific forms of relief under the Administrative Procedures Act ("APA"), 5 U.S.C. 500 et. seq., that the APA prevented the court from granting veterans the statutory relief they sought, the court reversed the district court's ruling on plaintiffs' constitutional claims and held that the VA's failure to provide adequate procedures for veterans facing prejudicial delays in the delivery of mental health care violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The court further held that the district court erred in concluding that it lacked jurisdiction to review plaintiffs' due process challenge to delays and procedural deficiencies in the compensation claims adjudication system and that it erroneously denied plaintiffs' the relief to which they were entitled under the Due Process Clause.

Criminal proceedings were conducted with five defendants, members of the Raven 23 team from Blackwater Worldwide ("Blackwater"), where Blackwater was hired by American security officials to evacuate a diplomat from a car bomb explosion and where there existed a dispute over who fired shots that killed and wounded Iraqi civilians. At issue was whether the district court properly dismissed an indictment against the five defendants on the ground that the evidence presented to the grand jury, and the decision to prosecute two of the defendants, was tainted by statements of defendants. The court held that the district court erred by treating evidence as single lumps and excluding them in their entirety when at the most, only some portion of the content was tainted; by failing to conduct a proper independent-source analysis as required by Kastigar v. United States and United States v. Rinaldi; by applying the wrong legal standard when it excluded a defendant's journal and his testimony simply because the news reports based on some of the immunized statements were "a cause" for his writing it; and to the extent that evidence tainted by the impact of one defendant's immunized statements may be found to have accounted for the indictment of that defendant, it did not follow that the indictment of any other defendant was tainted.

Plaintiffs filed a class action suit for damages against defendant, a former United States Marshal, claiming that they were unconstitutionally strip searched by Deputy U.S. Marshals under defendant's direction after plaintiffs were arrested during a demonstration in September 2002. At issue was whether it was clearly established in September 2002 that strip searching an arrestee before placing him in a detention facility without individualized reasonable suspicion was unconstitutional. The court held that it need not consider whether defendant had individual suspicion as to each of the plaintiffs where there was no clearly established constitutional prohibition in 2002 of strip searching arrestees without individualized, reasonable suspicion and therefore, defendant was entitled to qualified immunity and summary judgment. View "Paul Bame, et al v. Todd Dillard, et al" on Justia Law