Latest 2 Cases: Sanchez v. Smart Fabricators of Texas, LLC (Admiralty & Maritime Law), Amador v. Vasquez (Civil Rights)

Can A City Refuse Land-Use Permits Because it Doesn’t Like the Federal Policies the Property Will be Used to Implement?

VIKRAM DAVID AMAR

Illinois Law dean and professor Vikram David Amar explains why a local government cannot constitutionally create policy discriminating against entities that do business with the feds. Specifically, Amar discusses a situation in which the city of Farland, California, is trying to prevent a privately operated state prison facility located in that city from contracting with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

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Sanchez v. Smart Fabricators of Texas, LLC

Docket: 19-20506

Opinion Date: March 11, 2020

Judge: Higginbotham

Areas of Law: Admiralty & Maritime Law, Personal Injury

After plaintiff was injured when he tripped on a pipe welded to the deck of a jacked-up offshore drilling rig, he filed a negligence action against Smart Fabricators under the Jones Act. The district court denied plaintiff's motion to remand to state court, granting Smart Fabricator's motion for summary judgment. The Fifth Circuit held that the district court did not err in holding that plaintiff was not a Jones Act seaman. The court affirmed the district court's reasoning in distinguishing Naquin v. Elevating Boats, LLC, a 2014 case in which the court considered the "substantial nature" component of the seaman test. In this case, plaintiff's duties are readily distinguishable from Naquin's because plaintiff worked on drilling rigs only "while they were jacked up on the sea floor, with the body of the rig out of the water and not subject to waves, tides, or other water movement." Furthermore, while Naquin's workplace remained subject to the vicissitudes of a navigable waterway, plaintiff's workplace was stable, flat, and well above the water. Moreover, plaintiff did not perform "tasks requiring operating or navigating the rigs." Rather, the court explained that plaintiff was a welder, and he was injured when he tripped on a pipe welded to the floor, a circumstance unrelated to any perils of the sea.

Amador v. Vasquez

Docket: 17-51001

Opinion Date: March 11, 2020

Judge: James Earl Graves, Jr.

Areas of Law: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law

After Deputies Vasquez and Sanchez shot and killed Gilbert Flores, Flores's estate filed a 42 U.S.C. 1983 action alleging that the deputies violated Flores's Fourth Amendment right to be free from excessive force. The district court denied the deputies' motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity. The Fifth Circuit agreed with the district court that genuine issues of material fact exist. Therefore, the court held that it lacked jurisdiction to review the appeal and dismissed. In this case, a reasonable officer would have understood that using deadly force on a man holding a knife, but standing nearly thirty feet from the deputies, motionless, and with his hands in the air for several seconds, would violate the Fourth Amendment.