Take the Fifth

Designated for publication

• Quiroz v. Hernandez, 25-40032, appeal from E.D. Tex.
  • per curiam (Southwick, Higginson, Douglas) (no oral argument), sec. 1983, personal torts, municipal liability, prosecutorial immunity
  • Affirming dismissal of claims for negligence and arising under sec. 1983 against various defendants, arising from serious car accident.
  • The appellants, Madelyn Marina Quiroz and her mother, sued a host of defendants after Madelyn was catastrophically injured in a car crash caused by reckless teenage driving. Madelyn became paraplegic as a result. They brought a sprawling complaint in the Eastern District of Texas against 23 defendants, including city officials, emergency responders, private individuals and entities, asserting negligence and constitutional violations under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The district court dismissed all claims with prejudice (except claims against one defendant without prejudice), finding the complaint riddled with vague, conclusory allegations and deficient pleading. The plaintiffs appealed, seeking another opportunity to replead.
  • On appeal, the Fifth Circuit first addressed claims against Allegiance Mobile Health and its paramedic, which alleged discriminatory delay and inadequate medical care. The court emphasized that § 1983 requires state action; a private emergency transport company and its employees are not state actors merely because they contract with a municipality. The plaintiffs failed to allege either state action or discriminatory intent adequately, and their § 1983 claims were therefore properly dismissed. Further, claims against these defendants were time-barred under Texas’s two-year statute of limitations, and doctrines such as fraudulent concealment, misnomer, or misidentification did not save those untimely claims.
  • The court separately examined claims against Dayton city officials and first responders. The plaintiffs again alleged vague § 1983 violations for discriminatory treatment and investigative missteps following the accident. The Fifth Circuit agreed with the district court that the complaint lacked sufficient factual detail to state cognizable claims under § 1983 or related theories. Monell claims against the City of Dayton were also dismissed because plaintiffs failed to identify any official policy or final-policymaking act that could support municipal liability. Many claims were duplicative across defendants and therefore properly dismissed.
  • Claims against Liberty County prosecutors and attorneys were reviewed for subject matter jurisdiction. The Fifth Circuit held that actions taken by prosecutors in initiating and conducting criminal prosecutions are protected by absolute prosecutorial immunity, barring the plaintiffs’ claims. While the district court’s dismissal of these defendants was affirmed, the appellate court modified the judgment to dismiss those defendants without prejudice rather than with prejudice, consistent with immunity principles.
  • The court dealt with remaining defendants—including Union Pacific Railroad and various private individuals—by noting that the plaintiffs failed to articulate substantive claims against them at all. Where defendants did not file responsive pleadings or were misnamed, plaintiffs offered no meaningful argument on appeal, and any such claims were waived or properly dismissed.

• La Union del Pueblo Entero v. Nelson, 22-50775, c/w Mi Familia Vota v. Abbott, 22-50777, c/w OCA-Greater Houston v. Nelson, 22-50778, appeal from W.D. Tex.
  • Richman, J. (Richman, Southwick, Oldham) (oral argument), Oldham, J., dissenting in part; election law, standing, sovereign immunity
  • Affirming in part and reversing in part denial of defendants’ motions to dismiss sec. 1983 challenges to certain provisions of Texas’s Election Protection and Integrity Act of 2021.
  • The opinion opens by outlining the consolidated appeals brought by the Texas Secretary of State and the Texas Attorney General from the Western District of Texas’s orders denying their motions to dismiss plaintiffs’ challenges to numerous provisions of S.B. 1 on sovereign immunity and standing grounds. Multiple plaintiffs (LUPE, Mi Familia Vota, OCA-Greater Houston, and others) sued, asserting constitutional violations under § 1983 (including Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and First Amendment claims) and statutory claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and Sections 2 and 208 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) to enjoin provisions regulating voter registration, early voting, vote-by-mail, voter assistance, poll watchers, and election-related offenses. The district court made extensive provision-by-provision rulings on who enforces what and whether sovereign immunity and standing barred the suits; the state defendants appealed from the denials of sovereign-immunity and standing challenges.
  • Judge Richman first addressed whether the Fifth Circuit had jurisdiction to hear an interlocutory appeal from orders denying sovereign immunity where that immunity did not cover all claims in the case. Texas argued that denial of sovereign immunity should be immediately appealable under the collateral order doctrine, but plaintiffs contended otherwise because sovereign immunity was conceded to be abrogated or not applicable to statutory claims (ADA, Rehabilitation Act, VRA). Relying on Mi Familia Vota v. Ogg, the panel held that this court does have jurisdiction over such interlocutory appeals even if sovereign immunity, properly applied, would not dismiss all remaining claims, rejecting plaintiffs’ narrow “entire lawsuit” interpretation of earlier case law.
  • Turning to the merits, the majority examined whether the Secretary and the Attorney General are proper Ex parte Young defendants (i.e., whether they have a sufficiently “specific and relevant” connection to enforcement of the challenged S.B. 1 provisions to strip them of sovereign immunity). The opinion applied circuit precedent requiring a showing that a state official “compel[s] or constrain[s]” local officials to enforce the challenged laws. Judge Richman clarified which provisions, as a matter of statutory text and enforcement authority, could properly be tied to the respective defendants. For many provisions, the Secretary lacked a direct enforcement role, and so those claims against her were held to be barred by sovereign immunity.
  • The panel reversed the district court’s sovereign-immunity rulings with respect to a large set of challenged S.B. 1 provisions (including voter-registration and early-voting provisions, and those governing poll watchers and election crimes) where the Secretary lacked the enforcement nexus required for Ex parte Young. However, the majority affirmed that sovereign immunity did not bar § 1983 claims against the Secretary for a subset of provisions involving voter registration list maintenance and vote-by-mail procedures tied to her rulemaking and certification obligations, concluding those provisions imposed duties she could enforce in a way that meets the Ex parte Young criteria.
  • For the Texas Attorney General, the panel likewise reversed the district court’s denial of sovereign immunity for most challenged provisions, holding that the Attorney General generally lacked independent authority to enforce election-law violations against voters or to compel local officials except with local prosecutors’ involvement. A key exception was Section 2.06 of S.B. 1, which imposes civil-penalty enforcement authority that the Attorney General can bring actions to recover; paired with evidence of his office’s active Election Integrity Unit and press releases about enforcement intentions, this sufficed to satisfy Young’s enforcement nexus for that single provision.
  • The majority then addressed standing for the § 1983 claims that survived sovereign immunity. Defendants argued that plaintiffs lacked standing because the asserted injuries were not traceable to enforcement by the Secretary or Attorney General. Drawing on Fifth Circuit precedents such as TDP and OCA-Greater Houston v. Texas, the court confirmed that plaintiffs alleged concrete membership harms (e.g., diversion of organizational resources to educate voters, burdens from enforcement actions) that were traceable and redressable at least in part by invalidating provisions enforced by those officials. Thus, for the provisions the majority held were enforceable by the Secretary or Attorney General, Article III standing was established.
  • In sum, the Fifth Circuit panel affirmed the district court’s denial of the Secretary’s motion to dismiss § 1983 challenges to certain enumerated provisions (e.g., §§ 2.05, 2.06, 2.07, and others the panel found enforceable), reversed the district court’s denial of the Secretary’s motion to dismiss for a significant set of other provisions where no enforcement nexus existed, and reversed the district court’s denial of the Attorney General’s motion to dismiss all § 1983 challenges except as to S.B. 1 § 2.06. The panel thereby narrowed substantially the scope of federal litigation that may proceed against these state officials, while preserving plaintiffs’ ability to litigate certain challenges to S.B. 1 that are tied to enforceable duties of those defendants.
  • Judge Oldham dissented in part, agreeing with the panel that the court has collateral-order jurisdiction to hear the appeal, but parting ways sharply on the merits. He argues that none of the challenged provisions of Texas’s S.B. 1 can be enforced against these plaintiffs by the named state officers—the Texas Secretary of State or the Attorney General—and so no part of the suit should proceed in district court. Under Ex parte Young, a federal court may only hear a suit against state actors when those actors have a direct connection to enforcing an allegedly unconstitutional law against the plaintiffs; if they do not, sovereign immunity remains intact and the suit must be dismissed.
  • Central to Judge Oldham’s dissent is his critique of what he calls the “No Nexus Rule” in Fifth Circuit Ex parte Young jurisprudence. Under this rule, the panel majority allowed plaintiffs to sue state officials so long as those officials had some minimal authority to enforce any part of the statute against anyone, rather than requiring a real enforcement nexus to the plaintiffs’ own rights or injuries. Judge Oldham argues this formulation divorces Ex parte Young from its historical and doctrinal roots, undermines the constitutional limits on federal equitable power, and effectively permits federal courts to issue injunctions that operate like a “‘writ of erasure’” against state statutes even when the defendants cannot enforce those statutes against the plaintiffs.
  • Applying this doctrinal framework to this case, Judge Oldham explains that—theoretically—county election officials, not the Secretary or Attorney General, are the entities responsible for enforcing the challenged ballot-registration, early-voting, mail-in-ballot, and voter-assistance provisions against voters. Because the plaintiffs are voters (or organizations representing voters), and because neither the Secretary nor the Attorney General actually enforces these provisions against them, there is no proper Ex parte Young defendant before the court. According to Judge Oldham, this lack of a true enforcement nexus means sovereign immunity has not been relinquished, so the entire case should be dismissed rather than allowed to go forward in federal court.

Unpublished decisions

• U.S. v. Sanchez, 25-10389, appeal from N.D. Tex.
  • per curiam (King, Stewart, Haynes) (no oral argument), criminal
  • Granting Anders motion to withdraw, and dismissing appeal.

• Hodge v. Zimmerman, 25-10721, appeal from N.D. Tex.
  • per curiam (Stewart, Willett, Wilson) (no oral argument), prisoner suit
  • Dismissing as frivolous appeal of dismissal of Texas state prisoner’s sec. 1983 claims as Heck barred.

• Giaccio v. Lyon, 25-10861, c/w 25-10952, appeal from N.D. Tex.
  • per curiam (Stewart, Graves, Oldham) (no oral argument), sec. 1983
  • Affirming dismissal of sec. 1983 claims.

• Levias v. U.S., 25-20069, appeal from S.D. Tex.
  • per curiam (King, Jones, Wilson) (oral argument), Federal Tort Claims Act
  • Affirming dismissal of FTCA claims for failure to exhaust administrative remedies.

• U.S. v. Harrington, 25-40122, appeal from E.D. Tex.
  • per curiam (Higginbotham, Engelhardt, Ramirez) (no oral argument), criminal
  • Granting Anders motion to withdraw, and dismissing appeal.

• Davis v. Ogbebar, 24-40834, appeal from S.D. Tex.
  • per curiam (Haynes, Duncan, Ramirez) (oral argument withdrawn), prisoner suit
  • Affirming judgment for defendant on jury verdict against plaintiff state prisoner.

• U.S. v. Rangel, 25-50228, appeal from W.D. Tex.
  • per curiam (Higginbotham, Engelhardt, Ramirez) (no oral argument), criminal
  • Granting Anders motion to withdraw, and dismissing appeal.

• U.S. v. Pearson, 25-60228, appeal from N.D. Miss.
  • per curiam (King, Haynes, Ho) (no oral argument), criminal
  • Granting Anders motion to withdraw, and dismissing appeal.

• Barrientos-Romero v. Bondi, 25-60285, petition for review of BIA order
  • per curiam (King, Stewart, Haynes) (no oral argument), immigration
  • Denying Salvadoran citizen’s petition for review of denial of motion to reopen and rescind removal order.

• Moore v. Itawamba County, 25-60314, appeal from N.D. Miss.
  • per curiam (Stewart, Willett, Wilson) (no oral argument), sec. 1983
  • Dismissing as frivolous appeal from dismissal of plaintiff’s sec. 1983 claims.

• Marciano v. Bondi, 24-60528, petition for review of BIA order
  • per curiam (Southwick, Higginson, Wilson) (no oral argument), immigration, Violence Against Women Act
  • Granting in part and dismissing in part for lack of jurisdiction Brazilian citizen’s petition for review of BIA order upholding IJ’s denial of motion to reopen under the “extraordinary circumstances” provision for timeliness under the Violence Against Women Act.

• Jew v. Dobbins, 24-60610, appeal from S.D. Miss.
  • per curiam (Jones, Stewart, Ramirez) (oral argument), qualified immunity
  • Dismissing for lack of appellate jurisdiction defendants’ appeal from order denying their motions for judgment on the pleadings (asserting defenses of qualified immunity, Heck-bar, and governmental immunity) without prejudice and staying the proceedings pending resolution of an underlying criminal case against the plaintiff.

• Eriakha v. University of Mississippi, 25-60708, appeal from N.D. Miss.
  • per curiam (Jones, Richman, Ramirez) (no oral argument), sec. 1983, appellate jurisdiction
  • Dismissing appeal of “effective denial” of preliminary injunctive relief on finding that plaintiff did not explain why a lack of ruling by a certain date constituted an “effective denial.”