Door Dash wins free speech case against New York City

New York City enacted a law requiring that third-party delivery platforms, like Door Dash, share customer information with the restaurants whose food they are delivering. Door Dash challenged this requirement as a First Amendment violation, under the coerced speech principle. Door Dash wins the case.

The case is Door Dash, Inc. v. City of New York, issued on August 5. Door Dash gets all the customer information when someone requests a food delivery. The restaurant only gets the customer's first name, last initial, and the order contents, i.e., what food the customer ordered. New York City passed a law in 2021 requiring that Door Dash share the customer information with the restaurants because customer data is "one of the most important tools restaurants can use to develop marketing strategies and customer relations." While Door Dash got all the customer details, the restaurants were unable to communicate directly with those customers as part of their business strategy. At least that was the logic behind the law, which amounted to a gift to the restaurant industry.

The First Amendment does not just protect street protesters and artists. It also protects companies and bars coerced speech. This case involves coerced speech, because the NYC law forced Door Dash to share certain business information with the restaurants. 

Under the case law, a state "may compel a commercial speaker to disclose (1) purely factual and uncontroversial information (2) about the terms under which his services will be available, so long as the disclosure is (3) reasonably related to the State's interest and (4) not unjustified or unduly burdensome." Not the clearest guidelines, but in sum, it means the government can defend such coerced speech in a commercial context only if the speech is "about the goods or services the speaker may offer." In practice, it means that laws requiring restaurants to disclose calorie counts and employers to issue anti-discrimination notices are legal. The Court of Appeals (Wesley, Carney and Park) further reasons:

The disclosure here—customers’ personal information—is not information “about” Marketplace. Information about Marketplace might, for instance, describe the commissions restaurants pay, how the Platforms rank and display restaurants, or the grounds on which they may deactivate a restaurant’s account. See, e.g., Uber Techs., Inc. v. City of Seattle, 168 F.4th 1202, 1216–17 (9th Cir. 2026) (holding, in the alternative, that an ordinance requiring third-party platforms to inform their couriers of the grounds for account deactivation satisfied Zauderer because the notice “concerns only the service provided”). The Customer Data Law, by contrast, compels the disclosure of each customer’s name, number, email address, delivery address, and order contents. § 20-563.7. Those are facts about third parties who use Marketplace, not about Marketplace itself.

Good news, bad news for police misconduct plaintiff

The Second Circuit has ordered a new trial in a malicious prosecution case upon finding the district court improperly excluded recordings that could have undermined the credibility of the plaintiff and his key witness. The court also rejected the police officers’ argument that they were entitled to judgment as a matter of law on the plaintiff’s unlawful-search claim

The case is McClarin v. City of New York, issued on July 13, more than a year following oral argument, demonstrating the complexity of this case. The case arose from a 2015 police investigation in Brooklyn, where officers received information that plaintiff was holding Samantha Miranda captive and abusing her. The officers entered plaintiff's apartment without a warrant, believing they were responding to an emergency. But Plaintiff and Miranda claimed the officers forced their way into the apartment and  pressured Miranda into implicating plaintiff. The charges against plaintiff were dismissed, and this lawsuit followed. Following trial, the jury awarded plaintiff $115,000 in compensatory damages and $775,000 in punitive damages.

The officers seek judgment as a matter of law, citing Rule 50, arguing the jury had no factual basis to rule for plaintiff because they responded to an exigent circumstances that dispensed with the need for a warrant. But the Court of Appeals (Kearse, Raggi and Kahn) affirms the verdict and says the jury had a basis to find for plaintiff because it could have found the officers did not treat the situation as an emergency. The officers spent considerable time dealing with unrelated suspects before going to plaintiff's apartment, and some officers acknowledged that they did not regard the situation as an "emergency" or "urgent." That's the good news for plaintiff. 

The bad news for plaintiff is the verdict is gone and there will be a new trial over an evidentiary ruling that the Second Circuit holds was an abuse of discretion. There were recordings of conversations between plaintiff and Miranda; the officers said these records could have impeached the testimony of plaintiff and Miranda because they included statements about Miranda's expected testimony and the possibility that she would receive money in exchange for her testimony. While the trial court excluded these recordings because they were not disclosed prior to trial, Rule 26 does not require pretrial disclosure of evidence that will be used solely for impeachment. What also helps the police on appeal is that the recordings gave defense counsel ammunition for attacking plaintiff's credibility, as plaintiff denied making certain statements to Miranda, who in turn gave testimony that placed an innocent gloss on their conversations. Had the jury heard the recordings, they might have resolved credibility issues against plaintiff, resulting in a verdict for defendants. 

We have an important ruling on malicious prosecution claims. The officers said plaintiff cannot win this claim because they had probable cause on other charges against him. That argument works in false arrest claims, but not malicious prosecution claims, the Court of Appeals holds. Probable cause for one offense does not necessarily defeat a malicious-prosecution claim involving another offense. In Posr v. Doherty, 944 F.2d 91 (2d Cir. 1991), the Court of Appeals held that "the existence of probable cause to support one charge does not necessarily preclude a claim of malicious prosecution on another charge." In Janetka v. Dabe, 892 F.2d 187 (2d Cir. 1989), the Court held that where the defendant was convicted of disorderly conduct but acquitted of resisting arrest, the unfavorable termination on the disorderly-conduct charge did not preclude a finding of liability for malicious prosecution of the resisting-arrest charge.

Excessive force claim returns to the district court for further review

In this case, the plaintiff found himself back in jail after violating parole. While in jail, he claims, CO's beat him up, Hence this lawsuit asserting excessive force. The trial court denied defendants' motion for summary judgment, but the officers appealed to the Second Circuit, which teaches us again what happens when your civil rights lawsuit raises an esoteric issue that the courts have not definitively resolved in prior cases.

The case is Farrington v. Poole, issued on August 6. Excessive force claims come in two forms. If you are convicted of a crime and incarcerated at state prison, then it's an Eighth Amendment case, where you have to show the officer inflicted unnecessary and wanton pain that would amount to cruel and unusual punishment. To win such a claim, the plaintiff must show the officer subjectively and objectively intended to inflict such harm. But if you are a pretrial detainee, not yet convicted of anything, your excessive force claim is governed by the Fourteenth Amendment, which carries a more lenient standard for the plaintiff, who only has to show the force was purposely or knowingly employed in an objectively unreasonable manner. 

Here's the problem: plaintiff was once convicted of a crime, but he was eventually released from jail on parole. But he violated parole, pleading guilty to that violation at the parole hearing. So he returned to jail, but not state prison. He instead went to the Albany County Jail, where he claims the officers subjected him to excessive force. Parole violators who bring these claims are in a constitutional gray area. Some courts say their claims are governed under the more lenient Fourteenth Amendment. Other courts say these are really Eighth Amendment cases because they have already been convicted of a crime in the past. 

The Second Circuit (Cabranes, Livingston and Menashi) holds that, since plaintiff pled guilty to a parole violation, this is an Eighth Amendment case, not a Fourteenth Amendment case. In resolving the summary judgment motion in plaintiff's favor, the trial court said this was really a Fourteenth Amendment case, as it was not brought to the trial court's attention that plaintiff actually pled guilty to the parole violation. Since plaintiff's case must be resolved under the Eighth Amendment, the case returns to the district court to review the motion for summary judgment again under the more defendant-friendly legal standard. 

The Court of Appeals does not definitively decide whether inmates accused of violating parole who also claim excessive force are Eighth or Fourteenth Amendment plaintiffs. That issue will be decided in some future case. The Court does not have to resolve that issue here because plaintiff's case is clearly an Eighth Amendment case, as he pled guilty to parole violation. In concurrence, Judge Menashi surveys the district court rulings in this area and says that even those accused of violating parole, even if they are not yet convicted of violating parole, are Eighth Amendment plaintiffs, as they have already been convicted of some crime in the past, which is why they ultimately got parole to start with. 

2d Circuit upholds 70% reduction in attorneys' fees in successful civil rights case

A second round of litigation follows any jury verdict in a civil rights case. The plaintiff will file a motion to recover attorneys' fees from the losing party. This motion practice is not supposed to become a second major litigation, but sometimes it does, as the parties fight over the prevailing attorney's hourly rate and whether they spent too much time on the case. That happened in this case. 

The case is McDevitt v. County of Suffolk, a summary order issued on August 5. This police misconduct case yielded a jury verdict in the amount of $750,000, later reduced to $233,000. Plaintiff's counsel next sought nearly $800,000 in attorneys' fees, but the trial court only awarded $187,270, a steep reduction. Hence this appeal, relating solely to the attorneys' fees issue.

The reduction in attorneys' fees may seem excessive -- the trial reduced the amount by 70% -- but the Court of Appeals (Chin, Sullivan and Vacca [D.J.]) affirms. What you need to know is that the Court of Appeals rarely alters the district court's attorneys' fees rulings, which are reviewed under an abuse of discretion test. That test is deferential to the lower court, but the Supreme Court has said that appellate courts must be especially deferential to lower court attorneys' fees rulings on the basis that the trial court -- which presided over discovery and trial and motion practice -- is in a much better position to determine if the requested fees are too high, if trial court's claimed hourly rate is excessive, and whether any equitable considerations warrant a reduction in the fee award. The Court of Appeals does not have that intimate perspective on how the case proceeded below. That's why these appeals usually fail.

Here, plaintiff argued that the trial court unfairly reduced his hourly rate. Counsel requested $367.00 per hour but the district court assessed him at $300.00 per hour. Plaintiff's counsel arrived at the $367.00 amount by blending different hourly rates based on the tasks he was performing: $750 per hour for partner-level work, $450 for associate-level work, and $250 for paralegal work. But the Court of Appeals has never authorized such a calculation in setting an attorney's hourly rate, the Second Circuit holds. The better approach is to set your requested hourly rate at the attorney level and then seek a lower rate for tasks that a paralegal would normally do. In any event, hourly rates in the EDNY range from $300 to $450 for partner-level work. One judge in the EDNY last year raised the cap to $650 for partners, owing to inflation. The rate set by the district court in this case -- $300 per hour -- falls within the reasonable range, though at the lower end. That calculation is not an abuse of discretion.

What about the 70% reduction in hours? That was not an abuse of discretion, either, the Court of Appeals says. The reason is that plaintiff only prevailed on a few claims: excessive force and malicious prosecution against individual police officers and municipal liability against the County of Suffolk, though the latter claim yielded no damages. All of plaintiff's other claims failed. Under the Supreme Court's standards, courts may consider the overall degree of success in determining whether to modify the overall reduction. Altering the percentage reduction is not easy, even if the successful claim resulted in a large damages award. As plaintiff prevailed on only one of five federal claims in this case, against 12 police officers and two municipal entities, winning damages on only one claim, the Court of Appeals will not modify the reduction. On top of that, the trial court identified excessive and/or unnecessary billing entries, as well as vague time entries, which also warranted a reduction in attorneys' fees.

The Court of Appeals reassures us that a 70% reduction is not unheard of in the Second Circuit:

As for the 70% figure the district court settled on – which is an admittedly steep reduction – we note that such deductions are by no means unusual in this Circuit. For example, we affirmed a 50% across-the-board deduction in Matusick v. Erie County, 757 F.3d 31, 64 (2d Cir. 2014), due to a “lack of detail in the billing records” alone; a series of 50% deductions in In re Agent Orange Product Liability Litigation, 818 F.2d 226, 238 (2d Cir. 1987), due to “voluminous” billings on quasi-administrative items and travel time; and an 80% across-the-board deduction in Guardians Ass’n of Police Department of New York City v. City of New York, due to “facially excessive” hours and “vague[]” time records, 133 F. App’x 785, 786 (2d Cir. 2005). At the district level, courts in the Circuit also routinely apply deductions of 70% or more for suits with similar records of success and comparable billing defects.  

2d Circuit holds Supreme Court has changed the rules for reasonable accommodation cases

The Second Circuit holds that its prima facie test for failure-to-accommodate claims is no longer good law following the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores. The Circuit thus vacated summary judgment entered in favor of a court officer who was fired after refusing to comply with the Unified Court System's COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

The case is Bergin v. New York State Unified Court System, issued on July 15. Plaintiff wanted a religious exemption from her employer’s vaccination requirement. She asserted religious objections relating to fetal cell lines used to create the vaccine and her own bodily integrity. We saw these kinds of objections on a regular basis during the COVID era. While the state gave plaintiff a questionnaire that would evaluate the sincerity of her religious beliefs, she declined to answer most of the questions on privacy grounds. The court system denied the exemption request and fired plaintiff because she would not accept the vaccine. After the vaccine mandate was rescinded in 2023, plaintiff was reinstated. She then sued under Title VII, claiming the state failed to accommodate her religion. The district court granted summary judgment for plaintiff, a rare occurrence in employment discrimination cases, finding that plaintiff made out a prima facie case as a matter of law and the court system did not prove any undue hardship.

Under the Second Circuit’s old rules, plaintiffs had to show they (1) held a bona fide religious belief conflicting with a work requirement, (2) informed the employer of that belief, and (3) suffered discipline for failing to comply with the requirement. But Abercrombie changes that framework. Now, the plaintiff must show (1) she actually required a religious accommodation, (2) the employer's desire to avoid providing that accommodation was a motivating factor, and (3) she suffered an adverse employment action. Under the new framework, an employer's knowledge of the need for an accommodation is no longer an independent element of the prima facie case. Knowledge may support an inference of discriminatory motive, but motive and not notice is key after Abercrombie.

Here is the reasoning (citing from Abercrombie), explaining that the Court of Appeals (Raggi, Nathan and Furman [D.J.[]) has to comply with Supreme Court authority even if Second Circuit precedent held otherwise for decades:

“An employer who has actual knowledge of the need for an accommodation does not violate Title VII by refusing to hire an applicant if avoiding that accommodation is not his motive,” just as “an employer who acts with the motive of avoiding accommodation may violate Title VII even if he has no more than an unsubstantiated suspicion that accommodation would be needed.”

The Supreme Court thus rejected one requirement of our old rule (that a plaintiff inform an employer of the need for an accommodation) and clarified that what a plaintiff must plead and, ultimately, prove (that the employer was motivated in part by the desire to avoid offering a religious accommodation). The Supreme Court explained that a “request for accommodation, or the employer’s certainty that the practice exists, may make it easier to infer motive,” but it “is not a necessary condition of liability.”

The Court further rejected plaintiff's argument that Abercrombie applies only to hiring decisions. Title VII's disparate-treatment provision governs both hiring and firing, and the Supreme Court's reasoning extends equally to termination cases.

The case returns to the Eastern District for reconsideration under the new legal standard. The trial court must determine whether the evidence would permit a reasonable jury to conclude the state denied Bergin's exemption because it sought to avoid providing a religious accommodation—not merely because it believed her application was incomplete or failed to establish sincerity.

Congestion toll program for NYC is legal

 The State of New York in 2019 implemented congestion pricing, where drivers have to pay a toll for each vehicle entering Manhattan below 60th Street (except for the FDR Drive and the West Side Highway). Suburban counties in upstate New York challenged this in court, arguing that it unfairly impacts residents from Orange and Rockland Counties. The Court of Appeals finds the congestion pricing thing is legal.

The case is County of Rockland v. Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, issued on July 13. Orange County asserts a right to travel claim under the Constitution. Such a principle exists, though the Constitution does not explicitly say it. As the Second Circuit (Calabresi, Park and Merriam) notes, the source of this right "has proved elusive," but we infer it from various constitutional provisions, like the Privileges and Immunities Clause and the Due Process Clause. But in the end, "the right to migrate is firmly established."

That does not mean Orange County can proceed with the case, the Court of Appeals holds. Cases have long held that toll charges do not violate the right to travel if the toll is based on a fair approximation of state facilities (like a bridge or highways), it is not excessive, and it does not discriminate against interstate commerce. That test is from Northwest Airlines v. County of Kent, a Supreme Court case from 1994.

Orange County agrees the toll does not discriminate against interstate commerce, but its argument that the toll is not based on a fair approximation of the use of state facilities fails, as the toll proceeds are not required to be used in a specific way in order to benefit the toll-payers. The Court finds the toll "aims to benefit all toll payers by reducing traffic congestion" in that part of New York City. Nor is the toll excessive in relation to its benefits, as it does reduce traffic congestion. 

The equal protection challenge also fails, under the "rational basis" test, which says a government program that distinguishes between different people is legal if there is any rational justification for it. Really, anything goes under the rational basis test. The rational basis is that the money goes toward capital funding for mass transit, including subways, and to protect public health, presumably from too much traffic and pollution. As these are legitimate government interests, the equal protection challenge is rejected. 

Union worker wins disability discrimination appeal

The Second Circuit has reinstated a disability discrimination claim, holding the jury may find that an employer denied the plaintiff a reasonable accommodation necessitated by a serious vein condition that made it painful for him to complete his driving assignments without a modification to his work schedule. This ruling highlights a little-known principle under the ADA: the plaintiff's accommodation may entail placing him into someone else's position if that remedy aligns with the usual company practice.

The case is Raymond v. 1199WEIU National Benefit Fund, issued on July 23. Plaintiff worked for a labor union, driving around the New York City metropolitan area educating union members about union pensions and benefits. But due to his vein condition, plaintiff's doctor said he could not sit for more than 30 minutes at a time, prompting defendant to remove from his service area the four facilities that were furthest away from plaintiff's home, but still requiring plaintiff to drive more than 30 minutes to other facilities. The district court dismissed the case on summary judgment. The Court of Appeals (Sack, Perez and Preska [D.J.]) brings the case back.

The Second Circuit notes that an accommodation must be "effective" even if it is not perfect. While the district court held in granting summary judgment for the union that its response to the doctor's note sufficed under the ADA because the union took action to reduce the plaintiff's workload, the Second Circuit says this was the wrong analysis. It is not enough that the employer took some action to assist the plaintiff; the employer must take effective action. In the end, the accommodation must allow the plaintiff to perform his essential job functions. The Circuit notes that it is often up to the jury to decide if the employer's accommodation was sufficiently effect to satisfy the ADA. 

Plaintiff's case is reinstated on this issue for several reasons. First, while the district court held the driving assignment requested by plaintiff to accommodate his disability -- known as Area J -- was not plausible because it was not materially different from the employer's accommodation of removing the four farthest facilities from plaintiff's assignment, "there is evidence in the record supporting an inference that Area J requires less driving," at least based on the maps in the record. This is the kind of factual detail that may get you a trial in an ADA claim. 

Moreover, despite defendant's claim that plaintiff was actually requesting that the union create a new position to accommodate his disability (the law generally does not require the employer to create a new position for that purpose), the jury may find that plaintiff was not actually asking management to do that. Instead, the record supports the inference that he was instead only requesting an new assignment while keeping his old job title. The ADA does not even define "position" or "assignment." 

More interestingly, the Court holds that even the position that plaintiff requested was already filled (the ADA does not normally require the employer to bump someone out of their position to accommodate the plaintiff), if company practice allowed for this kind of personnel management, then the accommodation may be reasonable. In other words, "if NBF frequently shuffles employees into non-vacant positions, then Raymond's reassignment might be a plausible accommodation." The only authority for this holding is a Supreme Court ruling, U.S. Airways v. Barnett, 535 U.S. 391 (2002), which held that while a requested accommodation may be unreasonable where it requires an employer to bypass its seniority system, that same accommodation may be reasonable if the employer frequently ignores the seniority system such that “one more departure . . . will not likely make a difference.”