Editor’s Note: Law Week Colorado edits court opinion summaries for style and, when necessary, length.
This appeal involves the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable seizures. The reasonableness of a seizure turns on the totality of the circumstances, according to the opinion.
The circumstances began when a Salt Lake City police officer stopped Patrick Harmon for a traffic violation while he was riding a bicycle. Harmon gave a fake name, but Kris Smith, the police officer, was able to identify Harmon and found that he had an active felony warrant. Smith decided to arrest Harmon.
Harmon ran from officers, and all of the officers said they had seen him reach toward his waist or a pocket. Ultimately, police shot and shocked Harmon with a Taser. He later died from the gunshots, and when he fell, a knife lay next to his right arm.
Harmon’s estate and two children sued Clinton Fox, one of the officers on the scene, and Salt Lake City for excessive force. The district court dismissed the action, but the 10th Circuit reversed in 2021.
On remand, the district court granted summary judgment to Fox and Salt Lake City, reasoning that any fact-finder would have found that Harmon had been holding a knife and regarded the shooting as reasonable. Harmon’s estate appealed.
The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals found that for Fox’s assertion of qualified immunity, a genuine dispute of material fact exists. It also found that a constitutional violation would have been clearly established for the claim against Fox.
It concluded that a fact-finder could legitimately determine that Fox had shot Harmon despite the absence of an imminent threat and a mistaken perception of a threat would have been reasonable. Given these potential findings, it found that the district court should have denied qualified immunity to Fox.
It also held that the existence of a constitutional violation required reconsideration of the city’s liability.
The 10th Circuit reversed and remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Chisholm’s-Village Plaza LLC v. The Cincinnati Insurance Company
This diversity dispute concerns a question about whether two insurers owed a policyholder a duty to defend against a suit alleging contamination under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980.
Chisholm’s Village Plaza LLC brought suit against Fidelity and Guaranty Insurance Underwriters and Cincinnati Insurance Co. Chisholm’s argues that the insurers had a duty to defend it from the property damage alleged in the CERCLA suit. But Fidelity’s and Cincinnati’s insurance policies for Chisholm’s contain an absolute pollution exclusion. And the exclusions, the insurers argue, unambiguously deny Chisholm’s coverage.
In a lengthy opinion, the district court disagreed with the insurers, according to the opinion. The district court held, as a matter of New Mexico law, that the absolute pollution exclusions were ambiguous and, as a result, the insurers owed Chisholm’s a duty to defend. To so hold, the court predicted the New Mexico Supreme Court would adopt an interpretive approach to pollution exclusions taken only by one state.
The district court alternatively reasoned that it would reach the same outcome even if the New Mexico Supreme Court did not adopt that outlier interpretive approach because of the lone fact that other states disagree in their approaches to reading absolute pollution exclusions. The 10th Circuit found that, in all key respects, the court erred.
The 10th Circuit held that the New Mexico Supreme Court would find that the policies unambiguously preclude coverage over the CERCLA complaint’s alleged release of contaminants.
The 10th Circuit reversed the district court’s grant of Chisholm’s’ motion for summary judgment and denials of Fidelity and Cincinnati’s motions for summary judgment.
This contract dispute required the 10th Circuit to predict whether the Kansas Supreme Court would review a noncompetition condition precedent to the receipt of future benefits under the same reasonableness standard as a traditional noncompetition covenant.
The 10th Circuit drew principal guidance from Kansas common law as it pertains to noncompetition covenants, specifically, and as it defines general background principles, which embrace the policy of freedom of contract.
The 10th Circuit supplements the guidance with an examination of the general weight and trend of non-Kansas authorities. And viewed in totality, it found that this guidance permits it to confidently predict that the answer is “no” — the Kansas Supreme Court would not review a non-competition condition precedent to the receipt of future benefits under the same reasonableness standard as a traditional non-competition covenant.
The 10th Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment for Spirit Aerosystems and declined Larry Lawson’s invitation to certify the question to the Kansas Supreme Court.
Center for Biological Diversity v. Environmental Protection Agency
Under federal law, states must adopt implementation plans to meet national standards for ambient air quality. These plans are subject to approval by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Colorado adopted an implementation plan and revised it in 1997. In 2019, Colorado revised the plan again, changing the wording of a permit requirement for new emission sources and adding to the definition of a key threshold to evaluate compliance.
The EPA approved these revisions. The Center for Biological Diversity challenged the approval, arguing that the revision to permit requirements prevents regulators from blocking construction when a new source would generate excessive emissions and the additional language in the definition allows regulators to disregard emissions during drilling, fracking and well completion.
The 10th Circuit rejected the first challenge, concluding the Center has not shown an effect from the revised wording in the permit requirement.
But it agreed with the Center on its second challenge and concluded the EPA acted arbitrarily and capriciously by failing to address the potential emissions during drilling, fracking and well completion.
For the revised permit equipment, the 10th Circuit denied the petition for review. But it granted the petition as to the revised definition of the term “commencement of operation.” With this grant of the petition, the 10th Circuit remanded to the EPA for further explanation of the decision to approve the revised definition.