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SHANNON M. BLICK,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
ANN ARBOR PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT; ANN ARBOR
BOARD OF EDUCATION; SHONTA A. LANGFORD; DAWN
LINDEN; JEANICE KERR SWIFT,
Defendants-Appellees. |
No. 23-1523 |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan at Detroit.
No. 2:19-cv-12127—Gershwin A. Drain, District Judge.
Argued: January 24, 2024
Decided and Filed: June 27, 2024
Before: McKEAGUE, LARSEN, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.
_________________________
OPINION
_________________________
MURPHY, Circuit Judge. For years, Shannon Blick successfully served as a well-liked
principal of an elementary school in the Ann Arbor Public School District. In 2019, however,
the school district placed her on paid leave to investigate her role in a custodian’s over-billing
scheme. The leave lasted two years, and the school district then terminated Blick’s contract.
Blick brought this suit while still on leave. She alleged that various officials violated her
freedoms of speech and association under the First Amendment. She also brought race-discrimination, due-process, and conspiracy claims against these officials. The district court
rejected Blick’s First Amendment claims at the summary-judgment stage, and it dismissed the
other claims on the pleadings.
Blick renews all claims on appeal. Although we find some of the district court’s
reasoning open to debate, Blick has not shown a reversible error. She argues that the school
district violated the First Amendment by imposing a prior restraint that barred her from speaking
during her leave and by taking harmful actions against her in retaliation for her speech. But her
lawyers leave us in the dark about what she wanted to say (for purposes of her “prior restraint”
claim) or what she did say (for purposes of her “retaliation” claim). Blick also relies on adverse
actions (such as the termination of her contract) that occurred after she filed her operative
complaint. But we cannot consider these later events because her lawyers did not file a
supplemental pleading to bring them into the case. And Blick’s opening brief merely
regurgitates much of her response to the school district’s motion to dismiss. By doing so, it
ignores several grounds on which the district court relied to dismiss Blick’s claims. This “cut-and-paste” briefing strategy thus does not preserve Blick’s challenges to much of the district
court’s motion-to-dismiss decision. We affirm.
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, et al. ex rel. MICHAEL
ANGELO and MSP WB, LLC,
Relators-Appellants,
v.
ALLSTATE INSURANCE COMPANY, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees. |
No. 23-1196 |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan at Detroit.
No. 2:19-cv-11615—Stephen J. Murphy III, District Judge.
Argued: December 7, 2023
Decided and Filed: June 27, 2024
Before: BOGGS, SUHRHEINRICH, and READLER, Circuit Judges.
_________________________
OPINION
_________________________
CHAD A. READLER, Circuit Judge. Relators allege that Allstate Insurance violated the
False Claims Act by skirting its obligations under the Medicare Secondary Payer Act. After
multiple amendments by relators, the district court deemed their second amended complaint
deficient in numerous respects and dismissed the case with prejudice. Because the complaint
fails to state a claim for a violation of the False Claims Act, we affirm. |
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