The following are summaries of selected civil opinions issued by the Fifth Circuit in April 2025. The summaries are overviews of particular aspects of the opinions; please review the entire opinions.
ARBITRATION: Fifth Circuit upheld an arbitration award, underscoring Court’s strict adherence to the statutory grounds for judicial review as the sole path to vacatur.
In United States Trinity Energy Services, L.L.C. v. Southeast Directional Drilling, L.L.C., No.24-10833, the Court considered a challenge to an arbitration award for Southeast Directional Drilling in a contract dispute related to a pipeline project. Judge Clement, joined by Judges Stewart and Willett, affirmed the confirmation of the award.
The parties’ contract entitled Southeast to certain delay-related costs, provided that Southeast was not in default. Delays ensued. Trinity pursued arbitration, seeking a declaratory judgment disclaiming liability for Southeast’s costs. Southeast counterclaimed for reimbursement. The arbitration panel ruled in Southeast’s favor.
Trinity moved to vacate the award under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), 9 U.S.C. § 10(a)(4), asserting that the panel exceeded its authority by misconstruing the parties’ contract. Applying the FAA’a deferential standard of review, however, the Fifth Circuit upheld the award. So long as arbitrators plausibly construe the contract, courts may not overturn the resulting award, even for manifest errors in interpretation.
The Court specifically rejected the argument that a “manifest disregard of the law” could serve as a basis to show that arbitrators “exceeded their powers” under Section 10(a)(4). Under the statutory limitations provided by Congress, judicial review is not available to rehash the merits of a contract dispute where the arbitrators acted within their delegated authority. Recognizing a “manifest disregard of the law” standard would eviscerate the limitations on vacatur in the FAA.
The opinion thus underscores the Court’s strict adherence to the statutory grounds for judicial review as the sole path to vacatur under the FAA. Parties may disagree with arbitration awards grounded in a plausible interpretation of the parties’ contract. But the Fifth Circuit will not allow them to seek vacatur on that basis by reframing disagreement with arbitrators’ interpretation as a “manifest disregard of the law.”
FMLA SUMMARY JUDGMENT: Fifth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part a grant of summary judgment in former city employee FMLA retaliation suit, finding triable fact issues as to the employee’s disability claims.
In Way v. City of Missouri City, No. 24-20144 (5th Cir. 2025), the Fifth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part a grant of summary judgment in a disability and FMLA retaliation case brought by a former city employee. The employee alleged that after disclosing anxiety and fibroids and taking approved FMLA leave, the city failed to accommodate her disabilities and ultimately terminated her in retaliation for protected conduct. In relevant part, Judge Smith, joined by Judges Higginson and Douglas, revived the employee’s anxiety-related disability-discrimination claim.
The employee had raised triable fact issues that her anxiety substantially limited her major life activities, that the city knew about her anxiety, and that the city failed reasonably to accommodate it. The employee had sufficiently shown that her anxiety affected her ability to think, focus, sleep, and eat, with attendant physical symptoms. Her emails with management about “developing anxiety,” coupled with a supervisor’s sarcastic inquiry into her “emotional distress” at a tearful in-person meeting, could have communicated that she was suffering from anxiety and had asked for help. And the employee had provided evidence showing that, although she asked for accommodations in the form of written timelines and expectations, her supervisor never provided the requested information.
The case was remanded for further proceedings on the surviving disability-discrimination claim and the FMLA retaliation claim.
EN BANC QUALIFIED IMMUNITY: Fifth Circuit affirmed dismissal of a retaliatory arrest as a result of use of unofficial police sources to report the news, finding it was not a known violation of the First Amendment at the time of the arrest.
The Fifth Circuit issued an en banc ruling in Villarreal v. City of Laredo, No. 20-40359 (5th Cir. 2025). On remand from the Supreme Court, the en banc Court affirmed the dismissal of a retaliatory-arrest claim on qualified-immunity grounds.
The underlying dispute involved journalist Priscilla Villarreal’s First Amendment retaliation claim against Laredo officials. Villarreal had alleged that she was arrested in retaliation for using unofficial police sources to report the news. Officials prosecuted Villarreal for doing so under a rarely enforced provision of Texas law. The Fifth Circuit previously sided with the officials based on the existence of probable cause for the arrest, notwithstanding a 2019 Supreme Court decision, Nieves v. Bartlett, which held that the mere existence of probable cause did not automatically bar a claim for retaliation based on First Amendment activity.
On remand, the en banc Court held that, at the time of Villarreal’s 2017 arrest, the law was not clearly established that arresting Villarreal violated the First Amendment. Reichle v. Howards, a 2012 Supreme Court decision, governed at the time of Villareal’s arrest. Reichle had precluded challenges to retaliatory arrests supported by probable cause. Because Nieves post-dated Villareal’s arrest, no reasonable official would have understood Villarreal’s arrest to be unlawful.
Judge Oldham concurred but wrote separately about the conceptual gap between the constitutional right at issue and Section 1983’s conditions for a remedy. Judge Higginson dissented, urging remand for full adversarial proceedings.