The following are summaries of selected criminal opinions issued by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The summaries are overviews; please review the entire opinions. The subsequent histories are current as of October 20, 2025. Below are recent decisions from the United States Fifth Circuit of Appeals.
TAKINGS: Fifth Circuit rejects constitutional challenge in construction dispute.
Mesquite Asset Recovery Group v. City of Mesquite (Fifth Cir. No. 24-11025). The Fifth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of developers’ takings claims arising from the City of Mesquite’s termination of a master development agreement. The plaintiffs alleged that the city’s refusal to extend contractual deadlines, and its about-face on enforcement of a prior flood-control variance, constituted an uncompensated taking in violation of the Fifth Amendment. The panel held that the developers’ allegations failed to show that the city acted in its sovereign rather than its commercial capacity. When a government acts as a market participant in contracting, any dispute sounds in contract, not sovereignty. Actions that would constitute mere breach by a private party do not transform into Fifth Amendment takings merely because a contracting party is a municipality. Because the alleged wrongs were intertwined with contractual obligations and renegotiation efforts, the city’s conduct was commercial, not regulatory, and thus no taking occurred. The court also upheld dismissal of the related federal declaratory-judgment claim and remanded residual state-law contract issues to state court.
This decision reinforces a clean demarcation between contract disputes and constitutional takings. As Mesquite illustrates, claims framed as those for “inverse condemnation” are barred when the underlying relationship is contractual. Government contractors should take note of this distinction when navigating municipal-development disputes: breach remedies lie in contract law, not the Fifth Amendment. The opinion provides clear Fifth Circuit guidance, consistent with Preston Hollow Capital, L.L.C. v. Cottonwood Development Corp., 23 F.4th 550 (5th Cir. 2022), when a purported Fifth Amendment claim actually “sounds in contract.” Municipalities face no special exposure to such contract-based takings claims simply because they are public entities.
PRISONER LITIGATION: Panel rejects inmate medical claim for lack of standing.
Haverkamp v. Linthicum (5th Cir. No. 24-40709). Haverkamp, an inmate serving a 45-year sentence for child abuse, sued several Texas prison officials, claiming that the denial of “sex-reassignment” surgery violated the Equal Protection Clause. The Fifth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the claim – not on sovereign-immunity grounds as the district court had ruled but for lack of standing. The court held that Haverkamp failed to allege a concrete, redressable injury traceable to any defendant. Although Haverkamp sought prospective injunctive relief under Ex parte Young, the alleged injury hinged on speculative medical decisions within prison doctors’ discretion. Even if sovereign immunity did not bar the suit, Haverkamp still could not show that the requested injunction would remedy a cognizable constitutional harm. Judge Wilson’s opinion for the unanimous panel emphasized that federal courts cannot compel state medical providers to perform a surgical procedure in the absence of any indication that a physician treating Haverkamp would ever recommend the surgery, and that the prison medical policy’s silence on “sex-reassignment” procedures did not itself amount to discrimination among similarly situated inmates.
For civil-rights practitioners, Haverkamp underscores the skepticism toward prisoner challenges seeking medically elective procedures. The ruling narrows potential use of Ex parte Young to force specific medical interventions and clarifies that standing – especially inadequate redressability – can serve to dispose of such suits without reaching sovereign immunity or the merits of equal protection. And for institutional defendants, Haverkamp may provide additional support for arguing that disputes over medical discretion or treatment protocols do not present justiciable constitutional claims.
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY: Divided panel affirms summary judgment, dismissing employment claims under church-autonomy doctrine.
McRaney v. North American Mission Board (5th Cir. No. 23-60494). In a 2-1 decision by Judge Oldham, the panel affirmed summary judgment for the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board (“NAMB”), holding that the First Amendment’s church-autonomy doctrine barred plaintiff Will McRaney’s tort claims. McRaney had alleged defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress (“IIED”) arising from the termination of his employment by a coordinating Baptist convention and subsequent disputes with NAMB. The Fifth Circuit ruled that adjudicating McRaney’s claims would impermissibly require inquiry into ecclesiastical matters – ministerial selection, internal communications, and religious discipline – foreclosed by the First Amendment. Tracing centuries of Anglo-American precedent, the opinion reiterated that civil courts lack authority to resolve controversies over “faith, scripture, and religious doctrine.” Because McRaney’s employment and reputational claims were inseparable from matters of religious doctrine and polity decisions, they were non-justiciable.
McRaney is a major Fifth Circuit articulation of the modern church-autonomy doctrine, in line with other recent decisions like Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, 591 U.S. 732 (2020), and Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. EEOC, 565 U.S. 171 (2012), in shielding religious institutions from suits implicating ecclesiastical judgment. The McRaney majority extended that solicitude notwithstanding Judge Ramirez’s argument in dissent that, because “there is no unified ‘Baptist Church,’ there can be no ‘intrachurch dispute’ or dispute about ‘church government’ in this case.” For counsel serving religious organizations, McRaney reflects an opportunity for limiting discovery and litigation over internal communications and ministerial disputes, even for ostensibly “secular” claims. Said differently, even facially neutral claims – defamation, tortious interference, or IIED – may be barred when their resolution would entangle courts in matters of religious governance.