“Confirmed Judges, Confirmed Fears” is a blog series documenting the harmful impact of President Trump’s judges on Americans began to ’ rights and liberties. It includes judges nominated in both his first and second terms.
Judge Joan Larsen, nominated by Donald Trump to the Sixth Circuit, cast the deciding vote to grant immunity from liability to a housing official who evicted someone from her home without due process. The May 2025 decision was in Fitzpatrick v Hanney.
What happened in this case?
Belinda Fitzpatrick owned two adjacent small homes in Lansing, Michigan. She lived in one, and kept chickens in the other. A local official briefly went to the property, saw unsafe and unsanitary conditions in the second house, and then went back with a housing official, Matthew Simon. Fitzpatick did not permit either official to enter her home, but based on his observations from the outside, Simon concluded that Fitzpatrick’s home was “unfit for human occupancy” and placed a “red tag” on both properties, allowing immediate eviction without notice or a hearing. He thus immediately evicted her from her home, as well as from the other dwelling.
Fitzpatrick filed suit against the officials and the city, all of whom filed motions to dismiss. The district court denied Simon’s motion to dismiss based on qualified immunity relating to the eviction, concluding that Fitzpatrick’s complaint showed that he had “plausibly violated” her “clearly established constitutional rights.” He filed an interlocutory appeal on that issue, seeking to throw out her complaint.
How did Judge Larsen and the Sixth Circuit majority rule and why is the result harmful?
Judge Larsen cast the deciding vote in a 2-1 ruling by Judge Alice Batchelder, who was nominated by President George H.W. Bush. Larsen and Batchelder reversed the district court and held that Simon should get qualified immunity so that Fitzpatrick’s case against him would be dismissed.
Although agreeing with other parts of the opinion, Judge Kevin Risk, who was nominated by President Biden, dissented from the qualified immunity decision. Since an eviction “renders the individual homeless,” notice and opportunity to be heard prior to eviction is required, he explained. He wrote that the law is clear that “exigent circumstances” are necessary to warrant the type of immediate eviction of Fitzpatrick that took place. The “record does not support” such an eviction, he went on. More discovery could well justify Simon’s conduct, he pointed out. But “to permit immediate eviction” based on the current record, he concluded, would “create a perverse incentive for officers to red-tag properties” and order immediate eviction “without first ascertaining whether conditions inside a house truly justify eviction.”
The decision made possible by Trump judge Larsen is harmful to tenants’ rights generally in the Sixth Circuit, which includes Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, by broadening the authority for immediate eviction without due process. The ruling also illustrates the importance of our federal courts to health, welfare and justice and the significance of having fair-minded judges on the federal bench.