Nixon v. City & County of Denver, No. 14-1165 (10th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseRicky Nixon was a Denver police officer. He was involved in two high-profile incidents in which claims of excessive force generated substantial negative publicity for the Denver Police Department: a traffic stop of Alex Landau in January 2009 and an incident outside the Denver Diner restaurant later that year. Nixon would later be fired from his position, and he sued, bringing claims against his former employer, the City & County of Denver. The district court dismissed Nixon’s First Amendment and due-process claims for failure to state a claim for relief. In this appeal, counsel for appellant Nixon told a "story of injustice" and argued against positions not adopted by the district court." But the Tenth Circuit found that "Nixon’s opening brief does almost nothing to advance his cause. The first 11 of its 18 pages are devoted to the procedural background of the case and allegations in his complaint, much of which is of no apparent relevance to the appeal. That left only seven pages of the opening brief to accomplish the essential task of showing how the district court had erred in the three rulings that underlay its dismissal of Nixon’s stigma-plus due-process claim . . .and his First Amendment retaliation claim." Finding that Nixon indeed failed to state claims upon which relief could be granted, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court.
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