Justia U.S. D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Articles Posted in July, 2011
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This case stemmed from appellee's legal representation of appellant in a criminal tax fraud case. Appellee subsequently filed a lawsuit against appellant for recovery of unpaid attorneys' fees and appellant counterclaimed for malpractice and later petitioned for arbitration before the District of Columbia Attorney/Client Arbitration Board (ACAB), an arm of the District of Columbia Bar. Appellant also moved the district court for a stay pursuant to the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), 9 U.S.C. 3, the denial of which he appealed. At issue was whether appellant was "in default" of his right to arbitrate. The court affirmed the district court's denial of the stay where appellant failed to make a timely assertion of his right to arbitrate and his litigation activity, after he filed his initial answer and counterclaim, imposed substantial costs upon appellee and the district court.

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Six defendants appealed from judgments of conviction on multiple charges related to a drug distribution business, including drug conspiracy, RICO conspiracy, continuing criminal enterprise, murder, and other related charges in violation of federal and District of Columbia laws. On appeal, defendants asserted numerous issues of error covering, among other things, evidentiary issues, conduct of the trial, prosecutorial misconduct, and jury instructions. Upon review, the court held that most of the asserted errors either were not erroneous or were harmless. As to one category of issue involving alleged violations of the Confrontation Clause, a Supreme Court decision intervening between the trial and the court's consideration of the case compelled the court to remand convictions for some drug charges (Counts 126-138) for further consideration in light of Bullcoming v. New Mexico. The court also remanded for further proceedings for a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel raised by Calvin Smith (Counts 4 and 5) and vacated one murder conviction as to Rodney Moore that, as the parties agree, merged with another conviction (Count 32). Accordingly, the court affirmed in part and reversed in part.

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Petitioners, each of which had corporate members that issued publicly traded securities, petitioned for review of Exchange Act Rule 14a-11. At issue was whether the Securities and Exchange Commission promulgated the rule in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 551 et seq., because, among other things, the Commission failed adequately to consider the rule's effect upon efficiency, competition, and capital formation, as required by Section 3(f) of the Exchange Act and Section 2(c) of the Investment Company Act and Section 2(c) of the Investment Company Act of 1940, 15 U.S.C. 78c(f) and 80a-2(c). The court held that the Commission acted arbitrarily and capriciously for having failed once again to adequately assess the economic effects of a new rule. The court also held that the Commission inconsistently and opportunistically framed the costs and benefits of the rule; failed adequately to quantify the certain costs or to explain why those costs could not be quantified; neglected to support its predictive judgments; contradicted itself; and failed to respond to substantial problems raised by commenters. Therefore, the Commission's decision to apply the rule to investment companies was also arbitrary. Because the court concluded that the Commission failed to justify Rule 14a-11, the court need not address petitioners' additional argument that the Commission arbitrarily rejected proposed alternatives that would have allowed shareholders of each company to decide for that company whether to adopt a mechanism for shareholders' nominees to get access to proxy materials. Accordingly, the petition was granted and the rule was vacated.

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Trade associations representing commercial ship owners and operators petitioned for review of a nationwide permit issued by the EPA for the discharge of pollutants incidental to the normal operation of vessels. Petitioners raised a number of procedural challenges, all related to the EPA's decision to incorporate into the permit conditions that states submitted to protect their own water quality. The court held that because petitioners had failed to establish that the EPA could alter or reject state certification conditions, the additional agency procedures they demanded would not have afforded them the relief they sought. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review.

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This was an appeal from the denial of the petition of a detainee at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay for a writ of habeas corpus. At issue was whether the district court erred in determining that the detainee was being lawfully detained on the record as it stood before that court and whether the district court's procedural errors deprived him of a meaningful opportunity to develop a record upon which he could challenge his detention. The court rejected the detainee's contention that the district court's findings of fact were clearly erroneous and because those findings were enough to establish that the detainee was "part of the Taliban or al Qaeda," the court rejected his contention that the record before the court was insufficient to establish the lawfulness of his detention. Given the time the detainee's attorneys had after their receipt of the Combatant Status Review Tribunal record, the district court's grant of leave to file an amended traverse, and the absence of any subsequent request for additional time or discovery, the court held that the detainee had failed to show that he was prejudiced by the denial of the thirty-day continuance. The court also held that, in light of the circumstances, there was no abuse of discretion in the district court's refusal to issue further discovery orders without a showing that there was a basis for believing that the requests satisfied the Case Management Order's predicate conditions. Accordingly, the court affirmed the denial of the petition.

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This case concerned the San Diego fairy shrimp, an aquatic animal found in southern California, that was designated as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, 16 U.S.C. 1533. Plaintiffs, companies that owned land along the California-Mexico border, sued to challenge the designation of 143 acres of their property as critical habitat for the San Diego fairy shrimp. The court held that because the Fish and Wildlife Services had not reasonably explained how one isolated observation, involving a single 2001 sighting of four ant-sized San Diego fairy shrimp on the property at issue, demonstrated that plaintiffs' property was "occupied" by the San Diego fairy shrimp in 1997 (the relevant statutory date), the court reversed the judgment of the district court and remanded. On remand, the court ordered the district court to vacate the designation of plaintiffs' property as critical habitat for the San Diego fairy shrimp.

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Defendant pled guilty to one count of identity theft as part of a plea agreement where defendant had treated hundreds of patients while falsely representing that he was a licensed physician. In determining defendant's sentence, the district court increased his sentence under U.S.S.G. 3A1.1(b)(1) because some of his patients were children with serious mental health conditions. On appeal, defendant disputed the increase in his offense level, contending that section 3A1.1(b)(1)'s 2-level adjustment for vulnerable victims applied only to victims of defendant's offense of conviction, who in this case would include only those victims who suffered financial loss. The court disagreed and held that the adjustment applied not only to victims of the offense of conviction, but also to victims of defendant's relevant conduct. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

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The United States detained Nazul Gul and Adel Hamad for several years at the Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay and during that time, each filed with the district court a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Prior to any hearing on the merits of their petitions, the United States transferred the detainees to the custody of foreign sovereigns and did not then rescind their designation as "enemy combatants." Gul and Hamad wanted to continue litigating their habeas petitions but the district court dismissed their petitions as moot because they were no longer held by the United States. Gul and Hamad subsequently appealed, arguing among other things, that their petitions were not moot because they continued to be burdened by the collateral consequences of their prior detention and continuing designation. The court held that, having determined that Gul and Hamad identified no injury sufficient to bring their cases within the court's jurisdiction under Article III, the court affirmed the order of the district court.

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Oceana, Inc. brought this suit against the National Marine Fisheries Service challenging as unlawful the methodology it used to track bycatch in the fisheries of the Northeastern coast of the United States. At issue was whether the district court properly concluded that the methodology satisfied applicable law and properly entered summary judgment for the Fisheries Service. The court held that because the Fisheries Service had merely described but had not, as the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, as amended by the Sustainable Fisheries Act, 16 U.S.C. 1801-1884, required, "established" a "standardized reporting methodology" to assess bycatch in the Northeastern fisheries, the court reversed the judgment and instructed the district court to vacate the ruling adopting the methodology and to remand the matter to the agency for further proceedings.

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Appellee alleged that six U.S. Postal Inspectors wrongly caused him to be criminally prosecuted in retaliation for his public criticism of the United States Postal Service (USPS) and its personnel. The Postal Inspectors appealed the district court's qualified immunity, on appellee's claim of retaliatory inducement to prosecution in violation of his right to free speech under the First Amendment. Insofar as the appeal challenged the district court's determination that there were genuine issues of material fact, the court dismissed it for lack of jurisdiction. Insofar as the district court declined to find the Postal Inspectors protected by qualified immunity based on "arguable probable cause," the court affirmed. Accordingly, the court remanded to the district court for trial on the merits.