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

Plaintiff filed suit against her former employer, the Chief Administrative Officer (OCAO), of the United States House of Representatives, for alleged racial discrimination and retaliation in violation of the Congressional Accountability Act (CAA), 2 U.S.C. 1301-1438. The court concluded that the Speech or Debate Clause did not require the dismissal of this action; plaintiff could proceed with all of her claims under the CAA, subject to the applicable strictures of the Speech or Debate Clause; and, accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Howard v. Chief Admin. Officer of the U.S." on Justia Law

Appellee sought a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of provisions of the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act (PACT Act), 15 U.S.C. 375, that required him to pay state and local taxes and banned him from sending his products through the U.S. mail. The district court enjoined the enforcement of the tax provision on due process grounds, but otherwise dismissed appellee's claims. Both parties appealed. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion by entering a preliminary injunction where appellee was likely to succeed on the merits on his due process challenge; the district court did not abuse its discretion in determining where the public interest lies; and the district court did not abuse its discretion when it concluded that appellee was likely to suffer irreparable harm and that the balance of the equities tipped in his favor. Further, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of appellee's remaining claims. View "Gordon v. Holder, Jr., et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, an ALJ, brought this action alleging that HUD had interfered with his decisional independence and thereby violated the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 500 et seq. The court concluded that it need not decide whether the district court correctly dismissed plaintiff's claims for lack of standing where the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, Pub. L. No. 95-454, 92 Stat. 1111, deprived the district court of subject matter jurisdiction over the complaint. View "Mahoney v. Donovan, et al." on Justia Law

FTM applied to the IRS for a charitable tax exemption under I.R.C. 501(a) and (c)(3) based on its trustee services. FTM subsequently filed this action seeking a declaration that it was a tax exempt charitable organization after the IRS preliminarily denied it's application. The court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the government, agreeing with the district court that FTM was not operated exclusively for charitable purposes. View "Family Trust of MA, Inc. v. United States" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs brought this action against the Commission seeking a declaratory judgment that recently adopted regulations of the Commission regarding derivatives trading were unlawfully adopted and invalid, and seeking to vacate and set aside those regulations and to enjoin their enforcement. Plaintiffs contended that the Commission violated the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 500 et seq., in its rulemaking by: (1) failing to address rationales for broadening Commodity Pool Operators (CPOs) exemptions; (2) failing to comply with the Commodity Exchange Act, 7 U.S.C. 2(a), and offering an inadequate evaluation of the rule's costs and benefits; (3) including swaps in the trading threshold, restricting its definition of bona fide hedging, and failing to justify the five percent threshold; and (4) failing to provide an adequate opportunity for notice and comment. The court concluded, however, that the Commission did not act unlawfully in promulgating the regulations at issue. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the Commission. View "Investment Company Inst., et al. v. CFTC" on Justia Law

Plaintiff challenged the district court's holding affirming the USCIS's denial of several of plaintiff's petitions for Q-1 visas for foreign applicants to its cultural exchange program. USCIS denied the petitions because it interpreted its regulation to require sponsors of a cultural exchange program to pay wages to the participating aliens and plaintiff admittedly did not pay its participants any wages. Given 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(15)(Q)'s specific references to "employed," "wages," and "workers," the court agreed with USCIS that the statute was best read to require that the foreign citizens receive wages and that those wages be equivalent to the wages of domestic workers. Given 8 C.F.R. 214.2(q)(4)(i)(D)'s references to "employer," "wages," "workers," and "remunerate," the court agreed with USCIS that the regulation was best read to require that foreign citizens receive wages and that those wages be comparable to those of local workers. Finally, when USCIS denied plaintiff's petitions in 2010, the agency did not trigger the notice-and-comment procedures in the Regulatory Flexibility Act, 5 U.S.C. 603(a), 604, 605(b), or the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 533(b)-(c), because the denials were not rules under either act; rather, they were informal adjudications. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Int'l Internship Program v. Napolitano, et al." on Justia Law

Defendants appealed the district court's denial of their motion to dismiss under the District of Columbia's Anti-SLAPP Act (anti-strategic lawsuits against public participation act) of 2010, D.C. Code 16-5501 et seq. The court assumed that it had appellate jurisdiction and concluded that the district court properly denied as untimely defendants' motion to dismiss under the statute because the district court's granting of the "Consent Motion" to extend time pursuant to Rule 6(b) could not have extended the statute's 45-day limit. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Sherrod v. Breitbart, et al." on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction, after a retrial, of conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute phencyclidine (PCP). On appeal, defendant argued that the district court violated Federal Rule of Evidence 701 when it permitted the FBI's administrative case agent to testify about his understanding of recorded conversations played for the jury. The court concluded that the district court's failure to enforce Rule 701's boundaries on lay-opinion testimony denied the jury the information it needed to assess the FBI agent's interpretations of recorded statements and the errors were not harmless. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Hampton" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition by a convicted felony and was sentenced to 37 months imprisonment and 3 years supervised release. On appeal, defendant challenged his sentence of 24 months imprisonment imposed after the second revocation of his supervised release, arguing that his revocation sentences should be aggregated under 18 U.S.C. 3583(e)(3). The court concluded that the 2003 amendment to section 3583(e)(3), adding the phrase "on any such revocation," resulted in the felony class imprisonment terms at the end of section 3583(e)(3) being per-revocation limits, and not aggregate limits. The court further held that upon each revocation of supervised release, a defendant could be sentenced to the felony class imprisonment limits at the end of section 3583(e)(3), without regard to prison time previously served for revocation of supervised release. Accordingly, the court affirmed the sentence. View "United States v. Spencer" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs in Adams v. United States challenged the nonretroactivity and protection-for-compliance provisions of the Fair Treatment for Experienced Pilots Act of 2007 (FTEPA), Pub. L. No. 110-135, 121 Stat. 1450, as well as the FAA's implementation of these provisions. These provisions repealed the "Age 60 Rule" and extended the maximum age for piloting commercial flights by five years. Plaintiffs in Emory v. United Air Lines, Inc., supplemented their constitutional objections with state and federal claims against their employer, United, and their union, ALPA, for advancing allegedly discriminatory interpretations of the nonretroactivity provision they knew to be incorrect. The court concluded that the FTEPA passed constitutional muster and should be interpreted as the Emory defendants have done. Therefore, the court affirmed the district courts' judgments as to all claims not dismissed as moot. View "Emory v. United Airlines, Inc. " on Justia Law