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

In 2007, the Secretary revamped Medicare's Inpatient Prospective Payment System, updating the diagnostic weighting used to calculate reimbursements for hospitals treating the program's beneficiaries. Plaintiffs sought review of the Secretary's decision regarding a downward prospective adjustment for hospital-specific rate payments. The district court concluded that the statutory scheme was ambiguous and deferred to the Secretary's reasonable interpretation of the adjustment provisions. Applying Chevron deference, the court agreed with the district court's conclusion that the statutory scheme was ambiguous and unclear. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Adirondack Medical Center, et al. v. Sebelius" on Justia Law

Appellant, a federal death row inmate, moved to intervene in this lawsuit, which challenged the government's method of carrying out lethal injections and its failure to disclose its execution procedures. The district court denied the motion. As a preliminary matter, the court concluded that the this suit still presents a live controversy and was, therefore, not moot. The court also concluded that appellant's intervention was timely. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded, directing the district court to grant appellant's motion to intervene as of right where granting the intervention was highly unlikely to disadvantage the existing parties. View "Roane, et al. v. Tandy, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit challenging the refusal of the Board of Correction of Naval Records to amend certain of her fitness reports. The court concluded that the decision of the Board was neither arbitrary nor capricious nor unsupported by substantial evidence, in contravention of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 706(2)(A); even if the court were to assume that plaintiff asked for and was denied counseling, such deprivation would not violate her due process rights; because plaintiff failed to demonstrate discriminatory intent, her equal protection claim also failed. Accordingly, the court held that the Board's denial of plaintiff's petition to correct her military records was neither arbitrary nor capricious and that her constitutional challenges were without merit. The court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Roberts v. United States, et al." on Justia Law

Petitioners challenged the FAA's no hazard determinations in 2012 for proposed wind turbines in Nantucket Sound. The court concluded that the FAA could reasonably view its Handbook procedures implementing the Secretary's regulations to establish a threshold finding necessary to trigger a further "adverse effects" analysis; given the record evidence and the level of FAA expertise involved in drawing factual conclusions from the reports, conducting the aeronautical study, and responding to comments, petitioners failed to show that the FAA findings were unsupported by substantial evidence; and petitioners' contention that the FAA was required under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. 4332, to perform or participate in an analysis of the environmental impacts of its no hazard determinations was based on a flawed premise. Accordingly, the court denied the petitions for review. View "Town of Barnstable, MA v. FAA" on Justia Law

PEER sought records under the Freedom of Information Act 5 U.S.C. 552, related to two dams located on the border between the United States and Mexico. PEER first argued that it was entitled to the expert report on structural deficiencies in Amistad Dam and the U.S. Section asserted Exemption 5, which covers inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters. The court vacated the district court's judgment as to Exemption 5 and the expert report and remanded for the district court to determine whether officials of the Mexican agency assisted in preparing the expert report. The court concluded that the emergency action plans and the inundation maps readily satisfy Exemption 7's threshold "complied for law enforcement purposes" requirement where disclosure of the emergency action plans would risk circumvention of the law and where U.S. Section has connected the release of the inundation maps to a reasonable threat of harm to the population downstream of the dams. Therefore, the plans fell within Exemption 7(E) and the maps fell within Exemption 7(F). Accordingly, the court affirmed with respect to its holding on Exemptions 7(E) and 7(F). View "Public Employees. v. U.S. Section, Intl. Boundary & Water Comm'n" on Justia Law

Appellant sought review of orders and decisions issued by the Tax Court affirming the IRS's decision to impose a levy on his property to collect overdue income taxes. Appellant raised several challenges emanating from an IRS Office of Appeals Collection Due Process (CDP) hearing which resulted in the contested levy. The court denied the IRS's motion to transfer this case to the Eighth Circuit; the court had no occasion to decide in this case whether a taxpayer who is seeking review of a CDP decision on a collection method may file in a court of appeals other than the D.C. Circuit if the parties have not stipulated to venue in another circuit; nothing in the record indicated that the CDP hearing was tainted by ex parte communications between the Settlement Officer and other IRS employees; appellant failed to timely raise his claim regarding the senior Tax Court judge's recusal; the Tax Court's dismissal of appellant's tax liability for the year 2003 was moot; and appellant's challenge to the notice of determination imposing the levy was rejected where the court had no grounds to overturn the IRS's levy determination in this case. Accordingly, the court affirmed the decisions of the Tax Court. View "Byers v. Commissioner of IRS" on Justia Law

Oklahoma petitioned for review of the EPA's final rule establishing a federal implementation plan for the attainment of national air quality standards in "Indian country." The court held that a state has regulatory jurisdiction under the Clean Air Act (CAA), 42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq., over all land within its territory and outside the boundaries of an Indian reservation except insofar as an Indian tribe or the EPA has demonstrated a tribe has jurisdiction. In this instance, the EPA was without authority to displace Oklahoma's state implementation plan on non-reservation Indian country where the agency requires a tribe to show it has jurisdiction before regulating Indian country outside a reservation, yet made no demonstration of tribal jurisdiction before itself regulating those areas. Accordingly, the court granted the petition for review and vacated the Rule with respect to non-reservation lands. View "OK Dept. Environmetal Quality v. EPA" on Justia Law

Appellants, federally registered lobbyists, wishing appointment to one type of advisory committee, the Industry Trade Advisory Committees (ITACs), challenged the constitutionality of the presidential ban on federally registered lobbyists from serving on advisory committees. Appellants alleged that the government has conditioned their eligibility for the valuable benefit of ITAC membership on their willingness to limit their First Amendment right to petition government. The district court dismissed the complaint under Rule 12(b)(6). The court concluded, however, that appellants have pled a viable First Amendment unconstitutional conditions claim. The court remanded for the district court to develop the factual record and to undertake the Pickering v. Board of Education analysis in the first instance. The district court must determine whether the government's interest in excluding federally registered lobbyists from ITACs outweighed any impingement on appellants' constitutional rights. View "Autor, et al. v. Pritzker, et al." on Justia Law

Appellant was detained at Guantanamo Bay for seven years as an enemy combatant. After the Supreme Court decided that Guantanamo detainees have a constitutional right to challenge the basis of their detentions in Boumediene v. Bush, the district court granted appellant's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The United States released appellant and he filed a complaint a year later, seeking to recover injuries sustained during his detention. At issue was whether the district court has jurisdiction over appellant's claims. The court held that 28 U.S.C. 2241(e)(2) barred claims brought on behalf of aliens determined by Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) to have been properly detained. The court also concluded that the application of section 2241(e)(2) to appellant was constitutional. Accordingly, the court affirmed the dismissal of appellant's claims because Congress has denied the district court jurisdiction to entertain his claims under section 2241(e)(2). View "Janko v. Gates, et al." on Justia Law

Verizon challenged the FCC's Open Internet Order, which imposed disclosure, anti-blocking, and anti-discrimination requirements on broadband providers. The court concluded that the Commission has established that section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, 47 U.S.C. 1302(a), (b), vests it with affirmative authority to enact measures encouraging the deployment of broadband infrastructure; the Commission reasonably interpreted section 706 to empower it to promulgate rules governing broadband providers' treatment of Internet traffic, and its justification for the specific rules at issue here - that they will preserve and facilitate the "virtuous circle" of innovation that has driven the explosive growth of the Internet - was reasonable and supported by substantial evidence; given that the Commission has chosen to classify broadband providers in a manner that exempts them from treatment as common carriers, the Communications Act, 47 U.S.C. 201 et seq., expressly prohibits the Commission from nonetheless regulating them as such; and because the Commission has failed to establish that the anti-discrimination and anti-blocking rules did not impose per se common carrier obligations, the court vacated those portions of the Open Internet Order. View "Verizon v. FCC, et al." on Justia Law