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

In 2009, defendant was sentenced to 180 months in prison for conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of crack cocaine. In 2011, the Sentencing Commission gave retroactive effect to an amendment to the Sentencing Guidelines lowering base offense levels for offenses involving crack cocaine. The court joined its sister circuits in upholding U.S.S.G. 1B1.10 as a lawful exercise of the Sentencing Commission's powers. Because U.S.S.G. 1B10(b)(2)(A) barred sentencing reductions below the applicable amended guideline range, and because defendant's sentence was already below that range, the district court properly held that a reduction in his sentence was unavailable. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court, rejecting defendant's challenge to the validity of U.S.S.G. 1B10(b)(2)(A). View "United States v. Taylor" on Justia Law

Hope 7 entered into bankruptcy in 2009 and RIASO was Hope 7's largest creditor. The bankruptcy court subsequently approved the settlement of Hope 7's fraud-based claims against RIASO, approved RIASO's proof of claim against Hope 7, and directed the payment of funds from Hope 7's estate to RIASO. Hope 7 subsequently found additional evidence relevant to RIASO's alleged fraud and moved for relief of judgment under Rule 60(b) and asked the bankruptcy court to reopen its earlier orders. The court concluded that Hope 7 had not demonstrated that it had standing to challenge the bankruptcy court's settlement order or, with regard to the remaining claims, that the bankruptcy court abused its discretion in denying the Rule 60(b) motion for relief. The district court did not err in affirming the bankruptcy court's decision, and therefore, the court dismissed in part and affirmed in part. View "In re: Hope 7 Monroe Street Ltd." on Justia Law

Petitioner received a citation for failing to obey a Montana traffic ordinance and a record of the citation made its way into a database administered by FMCSA. Petitioner complained that, in maintaining the record of citation, FMCSA violated the statute authorizing the Secretary of Transportation to maintain the database. Because the court concluded that FMCSA's action fell short of being a rule, a regulation or final order within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. 2342(3), the court lacked jurisdiction under that provision and transferred the case to the district court under 28 U.S.C. 1631. View "Weaver, Jr., et al. v. FMCSA, et al." on Justia Law

The Commission granted waivers with nunc pro tunc effect to many of the companies seeking relief from a compliance deadline regarding regulations that required digital wireless service providers to offer telephone handsets that are compatible with hearing aids. Petitioners sought review of the Commission's denial of waivers for petitioners and raised several challenges to the procedural regularity of the Commission's adjudication of their waiver petitions. Because the three petitioners did not comply until after January 1, 2007, and because they reported to the Commission that they had done nothing to seek out compliant telephones beyond contacting their existing suppliers, petitioners failed to satisfy either of the Commission's reasonable criteria for waiver. Accordingly, the Commission's decision to deny the waiver petitions was reasonable. The Commission did not treat similarly situated carriers differently without offering an adequate explanation. The court rejected petitioners' remaining arguments and denied the petition for review. View "Blanca Telephone Co., et al. v. FCC" on Justia Law

Two firms receiving gas storage service in the Washington Storage Field ceased taking service and "released" their storage rights to Paribas. The departing customers exercised their contract rights to buy back so-called "base gas" from the field's operator, Transco. Given the buy-back, Transco had to make new purchases to replenish its base gas so as to maintain service at the levels prevailing before the replacement. At the time of the exiting customers' departure, the historic customers who remained, and the new replacement customers, disputed whether the cost of the new base gas should be charged entirely to the replacement shippers ("incremental pricing") or should be charged to all shippers in proportion to their usage ("rolled-in pricing"). On appeal, Paribas challenged the Commission's ratemaking decisions under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 551 et seq. In a decision purporting to apply the familiar "cost causation" principle, the Commission chose incremental pricing. The court concluded that the Commission failed to offer an intelligible explanation of how its decision manifested the cost causation principle; failed to explain how or why or in what sense the historic customers' continued demand did not share, pro rata, in causing the need for the new base gas, or, how or why or in what sense the historic customers did not share proportionately in the benefits provided by the new base gas; and brushed off Paribas's invocation of a seemingly parallel set of the Commission's own decisions. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded. View "BNP Paribas Energy Trading GP v. FERC" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to unlawful possession of a firearm. On appeal, defendant challenged the district court's motion to suppress evidence. While waiting to execute a search warrant at the home of an arrested murder suspect, police saw defendant leave the house. Police pulled up to defendant and ordered him to put his hands on a nearby car, defendant obeyed and then fled a few seconds later, discarding guns and drugs. The court concluded that a seizure occurred where defendant's action of putting his hands on the car when told to do so by the police constituted full compliance. The court concluded that defendant's seizure was unreasonable and in violation of the Fourth Amendment where a Summers-Bailey stop was inapplicable and where the government did not attempt to justify the stop as a Terry stop. Further, the government had not met its burden to show attenuation between the illegal seizure and the discovery of the guns and drugs. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Brodie" on Justia Law

This case stemmed from an employment discrimination suit filed by appellant against the Navy. The Navy subsequently offered a stipulation of Settlement (the "Agreement"). After concluding that specific performance of the Agreement was no longer practicable, appellant sought nearly a million dollars in damages and attorney's fees. The court held that a settlement agreement embodied in a consent decree was a contract under the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. 1346(a)(2), and transferred the case to the Court of Federal Claims. Accordingly, the court vacated the district court's order dismissing the motion to enforce and remanded with instructions to transfer to the Court of Federal Claims. View "Franklin-Mason v. Mabus, Jr." on Justia Law

Petitioners, detainees who have been cleared for release but remain held at Guantanamo Bay, engaged in a hunger strike unless and until they were released. The government subsequently instituted a force-feeding protocol. Petitioners invoked the district court's habeas jurisdiction and moved for a preliminary injunction prohibiting the authorities from force-feeding them. Two district courts denied petitioners' request, concluding that the Military Commissions Act (MCA), Pub. L. No. 109-366, 120 Stat. 2600, stripped federal courts of jurisdiction to consider such challenges brought by Guantanamo detainees. The court concluded that, under the law of this circuit, petitioners' challenges to the conditions of their confinement properly sounded in habeas corpus and were not barred by the MCA. The court concluded, however, that petitioners failed to establish their entitlement to preliminary injunctive relief. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district courts' denials of petitioners' applications for a preliminary injunction. View "Aamer, et al. v. Obama, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, three independent tax-return preparers, filed suit contending that the IRS's new regulations exceeded the agency's authority under the statute. At issue was whether the IRS's statutory authority to "regulate the practice of representatives of persons before the Department of the Treasury" encompassed authority to regulate tax-return preparers. In the court's judgment, the traditional tools of statutory interpretation - including the statute's text, history, structure, and context - foreclosed and rendered unreasonable the IRS's interpretation of 31 U.S.C. 330. Therefore, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court, agreeing that the IRS's statutory authority under Section 3303 could not be stretched so broadly as to encompass authority to regulate tax-return preparers. View "Loving, et al. v. IRS, et al." on Justia Law

The government filed suit against appellants, alleging that they violated federal laws regulating the manufacture and labeling of drugs and biological products by producing, as part of their medical practice, a substance consisting of a mixture of a patient's stem cells and the antibiotic doxycycline (the "Mixture"). The Federal Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act (FDCA) 21 U.S.C. 301 et seq., and the Public Health Service Act (PHSA), 42 U.S.C. 201 et seq., are statutes that promote the safety of drugs and biological products, respectively, by setting forth detailed requirements for how such substances are to be manufactured and labeled. The court held that, by virtue of its use of doxycycline, the Mixture was within the scope of drugs - and, by extension, biological products, - regulated by section 331(k) of the FDCA; appellants failed to establish that the Mixture was exempt from the FDCA's manufacturing and labeling requirements; the Mixture was per se adulterated where it was undisputed that appellants' facilities, methods, and controls for processing the Mixture violated federal manufacturing standards in numerous respects; because its label failed to provide the minimum information necessary to qualify for either exemption from section 352(f), the Mixture was misbranded; and the district court properly enjoined appellants from committing future violations of the FDCA's manufacturing and labeling provisions. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court and dismissed appellants' counterclaims. View "United States v. Regenerative Sciences, LLC, et al." on Justia Law