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

Appellees filed a suit challenging the Federal Trade Commission's ("Commission") Extended Enforcement Policy claiming that the Commission had intruded upon an area of traditional regulation when it authorized the Fair Trade Reporting Act ("FACT"), 15 U.S.C. 1681, and that the policy was unlawful absent a clear statement from Congress authorizing federal regulation over the practice of law. Shortly after oral arguments, Congress passed the Red Flag Program Clarification Act of 2010 which expressly amended the FACT Act by changing the definition of "creditor." Therefore, the court vacated the district court's opinion holding that legislation had clearly altered the posture of the case such that there was no longer a live "case or controversy" before the court.

Plaintiff filed an action against defendants claiming that they violated the D.C. Consumer Protection Procedures Act ("CPPA"), DC Code 28-3904, by inducing her to sell her house to one of the defendants and then failing to pay her the full amount promised. At issue was whether the district court erred in granting summary judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56 and sanctions under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11. The court affirmed summary judgment where the district court correctly concluded on the record before it that one of the defendants was not a merchant subject to the CPPA. The court vacated the sanction award against one defendant where the defendant's conduct did not involve representations to the court that was sanctionable under Rule 11.

Criminal proceedings were conducted with five defendants, members of the Raven 23 team from Blackwater Worldwide ("Blackwater"), where Blackwater was hired by American security officials to evacuate a diplomat from a car bomb explosion and where there existed a dispute over who fired shots that killed and wounded Iraqi civilians. At issue was whether the district court properly dismissed an indictment against the five defendants on the ground that the evidence presented to the grand jury, and the decision to prosecute two of the defendants, was tainted by statements of defendants. The court held that the district court erred by treating evidence as single lumps and excluding them in their entirety when at the most, only some portion of the content was tainted; by failing to conduct a proper independent-source analysis as required by Kastigar v. United States and United States v. Rinaldi; by applying the wrong legal standard when it excluded a defendant's journal and his testimony simply because the news reports based on some of the immunized statements were "a cause" for his writing it; and to the extent that evidence tainted by the impact of one defendant's immunized statements may be found to have accounted for the indictment of that defendant, it did not follow that the indictment of any other defendant was tainted.

Plaintiff filed suit under the Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA") seeking disclosure of a classified international trade agreement. At issue was whether plaintiff was entitled to recovery of attorney fees for his lawsuit when the United States Trade Representative declassified and released the agreement at issue to the public while plaintiff's suit was pending. The court held that plaintiff was not entitled to recover attorney fees where the government was justified in withholding the document as a matter of law.

Petitioner, a manufacturer and distributer of aircraft parts, filed a petition seeking review of an "Unapproved Parts Notification" ("UPN") posted by the Federal Aviation Administration ("FAA") on its website. At issue was whether the petition for review of the FAA order should be granted where petitioner erroneously filed its petition for review in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and where the petition was then forwarded to the court and subsequently filed. The court denied the petition as untimely where petitioner filed after the 60 day statutory time limit had elapsed and it failed to demonstrate reasonable grounds for missing the deadline.

Petitioner sued defendant, who plead guilty to possession of child pornography and possessed depictions of petitioner, seeking over $3,000,000 in restitution. At issue was whether her petition for mandamus should be granted where the district court awarded her an amount of $5000 in restitution and whether petitioner may directly appeal the district court's decision. The court granted the petition for mandamus in part where the district court admitted the restitution award was smaller than the amount of harm she suffered as a result of defendant's offense. The court denied petitioner's direct appeal where it was not authorized by statute and dismissed as moot her motion to consolidate her mandamus petition with her direct appeal.

Plaintiffs filed suit seeking certain information in Cultural Property Advisory Committee reports from the State Department ("State") related to import restrictions imposed on cultural artifacts from China, Italy, and Cyprus under the Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA"). At issue was whether the district court properly granted summary judgment to the State where the State withheld certain documents pursuant to FOIA Exemptions 1, 3, and 5. Also at issue was whether the State made an adequate search in response to the FOIA requests. The court held that the State's invocation of Exemptions 1 and 5 was proper, as was part of its withholding under Exemption 3. However, the court reversed and remanded the district court's dismissal of plaintiffs' claims as to one document withheld under Exemption 3. Therefore, the court reversed summary judgment as to the sufficiency of the State's search for responsive emails and as to its withholding of parts of a document under 19 U.S.C. 2605(i)(1) and remanded for further clarification about backups and about the seeming gaps in the State's discussion of archived materials.

Defendant appealed jury convictions of four drug and firearm offenses when defendant was found with heroin worth about $30,000, two loaded guns, and $27, 730 in cash. At issue was whether the admission of the state court clerk's letters violated defendant's rights to cross-examination under the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause; whether the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI") agent's testimony about the meaning of slang was improperly admitted as lay testimony; whether the FBI agent's overview testimony was based on inadmissible hearsay; whether the judge should have instructed the jury to disregard a police officer's reference to the "two large bundles" near the gun; and whether the judge's finding that defendant had a prior drug conviction and reliance on that prior conviction to double defendant's mandatory minimum sentence violated defendant's Sixth Amendment right. The court held that defendant's Sixth Amendment right was violated where the clerk's letters were testimonial but he was not subject to cross-examination. The court also held that the FBI agent's interpretation of slang was admissible only as expert testimony but that the error was harmless. The court further held that the FBI agent's objected-to testimony at the beginning of trial was not based on hearsay; the district court sufficiently instructed the jury to disregard the reference to the "bundles;" and the judge's finding about defendant's prior drug conviction did not violate the Sixth Amendment.

Plaintiff, an American citizen who resides in Canada, along with the Second Amendment Foundation, challenged 18 U.S.C. 922 and related regulations promulgated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives which made it impossible for a person who lived outside the United States lawfully to purchase a firearm in the United States. At issue was whether the district court properly dismissed plaintiff's suit for lack of standing where plaintiff attempted to purchase a firearm in the United States while living in Canada. The court held that the district court erred in dismissing plaintiff's suit for lack of standing where plaintiff's injury was present and continuing when plaintiff intended to return regularly to the United States to visit friends and relatives and when plaintiff intended to purchase firearms for the purposes of sporting and self defense and to store the firearms with his relatives in Ohio.

Plaintiffs sued defendants alleging that defendants submitted fraudulent petitions to the U.S. International Trade Commission ("ITC") and thereby induced the ITC to impose unwarranted duties on plaintiffs' products. At issue was whether defendants' petitions to the ITC established personal jurisdiction in the District of Columbia when none of the defendants was located or incorporated in the District of Columbia. Also at issue was whether jurisdiction was proper where defendants had conspired with a trade association that was located within the District of Columbia. The court held that plaintiffs' allegation that defendants conspired with a trade association was insufficient to support personal jurisdiction. The court then certified the following question to the D.C. Court of Appeals, "Under District of Columbia law, does a petition sent to a federal government agency in the District provide a basis for establishing personal jurisdiction over the petitioner when the plaintiff has alleged that the petition fraudulently induced unwarranted government action against the plaintiff?"