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

DISH, a direct broadcast satellite provider, challenged two orders of the Commission because they imposed "encoding rules," which limited the means of encoding that cable and satellite service providers could employ to prevent unauthorized access to their broadcasts. The court held that the FCC's decision to apply these encoding rules exceeded the agency's statutory authority. Consequently, the court need not reach DISH's alternate contention that the decision was arbitrary and capricious. Accordingly, the court granted the petition for review. View "EchoStar Satellite, LLC v. FCC, et al" on Justia Law

ARTBA challenged the EPA's regulations relating to nonroad engines and vehicles several years after the regulations were promulgated. As such, ARTBA's challenges to the regulations were time-barred under the Clean Air Act's, 42 U.S.C. 7607(b)(1), 60-day filing period. ARTBA also challenged the EPA's approval of California's State Implementation Plan, but that challenged must be brought in the Ninth Circuit. Accordingly, the court dismissed the petition for review. View "American Road & Transportation v. EPA, et al" on Justia Law

In this case, participants in the Thunderbird Mining Company Pension Plan sought "shutdown" pension benefits. The PBGC, the government agency that administered pension termination insurance under Title IV of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. 1001-1461, denied the participants' request. These early retirement benefits were triggered by a permanent shutdown of a plant and were payable to plan participants who met certain age and years-of-service requirements. The court held that the agency's determination was not arbitrary or capricious where the record provided sufficient support for the agency's judgment that a permanent shutdown had not occurred before Eveleth's pension plan was terminated on July 24th, 2003. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the agency. View "United Steel, et al. v. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, together with the Second Amendment Foundation, contended that 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1) was inapplicable to common-law misdemeanants as a class and, alternatively, that application of the statute to this class of individuals violated the Second Amendment. Plaintiff was convicted some forty years ago for common-law misdemeanor assault and battery and consequently was barred for life from ever possessing a firearm under section 922(g)(1). The court held that plaintiff's statutory arguments were unpersuasive and that disarmament of common-law misdemeanants as a class was substantially related to the important governmental objective of crime prevention. Therefore, the court rejected plaintiff's statutory and constitutional challenges, affirming the district court's dismissal of the action. View "Schrader, et al v. Holder, Jr., et al" on Justia Law

GameFly filed a complaint under 39 U.S.C. 3662(a) with the Commission accusing the Postal Service of providing preferential rates and terms of service to Netflix in violation of 39 U.S.C. 403(c). When the Commission properly finds that discrimination has occurred, it is obligated to remedy that discrimination, even if it concludes that none of the parties' proposed remedies is appropriate. The court held that, in this case, even if the Commission's rejection of GameFly's proposed remedies was reasonable, its order was still arbitrary and capricious because it left discrimination in place without reasonable explanation. Therefore, the court vacated the Commission's order and remanded the case for an adequate remedy. Accordingly, the court granted GameFly's petition for review. View "GameFly, Inc. v. PRC" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, two widowed spouses of homeowners with reverse-mortgage contracts, brought suit against the Secretary of HUD, alleging that HUD's regulation defining the conditions under which it would insure a reverse-mortgage agreement was inconsistent with the applicable statute. The court held that the district court correctly reasoned that if relief for plaintiffs' injuries depended on the independent actions of the lenders, then plaintiffs would lack standing. The court held, however, that assuming the regulation was unlawful, HUD itself had the capability to provide complete relief to the lenders and mortgagors alike, which eliminated the uncertainty of third-party action that would otherwise block standing. Because the court decided that plaintiffs had standing, the court need not consider their alternative argument. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Bennett, et al v. Donovan" on Justia Law

Petitioners sought review of two final rules, promulgated pursuant to the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. 7501-7509a, 7513-7513b, which governed implementation of the national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) for "fine" particulate matter. The court held that the EPA erred in applying the provisions of Subpart 1 of Part D of Title 1 of the Act rather than the particulate-matter-specific provisions of Subpart 4 of Part D of Title I. Accordingly, the court granted the petitions for review and remanded for further proceedings. View "Natural Resources Defense Council v. EPA" on Justia Law

Appellees sued to compel the Service to comply with deadlines set forth in the Endangered Species Act (ESA), 16 U.S.C. 1533(b)(3), for determining whether to list species as endangered or threatened. As the case neared settlement, the Safari Club moved to intervene pursuant to Rule 24 in the order to oppose the settlements which would include three species that its members hunt. On appeal, the Safari Club challenged the district court's denial of intervention, contending that it qualified for intervention as of right, as well as permissively. Because the Safari Club failed to identify a violation of a procedural right afforded by the ESA that was designed to protect its interests, the district court did not err in ruling that the Safari Club lacked standing and therefore was ineligible to intervene as of right. The court affirmed the decision of the district court without reaching the Safari Club's objections to the settlement agreements. View "In re: Endangered Species Act Section 4" on Justia Law

Congress enacted section 703 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, 10 U.S.C. 1074g(f), which subjected all prescriptions purchased at retail pharmacies by service members to the same price caps as drugs procured directly by the Department of Defense. Pursuant to this provision, the Secretary of Defense issued a regulation requiring pharmaceutical manufacturers to refund to the federal government the difference between the retail price and the price cap. The Coalition, a multi-industry interest group that represented pharmaceutical companies, filed suit challenging these actions. The court concluded that the Secretary reasonably interpreted section 703 to impose involuntary price caps and held that the statute itself imposed retroactive rebate liability on pharmaceutical manufacturers. View "Coalition For Common Sense in Government Procurement v. United States, et al" on Justia Law

Appellant was convicted of three murders and sentenced to death. This appeal stemmed from appellant's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552, requests to the FBI seeking information related to the FBI's investigation of him. Appellant appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the FBI, which concluded that the FBI had released all non-exempt documents as required by FOIA; that the FBI performed an adequate search; and that the FBI correctly applied FOIA Exemptions 3, 7(C), and 7(D). The court affirmed the judgment and rejected appellant's argument that the FBI improperly withheld the 125 pages at issue and appellant's complaint about the alleged inadequacy of the search. The court concluded that the FBI had released all reasonably segregable, non-exempt material to appellant. View "Hodge v. FBI, et al" on Justia Law