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

Appellant, employed with the SEC, filed a request under the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. 791 et seq., for a work schedule accommodation so that he could undergo rehabilitation without using his work leave. When the Commission did not act on his request for more than a year, appellant began the administrative appeals process. Subsequently, the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity (the Office) assigned an investigator to appellant's case. The investigator worked for a private firm, not the Office. Appellant was uneasy about a private firm having his medical records and eventually stopped participating in the investigation. The Office dismissed appellant's complaint for failure to cooperate. After unsuccessfully appealing his dismissal to the EEOC, appellant filed suit against the SEC in the district court. The district court granted summary judgment to the Commission, holding, among other things, that appellant's refusal to participate in his administrative proceedings constituted a failure to exhaust his administrative remedies and that there was no reason to excuse such failure. The court concluded that, under Rann v. Chao, appellant provided insufficient information to the agency and thus failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. The district court was well within its discretion to dismiss the claim. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Koch v. Schapiro, et al." on Justia Law

The Comptroller of the Currency found that petitioner, as the CEO and a director of the Bank, had engaged in a pattern of willfully misrepresenting the Bank's capital reserves to the OTS and the Bank's board of directors, and he issued orders prohibiting petitioner from participation in the affairs of any federally insured financial institution and assessing a civil penalty of one million dollars. Petitioner sought dismissal of the Comptroller's decision and orders, inter alia, on the grounds of legal error in relying on later-developed standards in the OTS New Directions Bulletin of 2009 when there were no clear standards at the relevant times, and in applying a "should have known" scienter standard in findings that required a more demanding level of scienter. The court concluded that petitioner failed to show that the stringent statutory requirements of 12 U.S.C. 1818 for an order of prohibition were not met. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review. View "Dodge v. Comptroller of the Currency" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration (SSA) raising constitutional challenges to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), Pub. L. No 111-148, 124 Stat. 119; raising statutory challenges to actions of HHS and the Commissioner relating to the implementation of the ACA and prior Medical legislation; and attacking the failure of defendants to render an "accounting" that would alter the American people to the insolvency towards which Medicare and Social Security programs were heading. On appeal, plaintiffs challenged the district court's dismissal of their claims. The court rejected plaintiffs' claims that 26 U.S.C. 5000A, which was sustained as a valid exercise of the taxing power, violated the Fifth Amendment's prohibition of the taking of private property without just compensation and violated the origination clause. The court concluded that plaintiffs' substantive attack on the Social Security Program Operations Manual System (POMS) provisions was clearly foreclosed by its decision in Hall v. Sebelius, holding that the statutory text establishing Medicare Part A precludes any option not to be entitled to benefits. The court rejected plaintiffs' second statutory claim attacking an interim final rule. Finally, the court concluded that plaintiffs failed to provide a legal argument for their claims against the Commissioner and Secretary, and therefore, the court lacked jurisdiction over plaintiffs' claim to an "accounting." Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Assoc. Amer. Physicians, et al. v. Sebelius, et al." on Justia Law