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

The district court denied attorney-client privilege protection regarding confidential employee communications made during KBR's internal investigation led by company lawyers. The court concluded that the district court's privilege ruling was legally erroneous and irreconcilable with Upjohn Co v. United States. Accordingly, the court granted KBR's petition for a writ of mandamus and vacated the district court's document protection order.View "In re: Kellogg Brown & Root, Inc., et al." on Justia Law

Petitioner challenged the FAA's revocation of his Designated Pilot Examiner appointment based on deficiencies in his performance. Petitioner argued that the FAA failed to follow its own procedures and that one of his FAA evaluators labored under a conflict of interest. The court concluded that plaintiff's termination letter substantially complied with an FAA order and, moreover, plaintiff failed to demonstrate prejudice from the alleged deficiencies in the specificity of his termination letter. Further, plaintiff failed to show that any improper conflict of interest affected the decision to terminate his appointment. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review.View "Sheble, III v. Huerta, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, a group of retired U.S. Airways pilots, filed a class action seeking interest for the period of delay in the payment of their retirement benefits. The district court refused to certify the class. The court reversed and remanded, holding that the class members were not required to exhaust internal remedies before bringing their claims in court because they sought enforcement of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act's (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. 1001 et seq., substantive guarantees rather than contractual rights. View "Stephens, et al. v. US Airways Group, Inc., et al." on Justia Law

Sorenson is a purveyor of telephones for the hearing-impaired that have words scrolling on a screen during a call. Sorenson's technology uses the Internet to transmit and receive both the call itself and the derived captions (IP CTS). Sorenson gives its phones out for free, with the captioning feature turned on. On appeal, Sorenson challenged the FCC's promulgation of rules regarding IP CTS under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq. The court concluded that the FCC's rule requiring all new users to register and self-certify their hearing loss, but only if the provider sold the IP CTS equipment for $75 or more, was arbitrary and capricious because the FCC failed to articulate a satisfactory explanation for its action. Further, the FCC's requirement that IP CTS phones "have a default setting of captions off, so that all IP CTS users must affirmatively turn on captioning," was unsupported by the evidence and, rather, contradicted by it. Accordingly, the court granted the petitions for review.View "Sorenson Communications Inc., et al. v. FCC, et al." on Justia Law

CSX challenged the Board's issuance of a decision modifying its procedures for rate reasonableness cases. The court rejected CSX's argument that the Board violated its statutory mandate when it made simplified procedures available for all cases. The court concluded that the Board adequately explained its adoption of a new revenue-allocation methodology as well as its rationale for adopting a new interest rate for reparations. However, the Board acted arbitrarily and capriciously in raising the relief cap for its most simplified rate reasonableness procedure. It appears that the Board double-counted costs in producing its estimate without explanation. Accordingly, the court remanded for the Board to address this issue. View "CSX Transp., Inc., et al. v. STB, et al." on Justia Law

After taxpayers failed to pay federal income taxes for the 2007 tax year, the IRS assessed the unpaid amount plus penalties and interest, and then attempted to collect them from taxpayers by means of a levy on the couple's home. Taxpayers unsuccessfully challenged the proposed levy in the Tax Court. On appeal, taxpayers contend that the Tax Court judge may have been biased in favor of the IRS in a manner that infringed the constitutional separation of powers. The court held that 26 U.S.C. 7443(f) did not infringe the constitutional separation of powers. Even if the prospect of "interbranch" removal of a Tax Court judge would raise a constitutional concern in theory, there is no cause for concern in fact: the Tax Court exercises Executive authority as part of the Executive Branch. Presidential removal of a Tax Court judge thus would constitute an intra-branch removal. The court rejected taxpayers' remaining claims and affirmed the judgment of the district court.View "Kuretski, et al. v. Commissioner of IRS" on Justia Law

The Union petitioned for review of the FLRA's decision finding, inter alia, that the IRS did not commit an unfair labor practice when Union representatives were excluded from "suitability" interviews of "covered" IRS personnel conducted by OPM investigators. Determining that it had jurisdiction to decide the Union's petition for review, the court concluded that the Authority reasonably construed the "representative of the agency" language in 5 U.S.C. 7114(a)(2)(B) to support a function and control analysis in determining its applicability vel non, and that the Authority's application of its interpretation to OPM-conducted suitability interviews of covered IRS personnel was not "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law." Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review.View "Natl' Treasury Employees Union v. FLRA" on Justia Law

Petitioner sought review of PowerPoint presentations that the FMCSA posted on its website on May 16, 2012. Petitioners claimed that the presentations represented an "astonishing" change in agency policy, which the agency failed to subject to notice-and-comment rulemaking as required by the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 500 et seq. The court concluded that the presentations did nothing more than explain the agency's Safety Measurement System, which was announced and implemented in 2010. The court dismissed the petition as untimely because, under the Hobbs Act, 28 U.S.C. 2344, challenges to agency rules, regulations, or final orders must be brought within 60 days of their issuance. View "Alliance for Safe, Efficient and Competitive Truck Transp., et al. v. FMCSA, et al." on Justia Law

A member of the British House of Commons, an informal British parliamentary caucus, and an American lawyer representing both all filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552, request seeking various records from the CIA and other intelligence agencies. The district court dismissed their suit to compel disclosure, agreeing with the agencies that the requesters all qualified as "representatives" of the British government. The court concluded that FOIA requesters who have authority to file requests on behalf of foreign government entities are "representatives" of such entities when they file requests of the sort they have authority to file. Since the intelligence agencies conceded that under this theory these three requesters fall outside the Foreign Government Entity Exception, the exception posed no barrier to the FOIA requests at issue. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded.View "All Party Parliamentry Group, et al. v. Dept. of Defense, et al." on Justia Law

This appeal arose out of a contract dispute between 3D and MVM. On appeal, 3D argued that the district court had discretion to award prejudgment interest under Virginia law. As an initial matter, the court accepted, without deciding, the parties' assertion that abuse of discretion is the appropriate standard of review. Applying that standard, the court concluded that 3D's argument that the district court had discretion to award prejudgment interest in this instance failed as a matter of law; there was no abuse of discretion in the district court's decision to change its earlier ruling after it had a more fulsome opportunity to consider the relevant Virginia law; and the district court did not err in concluding that the parties did not reach an agreement to submit the issue of prejudgment interest to the court. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.View "3D Global Solutions, Inc. v. MVM, Inc." on Justia Law