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

Plaintiff filed suit against her 57-year-old teacher at a public high school for emotionally disturbed teens after they were involved in a sexual relationship that resulted in plaintiff being pregnant with his child. Plaintiff also filed suit against the District. On appeal, plaintiff sought review of the district court's order granting the District's motion to dismiss. The court dismissed the appeal for lack of appellate jurisdiction because there was no final judgment within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. 1291. View "Blue v. DC Public Schools, et al." on Justia Law

Petitioner challenged the conditions of his confinement at the Federal Correctional Institution in Talladega, Alabama. The district court concluded that venue in the District of Columbia was improper and ordered the action transferred to the Northern District of Alabama. Petitioner and four fellow prisoners filed a mandamus petition seeking to vacate the transfer order and also compelling the district court clerk to accept certain rejected filings. The court denied petitioner's motion to proceed in forma pauperis because petitioner has run afoul of the Prison Litigation Reform Act's, 28 U.S.C. 1915(g), three strikes provision and has failed to demonstrate that he qualifies for the imminent danger exception; held that the remaining petitioners lacked standing to challenge either the transfer order or the clerk's rejection of the filings; and denied the motion to stay the collection of filing fees pending the payment of fees in other cases. View "Pinson, et al. v. Lappin, et al." on Justia Law

Eight African-American Secret Service agents were certified by the district court to sue the Secretary on behalf of a class comprising of all similarly situated agents who were denied promotions to the GS-14 and GS-15 level. The government sought interlocutory review of the class certification order under Rule 23(f). The court concluded that none of the district court's rulings in support of its order certifying the plaintiff class is foreclosed by controlling precedent and the unsettled questions are not likely to evade end-of-the-case review. Accordingly, the court declined to review the district court's order. View "In re: Jeh Johnson" on Justia Law

IPG challenged the distribution of royalties from a royalty fund managed by the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress, which provides payments to copyright holders when they are statutorily obligated to license their work to third parties. IPG's former president had signed a settlement agreement that fully disposed of IPG's interest in the royalties at issue concerning religious programming broadcasts on cable television in 1998. In this case, IPG seeks judicial review under an inapposite jurisdictional grant of a decade-old distribution based on the actions of IPG's then-president, on which the Royalty Judges reasonably relied, and indeed, the authority for which has never been challenged. Therefore, the court dismissed the appeal, concluding that it lacked statutory jurisdiction over the dispute. View "Independent Producers Group, et al. v. Library of Congress, et al." on Justia Law

Raymone Bain and her firm filed suit against Michael Jackson and his production company, MJJ Productions, Inc., claiming to be owed substantial sums for various services rendered. Defendants moved to dismiss, relying principally on a December 2007 release agreement where Bain broadly relinquished any claims against Jackson and his business entities. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of MJJ, holding that the release agreement precluded Bain's claims. Bain moved for relief from judgment under Rule 60(b)(2) five months later. The "newly discovered evidence" cited by Bain was an April 2008 letter from Jackson to Bain, in which Jackson stated that he had no awareness of, and had never signed, the release agreement on which the district court had grounded its grant of summary judgment. The district court held that a movant's awareness of evidence automatically precludes relief under Rule 60(b)(2), regardless of the evidence's availability. The court found that to be an unduly constricted understanding of "newly discovered evidence" for purposes of Rule 60(b)(2). The court concluded, however, that the district court committed no abuse of discretion by looking beyond Bain's efforts in searching her own files and considering whether she mentioned the letter to the court or sought its assistance in locating the evidence. Because Bain failed to exercise reasonable diligence in seeking out the letter, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Bain, et al. v. MJJ Productions, Inc., et al." on Justia Law

Appellant, a Marine Corps. veteran who was honorably discharged, sought review of the BCNR's denial of an increase in appellant's disability rating. The court affirmed the district court's dismissal where the only claim ever properly placed at issue before the district court was rendered moot by a stipulated remand to the BCNR. The court did not reach the other issues briefed on appeal. View "Schmidt v. United States" on Justia Law

The Board moved to transfer this petition for review of one of its orders to the Ninth Circuit where another petition for review of the same order has been filed. Although the Board conceded that it received the court-and-date-stamped copy of Remington's petition within 28 U.S.C. 2112(a)(1)'s ten-day time limit, it argued that it did not receive the copy from the persons instituting the proceedings. Because every petitioner seeking review of a Board order must comply with section 10(f) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. 160(f), section 2112(a) could serve its separate notice function only if petitioners wishing to take advantage of that section's forum selection procedure comply with it separately. Requiring petitioners to comply personally with section 2112(a) alerted the agency that the petitioner cared about its chosen forum and, as the Board explained, imposed the burden of compliance on the party seeking to benefit from section 2112(a). Therefore, the court must transfer the petition to the Ninth Circuit. The court granted the motion to transfer. View "Remington Lodging & Hospitality v. NLRB" on Justia Law

Fisher-Cal filed suit alleging that the Air Force violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 500 et seq., when the Air Force opted not to renew a contract for multimedia services with Fisher-Cal and decided to in-source the services. On appeal, Fisher-Cal challenged the district court's appeal of its suit for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The court accepted the reasoning of the Federal Circuit in Distributed Solutions, Inc. v. United States, which held that lawsuits involving decisions whether to in-source or contract fell within the jurisdiction of the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. 1491. Accordingly, Fisher-Cal's challenge to the Air Force's decision to in-source was governed by the Tucker Act and therefore the U.S. Court of Federal Claims had jurisdiction over the challenge. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Fisher-Cal Indus., Inc. v. United States, et al." on Justia Law