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

Plaintiff sued defendant, alleging that defendant had unlawfully discriminated against her in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq. Plaintiff, a medical student who was diagnosed with dyslexia and a mild processing-speed disorder, contended on remand that the district court erred by failing to apply the 2008 amendments to the ADA and in relying on her prior academic achievement in assessing whether she suffered from a disability under the ADA. The court held that because plaintiff failed to show legal or clear factual error by the district court, the judgment was affirmed. View "Singh v. GW Univ. School of Medicine, et al." on Justia Law

The District of Columbia appealed the denial of its motion to vacate a preliminary injunction pursuant to Rule 60(b)(5) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The injunction was issued in 1995 in response to a class action complaint alleging that the District of Columbia was violating the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 20 U.S.C. 1400 et seq., by failing to timely pay private providers of special education services and thereby jeopardizing students' special education placements. The district court denied the motion on two grounds: (1) dissolving the injunction and subsequent payment orders "would be disruptive to the status quo" and "counter-productive to the goal" of settling the case "in short order," and (2) the District of Columbia had "overstated both the relevance and the significance" of the Supreme Court's recent decision in Horne v. Flores. The court held that the district court failed to address changed circumstances, as Flores instructed, and reversed and remanded the case to the district court to determine whether, in view of changed circumstances, the District of Columbia's Rule 60(b)(5) motion should be granted. View "Petties, et al. v. District of Columbia, et al." on Justia Law

This case stemmed from the District's adoption of the Firearms Registration Amendment Act of 2008 (FRA), D.C. Law 17-372, which amended the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975, D.C. Law 1-85. Plaintiffs challenged, both facially and as applied to them, the provisions of the District's gun laws, new and old, requiring the registration of firearms and prohibiting both the registration of "assault weapons" and the possession of magazines with a capacity of more than ten rounds of ammunition. Plaintiffs argued those provisions were not within the District's congressionally delegated legislative authority or, if they were, then they violated the Second Amendment. The court held that the District had authority under D.C. law to promulgate the challenged gun laws, and the court upheld as constitutional the prohibitions of assault weapons and of large-capacity magazines and some of the registration requirements. The court remanded the other registration requirements to the district court for further proceedings because the record was insufficient to inform the court's resolution of the important constitutional issues presented. View "Heller, et al. v. District of Columbia, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs brought this action against the Department of Justice under the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. 552, seeking to obtain documents relating to the government's use of cell phone location data in criminal prosecutions. The district court directed the release of certain specified documents and upheld the Department's decision to withhold others. The court affirmed the district court's order requiring the release of the specified documents. The court held, however, that because there were too many factual uncertainties regarding the remaining documents, the court vacated the balance of the district court's decision and remanded the case for further development of the record. View "American Civil Liberties Union, et al. v. Dept. of Justice" on Justia Law

Appellant, a former official of the District of Columbia Office of the Inspector General (OIG), claimed that he was fired in retaliation for exercising his First Amendment rights by refusing to sign an affidavit his employer drafted for him in response to a former subordinate's employment discrimination claim and instead, appellant rewrote the affidavit in a manner critical of the OIG's decision to terminate the subordinate. The court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the OIG on the First Amendment retaliation claim and appellant petitioned for rehearing. The court held that because appellant spoke as a government employee, the district court rightly granted summary judgment in favor of appellant's employer on this retaliation claim. Therefore, the petition for rehearing was denied. View "Bowie v. Maddox" on Justia Law

Petitioner petitioned the court on July 14, 2010, for a writ of mandamus to compel the district court to grant him in forma pauperis status and permit him to file his civil rights damages suit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1983. At issue was whether a dismissal of a complaint for failure to state a claim based on Heck v. Humphrey counted as a "strike" under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 38 U.S.C. 1915(g). The court concluded that it did and joined the Fifth and Tenth Circuits in holding that in the absence of proof "that the conviction or sentence ha[d] been reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive order, declared invalid by a state tribunal authorized to make such determination, or called into question by a federal court's issuance of a writ of habeas corpus," the petitioner failed to state a claim for purposes of section 1915(g). Accordingly, because petitioner, while incarcerated, had filed at least three civil actions that were dismissed on the ground that they were frivolous, malicious, or failed to state a claim, and he had neither offered any valid reason as to why he should not be required to pay in full the appellate filing fee before the court would consider his mandamus petition, nor claimed he was in imminent danger within the meaning of the exception under section 1915(g) of the PLRA's three-strikes provision, the court denied petitioner's motion for leave to appeal in forma pauperis and ordered him to pay the full fee before the court would consider his petition.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and two individuals petitioned for review of a decision by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to screen airline passengers by using advanced imaging technology (AIT) instead of magnetometers. EPIC argued that the use of AIT violated various federal statutes and the Fourth Amendment and, in any event, should have been the subject of notice-and-comment rulemaking before being adopted. The court granted the petition for review with respect to claims that the TSA had not justified its failure to initiate notice-and-comment rulemaking before announcing it would use AIT scanners for primary screening at airports. None of the exceptions urged by the TSA justified its failure to give notice of and receive comment upon such a rule, which was legislative and not merely interpretive, procedural, or a general statement of policy. The court denied the petition with respect to EPIC's statutory arguments and their claim under the Fourth Amendment, except their claim under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, 42 U.S.C. 2000bb et seq., which the court dismissed for lack of standing. Finally, due to the obvious need for the TSA to continue its airport security operations without interruption, the court remanded the rule to the TSA but did not vacate it.

The citizens of Kinston, North Carolina, approved a referendum switching city elections from partisan to nonpartisan. Because Kinston was located in a jurisdiction covered by section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Act), 42 U.S.C. 1973(c)(a), the city council had no authority to implement the referendum until precleared by federal authorities, and preclearance had not occurred. A candidate for public office claiming a state-law entitlement to run under the suspended nonpartisan system, together with other plaintiffs, filed suit seeking to enjoin the Attorney General from enforcing section 5 against Kinston. Count one of plaintiffs' complaint contended that section 5, as reauthorized in 2006, exceeded Congress' Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment enforcement powers. Count two contended that amendments made to section 5 in 2006 erected a facially unconstitutional racial-preference scheme. The court held that one of the plaintiffs, the candidate for public office, had both standing and a cause of action to pursue count one and therefore, the court reversed and remanded for the district court to consider the merits of that claim. The court held that, because plaintiffs' standing with respect to count two raised complex questions unaddressed by the district court and the parties' briefs, the court vacated the district court's dismissal of that claim and remanded for further consideration.

Appellant sued her former employer alleging violations of the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), 29 U.S.C. 2601 et seq. At issue was whether the district court properly granted summary judgment in favor of the employer on appellant's interference claim and entered a judgment as a matter of law on her retaliation claim. The court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment on the interference claim where appellant's allegations "focus[ed] on precisely the sorts of de minimis, intangible, and unmeasurable aspects of a job that the regulations specifically exclude[d]" pursuant to Montgomery v. Maryland. The court also agreed with the district court that no reasonable jury, relying on the evidence presented at trial, could conclude that the 2005 realignment proximately caused appellant's termination in 2008. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's grant of judgment as a matter of law on the retaliation claim.

A jury found for the District of Columbia government and a detective of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD)(collectively, the government), in this case alleging a 42 U.S.C. 1983 claim for the use of excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment and common law claims for assault and battery. Appellant, as personal representative of her brother's estate, sued to recover damages for the shooting death of her brother by the detective, and she contended on appeal that she did not receive a fair trial. The principle issue concerned the district court's rulings on the inadmissibility of portions of an internal MPD report regarding an altercation between the detective and appellant's brother. A related issue involved a violation of the pretrial disclosure requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26. The court found no abuse of discretion by the district court where the record revealed that it properly excluded those parts of the report likely to confuse the jury and unfairly prejudiced the government. The court also held that the government failed to comply with Rule 26(a)(2)(E) by not supplementing the medical expert's disclosure to reflect an interview with the detective on which the expert intended to rely at trial, but in view of appellant's cross-examination of the expert, after receiving the expert's interview notes, that the violation was harmless and so the district court's refusal to strike the expert's testimony was not reversible error. Accordingly, because appellant's other claims of error and her bias claim were unpersuasive, the court affirmed the judgment.