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

The BOP challenged a decision and order of the Authority regarding United States Penitentiary I, a high security facility in Coleman, Florida. The Authority held that BOP was required to bargain with the Union over two proposals relating to BOP's installation of two metal detectors in the compound through which prisoners must pass to enter or exit the recreation yard. The court denied the BOP's motion to dismiss on grounds of mootness and its motion to vacate the Authority's decision and order. The court granted the Authority's cross-petition to enforce its decision and order regarding Proposal 1, and granted BOP's petition to vacate the Authority's decision and order regarding the third sentence in Proposal 2. The court remanded to the Authority to allow it to determine whether, in light of the changed circumstances occasioned by the changed use of the metal detectors, the order to bargain over Proposal 1 should be revised. View "U.S. DOJ v. FLRA" on Justia Law

Pursuant to the Library of Congress' policy, the Library recognizes certain employee organizations and gives them meeting space and other benefits. The Cook and Shaw Foundation is a non-profit organization composed of current and former employees of the Library. The Foundation and others filed suit after the Library denied recognition to the Foundation. The court concluded that the complaint failed to allege that the Library's denial of recognition constituted retaliation for statutorily protected activity by employees or applicants for employment. Absent such an allegation, the complaint failed to state a claim under Title VII, 42 U.S.C. 2000e et seq. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal for failure to state a claim. View "Howard R.l. Cook & Tommy Shaw, et al. v. Billington" on Justia Law

The EPA promulgated a rule in 2001 requiring a 95% reduction in nitrogen oxide emissions by heavy-duty motor vehicles by 2010. Petitioners, competitors of Navistar, challenged the EPA's 2012 rulemaking establishing nonconformance penalties (NCPs) to protect technological laggards, such as Navistar, by allowing them to pay a penalty for engines temporarily unable to meet a new or revised emission standard. The court granted the petition for review because of the lack of adequate notice and opportunity to comment on the amendments to the "substantial work" regulation. In light of the EPA's counsel's statement during oral argument that due to the changed circumstances of Navistar, vacatur would cause no harm, the court vacated the 2012 Rule. View "Daimler Trucks North America LLC, et al. v. EPA" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs are the writer and publisher of a book entitled "Where's the Birth Certificate? The Case that Barack Obama is not Eligible to Be President." A journalist published an article on Esquire's Political Blog entitled "BREAKING: Jerome Corsi's Birther Book Pulled from Shelves!" Soon after the blog was published, Esquire published an update on the blog stating that "for those who didn't figure it out," the article was "satire." Plaintiffs filed suit against Esquire for, inter alia, violation of the D.C. Anti-Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (Anti-SLAPP) Act, D.C. Code 16-5501 et seq., and the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. 1125(a)(1)(A) and (B). The court held that the complaint was properly dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim because the blog post was fully protected political satire and the update and the journalist's statements were protected opinion. Further, the complaint failed to state a claim for violation of the Lanham Act. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the complaint. View "Farah, et al. v. Esquire Magazine, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of the Air Force seeking, inter alia, correction of his military records to reflect promotion to major general, along with active duty back pay and retired pay. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of defendants. The Little Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. 1346, vests district courts with concurrent jurisdiction for civil actions or claims against the United States, not exceeding $10,000 in amount, founded either upon the Constitution, or any Act of Congress. Because the jurisdiction of the district court was based, at least in part, on the Little Tucker Act, the court concluded that the Federal Circuit possessed exclusive jurisdiction over the appeal and transferred the appeal to that court. View "Schwalier v. Hagel, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against the District and others, alleging that strip searching incoming detainees violated the Fourth Amendment and, where men were not similarly strip searched, the Fifth Amendment's equal protection guarantee. The court concluded, under Bame v. Dillard, that the Superior Court Marshal was entitled to qualified immunity because the Fourth Amendment right he was accused of violating was not clearly established at the time of any violation. The court agreed with the district court that there was no circumstantial evidence that the Marshal purposefully directed that women and men be searched differently at the Superior Court cellblock. According, the Marshal was entitled to qualified immunity because class members have failed to show that he violated their Fifth Amendment rights. The court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Johnson, et al. v. Government of the District of Columbia, et al." on Justia Law

Appellant, an Ohio-based law firm, filed suit against appellee, a Florida resident and SEI, a Florida corporation, after appellee and SEI failed to pay appellant for services rendered. Appellee had hired the law firm to represent him in a matter pending in Oregon. Appellant filed suit in district court but the district court dismissed the case for lack of personal jurisdiction. The court affirmed the judgment where neither the retainer itself nor anything about the client's dealings with the law firm demonstrated that the client purposefully availed himself of the privilege of conducting activities within the district. View "Thompson Hine LLP v. Taieb, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs and their companies filed suit alleging that the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act, 42 U.S.C. 300gg-13(a)(4), violated their rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), 42 U.S.C. 2000bb et seq., the Free Exercise Clause, the Free Speech Clause, and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 500 et seq. The court concluded that, even if the government had a compelling interest - from safeguarding the public health to protecting a woman's compelling interest in autonomy and promoting gender equality, the mandate was not the most restrictive means of furthering that interest. The court concluded that the district court erred in denying a preliminary injunction for plaintiffs on the grounds that their case was unlikely to succeed on the merits; the court reversed the district court's denial of a preliminary injunction for the individual owners; because the district court premised its decision entirely on a question of law, the court must remand for consideration of the other preliminary-injunction factors; and the court affirmed the district court's denial of preliminary injunction with respect to the companies. View "Gilardi, et al. v. HHS, et al." on Justia Law

The EPA promulgated an interim final rule (IFR) authorizing it to issue certificates of conformity to diesel truck engines manufacturers for 2012 and 2013 model-year engines notwithstanding the engines did not conform to EPA's emission standard for nitrogen oxides promulgated under section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act (CAA), 42 U.S.C. 7521(a) - provided the manufacturer paid the government a non-conformance penalty (NCP) as established in the IFR. After notice and comment, EPA replaced the IFR with a final NCP rule establishing new and higher NCPs. Daimler petitioned for review of the IFR on both procedural and substantive grounds, as well as EPA's issuance to manufacturer Navistar four 2012 model year certificates of conformity. The court concluded that, with the publication of the Final NCP Rule, Daimler's challenge to the certificates was moot and dismissed the petition for review. View "Daimler Trucks North America, et al. v. EPA" on Justia Law

This case arose when Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552, request with the Secret Service, seeking records of every visitor to the White House Complex over a period of seven months. The district court ordered the agency to release the records or assert specific FOIA exemptions on a document-by-document basis. The court held that, both in the 1974 FOIA Amendments and the 1978 Presidential Records Act (PRA), 44 U.S.C. 2201 et seq., Congress made clear that it did not want documents like the appointment calendars of the President and his closest advisors to be subject to disclosure under FOIA. Granting Judicial Watch's request for certain visitor records would effectively disclose the contents of those calendars. Therefore, the court concluded that such records were not "agency records" within the meaning of FOIA. The White House Complex also housed components that Congress did intend to subject to FOIA. The court concluded that these records of visits were "agency records" subject to disclosure under FOIA. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part and reversed in part. View "Judicial Watch, Inc. v. United States Secret Service" on Justia Law