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

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

Appellants - safari clubs, hunters, and international conservationists - alleged that the Service's failure to take actions concerning the straight-horn markhor was arbitrary and capricious. The court concluded that appellants' claims relating to the 1999 downlisting petition were moot where appellants have obtained all the relief that they sought; appellants' claims concerning the alleged failure of the Service to timely process four applications to import straight-horn markhor trophies were moot and the hunters' related due process claims were necessarily moot as well; and there was no record evidence to support the claim that any of appellants suffered an injury-in-fact from the Services' alleged ongoing policy of delay. Accordingly, the court remanded the case with instructions to dismiss the complaint for lack of jurisdiction. The portion of the district court's order addressing the claims raised on appeal was vacated. View "Conservation Force, Inc., et al. v. Jewell, et al." on Justia Law

This appeal concerned plaintiff's filing of an administrative complaint with the FEC alleging that various organizations violated election laws during their efforts to keep him off the ballot. The FEC dismissed the complaint and the district court subsequently granted summary judgment against plaintiff, later denying his motion to alter or amend its judgment. Plaintiff appealed. The court rejected plaintiff's claim of competitor standing where he sought to compel FEC enforcement against his opponents years after the campaign had run its course, and claim of informational standing where he asserted an injury that was not sufficiently concrete to confer standing. Accordingly, the court dismissed the appeal and concluded that the district court lacked jurisdiction to hear the suit because plaintiff lacked standing. View "Nadar v. FEC" on Justia Law

These appeals challenged the EPA's promulgation of rules in response to the Supreme Court's holding that greenhouse gases unambiguously qualify as an "air pollutant" under the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. 7401. At issue was implementation of Part C of Title I of the Act permitting requirements in several States without implementation plans for greenhouse gases as of January 2, 2011, when the emission standards in the Tailpipe Rule took effect. The court held that under the plain text of sections 165(a) and 167, the permitting requirements were self-executing without regard to previously approved state implementation plans. The court concluded that petitioners lacked Article III standing to challenge the rules because industry petitioners failed to show how they have been injured in fact by rules enabling issuance of the necessary permits and state petitioners failed to show how vacating the rules would redress their purported injuries. Accordingly, the court dismissed the petitions for lack of jurisdiction. View "State of Texas, et al. v. EPA" on Justia Law