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

Plaintiff appealed from the dismissal of wrongful death and survival actions she filed against her son's employer and two pharmaceutical companies. Plaintiff's son committed suicide using a gun provided by his employer while he was taking prescribed medication manufactured and distributed by the pharmaceutical companies. The court held that the district court did not err in ruling that plaintiff failed to state a claim of negligence against the employer when the district court invoked, sua sponte, District of Columbia law that suicide was an intervening and independent cause of death subject to limited exceptions that were inapplicable. The court declined to certify questions of negligence-liability to the D.C. Court of Appeals. The court also held that the district court did not err in ruling that the complaint failed to state a plausible claim of products liability against the pharmaceutical companies and in denying her leave to amend. View "Rollins v. Wackenhut Services, Inc., et al" on Justia Law

Appellants, researchers in the field of adult stem cells who oppose the use of federal funding for the development of embryonic stem cell (ESC) research, filed a complaint seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against the Secretary's implementation of regulations allowing federal funding of such research. The court, applying Chevron analysis, held that the NIH had reasonably interpreted the Dickey-Wicker Amendment's ban on funding "research in which . . . embryos are destroyed" to allow federal funding of ESC research. Further, the preliminary-injunction exception was not applicable to the law-of-the-case preclusion. The court also held that the NIH's interpretation of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment's actual language was reasonable and the NIH's decision to dismiss the comments categorically objecting to ESC was not arbitrary or capricious. Accordingly, the court affirmed summary judgment in favor of the government. View "Sherley, et al. v. Sebelius, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs opposed the use of vaccines that contain thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative, and believed that vaccines containing mercury harm young children and pregnant women. Plaintiffs filed an action alleging that the FDA, by allowing thimerosal-preserved vaccines, violated its statutory duty to ensure the safety of vaccines. Plaintiffs asked for a court order requiring the FDA to prohibit the administration of vaccines containing more than a trace level of thimerosal to young children and pregnant women and sought to force the FDA to remove thimerosal-preserved vaccines from the market. The district court dismissed the suit for lack of standing. The court concluded that plaintiffs were not required to receive thimerosal-preserved vaccines; they could readily obtain thimerosal-free vaccines; they did not have standing to challenge the FDA's decision to allow other people to receive the vaccines; and plaintiffs could advocate that the Legislative and Executive Branches ban the vaccines. But because plaintiffs were suffering no cognizable injury as a result of the FDA's decision to allow the vaccine, their lawsuit was not a proper subject for the Judiciary. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Coalition for Mercury-Free Drugs, et al. v. Sebelius, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, two scientists, brought a suit to enjoin the National Institutes of Health ("NIH") from funding research using human embryonic stem cells ("ESCs") pursuant to the NIH's 2009 Guidelines ("Guidelines"). At issue was whether the preliminary injunction was properly granted where the district court concluded that plaintiffs were likely to succeed in showing that the Guidelines violated the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, an appropriations rider that barred federal funding for research in which a human embryo was destroyed. The court vacated the preliminary injunction and held that plaintiffs were unlikely to prevail because Dickey-Wicker was ambiguous and the NIH seemed reasonably to have concluded that, although Dickey-Wicker barred funding for the destructive act of deriving an ESC from an embryo, it did not prohibit funding a research project in which an ESC would be used.