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

More than a decade ago, Medicaid recipients filed this suit alleging that in violation of the Due Process Clause, the District of Columbia is failing to provide them notice and an opportunity to be heard when denying them prescription coverage. The case is now before the DC Circuit for the third time. In the first two appeals, the DC Circuit reversed the district court’s dismissals for lack of standing and for failure to state a claim, respectively. On remand, the district court once more dismissed the case, this time for mootness.   The DC Circuit again reversed and remanded with instructions to proceed expeditiously with discovery and allow Plaintiffs to make their case. The court explained that Plaintiffs challenged the District’s failure to give Medicaid recipients reasons for denying their prescriptions and an explanation of how to appeal, and uncontested evidence demonstrates that, notwithstanding the transmittal memorandum, some number of Plaintiffs are still not receiving the information they claim they are entitled to under the Due Process Clause. Because it is not “impossible for [the district] court to grant any effectual relief,” the case is not moot. View "Elsa Maldonado v. DC" on Justia Law

Ascension Borgess Hospital and forty-four other hospitals appeal the grant of summary judgment to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) dismissing challenges of certain reimbursements for uncompensated care. The Hospitals challenged the “disproportionate share hospital” (“DSH”) payments. The Provider Reimbursement Review Board (“PRRB”) dismissed the complaint for lack of jurisdiction pursuant to the statutory bar on administrative and judicial review of challenges to the methodology for calculating those payments. The Hospitals contend that HHS was required to promulgate its audit instructions by notice and comment rulemaking before using audited data from each hospital’s Worksheet S-10 to estimate the Hospitals’ proportionate shares of the national total of uncompensated care. They maintain that they do not challenge the Secretary’s estimate but seek only an order directing fulfillment of HHS’s notice and comment obligations.   The DC Circuit affirmed the grant of summary judgment to the Secretary. The court held that t the Hospitals’ framing of their challenge as purely procedural under the Medicare Act’s notice and comment requirement does not save their appeal, notwithstanding the “strong presumption in favor of judicial review of final agency action.” Even if, as the Hospitals contend, the alleged procedural violation is reviewable, the Hospitals have failed to identify any standard required to be set by rule that was not. Although neither DCH nor Florida Health addresses whether notice and comment rulemaking is required for protocols or procedures used to modify providers’ raw uncompensated care data before calculating DSH payment estimates, routine audit instructions to Medicare contractors ordinarily fall outside of section 1395hh’s rulemaking requirement. View "Ascension Borgess Hospital v. Xavier Becerra" on Justia Law

Plaintiff asked the Foreign Service Grievance Board to review the Foreign Service’s decision to deny her tenure. While the Board was considering her grievances, Plaintiff asked the Board to grant “interim relief.” That relief would have let Plaintiff keep working for the Foreign Service until her case was decided. But the Board refused to grant it. So Plaintiff filed suit, claiming that the Board should have given her relief. After Plainitff in lost in the district court and appealed to this court, the Board reached final decisions on her grievances. 
 The DC Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision to dismiss Plaintiff’s backpay claim, and the court dismissed Plaintiff’s appeal of her interim-relief claims as moot. The court explained backpay is not an available remedy on judicial review of the Board’s orders. Nothing in the Foreign Service Act authorizes a court to issue backpay. Plus, under the Act, judicial review is adjudicated “in accordance with the standards set forth in [the Administrative Procedure Act].” Here, the Board found no merit to four of Plaintiff’s grievances. As for the fifth grievance, the Board held that Plaintiff’s claim had merit, but it still denied her backpay. And because Plaintiff has not petitioned for judicial review of the Board’s decision to deny backpay in that grievance, the court wrote it cannot direct the Board to reconsider it. View "Julie Beberman v. Antony Blinken" on Justia Law

Petitioner Midwest Ozone Group (MOG), an association of companies, trade organizations, and individual entities maintaining a collective interest in air quality petitioned for review of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) final action, entitled the Revised Cross-State Air Pollution Update Rule (Revised Rule) for the 2008 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), which EPA promulgated in response to this Court’s remand in Wisconsin v. EPA, 938 F.3d 303 (D.C. Cir. 2019) In the Revised Rule, EPA addresses its failure to balance emissions obligations in accordance with 2008 ozone NAAQS and its prescribed date of attainment. On appeal, MOG contends that the Revised Rule is arbitrary and capricious and that EPA failed to conduct a legally and technically appropriate assessment as required by the Good Neighbor Provision of the Clean Air Act (CAA).   The DC Circuit denied the petition and held that the Revised Rule is an appropriate exercise of EPA’s statutory authority under the “Good Neighbor Provision.” The court explained that EPA appears to have chosen analytical techniques rationally connected to the Revised Rule and appropriately explained its use of the linear interpolation and subsequent methods for establishing the Revised Rule. In addition, EPA’s methodology did also incorporate photochemical modeling, MOG’s preferred technique, as the “foundation for its projections” and “merely layered an additional mathematical function, linear interpolation” over the original projected data to generate 2021 ozone concentrations. Further, MOG has not established that EPA’s linear interpolation method is oversimplified or that the agency has produced unreasonable results. View "Midwest Ozone Group v. EPA" on Justia Law

Flyers Rights and its current president have taken aim at the small size of airline seats. In their view, small seats slow emergency evacuations and cause medical problems like blood clots. They have petitioned for a writ of mandamus ordering the FAA “to commence rulemaking to establish minimum seat size and spacing requirements for commercial aircraft and to issue a final rule by a date certain.”   The DC Circuit denied Flyers Rights’ petition. The court held that Flyers Rights lacks a clear and indisputable right to relief. That’s because the FAA Reauthorization Act speaks only of seat-size regulations that “are necessary for the safety of passengers,” and on the record before the court, the necessity of those regulations is neither clear nor indisputable. View "In re: Flyers Rights Education Fund, Inc." on Justia Law

Schwab Multimedia received a construction permit from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). But Schwab never built its station. Though the FCC granted Schwab’s first three requests for more time, it denied Schwab’s fourth. Schwab appealed the FCC’s decision, claiming that it was arbitrary and capricious.   The DC Circuit affirmed. The court held that the FCC based its denial of Schwab’s tolling request on three underlying determinations, and those determinations were reasonable. First, the FCC reasonably found that Schwab had no construction site. Indeed, Schwab admitted as much. It told the Media Bureau that the landlord of the original site had “rescinded [its] verbal agreement . . . to use the site.” And it offered no evidence to suggest that it had since secured the landlord’s permission. Second, it was reasonable for the FCC to conclude that site loss was the real reason Schwab could not build. Third, the FCC reasonably held that site loss is not a legitimate basis for tolling. Further, Schwab produced no evidence to show that good cause would support a waiver. View "Levine/Schwab Partnership v. FCC" on Justia Law

The International Organization of Masters, Mates & Pilots, ILA, AFL-CIO (“the Union” or “IOM”), has been the lawful bargaining agent for the Licensed Deck Officers (“LDOs”) on four container ships that carry goods between ports in California and Hawaii. The Pasha Group purchased the ships, and its wholly owned subsidiary, Sunrise Operations, LLC (“Sunrise”), now operates the vessels and is the most recent successor employer of the LDOs. The Union filed unfair labor practice (“ulp”) charges with the National Labor Relations Board (“Board” or “NLRB”). The Board’s General Counsel then filed a complaint alleging that Sunrise had violated sections 8(a)(1) and 8(a)(5) of the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA” or “Act”), when it failed to provide information to the Union and declined to participate in arbitration proceedings in Maryland.   The DC Circuit granted the petition for review, vacated the Board’s decision, and remanded the case for reconsideration. The court held that it is clear that the majority opinion for the Board purports to decide the case without regard to the parties’ principal claims presented to the ALJ, and it rests on a position that was never advanced by Sunrise either before the ALJ or in its exceptions to the Board. Sunrise never argued that the disposition of this case should turn on the employer’s subjective beliefs about whether the LDOs were supervisors. Thus, the court found that the Board’s holding, in this case, lacks support in the record, defies established law, and creates a new rule without reasoned justification. It thus fails substantial evidence review and is arbitrary and capricious for want of reasoned decision-making. View "International Organization of Masters, Mates & Pilots, ILA, AFL-CIO v. NLRB" on Justia Law

The States of Illinois and Nevada (collectively referred to as “the States” or “Plaintiffs”) filed a mandamus action in the district court, seeking to compel the Archivist of the United States to certify and publish the Equal Rights Amendment (“ERA”) as part of the Constitution of the United States. The States argued that the Archivist had a duty to certify and publish the ERA because it was ratified by the requisite three-fourths of the States of the Union as required by Article V of the Constitution. The district court agreed, dismissing the case for lack of jurisdiction.   The DC Circuit affirmed. The court explained that the States have not clearly and indisputably shown that the Archivist had a duty to certify and publish the ERA or that Congress lacked the authority to place a time limit in the proposing clause of the ERA. Under the rigid standard required for mandamus actions, the court wrote it must affirm the district court’s dismissal of the States’ complaint on the ground that the lower court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. View "State of Illinois v. David Ferriero" on Justia Law

The Office of Professional Responsibility (“OPR”) investigates allegations of practitioner misconduct before the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”). Appellant sued the IRS under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), seeking disclosure of documents relating to the OPR’s investigation of a misconduct report on him. The district court ruled that the four documents were protected from disclosure by FOIA Exemption 5’s deliberative process privilege and granted summary judgment to the IRS. Appellant contends that the withheld documents are nondeliberative and, therefore, unprotected by Exemption 5.   The DC Circuit affirmed in part the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the IRS and reversed in part as to the Marchetti Memo and the Kelly Memo. The court explained that withholding the contested documents, with the exception of the Kelly Memo and the unprotected portion of the Marchetti Memo, is consonant with Exemption 5’s purposes. At least some of the recommendations in the contested documents were not adopted in the OPR’s ultimate determination, so disclosure of the authors’ potentially mistaken recommendations might have a chilling effect on their willingness to make such recommendations. Further, the court wrote that insofar as the OPR’s ultimate determination departs from the course of action proposed by at least some of the contested documents or from their reasoning, the release of those predecisional documents might well mislead the public about the OPR’s view of Appellant’s conduct. View "Bradley Waterman v. IRS" on Justia Law

Petitioners PF Sunset Plaza, LLC (“Sunset Plaza”) and PF Holdings, LLC (“Holdings”) were each assessed monetary penalties by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”) for violations of their duty to provide “decent, safe, and sanitary housing” to low-income families under Section 8. Petitioners petitioned to reverse ALJ decisions dismissing these HUD enforcement actions against them for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. At issue on appeal is whether the statute operates to bar the appeal of a civil monetary penalty should a respondent miss the fifteen-day deadline to request an administrative hearing?   The DC Circuit answered yes, and denied both petitions. The court explained that Petitioners claim that because the deadline falls under a subheading entitled “Final Orders,” a final order from HUD must occur before operation of the deadline commences. Petitioners argued that HUD’s issuance of a complaint is simply an invitation to engage in litigation, not a triggering of the fifteen-day deadline. Because HUD issued no final order here, they contest that the fifteen-day period never began. The court held that Petitioners misunderstand the statutory subheading. Congress entitled the section “Final Orders” because it enumerates two examples of how HUD’s penalties become final. View "PF Holdings, LLC v. HUD" on Justia Law