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

Plaintiff, a former British soldier, was severely wounded in an ambush in Afghanistan, where he was working for a private security contractor. Plaintiff sued the transport company that furnished the helicopter he flew in on and the construction company that contracted with his employer for his security services, alleging that they had negligently failed to take appropriate security measures for his trip. The district court granted summary judgment for Defendants because Plaintiff failed to proffer, as required by District of Columbia law, an expert to testify regarding the standard of care for such security precautions. Plaintiff appealed, maintaining that no expert was required because, inter alia, "every juror will have seen" such films as High Noon. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, holding (1) Plaintiff's reliance on old Westerns rather than expert testimony to establish the standard of care was fatal to his negligence claim; and (2) the Erie doctrine was fatal to Plaintiff's alternative contention that the Court should disregard D.C.'s expert testimony requirement altogether. View "Burke v. Air Serv. Int'l, Inc." on Justia Law

RSM Production Corporation brought a complaint against a law firm and two of its partners ("Freshfields"), alleging that Freshfields, through its representation of the nation of Grenada in international arbitration, conspired to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) in an effort to prevent RSM from obtaining an exclusive license for offshore oil and gas exploration and development in Grenada. The district court ruled that RSM's lawsuit was barred under the doctrine of res judicata because of its prior lawsuit in the Southern District of New York regarding the same licensing effort. On appeal, RSM contended that Freshfields was not in privity with the New York defendants and that RSM was not required to add Freshfields as a party to that litigation on pain of res judicata. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed on the alternative ground that RSM's complaint failed to state a claim of RICO conspiracy against Freshfields. View "RSM Prod. Corp. v. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer U.S. LLP" on Justia Law

This case was a part of a long-running and sprawling international litigation battle in which various indigenous Ecuadorian groups claimed that Chevron Corporation was liable for environmental harm caused in the Amazon over three decades. Patton Boggs LLP represented the plaintiffs and wished to continued to do so. The district court denied Patton Boggs both a declaratory judgment that it could not be disqualified from that representation and leave to amend its complaint with claims that Chevron and its counsel tortiously interfered with the firm's contract with its clients. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court, holding that the court did not abuse its discretion (1) by failing to exercise jurisdiction and take up the request for a declaratory judgment; (2) in denying Patton Boggs' request to amend the complaint; and (3) by dismissing Patton Boggs' new complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. View "Patton Boggs, LLP v. Chevron Corp." on Justia Law

Assistant United States Attorney Richard Convertino led the prosecution of the Detroit Sleeper Cell defendants in 2003. Convertino was later removed from the case for alleged violations committed during the prosecution. The Department of Justice's (DOJ) Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) began an internal investigation into whether Convertino knowingly withheld evidence from the defense. A few months later, a reporter published an article in the Detroit Free Press including details of the OPR referral. Convertino brought suit, alleging that an unidentified DOJ employee willfully or intentionally disclosed confidential information protected by the Privacy Act to the reporter. After several years, Convertino moved for a motion to stay the proceedings on the ground he was pursuing discovery to learn the source's identity. The district court granted summary judgment to DOJ and denied Convertino's motion to stay. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court's summary judgment, holding that the district court committed an abuse of discretion in denying Convertino's motion to stay, as (1) the district court mistakenly assumed Convertino could maintain discovery proceedings even after the Privacy Act litigation ended; and (2) Convertino submitted ample evidence to suggest that additional discovery could reveal the source's identity. Remanded. View "Convertino v. Dep't of Justice" on Justia Law

This case arose when plaintiffs sued defendants alleging various violations of federal and state law in connection with defendants' involvement in the satellite communications industry. Plaintiffs appealed the district court's dismissal of plaintiffs' case without prejudice for failure to prove service of three defendants or to show cause therefore under Rule 4(m). Because plaintiffs failed to demonstrate a waiver by defendants pursuant to Rule 4, they offered no basis on which the court could conclude that the district court clearly erred in finding plaintiffs failed to prove proper service. Plaintiffs relied on defendants' acknowledgement of being served without considering defendants' suggestion of improper service. Plaintiffs also confused defendants' motion for a stay of the case, and to dismiss the case in its entirety, with a responsive pleading joining issue with plaintiffs' claims. The record further demonstrated plaintiffs failed to show cause for their failure to effect timely service and thus the district court acted within its discretion in denying additional time to effect service. Accordingly, the court affirmed the dismissal of the case without prejudice. View "Mann, et al. v. Castiel, et al." on Justia Law

This case arose out of an accident in which an 81-year-old truck driver for Bob Orton Trucking Co., was killed by a large pipe that fell off of his truck during a delivery to the Kennecott Utah Copper Mine. Petitioner was an independent contractor hired by the mine's owner, Kennecott to construct a tailings dam; it was responsible for receiving deliveries of materials such as the pipes in question. The MSHA cited petitioner for a violation of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977, 30 U.S.C. 801 et seq. On review, the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission upheld the citation, finding that petitioner, though not the principal operator of the mine, "supervised a process, the unloading of pipes," and that as a supervisor of that process it could be liable without fault for violations occurring in the process. Petitioner challenged that conclusion both as a matter of statutory interpretation and on the facts. The court held that, though the statutory structure invited considerable confusion, the Commission's conclusion was consistent with the Act and there was substantial evidence of its necessary findings. View "Ames Construction, Inc. v. MSHR, et al." on Justia Law

OSHA cited and fined petitioner for failing to properly record certain workplace injuries and for failing to properly maintain its injury log between January 2002 and April 2006. OSHA issued the citations in November 2006, which was, as petitioner pointed out, at least six months after the last unrecorded injury occurred. Because "[n]o citation may be issued...after the expiration of six months following the occurrence of any violation, " 29 U.S.C. 658(c), the court agreed with petitioner that the citations were untimely and should be vacated. View "AKM LLC v. Secretary of Labor, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, Chapour Bakhtiar's family members, asserted that Iran was responsible for Bakhtiar's murder and filed suit in U.S. District Court against Iran and an Iranian government agency. Plaintiffs brought claims under California tort law. Under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. 1604, foreign nations were generally immune from suit in U.S. courts, but plaintiffs were able to maintain their case under the Act's exception for state-sponsored terrorism under section 1605(a)(7). At issue on appeal was whether plaintiffs could obtain punitive damages in their state-law tort suit against Iran without complying with the congressionally specified procedures for seeking punitive damages against a foreign nation. The court concluded that, for plaintiffs with suits pending against foreign nations as of January 28, 2008, Congress provided three options for obtaining the benefits of section 1605A and seeking punitive damages: a motion to convert the action, a refiling of the action or the filing of a related action. Because plaintiffs did not pursue any of these statutorily provided options, plaintiffs could not obtain punitive damages from Iran. The court considered all of plaintiffs' arguments and found them without merit. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Bakhtiar, et al. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a DEA special agent, was presenting in front of a group of about 50 children and parents at a community center, where he displayed his DEA-issued firearm while discussing gun safety, when his firearm accidentally discharged and shot him in the thigh. Plaintiff subsequently filed suit against the DEA alleging that disclosure of the four minute, nine second video-recording of plaintiff's presentation on internet websites and on the DEA's internal e-mail system violated the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. 552a, and the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. 1346(b), 2671 et seq. The district court granted summary judgment to the DEA on both claims. The court affirmed the judgment, holding that plaintiff failed to establish the elements of his Privacy Act claim - specifically, that the video was retrieved from a system of records and that the disclosure was intentional or willful. The court also held that plaintiff's FTCA claim failed because he did not establish all of the elements under Florida law for the tort of invasion of privacy by public disclosure of a private fact where the video contained no private facts and where the accidental discharge was a matter of public concern. View "Paige v. Drug Enforcement Admin." on Justia Law

Appellant, as personal representative of her brother's estate, sued to recover damages for the shooting death of her brother by a Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) detective and contended on appeal that she did not receive a fair trial. The principal issue concerned the district court's rulings on the inadmissibility of portions of an internal MPD report regarding the 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 held that there was no abuse of discretion by the district court. The record revealed that the district court properly excluded those parts of the report likely to confuse the jury and unfairly prejudice the government. The court 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 that the violation was harmless and so the district court's refusal to strike the expert's testimony was not an abuse of discretion. Accordingly, because appellant's other claims of error and her bias claim were unpersuasive, the court affirmed the judgment. View "English v. District of Columbia, et al." on Justia Law