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

Plaintiff sued the district and others for violation of, inter alia, the District of Columbia Whistleblower Protection Act (DCWPA), D.C. Code 1-615.52-.54. The district court granted judgment in favor of defendants on all claims and plaintiff subsequently appealed. The court affirmed the judgment because the relevant statute provided no cause of action against individuals and an amendment to the statute passed in 2009 so providing was not retroactive. Further, plaintiff had not established causation between his allegedly protected activity and his discharge. View "Payne v. District of Columbia Government, et al." on Justia Law

Defendant challenged his conviction on one count of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute five or more kilograms of cocaine. The court rejected defendant's claims of improper venue; ineffective assistance of counsel; inadmissible evidence seized as the fruit of an illegal vehicle stop; and inadmissible expert testimony of a non-expert witness. Accordingly, the court affirmed the conviction. View "United States v. Watson" on Justia Law

This case involved the District's laws against "double-dipping": the simultaneous drawing of both a pension and a salary by a retired employee who has been rehired by the District. Plaintiffs, retired employees of the Metropolitan Police Department, filed suit against the District, claiming numerous violations of federal and D.C. law arising out of a salary offset. Only plaintiffs' federal claims were at issue in this appeal. Three of the plaintiffs asserted that they did not receive the minimum wage required by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 201 et seq., and all of them claimed that: the salary offset violated the Fifth Amendment, the manner in which the District administered the offset violated the Equal Protection Clause, and the District violated the First Amendment by retaliating against them for filing their suit. The court held that plaintiffs' federal challenges were meritless except in one respect. In slashing three of the plaintiffs' salaries, the District overstepped the boundaries of the FLSA. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's judgment on the constitutional claims, but reversed and remanded as to the claim under the FLSA. Because the district court's decision not to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiffs' D.C. law claims was premised on the dismissal of all federal claims from this case, the court vacated that part of the district court's order dismissing the D.C. law claims and remanded for further proceedings. View "Cannon, et al. v. District of Columbia" on Justia Law

Three federal contractors sought a declaration that 2 U.S.C. 441c abridged their freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment and denied them the equal protection of the laws in violation of the Fifth Amendment. FECA prohibited any "person" contracting with the federal government from contributing to "any political party, committee, or candidate for public office or to any person for any political purpose or use" in a federal election. The court sua sponte vacated and remanded to the district court to comply with immediate procedures set forth in section 437h, concluding that FECA's judicial review provision ousted both the district court and the court's jurisdiction to consider the merits of the claims. View "Wagner, et al. v. Federal Election Commission" on Justia Law

In an effort to reduce gun trafficking from the United States to Mexico, the ATF issued a demand letter under 18 U.S.C. 923(g)(5)(A) to a number of federal firearms licensees (FFLs) requiring each recipient making two or more sales of a specific firearm to the same buyer within five business days to file a report with the ATF. NSSF challenged the demand letter, arguing that ATF lacked statutory authority to issue it and that ATF acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner in selecting which FFLs were subject to it. The court rejected both arguments and affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to ATF. View "Nat'l Shooting Sports Found., et al. v. Jones" on Justia Law

Petitioners challenged the EPA's revised emissions standards for secondary lead smelting facilities. In 2012, acting pursuant to sections 112(d)(6) and 112(f)(2) of the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. 7412(d)(6), (f)(2), EPA revised the 1995 emissions standards for secondary lead smelting facilities, reducing allowable emissions by 90% and requiring smelters to totally enclose certain "fugitive" emission sources. Industry petitioners first argued that the Secondary Lead Rule impermissibly regulated elemental lead as hazardous air pollutants (HAP). The court concluded, inter alia, that industry petitioners' first contention was time-barred and the second contention also failed because the Rule set HAP emissions standards at levels designed to attain the primary lead national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS), not the converse. In regards to environmental petitioners' challenges, the court concluded that environmental petitioners have shown that their members would have standing under Article III to sue in their own right. However, environmental petitioners' challenge failed on the merits. Their primary argument that, when EPA revised emissions standards under section 112(d)(6), it must recalculate the maximum achievable control technology in accordance with sections 112(d)(2) and (d)(3), was barred by NRDC v. EPA, 529 F.3d 1077 (D.C. Cir. 2008). Accordingly, the court denied in part and dismissed in part the petitions for review. View "Assoc. of Battery Recyclers v. EPA, et al" on Justia Law

This case arose from a protracted labor dispute between Tenneco and the Union. The NLRB's General Counsel sought to prove that Tenneco had committed multiple violations of Section 8 of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. 158. The court granted Tenneco's petition for review with respect to the charge relating to Tenneco's withdrawal of recognition. On the record before the court, there was no substantial evidence that Tenneco's unfair labor practices significantly contributed to the employees' petition for decertification. However, with respect to the remaining disputed unfair labor practice charges, the court granted the Board's cross-application for enforcement. Although Tenneco had raised vigorous challenges to the Board's holdings, the court found substantial evidence to support the Board's determinations that Tenneco's conduct violated Sections 8(a)(1), (3), and (5) of the Act. View "Tenneco Automotive, Inc. v. NLRB" on Justia Law

Intervenor, Sunflower Electric Power Corporation, appealed the grant of summary judgment to the Sierra Club based on violations of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq., by the USDA's Rural Utilities Services. The district court ruled that the Service unlawfully failed to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) before granting approvals and financial assistance to Sunflower's expansion of its coal-fired power plant, and remanded the matter to the Service, enjoining it from granting further approvals until it completed an EIS. The court dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1291 because Sunflower appealed a non-final remand order that was not immediately appealable by a private party and under section 1292(a)(1) because the injunction served no purpose beyond the remand. View "Sierra Club v. U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, et al" on Justia Law

Morpho, a California-based corporation that designs and builds explosives and other threat detection technology, contracted with the FAA on behalf of its then-newly established TSA, to supply its Explosive Detection System (EDS) to United States airports. Morpho subsequently sought an increase of the contract price to compensate for state assessments as "after-imposed taxes" pursuant to Clause 3.4.2-7(c) of the Acquisition Management System (AMS). The court denied Morpho's petition for review, agreeing with the TSA's rejection of Morpho's claim on the ground that the taxes at issue did not satisfy the after-imposed tax exception's precise terms. View "Morpho Detection, Inc. v. TSA" on Justia Law

Tennis Channel, a sports programming network and intervenor in this suit, filed a complaint against Comcast Cable, a multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD), alleging that Comcast violated section 616 of the Communications Act of 1934, 47 U.S.C. 536(a)(3), and the Commission's regulations by refusing to broadcast Tennis as widely as it did its own affiliated sports programming networks, Golf Channel and Versus. An ALJ ruled against Comcast, ordering that it provide Tennis carriage equal to what it afforded Golf and Versus, and the Commission affirmed. The court concluded that Comcast prevailed with its third set of arguments on appeal, that even under the Commission's interpretation of section 616, the Commission had failed to identify adequate evidence of unlawful discrimination. The Commission had nothing to refute Comcast's contention that its rejection of Tennis's proposal was simply "a straight up financial analysis." Accordingly, the court granted the petition. View "Comcast Cable Communications, LLC v. FCC, et al." on Justia Law