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

The Union petitioned for review of the FLRA's decision that the IRS did not commit an unfair labor practice under 5 U.S.C. 7116 when it failed to provide the Union notice or an opportunity to bargain over an increase in the workloads of IRS Case Advocates. Determining that it had jurisdiction to consider the Union's petition, the court concluded that FLRA precedent established that this bargaining obligation arises only when an agency initiates a change in its policies, practices, or procedures, and FLRA reasonably relied on that precedent. FLRA's determination that the Arbitrator erred in finding an unfair labor practice was adequately explained and was neither arbitrary nor capricious. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review. View "National Treasury Employees Union v. FLRA" on Justia Law

Defendant challenged his conviction and sentence for witness tampering and obstruction of justice. The court concluded that defendant failed to show that his counsel's failure to invoke an entrapment defense prejudiced defendant. The court also concluded that the district court did not commit plain error in sentencing defendant under U.S.S.G. 2J1.2 to concurrent sentences for the same length, one for witness tampering, the other for obstruction of justice. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Solofa" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to drug offenses, but reserved his right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress. Finding no waiver of defendant's argument, the court concluded that the July 2009 search was unlawful because defendant's grandmother could not lawfully permit the police to search defendant's closed shoebox. The court vacated the portion of the district court's order relating to the evidence seized in the January 2010 search and remanded to let the district court have the first opportunity to address whether the evidence seized in January was the fruit of the unlawful search of the shoebox. Accordingly, the court remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Peyton" on Justia Law

Defendants Jones, Thurston, and Ball were convicted of distributing small quantities of crack cocaine, but acquitted of conspiracy to distribute drugs. On appeal, defendants challenged their sentences. The court concluded that, given the highly corroborated accounts of defendants' conspiratorial conduct and the district court's evident care in weighing the evidence, it was not clearly erroneous to find that defendants had conspired to distribute crack; nor was it clearly erroneous for the district court to find that the evidence established a single conspiracy; the court rejected defendants' remaining procedural challenges; and defendants's below-guidelines sentences were substantively reasonable. The court rejected defendants' claim that their sentences violated their Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury because they were based, in part, on defendants' supposed involvement in the very conspiracy that the jury acquitted them of participating in. The court held that binding precedent of the court established that the practice did not violate the Sixth Amendment when the conduct was established by a preponderance of the evidence and the sentence did not exceed the statutory maximum for the crime. Finally, even if Thurston and Bell suffered a constitutional injury under the Speedy Trial Act, 18 U.S.C. 3161-3174, the sentence reductions they received were adequate remedies. Accordingly, the court affirmed defendants' sentences. View "United States v. Jones" on Justia Law

PETA requested records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552 et seq., concerning NIH investigations of animal abuse at a university research lab, and specifically sought documents related to any investigations into complaints filed against three identified researchers. On appeal, PETA challenged NIH's Glomar responses. The court affirmed the validity of NIH's Glomar responses as to any documents that would reveal whether NIH had investigated the three researchers. Because PETA's request encompassed additional types of documents that would not disclose any investigations of the three researchers, the court vacated in part the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of NIH. View "People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals v. National Institutes of Health" on Justia Law

Petitioner, an employee for the EPA, appealed the denial of his claims against the EPA for allegedly retaliating against him in violation of several environmental whistleblowing provisions. There was no adverse action evidenced in Claims 2-8 that the EPA unequivocally barred petitioner from performing Ombudsman duties on December 14, 2000 and that neither petitioner nor Ombudsman Martin were confused about the effect of that action. The ALJ dismissed the claims and the Board affirmed. The court concluded that substantial evidence supported the decision to dismiss the claims. View "Kaufman v. Perez" on Justia Law

Petitioners challenged 2009 and 2012 final rules issued by EPA revising the new source performance standards for steam generating units. The court concluded that, because EPA has not yet resolved petitioners' petitions for reconsideration, the only objections that were properly before the court were those the petitioners made during the public comment periods. The court concluded that EPA reasonably concluded that a unit emitting more than 0.03 lb/MMBtu should remain "subject to an opacity limit" and "use a COMS or perform periodic visual inspections to comply with the opacity standard" to verify that the pollution control and monitoring systems were operating properly; UARG's procedural objection to the allegedly inadequate notice and opportunity to comment was moot; UARG's contention that EPA failed to respond to comments on the 2008 proposal was moot; and the court rejected Texas' challenges to EPA's refusal to allow state-law affirmative defenses against the enforcement of new source performance standards. Accordingly, the court denied the petitions for review. View "Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA" on Justia Law

Appellant, employed with the SEC, filed a request under the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. 791 et seq., for a work schedule accommodation so that he could undergo rehabilitation without using his work leave. When the Commission did not act on his request for more than a year, appellant began the administrative appeals process. Subsequently, the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity (the Office) assigned an investigator to appellant's case. The investigator worked for a private firm, not the Office. Appellant was uneasy about a private firm having his medical records and eventually stopped participating in the investigation. The Office dismissed appellant's complaint for failure to cooperate. After unsuccessfully appealing his dismissal to the EEOC, appellant filed suit against the SEC in the district court. The district court granted summary judgment to the Commission, holding, among other things, that appellant's refusal to participate in his administrative proceedings constituted a failure to exhaust his administrative remedies and that there was no reason to excuse such failure. The court concluded that, under Rann v. Chao, appellant provided insufficient information to the agency and thus failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. The district court was well within its discretion to dismiss the claim. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Koch v. Schapiro, et al." on Justia Law

The Comptroller of the Currency found that petitioner, as the CEO and a director of the Bank, had engaged in a pattern of willfully misrepresenting the Bank's capital reserves to the OTS and the Bank's board of directors, and he issued orders prohibiting petitioner from participation in the affairs of any federally insured financial institution and assessing a civil penalty of one million dollars. Petitioner sought dismissal of the Comptroller's decision and orders, inter alia, on the grounds of legal error in relying on later-developed standards in the OTS New Directions Bulletin of 2009 when there were no clear standards at the relevant times, and in applying a "should have known" scienter standard in findings that required a more demanding level of scienter. The court concluded that petitioner failed to show that the stringent statutory requirements of 12 U.S.C. 1818 for an order of prohibition were not met. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review. View "Dodge v. Comptroller of the Currency" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration (SSA) raising constitutional challenges to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), Pub. L. No 111-148, 124 Stat. 119; raising statutory challenges to actions of HHS and the Commissioner relating to the implementation of the ACA and prior Medical legislation; and attacking the failure of defendants to render an "accounting" that would alter the American people to the insolvency towards which Medicare and Social Security programs were heading. On appeal, plaintiffs challenged the district court's dismissal of their claims. The court rejected plaintiffs' claims that 26 U.S.C. 5000A, which was sustained as a valid exercise of the taxing power, violated the Fifth Amendment's prohibition of the taking of private property without just compensation and violated the origination clause. The court concluded that plaintiffs' substantive attack on the Social Security Program Operations Manual System (POMS) provisions was clearly foreclosed by its decision in Hall v. Sebelius, holding that the statutory text establishing Medicare Part A precludes any option not to be entitled to benefits. The court rejected plaintiffs' second statutory claim attacking an interim final rule. Finally, the court concluded that plaintiffs failed to provide a legal argument for their claims against the Commissioner and Secretary, and therefore, the court lacked jurisdiction over plaintiffs' claim to an "accounting." Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Assoc. Amer. Physicians, et al. v. Sebelius, et al." on Justia Law