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

Under the Internal Revenue Code's general rule, the geographic origin of the redemption income would be sourced according to the residence of the taxpayer. However, that general rule is subject to an exception known as the U.S. office rule, where income from any sale of personal property attributable to a nonresident's U.S. office is sourced in the United States (I.R.C. 865(e)(2)).The DC Circuit affirmed the tax court's holding that the U.S. office rule is not satisfied in this case, reasoning that the proper focus in the circumstances is where the redemption itself occurred, as opposed to where the activities causing appreciation of the redeemed partnership interest occurred. Here, the tax court held that the redemption itself should not be attributed to Grecian's U.S. office, and the income should be treated as a foreign source. View "Grecian Magnesite Mining, Industrial, & Shipping Co. v. Commissioner" on Justia Law

In 2017, MSHA promulgated a safety standard that requires mine operators to examine all areas before miners begin work and to record all conditions that may adversely affect safety or health discovered during the examination. In 2018, MSHA amended the requirements, allowing examinations to occur before or as miners begin work and allowing mine operators to exclude from their records adverse conditions that are promptly corrected. At issue was whether MSHA explained adequately how the amendments to the 2017 Standard comply with the no-less-protection standard.The DC Circuit held that MSHA failed to offer a reasoned explanation as to why the examination and recordkeeping requirements of the 2018 Amendment satisfied the no-less-protection standard. Therefore, the 2018 Amendment was ultra vires and uneforceable. The court vacated the 2018 Amendment and ordered the 2017 Standard reinstated. View "United Steel v. MSHA" on Justia Law

After ICE changed how it calculated overtime pay for certain employees, the union filed a grievance, alleging that ICE changed the policy without first bargaining. The DC Circuit agreed with the Authority's determination that ICE had no duty to bargain with the union before changing its overtime policy because ICE's previous policy was unlawful. In this case, ICE's previous policy of excluding leave time was unlawful under a straightforward reading of the 1997 Guidance and the 2002 amendments to the regulations. View "American Federation of Government Employees National Council v. FLRA" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit affirmed defendants' convictions and sentences for health care fraud, conspiracy to commit health care fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The court rejected statutory and constitutional speedy trial claims. The court also held that the district court abused its discretion in denying severance; even assuming a Rule 16 violation, defendants failed to establish the requisite prejudice to their substantial rights for the court to conclude that the district court abused its discretion by not excluding Exhibit 439; the evidence was sufficient to convict defendants; and challenges to the unanimity and aiding-and-abetting instructions rejected on plain error review.The court also held that the district court properly concluded that the $80.6 million in payments from D.C. Medicaid to Global constituted loss under the Mandatory Victims Rights Act; the district court did not plainly violate the Excessive Fines Clause by ordering forfeitures without considering defendants' ability to pay them; and the district court did not abuse its discretion by imposing four sentencing enhancements for committing crimes involving a loss of approximately $80 million, abusing positions of trust, playing a managerial role in the crimes, and violating an administrative order. View "United States v. Bikundi" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, 14 locksmith companies, filed suit alleging that Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! have conspired to "flood the market" of online search results with information about so-called "scam" locksmiths, in order to extract additional advertising revenue. The DC Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of the amended complaint as barred by section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which states that no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. The parties agreed as to the first and third prongs of the section 230 test for determining whether the Act mandates dismissal, holding that defendants were a provider or user of an interactive computer service and that the complaint sought to hold defendants liable as the publisher or speaker of that information.As to the contested second prong of the section 230 test, the court held that the information for which plaintiff seeks to hold defendants liable was information provided by another information content provider and thus dismissal was warranted under the Act. In this case, defendants' translation of information that comes from the scam locksmiths' webpages fell within the scope of section 230 immunity. View "Marshall's Locksmith Service v. Google, LLC" on Justia Law

Rhea Lana, a for-profit consignment business, challenged the Department's determination that the company's workers qualified as employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The DC Circuit affirmed the district court's decision upholding the Department's determination. As a preliminary matter, the court held that the Darling declaration was admissible and affirmed the district court's denial of the company's motion to strike the declaration.On the merits, the court held that the Department correctly employed a totality-of-the-circumstances approach, and the Department's findings of facts under the Alamo test were adequately supported in the record. In this case, Rhea Lana's workers were employees rather than volunteers where there was evidence of in-kind compensation and control exerted by the company. View "Rhea Lana, Inc. v. DOL" on Justia Law

After the Board found that DirectSat had refused to disclose information relevant to the union's statutory duties and thus violated its duty to bargain in good faith under the National Labor Relations Act, the Board issued its decision and DirecTV filed a motion to intervene. In this case, during negotiations with a union representing its employees, DirectSat proposed that any new work that arose during the term of the agreement would not count as bargaining unit work unless it was "pursuant to its Home Service Provider agreement with DirecTV." However, DirectSat repeatedly refused to provide the union the full Home Service Provider agreement to understand the proposed scope of bargaining unit work.The DC Circuit held that the Board reasonably concluded that DirectSat's bargaining proposal rendered the entire agreement relevant; there was no basis to set aside the Board's denial of DirecTV's motion to intervene on the ground that it was filed too late; and thus the court denied the companies' petition for review and grant the Board's cross application for enforcement. View "DirectSat USA LLC v. NLRB" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, 47 former longtime employees of the District Child and Family Services Agency who were mostly African American, filed suit alleging claims that their terminations were unlawfully discriminatory on the basis of age and race. At issue on appeal, were the race-based claims.The DC Circuit generally affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment on plaintiff's race-based claims, but reversed as to one issue. The court held that nothing in Title VII suggests that the practices an employer uses to effectuate the adverse employment action of layoffs, whether or not dubbed a reduction in force, are exempt from disparate-impact scrutiny. Accordingly, the court reversed the "particular practice" holding and the accompanying denial of class certification, remanding for further proceedings. The court affirmed the district court's decisions with respect to plaintiffs' challenge to the college degree requirement the Agency added to one job category, and the applicability of estoppel to certain individual plaintiffs' claims. View "Davis v. District of Columbia" on Justia Law

Petitioners sought review of FERC's decision authorizing the construction and operation of a new natural gas compression facility in Davidson County. The DC Circuit denied the petition and held that FERC did not violate the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by failing to adequately assess alternatives to the proposed action. In this case, the environmental assessment reflected that the Commission considered twelve alternatives and evaluated each with respect to eighteen different environmental factors.Despite the court's misgivings regarding the Commission's decidedly less-than-dogged efforts to obtain the information it says it would need to determine that downstream greenhouse gas emissions qualify as a reasonably foreseeable indirect effect of the project, the court held that petitioners failed to raise this record-development issue in the proceedings before the Commission. Accordingly, the court lacked jurisdiction to decide whether the Commission acted arbitrarily or capriciously and violated NEPA by failing to further develop the record in this case. View "Birckhead v. FERC" on Justia Law

The Medicare statute precludes judicial review of estimates used to make certain payments to hospitals for treating low-income patients. At issue was whether this preclusion provision barred challenges to the methodology used to make the estimates.The DC Circuit held that it could not review the Secretary's method of estimation without also reviewing the estimate. Therefore, the two were inextricably intertwined and 42 U.S.C. 1395ww(r)(3)(A) precludes review of both. The court held that Florida Health Sciences Center, Inc. v. Secretary of HHS, 830 F.3d 515 (D.C. Cir. 2016), -- not ParkView Medical Associates v. Shalala, 158 F.3d 146 (D.C. Cir. 1998) -- was controlling in this case. In Florida Health, the court held that section 1395ww(r)(3) barred review because the plaintiff was simply trying to undo the Secretary's estimate of the hospital's uncompensated care by recasting its challenge to the Secretary's choice of data as an attack on the general rules leading to her estimate. Here, DCH was simply trying to undo the Secretary's estimate of its uncompensated care by recasting its challenge to that estimate as an attack on the underlying methodology. View "DCH Regional Medical Center v. Azar" on Justia Law