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

CREW seeks to compel the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel to make available all of its formal written opinions, as well as indices of those opinions, under the so-called "reading-room" provision of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The DC Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of CREW's complaint for failure to state a claim in light of the court's decision in Electronic Frontier Foundation v. United States Department of Justice (EFF), 739 F.3d 1 (D.C. Cir. 2014). In this case, there was no dispute that the formal written opinions the OLC has declined to publish were "withheld" "agency records." The court held that CREW has not plausibly alleged that the OLC's formal written notices have all been adopted by the agencies to which they were addressed, subjecting the opinions to disclosure under FOIA's reading room provision as the"working law" of those agencies. View "Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. DOJ" on Justia Law

Petitioners challenged the EPA's 2017 rule establishing a process for updating the inventory of chemicals manufactured or processed in the United States under the Toxic Substances Control Act, alleging that the rule unlawfully shields information from public disclosure. The DC Circuit affirmed the petition for review in part and held that petitioner correctly determined that the EPA's elimination of questions pertaining to reverse engineering was arbitrary and capricious. Accordingly, the court ordered a limited remand, without vacatur, for the EPA to address its arbitrary elimination of substantiation questions regarding reverse engineering. The court otherwise denied the petition. View "Environmental Defense Fund v. EPA" on Justia Law

Commonwealth filed suit against two land surveyors, KCI and WMC, alleging breach of contract and negligence claims in connection with four allegedly defective surveys that the two entities delivered to ICG, a non-party to this litigation. Commonwealth alleged that KCI's and WMC's surveys failed to notice the full size of a twelve-inch encroachment, which ICG discovered on its property. The district court dismissed the complaint based on the three year statute of limitations.The DC Circuit reversed as to the first three counts of the complaint because the district court erred in dismissing them on statute of limitations grounds without applying the discovery rule. In this case, at the motion to dismiss stage, the court could not conclusively say that Commonwealth and ICG failed to exercise reasonable diligence in attempting to discover the encroachment's full size. Furthermore, it was premature to reject the possibility that Commonwealth's claims in counts one, two, and three did not accrue, at the earliest, until ICG discovered that the encroachment was twelve inches. View "Commonwealth Land Title Insurance Co. v. KCI Technologies, Inc." on Justia Law

The DC Circuit denied the States' petition for review of the EPA's decision to refuse to expand the Northeast Ozone Transport Region to include the upwind States of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia, and the remaining portions of Virginia.The court held that EPA's denial of the States' petition complied with the Clean Air Act and was a reasonable exercise of the agency's discretion. The court held that many of the States' arguments against EPA's denial derive from a fundamental misunderstanding of the scope of EPA's discretion; even if the States were correct that EPA's other Clean Air Act tools will not on their own completely solve the interstate ozone transport problem, this would not make enlargement of the transport region mandatory; EPA adequately explained the facts and policy concerns it relied on, recounted its historical use of the good-neighbor provision and the ongoing downward trend in ozone pollution, and therefore had a sufficient basis in the record for predicting that improvement would continue under the current regulatory scheme; and, with respect to the Northeast Region, EPA did not find equity irrelevant, as the States contend, but rather determined that any equitable concerns could not alone dictate the disposition of the petition. View "State of New York v. EPA" on Justia Law

Defendants Thompson and Knowles appealed their convictions for conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine (5 kilograms or more) on an aircraft registered in the United States or owned by a United States citizen. The DC Circuit held that conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute does not have an extraterritorial reach because the underlying crime is not extraterritorial. Therefore, the charge of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute was defective, but the error was harmless because no possible prejudice could have arisen from the asserted error. The court also rejected defendants' challenges to the district court's rulings and remanded for an evidentiary hearing on an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. View "United States v. Thompson" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit denied petitions for review of the FAA's decision that payments of the Portland International Airport's utility charges for off-site stormwater drainage and Superfund remediation did not constitute diversion of airport revenues or violate the Anti-Head Tax Act. The court held that Congress expressly authorized the use of airport revenues for "operating costs . . . of the airport" and the FAA has properly determined that the general expenses of a utility are such "operating costs." Therefore, the court rejected petitioner's contention that the FAA's decision was based on erroneous statutory interpretations and that the FAAs findings were not supported by substantial evidence. View "Air Transport Association of America v. FAA" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit denied UPS Ground's petition for review challenging the certification of a union at its Kutztown Pennsylvania distribution facility. The court held that UPS Ground failed to identify a defect in the Board's decision to certify the union where the Board certified an appropriate bargaining unit and reasonably determined that one of the drivers employed at the Kutztown center was an "employee" under the National Labor Relations Act and not a statutory "supervisor" who would be excluded from the Act's protections. The court held that UPS Ground's remaining objections to the application of the Board's rules and regulations all lacked merit. View "UPS Ground Freight, Inc. v. NLRB" on Justia Law

This case arose when a member of the House of Representatives asked the House-appointed Chaplain, Father Patrick J. Conroy, to invite Daniel Barker—a former Christian minister turned atheist—to serve as guest chaplain and deliver a secular invocation. After Conroy denied the request, Barker filed suit alleging that Conroy unconstitutionally excluded him from the guest chaplain program because he is an atheist.The DC Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of Barker's Establishment Clause claim. The court held that, although Barker had Article III standing to challenge his exclusion from the program, he failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. The court held that Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783 (1983), and Town of Greece v. Galloway, 572 U.S. 565, 570 (2014), leave no doubt that the Supreme Court understands our nation's longstanding legislative-prayer tradition as one that, because of its "unique history," can be both religious and consistent with the Establishment Clause. The court noted that, although the Supreme Court has warned against discriminating among religions or tolerating a pattern of prayers that proselytize or disparage certain faiths or beliefs, it has never suggested that legislatures must allow secular as well as religious prayer. Therefore, in the sui generis context of legislative prayer, the court held that the House does not violate the Establishment Clause by limiting its opening prayer to religious prayer. View "Barker v. Conroy" on Justia Law

In 2004, defendants were indicted by a grand jury in Washington, D.C. for conspiracy to traffic cocaine, but the government moved to dismiss the charges in 2013 without prejudice because of the age of the case, government resources, and other factual and legal issues which indicated that the case was no longer viable.The DC Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of defendants' motion to alter the dismissal without prejudice to a dismissal with prejudice. The court was bound by the Supreme Court's decision in Parr v. United States, 351 U.S. 513 (1956), which held that, without more, a criminal defendant whose indictment is dismissed without prejudice is not aggrieved and thus has no standing to appeal. Furthermore, even assuming arguendo that the threat of subsequent prosecution might be sufficient in some cases to support an appeal of a dismissal without prejudice, the statute of limitations has run on the charges against defendants and therefore the question was moot. Finally, defendants lacked standing to pursue claims of reputational injuries because dismissing the indictment with prejudice would not redress such harms. View "United States v. Scantlebury" on Justia Law

These petitions concern the conduct of a military judge, Colonel Vance Spath, who presided over a current Guantanamo Bay detainee, Abd Al-Rahim Hussein Muhammed Al-Nashiri, who faces capital charges before a military commission. After receiving a job offer but before retiring from the military, Spath found himself locked in a dispute with Al-Nashiri's defense lawyers, three of whom sought to leave the case.The DC Circuit granted Al-Nashiri's petition for a writ of mandamus and held that Spath's job application to the Justice Department created a disqualifying appearance of partiality. In this case, the average, informed observer would consider Spath to have presided over a case in which his potential employer (the Attorney General) appeared. The court vacated all orders issued by Spath after he applied for the job, and dismissed counsels' petition as moot. View "In re: Abd Al-Rahim Hussein Muhammed Al-Nashiri" on Justia Law