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

The DC Circuit reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the Department of Defense in an action brought by plaintiff, a former instructor, under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act against the National Defense University's College of International Security Affairs. The court held that the Department failed to provide a consistent and sufficient explanation for plaintiff's discharge, and plaintiff provided evidence that a supervisor directly involved in the decisionmaking process made repeated discriminatory remarks.In this case, a reasonable jury could credit plaintiff's version of events given, inter alia, the evidence that he used to support his prima facie case, the gaps and variations in the College's proffered explanation for the firing, his ultimate replacement by a younger employee, the hiring of several other younger faculty members within the same year as his budgetary termination, and the comments overtly hostile to older employees made by his front-line supervisor who was directly involved in discussions about his termination. View "Steele v. Mattis" on Justia Law

Hospitals challenged the methodology that the Department used to calculate the "outlier payment" component of their Medicare reimbursements for 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011. At issue was whether the Department's decision to continue with its methodology after the 2007 fiscal year was arbitrary in light of accumulating data about the methodology's generally sub-par performance. The DC Circuit held in Banner Health v. Price, 867 F.3d 1323 (D.C. Cir. 2017) (per curiam), that the Department's decision to wait a bit longer before reevaluating its complex predictive model was reasonable, because the Department had, at best, only limited additional data for 2008 and 2009 and because the 2009 data suggested that hospitals were paid more than expected.In this appeal, the court held that Banner Health foreclosed the hospitals' challenges to the Department's failure to publish a proposed draft rule during the 2003 rulemaking process and the Department's failure to account for the possibility of reconciliation claw-backs in setting the 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011 thresholds. Finally, the court held that, while the hospitals' frustration with the Department's frequently off-target calculations was understandable, the methodology had not sunk to the level of arbitrary or capricious agency action. View "Billings Clinic v. Azar" on Justia Law

This case arose when Venezuela and two of its agencies seized all assets of an American drilling company's Venezuelan subsidiary. Both parent and subsidiary filed suit claiming that the expropriation of the subsidiary's business and assets without compensation violated international law.On remand from the Supreme Court, at issue was whether either company had alleged facts that were sufficient, if true, to establish that it had in fact suffered a taking in violation of international law. The DC Circuit held that only the American parent, not its Venezuelan subsidiary, had done so. The court held that the domestic-takings rule barred the subsidiary's expropriation claim where the subsidiary was considered a Venezuelan national under international law. In this case, the subsidiary was incorporated in Venezuela and had a legal identity distinct from that of its parent shareholders under local law. The court further held that, given the subsidiary's Venezuelan nationality, its takings claim against Venezuela was a matter of domestic, not international, law under the domestic-takings rule. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the subsidiary's claims, as well as the denial of defendants' motion to dismiss the parent's claims. View "Helmerich & Payne International Drilling Co. v. Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of a petition for habeas corpus relief to Moath Hamza Ahmed Al-Alwi, a detainee at Guantanamo Bay. Al-Alwi was captured in December 2001 for his Taliban-related activities and has remained in United States custody ever since. The court rejected Al-Alwi's argument that the United States' authority to detain him has "unraveled" where, although hostilities have been ongoing for a considerable amount of time, they have not ended. The court held, in the alternative, that the government's authority to detain Al-Alwi pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) has not expired. Finally, the court did not reach the merits of Al-Alwi's remaining arguments because he has forfeited them. View "Al-Alwi v. Trump" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed multiple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with OPR and other agencies, seeking to learn the results of investigations into the prosecutor in plaintiff's case. OPR categorically refused to acknowledge the existence of, let alone disclose, any potentially relevant documents outside of plaintiff's individual case. With respect to the prosecutor's conduct in plaintiff's case, OPR held back substantial amounts of material, asserting a sweeping breadth for its claimed exemptions.The DC Circuit reversed the district court's judgment for OPR with respect to its invocations of Exemption 7(C) and the district court's decision to deny a fee waiver to plaintiff, holding that circuit precedent foreclosed OPR's approach and OPR failed to justify multiple withholdings. The court also remanded with instructions for the district court to reconsider its decision with respect to the FBI's withholding of records under Exemption 3 in light of recent circuit precedent. The court affirmed in all other matters. View "Bartko v. DOJ" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit held that FERC did not adequately justify its approval of the tariff amendment at issue here, which prohibited cost sharing for a category of high-voltage projects conceded to have significant regional benefits, and which did so only because those projects reflected the planning criteria of individual utilities. The court granted the petitions for review, holding that the Commission acted arbitrarily and capriciously in approving the tariff amendment and applying it to the Elmont-Cunningham and Cunningham-Dooms projects. The court set aside the orders under review to the extent that they approved the amendment and applied it to the two projects, and remand for further proceedings View "Old Dominion Electric Coop. v. FERC" on Justia Law

Defendants Lovo and Sorto were convicted of conspiring to interfere with interstate commerce by robbery, and using, carrying or possessing a firearm during a crime of violence. The DC Circuit rejected defendants' claim that the residual clause of the statutory crime of violence definition that affects them was unconstitutionally vague.After the court issued its opinion, the Supreme Court held in Sessions v. Dimaya, 138 S. Ct. 1204, 1210 (2018), that 18 U.S.C. 16(b) -- the residual clause of section 16's crime of violence definition -- was unconstitutionally vague. In light of the Supreme Court's decision in Dimaya, the court granted rehearing for the limited purpose of vacating defendants' firearm convictions. The court remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Eshetu" on Justia Law

Advanced Life petitioned for review of the Board's order determining that the company was liable for two violations of Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act based on the owner's statements immediately before and four months after the election that tied the temporary halt in wage increases to the need to negotiate with the Union; two violations of section 8(a)(3) for discriminatorily ceasing pay raises and Christmas bonuses following the election; and one violation of Section 8(a)(5) for unilaterally changing the employees' wages by halting the Christmas gifts.The DC Circuit held that the Board's finding that the owner's two statements -- both of which were made proximate to the Union election and in his capacity as Advanced Life's owner and operator -- violated Section 8(a)(1) was supported by substantial evidence. Therefore, the court denied the petition as to that claim and granted the Board's cross-application for enforcement. In regard to the remaining claims, the court granted Advanced Life's petition for review where no substantial evidence supported the finding that the company had a discriminatory motive in denying pay increases; and substantial evidence did not support treating Christmas bonuses as company wages or bonuses. View "Advanced Life Systems Inc. v. NLRB" on Justia Law

CC1 petitioned for review of the Board's determination that it unlawfully fired several employees who had engaged in work stoppages. The DC Circuit held that there was substantial evidence that one of the discharged employees played no part in a work stoppage. However, the court remanded for further explanation of the Board's conclusion that the striking employees were unlawfully terminated for engaging in protected activity. The court denied the petition in all other respects and granted the Board's cross-application for enforcement. View "CC1 Limited Partnership v. NLRB" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his sentence after he pleaded guilty to drug-related charges. In this case, the government breached the agreement by failing to schedule defendant's superior court pleas to follow his federal sentencing and by recommending that he be sentenced to 33 months' incarceration. The DC Circuit held that the government breached its plea agreement with defendant, but that it could not vacate his sentence because the error was not plain. However, the court remanded defendant's ineffective assistance claim for further proceedings in the district court because plaintiff raised a colorable claim of ineffective assistance by asserting that counsel failed to object to the government's breach of the plea agreement. View "United States v. Murray" on Justia Law