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

Plaintiff and her husband filed suit under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. 1346(b)(1), 2671-2680, against the government after she suffered severe injuries in her diplomatic housing when stationed overseas in Haiti. The DC Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of the suit because plaintiffs' action fell within an exception to the FTCA's waiver of sovereign immunity for injuries arising in a foreign country. Even assuming without deciding that all overseas diplomatic housing should receive the same treatment under the FTCA as a United States embassy, plaintiffs' claim was foreclosed by circuit precedent. In Macharia v. United States, 334 F.3d 61, 69, the court concluded that the FTCA's foreign country exception applied to injuries occurring at a United States embassy. View "Galvin v. United States" on Justia Law

Petitioner sought refunds from TSA for overpayments it made to TSA that related to fees charged to airline passengers that fund aviation security expenses and were to be remitted to TSA. TSA conducted an informal adjudication and refused to consider the refund request. The DC Circuit rejected the notion that petitioners' request for a refund was a tardy effort to reopen an audit. Putting aside the audit as irrelevant, there still remained the question of whether it was arbitrary and capricious for the Under Secretary to refuse to pay a refund, as he was statutorily authorized—but not commanded—to do. Accordingly, the court remanded to TSA for further proceedings. View "United Airlines, Inc. v. TSA" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit held that the district court properly dismissed plaintiff's claims against DHS for failure to exhaust his administrative remedies. Although plaintiff initiated this administrative exhaustion process for his claims of race discrimination and retaliation when his supervisors denied him leave in 2002, he did not file a formal complaint with DHS's EEO office until 2010. The court explained that such a lengthy and unexplained delay in filing his formal complaint with DHS did not evidence the diligent pursuit of Title VII rights that was required for equitable tolling. Therefore, the district court properly dismissed the complaint. View "Niskey v. Kelly" on Justia Law

The company petitioned for review of the Board's order to reinstate an employee with make-whole relief, and to reimburse the employee for search-for-work and interim employment expenses regardless of whether those expenses exceeded her interim earnings. The DC Circuit held that the Board's determination that it unlawfully interrogated the employee must be vacated because this charge was not added to the General Counsel's complaint until after the commencement of the hearing before the ALJ. Therefore, the company had no reasonable notice of the interrogation charge or a fair opportunity to defend itself. The court found no merit in the company's remaining claims. The court granted the Board's cross-application for enforcement as to all matters except the finding that the company violated the National Labor Relations Act when it allegedly interrogated the employee about complaints she raised with the union. The court granted the company's petition for review as to that charge, but denied the petition for review as to the remaining matters. View "King Soopers, Inc. v. NLRB" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against defendant, the former chair of the United States Parole Commission, alleging that plaintiff's denials of parole were infected by unconstitutional decisionmaking. The district court dismissed the case sua sponte, concluding that parole commissioners were entitled to absolute immunity from such lawsuits. The DC Circuit affirmed on the ground that defendant was entitled to qualified immunity. The court explained that, even under the most generous reading of the complaint, defendant was entitled to qualified immunity as to each of the five claims alleged against him. View "Redmond v. Fulwood, Jr." on Justia Law

Delaware petitioned for review of the Board's order determining that Senate Bill 135 was categorically preempted under 49 U.S.C. 10501(b) of the Interstate Commerce Act, as broadened in the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act of 1995 (ICCTA). The DC Circuit held that SB 135 was a regulation of rail transportation under the ICCTA, and Delaware's challenges to the Board's determination that SB 135 was categorically preempted by the ICCTA were unpersuasive. In this case, SB 135 directly regulates rail transportation by prohibiting locomotives from idling in certain places at certain times, in essence requiring that at night, in residential neighborhoods, they either shut down or keep moving. The court need not decide the precise level of deference owed to the Board's preemption determination because it survived under either standard of review. View "Delaware v. STB" on Justia Law

Piedmont Garden petitioned for review of the Board's determination that Piedmont Gardens violated the National Labor Relations Act by withholding certain of the requested information, and order requiring Piedmont Gardens to produce that information to the union and refrain from violating the Act in the same manner in the future. The DC Circuit enforced the cited language in the cease-and-desist order only to the extent that it required Piedmont Gardens to comply with the witness-statement disclosure requirements that the Board actually applied in this case: those of Anheuser-Busch (the Anheuser-Busch rule). In other respects, Piedmont Gardens must be treated as any other employer. Because the court's holding eliminated any risk of the only injury that Piedmont Gardens asserted it will suffer due to the Board's adoption of the new rule, Piedmont lacked standing to challenge that portion of the Board's decision. Accordingly, the court denied in part and dismissed in part the petition for review. The court granted the Board's cross-application for enforcement of its order with clarifications. View "American Baptist Homes of the West v. NLRB" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against defendant after it attempted to collect debt from plaintiff, alleging that the company violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), the District of Columbia Consumer Protections Procedures Act (CPPA), and the District of Columbia Debt Collection Law (DCDCL). Plaintiff eventually accepted defendant's offer of judgment regarding the FDCPA claim and the district court determined the attorney's fees to which she was entitled for this success. The DC Circuit held that Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 54(d)(2)(D) and 72(b)(3) foreclose the district court from using a "clearly erroneous or contrary to law" standard when evaluating a magistrate judge's proposed disposition of an attorney's fee request. The correct standard of review is de novo. Therefore, the court reversed and remanded to allow the trial judge to reconsider this matter in the first instance applying de novo review. The court affirmed as to the remaining orders challenged on appeal. View "Baylor v. Mitchell Rubenstein & Assoc." on Justia Law

The 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement established Bosnia and Herzegovina as an independent, democratic and multiethnic state with two separate political subdivisions—the Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. After plaintiff was removed from his post in the Republika Srpska government, he filed suit against the Office of the High Representative (OHR), a body charged with overseeing parts of the Agreement's implementation on behalf of the international community. Plaintiff also filed suit against the then-High Representative Jeremy Ashdown and the current High Representative, Valentin Inzko. The district court determined that all defendants were statutorily immune to suit under the International Organizations Immunities Act (IOIA), 22 U.S.C. 288 et seq. Plaintiff then sought reconsideration arguing, among other things, that Ashdown and Inzko had not complied with section 8(a) of the IOIA and so were not entitled to immunity. The DC Circuit held that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction regardless of the date Ashdown and Inzko's immunity vested. View "Zuza v. Office of the High Representative" on Justia Law

Environmental groups requested records from the EPA that the agency had previously obtained from power plants under Section 308 of the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. 1318(a), (b). The records requested are exempt from disclosure under Exemption 4 of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(b)(4), but seemingly must be disclosed under Section 308. At issue was what statute prevailed. The DC Circuit held that the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 559, directly addressed the issue. Section 559 provides that FOIA exemptions apply unless a later statute expressly supersedes or modifies those exemptions. In this case, section 308 is the later statute. Because section 308 does not expressly supersede Exemption 4, EPA impermissibly invoked Exemption 4 to deny the FOIA requests. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Environmental Integrity Project v. EPA" on Justia Law