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

Plaintiff filed suit contending that USAID and NOAA violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e et seq., by terminating his employment because of his national origin. He also contended that NOAA violated 18 U.S.C. 1001, which criminalizes false statements to the government, by lying about why he was terminated. The DC Circuit affirmed the dismissal of plaintiff's claim under section 1001 because the statute did not create a private right of action. The court determined that plaintiff's remaining contentions lacked merit and affirmed, with one modification of the order of dismissal. View "Lee v. USAID" on Justia Law

After plaintiff's employer failed to respond to his suit for wage underpayment, plaintiff obtained a default judgment for himself and two other employees. The district court subsequently vacated its default judgment as to the two employees because they failed to opt-in to the lawsuit, concluding that it had lacked subject matter jurisdiction to enter the judgment. The DC Circuit held that the opt-in omission did not oust the district court of subject matter jurisdiction. The court held, nonetheless, that the judgment may be void for a different reason. In this case, two defendants claimed they were never served with the complaint and thus the district court must hold an evidentiary hearing on remand. View "Montes v. Janitorial Partners, Inc." on Justia Law

Petitioners challenged the Commission's order that set permanent rate caps and ancillary fee caps for interstate inmate calling services (ICS) calls. After the presidential inauguration in January 2017, counsel for the FCC advised the court that, due to a change in the composition of the Commission, "a majority of the current Commission does not believe that the agency has the authority to cap intrastate rates" under section 276 of the Communications Act of 1934. Consequently, the DC Circuit granted in part and denied in part the petitions for review, remanding for further proceedings. The court also dismissed two claims as moot. The court held that the order's proposed caps on intrastate rates exceed the FCC's statutory authority under the Telecommunications Act of 1996 Act; the use of industry-averaged cost data as proposed in the Order was arbitrary and capricious because it lacked justification in the record and was not supported by reasoned decisionmaking; the order's imposition of video visitation reporting requirements was beyond the statutory authority of the Commission; and the order's proposed wholesale exclusion of site commission payments from the FCC's cost calculus was devoid of reasoned decisionmaking and thus arbitrary and capricious. View "Global Tel*Link v. FCC" on Justia Law

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