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

Plaintiffs filed suit against the IRS and several of its individual employees, seeking money damages by way of relief under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Fed. Bureau of Narcotics, and equitable relief by way of injunction and declaratory judgment. Additionally, the complaints alleged that the IRS invaded plaintiffs’ statutory rights by violating 26 U.S.C. 6103, by conducting unauthorized inspection and/or disclosure of tax return information from their applications and the other information improperly obtained from them. The court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the Bivens actions under Rule 12(b)(6). The court held, however, that the equitable actions are not moot. After the initiation of the suits, the IRS took action to end some unconstitutional acts against at least a portion of plaintiffs. Based on these actions, the district court dismissed the equitable claims as moot. Even if the court accorded deference to the district court, the government has not carried its heavy burden of showing mootness under the voluntary cessation doctrine. Therefore, the court vacated and remanded for further proceedings with respect to the equitable claims. View "True the Vote, Inc. v. IRS" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, identified as an anarchist extremist by an FBI agent, filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552 et seq., with the FBI, seeking information about himself. The FBI released some records but withheld others, citing various grounds. The district court upheld the FBI's withholdings and redactions in full and granted summary judgment to the agency. The court affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the government on the claims under Exemption 7(D) and under the exclusion set forth in 5 U.S.C. 552(c)(1); reversed the grant of summary judgment on both challenges to withholdings under Exemption 3 and remanded for further proceedings; and vacated the district court’s opinion with regard to Exemption 7(A). View "Labow v. DOJ" on Justia Law

In 42 U.S.C. 433, Congress authorized the President to enter into social security coordination agreements - known as totalization agreements - with other countries. This case involves a totalization agreement between the United States and France. At issue is whether or not two French taxes enacted into law after that totalization agreement was adopted amend or supplement the French social security laws covered by the agreement, and thus fall within the agreement’s ambit. The court concluded that the trial court committed legal error in declaring the status of those French laws not by analyzing the text of the totalization agreement or the understanding of the parties, but by resorting to American dictionaries. The court reversed and remanded because insufficient consideration was given to the text and the official views of the United States and French governments. View "Eshel v. Commissioner" on Justia Law

In these consolidated appeals, debtor filed numerous, frivolous challenges to the settlement and the district court entered a pre-filing injunction barring him from filing any new civil actions in the district court without court permission. At issue is whether the injunction encompasses appeals to the district court from bankruptcy court. The court concluded that, as written, the injunction does not cover those appeals with sufficient clarity, and that the district court thus erred in striking these three appeals for violating the pre-filing injunction. Nonetheless, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of two of the three appeals (adversary proceeding numbers 14-10024 and 14-10043) for failure to state a claim, and remanded for the district court to resolve the third appeal (number 14-10014). View "US ex rel. Yelverton v. Federal Ins. Co." on Justia Law

After the Service issued Buckeye an incidental take permit to build a wind farm in Ohio, Union Neighbors filed suit challenging the issuance of the permit. Union Neighbors claimed that the Service failed to comply with its obligations under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq., and failed to make required findings under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), 16 U.S.C. 1531. The court concluded that the Service failed to comply with its NEPA obligations when it failed to consider an economically feasible alternative that would take fewer bats than Buckeye’s proposal. Therefore, the court reversed the district court on this issue. The court concluded, however, that the Service’s interpretation of the ESA is entitled to deference, and the Service complied with its ESA obligations. Therefore, the court affirmed as to this issue. View "Union Neighbors United, Inc. v. Jewell" on Justia Law

The Board determined that Enterprise violated the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. 151 et seq., by telling employees it was terminating short-term disability benefits on account of their union membership, encouraging an employee to circulate a petition to decertify the Union as its employees’ bargaining representative, unilaterally terminating employees’ short-term disability benefits, interfering with a union representative’s contractual right of access to Enterprise’s facility, unlawfully decertifying the Union as its employees’ bargaining representative based on a petition tainted by unfair labor practices, and thereafter refusing to bargain with the Union or collect or remit union dues. Enterprise petitioned for review. The court denied the petition and granted the Board's cross-application for enforcement, holding that substantial record evidence supports each of the Board’s findings and conclusions. The court also concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to consider Enterprise’s additional claim that the Board’s remedy was unlawfully punitive because Enterprise failed to raise the argument before the Board. View "Enterprise Leasing Co. v. NLRB" on Justia Law

PAG sought a preliminary injunction against FEC's rule prohibiting unauthorized political committees, like PAG, from using candidates’ names in the titles of their websites and social media pages. The district court denied PAG's motion. The court concluded that PAG is entitled to a preliminary injunction because there is a substantial likelihood that, as applied to PAG, the FEC’s naming restrictions in 11 C.F.R. 102.14(a) violate the First Amendment. In this case, the restriction, as applied to PAG, is a content-based ban on speech that likely violates the First Amendment. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court’s denial of PAG’s motion for a preliminary injunction and remanded for the district court to enter a preliminary injunction enjoining the application of section 102.14(a) against PAG’s websites and social media pages. View "Pursuing America's Greatness v. FEC" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs are victims of terrorist attacks and their family members who hold substantial unsatisfied money judgments against defendants Iran, North Korea, and Syria. The money judgments arise out of claims brought under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), 28 U.S.C. 1605. In order to satisfy the judgments, plaintiffs seek to attach Internet data managed by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and, accordingly, served writs of attachment on ICANN. The district court quashed the writs because it found that the data was unattachable under D.C. law. The court rejected ICANN’s challenge to the district court’s subject matter jurisdiction, and assumed without deciding that local law applies to the determination of the “attachability” of the defendant sovereigns’ country-code top level domain names (ccTLDs), and without so holding that local law does not operate to bar attachment of the defendant sovereigns’ ccTLDs. The court concluded that those plaintiffs seeking to attach the underlying judgments in Haim I, Weinstein and Stern have forfeited their claims in toto. Those plaintiffs seeking to attach the underlying judgments in Haim II, Rubin, Wyatt and Calderon-Cardona have forfeited all but their claim grounded in the terrorist activity exception to attachment immunity. Finally, because of the enormous third-party interests at stake - and because there is no way to execute on plaintiffs’ judgments without impairing those interests - the court cannot permit attachment. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Weinstein v. Islamic Republic of Iran" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against HUD, alleging discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. 2000e et seq. The district court granted summary judgment to HUD. Under Circuit precedent the action complained of must be “materially adverse” to support a discrimination claim. In this case, the court affirmed the district court's finding that the denial of plaintiff's requests for lateral transfers on the basis of race and/or national origin was not cognizable under Title VII because it did not constitute an adverse employment action. View "Ortiz-Diaz v. HUD" on Justia Law

In consolidated petitions for review, petitioners challenged three regulations - the Major Boilers Rule, the Area Boilers Rule, and the Commercial/Industrial Solid Waste Incinerators (CISWI) Rule - promulgated by the EPA under the Clean Air Act (CAA), 42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq., that sets emissions limits on certain combustion machinery known to release hazardous air pollutants (HAPs). The court vacated the “maximum achievable control technology” (MACT) standards for all major boiler subcategories that would have been affected had the EPA considered all sources included in the subcategories. The court remanded, without vacature to the EPA to: (1) adequately explain how CO acts as a reasonable surrogate for nondioxin/furan organic HAPs; (2) set emission standards for cyclonic burn barrels; (3) determine whether burn-off ovens, soil treatment units, and space heaters are CISWI units and, if so, to set standards for those types of units; (4) adequately explain the exclusion of synthetic boilers from Title V’s permitting requirements; and (5) adequately explain the choice of “generally available control technologies” (GACT) standards over MACT standards for non-Hg metals. View "U.S. Sugar Corp. v. EPA" on Justia Law