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

Appellants received less than $6,000 in damages from their employers for unpaid overtime wages after eight years of litigation. In this appeal, appellants challenge the district court's fee award as too low, while the employers challenge it as too high. The court concluded that, while appellants’ fee petition originally was untimely, the court’s entry of an amended judgment created “[a] new period for filing” and cured that untimeliness, notwithstanding the fact that the petition was filed before entry of the new judgment. Therefore, appellants satisfied Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(d)(2)(B)’s dictates, leaving no ground on which to deny appellants’ fee petition in its entirety for lack of timeliness. On the merits, the court concluded that there is no support in the record for the district court’s finding that appellants failed to promptly provide a damages calculation that could have facilitated early settlement. This clear factual error requires remand. Additionally, because the court cannot ascertain whether or how significantly this mistaken factual finding impacted other aspects of the district court’s fee reasonability assessment, the court vacated the entire decision and remanded. View "Radtke v. Caschetta" on Justia Law

Via Christi seeks an upward adjustment of the capital-asset depreciation reimbursement paid to its predecessor hospitals under a since curtailed Medicare regulation. Via Christi argues that it received St. Francis’s and St. Joseph’s assets at a lower value, i.e., more depreciated, than was reflected in the Secretary’s earlier depreciation reimbursements. As the hospitals’ successor-in-interest, Via Christi thus seeks additional reimbursements to cover the proportional Medicare share of the depreciation. The court concluded that the Secretary reasonably interpreted the bona fide sale requirement as limited to arm’s length transactions between economically self-interested parties. The Secretary concluded that St. Francis’s transfer of its assets to Via Christi was not an arm’s-length transaction in which each party sought to maximize its economic benefit. The court concluded that the Secretary's determination was supported by substantial evidence, and was not arbitrary, capricious or otherwise unlawful. In this case, Via Christi is not entitled to additional depreciation reimbursement in the absence of a qualifying transaction. View "Via Christi Hosp. Wichita v. Burwell" on Justia Law

Appellant, convicted of six counts of bank robbery and one count of attempted bank robbery, appealed the denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2255(a) motion based on the ineffective assistance of counsel (IAC). Appellant contends that his booking photograph was obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and had his counsel moved to suppress it, there wouldn’t have been sufficient evidence to sustain a conviction. Because the FBI had probable cause to arrest him for bank robbery, appellant’s Fourth Amendment argument for suppression is not meritorious and, therefore, his ineffective assistance of counsel claim fails. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Stubblefield" on Justia Law

The Board ordinarily consists of five members, but when the terms of three Board members expired, the seats remained unfilled from August 2010 and January 2012 until August 2013. In the intervening period where the Board itself could take no action because it had only two validly appointed members, the Board had delegated its authority to direct representation elections to its Regional Directors. At issue in this appeal is: if Regional Directors could continue to direct representation elections when their actions were “subject to eventual review by the Board,” did they also retain authority to direct representation elections when, as in this case, the parties agreed that a Regional Director’s actions would be final? The Board, concluding that the challenge to the Regional Director’s authority had been waived, did not reach the merits of the issue. Because the Board gave no interpretation to which the court might defer, the court remanded to enable the Board to render an interpretation as to whether, under the quorum statute, Regional Directors retained power over representation elections notwithstanding the lapse of a Board quorum in the circumstances presented by this case. View "Hospital of Barstow, Inc. v. NLRB" on Justia Law

Plaintiff and her husband, eligible voters residing in Florida, filed suit against the FEC, alleging that a provision of the Federal Election Campaign Act, 52 U.S.C. 30110, violated the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution. The district court declined to certify any questions and granted the Commission's motion for summary judgment. The court did not think that a district court may decline to certify a constitutional question simply because the plaintiff is arguing against Supreme Court precedent so long as the plaintiff mounts a non-frivolous argument in favor of overturning that precedent. Given the court's statement in Wagner v. Fed. Election Comm’n, see note 5 supra, and the uncertain meaning of the footnote in Cal. Med., the court cannot fault the district court for invoking “settled law” in declining to certify plaintiffs’ First Amendment question under section 30110. Although the district court declined to certify the Fifth Amendment issue on the ground that plaintiffs’ supporting arguments contradicted settled law, the court reached the same result for a different reason – namely, that the issue plaintiffs raise about the Fifth Amendment is a result of regulations, not the Act. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's judgment declining to certify plaintiffs' Fifth Amendment question; the court reversed the district court's decision not to certify plaintiffs’ First Amendment question and to grant summary judgment to the Commission; and the court remanded for the district court to certify that question to the court of appeals en banc. View "Holmes v. FEC" on Justia Law

NRDC challenged the NRC's denial of NRDC’s request for a hearing and subsequent application for a waiver, asserting this process was inconsistent with the procedural rigor mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq. The denial thwarted NRDC’s attempt to intervene in the license renewal proceeding for Exelon’s Limerick nuclear power station where NRDC sought to present “new and significant” information regarding severe accident mitigation alternatives (SAMAs) relevant to Limerick. The court found that the Commission reasonably concluded that NRDC's request to intervene was a challenge to a general rule - 10 C.F.R. 51.53(c)(3)(ii)(L) (Rule (L)) - improperly raised in an individual adjudication. The court further stated that, contrary to NRDC’s view, while NEPA requires agencies to take a hard look before approving a major federal action, it does not mandate adoption of a particular process for doing so. Because NRDC failed to show its contentions were unique to Limerick, NRDC also was not entitled to a waiver. Therefore, the Commission’s actions were not arbitrary and capricious, and the court denied the petition. View "NRDC v. NRC" on Justia Law

After plaintiff was terminated from his position as a tenured professor at the University, he filed suit in state court against defendants, alleging a violation of his procedural due process rights. The case was removed to federal court and plaintiff missed the deadline to file a brief in opposition to defendants' motion to dismiss. Invoking Local Rule 7(b), the district court granted the motion to dismiss on the ground that its merits were unopposed and thus conceded by plaintiff, thereby dismissing the complaint and case with prejudice. The district court then denied plaintiff’s motion to amend the complaint as moot and, in the alternative, for failure to consult with opposing counsel pursuant to Local Rule 7(m). Plaintiff filed a motion for reconsideration under Federal Rules 59(e) and 60(b), which the district court also denied. The court affirmed the district court’s denial of plaintiff’s motion to extend time and its dismissal of the complaint. But the court reversed the district court insofar as it dismissed the complaint with prejudice and dismissed the case. In light of plaintiff’s efforts to respond, his lack of bad faith, the absence of any prejudice to defendants, and the short delay involved, dismissal of the complaint without prejudice would have been the proper route to accomplish Local Rule 7(b)’s docket-management objectives. Therefore, the district court abused its discretion by instead dismissing the complaint with prejudice. Likewise, the district court also abused its discretion by dismissing the case when its dismissal of the complaint under Local Rule 7(b) should have been, at most, without prejudice. View "Cohen v. Board of Trustees" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, as a holder of U.S. public debt, filed suit challenging the constitutionality of the Debt Limit Statute, 31 U.S.C. 3101. Plaintiff alleged violations of the Fourteenth Amendment Public Debt Clause and the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause. The court affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's claims for lack of standing because he failed to allege plausible factual allegations to establish the constitutional minimum requirements for Article III standing, either in the first amended complaint (FAC) filed with the district court or in his proposed amended complaint filed with this Court under 28 U.S.C. 1653. The court also affirmed the district court's denial of plaintiff's motion to amend his FAC and denied plaintiff's motion to amend his complaint on appeal. View "Williams v. Lew" on Justia Law

CostCommand filed suit against Turner, WHA, and California defendants in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging that they engaged in a series of wrongful acts that essentially destroyed CostCommand’s business. The district court concluded that it lacked diversity jurisdiction and dismissed the case. In this case, no dispute exists as to the citizenship of any party except WHA. Applying the nerve-center test set out in Hertz Corp. v. Friend, the court concluded that WHA maintained its principal place of business in Maryland, and thus citizenship for diversity purposes is in Maryland. Accordingly, the court affirmed the dismissal. View "CostCommand, LLC v. WH Administrators, Inc." on Justia Law

MSHA issued seven citations to Cactus Canyon for violations of the safety and health standards under the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977, 30 U.S.C. 801 et seq. Cactus Canyon then sought to contest the citations before the Commission. After the case was assigned to an ALJ, but before any hearings were held, the Secretary decided to vacate the citations. Over the objection of Cactus Canyon, the ALJ dismissed the case without indicating whether the dismissal was with or without prejudice. Cactus Canyon then filed an application for the award of attorney’s fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), 5 U.S.C. 504(a)(1). Following this court’s precedent in Turner v. National Transportation Safety Board, the court held that Cactus Canyon is not eligible for fees because it is not a prevailing party. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review. View "Cactus Canyon Quarries, Inc. v. MSHR" on Justia Law