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

In 2014, Dominion obtained authorization from the Commission to convert the Cove Point liquefied natural gas (“LNG”) facility from an import maritime terminal to a mixed-use, import and export terminal. BP Energy receives pipeline and terminal services as an import customer of Cove Point under a contract with Dominion, the facility's owner. BP Energy petitions for review of the Commission’s determination that Dominion did not act in an unduly discriminatory manner under section 3(e)(4) of the Natural Gas Act (NGA), 15 U.S.C. 717b(e)(4), when it agreed to shorten the contract term of a non-open access customer’s terminal services contract, Statoil Natural Gas, without offering a corresponding “turn back” option to open access customers such as BP Energy. The court remanded to the Commission for further explanation of why the 2012 turn back agreement between Dominion and Statoil was not unduly discriminatory as to BP Energy under NGA section 3(e)(4). Although the court need not reach BP Energy’s contention that the agreement was an impermissible “sweetheart deal,” the Commission may also wish to consider and explain on remand the extent to which such a deal is relevant to the undue discrimination analysis. View "BP Energy Co. v. FERC" on Justia Law

Petitioners seek review of the Commissions' conditional authorization of the conversion of the Cove Point liquefied natural gas (“LNG”) facility from an import maritime terminal to a mixed-use, import and export terminal. For the reasons set forth in Sierra Club v. FERC (Freeport), the court concluded that the Commission was not required under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq., to consider indirect effects of increased natural gas exports through the Cove Point facility, including climate impacts. In regard to petitioners’ remaining challenges to the Commission’s NEPA analysis of the impacts of ballast water on water quality, maritime traffic on the North Atlantic right whale, and the Cove Point facility’s operations on public safety, the court concluded that petitioners fail to show that the Commission did not adequately address these concerns. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review. View "EarthReports, Inc. v. FERC" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit claiming that the OCC’s enforcement action against him was trumped-up and retaliatory. On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's dismissal of the case on the pleadings. At issue is whether the Constitution places any limit on the governmental policy-making discretion immunized by the discretionary-function exception to the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. 2671 et seq. The court concluded, in line with the majority of its sister circuits to have considered the question, that the discretionary-function exception does not categorically bar FTCA tort claims where the challenged exercise of discretion allegedly exceeded the government’s constitutional authority to act. The court also concluded that plaintiff's Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics claims are not time-barred because the continuing-violations doctrine applies to extend the applicable statute of limitations where, as here, a plaintiff alleges continuing conduct causing cumulative harm. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Loumiet v. United States" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed the district court’s grant of summary judgment dismissing her discrimination complaint on the ground of judicial estoppel. The district court found that plaintiff failed to disclose this suit and related administrative proceedings on the schedules she filed with the bankruptcy court. In exercising its decision to invoke judicial estoppel, the district court relied on the court's opinion in Moses v. Howard University Hospital. In Moses, the court wrote: “every circuit that has addressed the issue has found that judicial estoppel is justified to bar a debtor from pursuing a cause of action in district court where that debtor deliberately fails to disclose the pending suit in a bankruptcy case.” Moses held that a debtor could not avoid judicial estoppel if he omitted his pending cause of action but reported “pending lawsuits that, unlike the instant case, reduced the overall value of his assets through wage garnishment.” The district court held that plaintiff was in the same position as the plaintiff in Moses. The court concluded that the district court properly invoked judicial estoppel to grant summary judgment in favor of defendants, and the court affirmed the judgment. The court noted that other courts of appeals have evaluated the frequent contentions of bankruptcy debtors in light of the Supreme Court’s observation – in a case that did not involve inadvertence or mistake – that “it may be appropriate to resist judicial estoppel when a party’s earlier position was based on inadvertence or mistake.” The court saw no need to take sides in this debate. View "Marshall v. Honeywell Tech. Sys." on Justia Law

The Government sought to recover a $1.3 million judgment debt pursuant to the Federal Debt Collect Procedures Act (FDCPA), 28 U.S.C. 3001 et seq., by garnishing funds owed to WDG, a company T. Conrad Monts and his wife owned as tenants by the entireties. The court reversed the district court's holding that Monts had a sufficient property interest in WDG’s assets to permit garnishing them under the FDCPA in satisfaction of his debts. The court remanded for the district court to evaluate the Government’s alternative argument that it may garnish WDG’s assets by piercing the corporate veil between WDG and Monts. View "United States v. TDC Mgmt. Corp." on Justia Law

Trent M. Coburn pled not guilty to marijuana use in non-judicial proceedings related to a positive drug test, but was found guilty and received a negative non-commissioned officer evaluation report based on the offense. The Army subsequently denied Coburn continued Army Service. In Coburn I, the court remanded to the ABCMR so it could provide a reasoned explanation (if possible) for several questions the court could not resolve. Since then, the ABCMR has issued a new opinion in response to the court's remand, affirming the decision to terminate Coburn’s Medical Evaluation Board and proceed with his discharge. The court concluded that substantial evidence supports the ABCMR’s conclusions. Therefore, the court affirmed the ABCMR’s decision to terminate Coburn’s disability processing and its conclusion that Coburn’s medical conditions did not warrant further medical review. View "Coburn v. Murphy" on Justia Law

Defendants Thaxton Young, Jesse Young, and Gerry Burnett challenged their convictions for conspiring to distribute heroin in Washington, D.C. Defendants raised numerous issues on appeal. The court concluded that the district court should not have based Burnett's sentence, in part, on conduct that occurred before he joined the conspiracy. Because the error was plain where Burnett would have been sentenced to a lower base offense level, the court reversed and remanded for resentencing. The court affirmed the judgments of convictions and sentence in all other respects. View "United States v. Burnett" on Justia Law

Defendants Williams, Edwards, and Bowman appealed their convictions for participating in a cocaine distribution scheme. Defendants challenged their convictions on multiple grounds. The court held that the district court erred in admitting portions of Agent Bevington’s lay opinion testimony and that this error was not harmless. Therefore, the court reversed Williams’s conviction and remanded his case to the district court for further proceedings. The court did not reach Williams’s other challenges to his conviction other than to hold that the district court did not err in denying his motion for a judgment of acquittal. The court affirmed the remaining judgments of conviction. View "United States v. Williams" on Justia Law

CEI appealed the district court's dismissal of its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552, action against OSTP. CEI argued that the district court improperly ruled that documents which might otherwise be government records for FOIA purposes need not be searched for or turned over to the requestor because the head of the defendant agency maintained the putative records on a private email account in his name at a site other than the government email site which the agency had searched. The court agreed with CEI that an agency cannot shield its records from search or disclosure under FOIA by the expedient of storing them in a private email account controlled by the agency head. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Competitive Enter. Inst. v. Office of Science and Technology Policy" on Justia Law

The Tennis Channel filed a complaint alleging that Comcast violated Section 616 of the Communications Act, 47 U.S.C. 536, by giving preferential treatment to its affiliated networks in programming tier placement. Tennis Channel prevailed before the FCC, but the district court held that the Commission and Tennis Channel had failed to identify substantial evidence of unlawful discrimination based on affiliation (Tennis I). On remand, the Commission resolved the entirety of Tennis Channel’s complaint in Comcast’s favor and denied Tennis Channel’s petition for further proceedings. The court concluded that Tennis Channel fails to show that the Commission acted arbitrarily and capriciously when it interpreted Tennis I consistently with that administrative law precedent; under the circumstances, the Commission correctly concluded that Tennis I left no room for it to find discrimination on the existing administrative record; and Tennis Channel’s reliance on Section 402(h) is misplaced. Regarding the request for further briefing, because the Commission correctly determined that Tennis I concluded the administrative record contained insufficient evidence to support a finding of Section 616 discrimination by Comcast, the Commission’s rejection of Tennis Channel’s request for further briefing was hardly a clear abuse of discretion. The Commission already had the opportunity to review the record evidence that Tennis Channel claimed in its petition for further proceedings was critical to showing affiliate discrimination. Regarding the request to reopen the record to allow submission of additional evidence, although the Commission’s explanation for denying Tennis Channel’s request was brief, it was sufficient. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review. View "The Tennis Channel, Inc. v. FCC" on Justia Law