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

Plaintiff, as the personal representative of Curtis Suggs, filed suit against the District, Symbral, and others, under 42 U.S.C. 1983, federal law regulating community residential facilities, and the common law. Suggs died while residing in a group home operated by Symbral, a District contractor. The District appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment to plaintiff on the section 1983 claims and negligence claims, and against Symbral and Defendants Leon and Yvonne Mohammed, as well as appealed the district court's denial of the District's post-trial motion. After reviewing the record and considering the parties' arguments, the court concluded that the district court did not err in entering summary judgment against the District on plaintiff’s section 1983 claim, and the court affirmed that portion of the decision on review. The court reversed the district court’s grant of summary judgment to plaintiff on his negligence and statutory claims, concluding that those claims are barred under D.C. Code 12-309. Because the district court abused its discretion by excluding causation evidence, the court vacated the damages and remand for reconsideration. View "Harvey v. Mohammed" on Justia Law

The Secretary of DHS directed relevant agencies temporarily to defer low-priority removals of non-dangerous individuals so that the agencies can focus their resources on removing dangerous criminals and strengthening security at the border. In what became known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the Secretary outlined a policy to defer removal proceedings for two years. In addition, the Secretary outlined a second deferred action policy for the parents of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents, which has become known as Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA). Joseph Arpaio, the Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, sued to enjoin the Secretary’s deferred action policies. Sheriff Arpaio’s standing arguments rest on the premise that more people causing more crimes harm him because, as Sheriff, he will be forced to spend more money policing the county and running its jails. The court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the complaint for want of Article III standing because Sheriff Arpaio’s allegations of causation and redressability rest on speculation beyond that permitted by the court's standing decisions. Any effects of the challenged policies on the county’s crime rate are unduly speculative. View "Arpaio v. Obama" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit challenging the religious exemption in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Pub. L. No. 111-148, 124 Stat. 119, as an unconstitutional establishment of religion. Plaintiff also argued that the Administration’s decision to temporarily suspend enforcement of some of the Act’s requirements for a transitional period deprived him of the equal protection of the laws. The district court granted the government's motion to dismiss and held that plaintiff lacked standing to bring either claim. The court agreed with the district court that plaintiff lacks standing to assert his equal protection claim because nothing in the transitional policy requires him to buy insurance. In this case, plaintiff's inability to maintain his old plan was the independent choice of his insurer. The court concluded, however, that plaintiff did have standing to bring his Establishment Clause challenge. On the merits, the court concluded that the claim fails because the qualifications for exemption are not drawn on sectarian lines. Rather, they simply sort out which faiths have a proven track record of adequately meeting the statutory goals. Moreover, the exemption promotes the Establishment Clause’s concerns by ensuring that those without religious objections do not bear the financial risk and price of care for those who exempt themselves from the tax. As configured by this specific statutory framework, that is an objective, non-sectarian basis for cabining the exemption’s reach. View "Cutler v. HHS" on Justia Law

This case arose from the Secretary’s decision in 2005 to change the boundaries of the geographic areas used to compute regional wage indices. A group of hospitals challenged the Secretary's decision to include wage data from Southcoast campuses outside the Boston-Quincy area in calculating the index for that area for fiscal years 2006 and 2007. The court concluded that the Secretary's treatment of Southcoast hewed to the existing administrative treatment of such multi-campus hospital groups; there were substantial informational and operational obstacles to implementing a different computational method quickly in 2006 or retroactively; appellants admit that the temporary effect of Southcoast’s multi-campus data on the wage index was a “one-off” occurrence arising from “unusual circumstances” that apparently did not affect any other multi-campus hospital group’s treatment; and nothing in the Medicare Act, 42 U.S.C. 1395 et seq., or established principles of administrative review mandate that the Secretary individually tailor one hospital’s reporting treatment to fit appellants' preferred computational outcome. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Anna Jacques Hospital v. Burwell" on Justia Law

This case concerns an IRS regulation that imposes a “penalty” on U.S. banks that fail to report interest paid to certain foreign account-holders. Two Bankers Associations challenged the legality of the regulation. At issue was whether a challenge to a tax-related statutory or regulatory requirement that is enforced by a “penalty” – as opposed to a challenge to a statute or regulation that imposes a tax – is covered by the Anti-Injunction Act, 26 U.S.C. 7421. The court concluded that the Tax Code defines some penalties as taxes for purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act. In those cases, such as the one here, the Anti-Injunction Act ordinarily applies because the suit, if successful, would invalidate the regulation and thereby directly prevent collection of the tax. The penalty at issue here is located in Chapter 68, Subchapter B of the Tax Code. The Tax Code provides that penalties in Chapter 68, Subchapter B are treated as taxes under the Anti-Injunction Act. Accordingly, the Anti-Injunction Act bars this suit as premature. The court vacated the district court's judgment and remanded with directions to dismiss the case. View "Florida Bankers Ass'n v. US Dep't of the Treasury" on Justia Law

The IRS Appeals Office denied appellant a Collection Due Process hearing based on its unexplained determination that all the reasons he gave for requesting a hearing were frivolous. Further, the Appeals office contends that its frivolousness determination is not subject to judicial review. However, the tax court held that it has jurisdiction to conduct a review limited to whether the IRS correctly treated appellant’s arguments as frivolous. The court affirmed the tax court’s conclusion regarding jurisdiction; the court also affirmed the tax court’s assessment that the IRS’s boilerplate letter rejecting appellant’s arguments as frivolous was inadequate; and, after remand, the Appeals Office held a Collection Due Process hearing, and the tax court correctly decided that the Office did not abuse its discretion in concluding that the IRS could proceed with collection actions. Accordingly, the court affirmed the tax court’s decision in its entirety. View "Ryskamp v. Commissioner" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, a pork producer and two animal welfare organizations who count pork producers among their members, filed suit claiming that the National Pork Board has misappropriated millions of dollars from a fund for pork promotion into which pork producers are required to pay. The district court dismissed the suit for lack of standing. The court concluded that this case involves a concrete and particularized harm caused by an agency’s failure to confer a direct economic benefit on a statutory beneficiary; the court rejected the government’s argument that plaintiffs have failed to exhaust their administrative remedies; and the Pork Act’s, 7 U.S.C. 48019b)(1), provision for administrative review would not offer plaintiffs adequate relief, and therefore they were not required to pursue it. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Humane Society v. Vilsack" on Justia Law

Appellants, a criminal defense attorney and two legal investigators, were convicted in 2012 of breaching duties owed to the court by fabricating evidence and suborning perjury during a 2008 trial in which they represented another individual as defendant. In this appeal, appellants raise claims of prosecutorial misconduct. Two appellants raise claims under Brady v. Maryland, for reversal of their convictions based on the Government’s undisputed breach of its obligation to timely turn over exculpatory evidence. The court agreed with Appellant Daaiyah Pasha that but for the Brady deficiency, there is a reasonable probability of a different outcome in her case. Therefore, the court directed a new trial for Daaiyah Pasha, with appropriate remedies to cure the damage caused by the Government’s delayed disclosure. However, the court did not agree with Appellants Charles Daum and Iman Pasha on the challenges they raise, and so the court affirmed their convictions. View "United States v. Pasha" on Justia Law

Cable operators’ retransmission of religious and devotional programming produced a pool of royalties that Congress charged the Copyright Royalty Judges with distributing to the copyright owners. In this appeal, Devotional Claimants argue that the Royalty Judges wrongly calculated their respective shares by allowing IPG to press claims without proper authority and refusing to accept Devotional Claimants' evidence regarding how the relative value of claims should be calculated. Devotional Claimants claim that, after the Royalty Judges rejected both their and IPG’s proposed methodologies, the Royalty Judges’ final allocation simply split the difference between the two parties, and that decision was arbitrary and capricious and unsupported by substantial evidence. The court agreed with Devotional Claimants' latter claim, concluding that the Royalty Judges are subject to the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 706. The court affirmed the Royalty Judges’ procedural rulings resolving which IPG claims could go forward and whether the Devotional Claimants’ methodological evidence could be properly considered. View "Settling Devotional Claimants v. CRB" on Justia Law

KBR seeks a second writ of mandamus challenging the district court's conclusion that: (1) the Code of Business Conduct (COBC) documents at issue must be produced under Federal Rule of Evidence 612 on the theory that KBR waived attorney-client privilege and work product protection, and (2) KBR waived attorney-client privilege and work product protection for the COBC documents under the doctrine of “at issue” waiver. The court concluded that the district court’s Rule 612 ground for its production order was clear error because there was no basis for the fairness balancing test it conducted and, even had there been, the test failed to give due weight to the privilege and protection attached to the internal investigation materials. The district court may not, in resolving the motion for summary judgment, make any inference in KBR’s favor based on the contents of the privileged documents. The court further concluded that even a cursory review of the compelled documents shows that the December 17 order would require KBR to produce materials that are attorney-client privileged. In addition, the order compelled disclosure of numerous mental impressions of the investigators, based on a clearly erroneous finding that such conclusions were only “background materials” and therefore fact work product. The court granted the writ of mandamus, concluding that the writ will correct the legal error in this case and resolve the dispute over production of the COBC documents in favor of KBR. View "In re: Kellogg Brown & Root" on Justia Law