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

Defendant, convicted of twenty-five counts of aiding or assisting in the filing of a false tax return, appealed his convictions. Defendant alleged that the court improperly instructed the jury and that he received ineffective assistance of counsel. The court found no error in the jury instruction regarding I.R.C. 7206(2) or prejudice from the alleged ineffectiveness. Reading the instructions as a whole, the court concluded that the district court’s instruction on good faith “substantially covered” the knowledge element that defendant requested. Therefore, the court affirmed the conviction. Because the government has conceded error in regards to the restitution order, which was improperly calculated, the court remanded for reconsideration of that aspect of defendant's sentence. View "United States v. Udo" on Justia Law

Bruce Packing petitioned for review of the Board's decision that Bruce Packing committed unfair labor practices in an effort to beat back a union-organizing drive at one of its plants. The court agreed with the Board that substantial evidence supports its conclusion that the termination of a worker violated the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. 158(a)(3), where the evidence demonstrated that Bruce Packing would not have terminated the worker absent his union activity. However, the court disagreed with the Board’s decision to allow the late amendment of the General Counsel’s complaint, which left Bruce Packing without notice of a new charge that it lacked the opportunity to fairly contest. Accordingly, the Board’s order will be enforced with respect to all issues, except its conclusion that Bruce Packing illegally promised benefits to employees who stopped supporting the union. View "Bruce Packing Co. v. NLRB" on Justia Law

BSDL petitioned the district court to confirm an arbitration award rendered against the government of Belize. The district court entered judgment in favor of BSDL. The arbitration award arises out of the alleged breach by Belize of a 2005 agreement between Belize and Belize Telemedia Limited, BSDL’s predecessor in interest. The court concluded that the language of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. 1605(a)(6), arbitration exception makes clear that the agreement to arbitrate is severable from the underlying contract. In order to succeed in its claim that there was no “agreement made by the foreign state . . . to submit to arbitration,” Belize must show that the Prime Minister lacked authority to enter into the arbitration agreement. Belize has failed to do this and therefore, Belize failed to carry its burden of establishing that BSDL’s allegations do not bring this case within the FSIA’s arbitration exception. The court rejected Belize's remaining arguments and affirmed the judgment. View "Belize Social Dev. Ltd. v. Government of Belize" on Justia Law

Petitioners challenged the Commission's issuance of a certificate of public convenience and necessity to Columbia Gas conditionally authorizing the company to extend a natural gas pipeline in Maryland. The court concluded that petitioners satisfied the requirements of Article III standing; the court has jurisdiction over the present controversy and the case is not moot; but petitioners' interest in protecting its members property from eminent domain in the face of alleged non-compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. 4332(2)(C), and Clean Water Act (CWA), 33 U.S.C. 1341(a)(1), does not fall within the zone of interest protected by the NEPA, the CWA, and the Natural Gas Act (NGA), 15 U.S.C. 71. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review for want of a legislatively conferred cause of action. View "Gunpowder Riverkeeper v. FERC" on Justia Law

Plaintiff is the mother of Karl Grimes, a juvenile who was allegedly beaten to death at a detention facility. Plaintiff claimed that the District showed deliberate indifference to, and reckless disregard for, her son’s safety, and that the District was negligent in hiring, training, and supervising its employees at the detention center in violation of District of Columbia tort law, the Eighth Amendment, and 42 U.S.C. 1983. The district court granted the government’s motion for summary judgment, and denied as moot plaintiff’s cross-motion to strike the summary judgment motion and to disqualify the Attorney General of the District of Columbia based on an asserted conflict of interest. The court concluded that the district court should resolve a motion to disqualify counsel before it turns to the merits of any dispositive motion because a claim of counsel’s conflict of interest calls into question the integrity of the process in which the allegedly conflicted counsel participates. Therefore, the court concluded that the district court erred in the sequence in which it rendered its decisions. Accordingly, the court vacated the district court's grant of summary judgment and its denial of the motion to disqualify, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Grimes v. District of Columbia" on Justia Law

Petitioners challenge the EPA's 2012 regulation revising Clean Air Act (CAA), 42 U.S.C. 7412(d), standards for emissions of hexavalent chromium. The new rule imposes more stringent emissions limitations than its predecessor and mandates the phase-out of a category of fume suppressants containing the toxic compound perfluorooctyl sulfonate (PFOS). The court rejected, as contrary to the court's precedent, environmental petitioners' contention that EPA was required to calculate a new maximum achievable control technology (MACT) floor when it revised emissions standards pursuant to its technology review under section 112(d)(6) of the CAA; the court deferred to EPA’s methodology as well as its ultimate balancing decisions where it took into account the statutorily required considerations, inter alia, cost, emissions reductions, and health risk, as well as provided a transparent, reasoned explanation of its decision; the court was satisfied with the EPA's data-gathering and analysis and therefore, rejected the Association's argument that EPA unreasonably determined in its technology review that “developments” had occurred after the original rulemaking that required revision of the existing emissions standards; it suffices for EPA to show that non-PFOS based suppressants are as effective at controlling surface tension as PFOS-based suppressants; and EPA's risk review under section 112(f)(2) was reasonable. Accordingly, the court denied the petitions for review and upheld the rule. View "Nat'l Assoc. for Surface Finishing v. EPA" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, Medicaid recipients who unsuccessfully sought coverage for prescription drugs, filed suit contending that the District and its officials unlawfully failed to afford them notice of their entitlement to a hearing before denying their prescription drug claims. The court affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiffs' claims under Title XIX of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. 1396 et seq., and rejected plaintiffs’ argument that Title XIX’s notice regulations are triggered whenever there has been a denial of a claim for prescription drug coverage at the point-of-sale. However, the court reversed the district court's dismissal of the due process claims because the prescription drug coverage sought by plaintiffs qualifies as a property interest protected by the Fifth Amendment; plaintiffs adequately alleged that Xerox, a private company, determined their eligibility for benefits while acting as an agent of the District; and the court remanded the case to permit the district court to conduct an inquiry in the first instance into what process is due. The court also remanded to the district court to reconsider its jurisdiction over the D.C. -law claims in light of the court's partial reversal. View "NB v. District of Columbia" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 alleging that a police officer violated her Fourth Amendment right when, during her husband’s traffic stop and arrest, the officer ordered her to get out of the car and put her hands on the hood. Given the circumstances of plaintiff’s alleged seizure, nothing in her brief shows that existing precedent has placed her Fourth Amendment right beyond debate. The court affirmed the district court's grant of the officer's motion for judgment on the pleadings, concluding that the factual allegations in the complaint do not plausibly suggest that the officer violated plaintiff's clearly established Fourth Amendment right. View "Fox v. Government of DC" on Justia Law

After the court held, in 2005, that a Postal Service regulation was unconstitutional based on the regulation's ban on signature collection on perimeter sidewalks, the Postal Service amended its regulation to correct the constitutional defects. The plaintiff nonprofit organizations subsequently applied for attorney’s fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act, 28 U.S.C. 2412(d)(1)(A). The district court denied the fee application on the ground that plaintiffs were not prevailing parties under the Act. However, the court concluded that its 2005 decision effectuated a court-ordered change in the legal relationship of the parties. The court agreed with plaintiffs that they obtained a favorable, court-ordered change and plaintiffs easily satisfy the remaining two prongs of the “prevailing party” test: They achieved a judgment “in favor of the party seeking the fees” and a judicial pronouncement “accompanied by judicial relief.” Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Initiative and Referendum Inst. v. USPS" on Justia Law

The NSA requested investigative materials, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 500 et seq., that the SEC had gathered involving payments made to paramilitary groups in Colombia by a subsidiary of Chiquita. Chiquita requested that the Commission deny the Archive’s request, arguing that releasing the records at this point in time would deprive the company of a fair trial in pending multi-district litigation in Florida. The court construed Exemption 7(B) narrowly and according to its text, the same way the Commission did here: to apply when the release of documents would likely deprive a party of a fair trial, not merely complicate the discovery schedule. In this case, the Commission properly disposed of Chiquita’s arguments on the ground that the company could not show how disclosure would matter in the big picture and impact the fairness of a future trial. This is the proper legal standard under both the text of Exemption 7(B) and Washington Post Co. v. U.S. Dep't of Justice. Finally, the court concluded that the Commission reasonably applied Exemption 7(B) and concluded that disclosure of the records to the Archive will not “seriously interfere with the fairness” of the Florida proceedings. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court and vacated the injunction pending appeal. View "Chiquita Brands Int'l v. SEC" on Justia Law