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

FERC issued a certificate of public convenience and necessity to Tennessee Gas, authorizing it to build and operate the Northeast Project. Riverkeeper sought review of FERC's approval of the Northeast Project under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. 431-4370h. The court held that in conducting its environmental review of the Northeast Project without considering the other connected, closely related, and interdependent projects on the Eastern Leg, FERC impermissibly segmented the environmental review in violation of NEPA. The court also found that FERC's environmental assessment was deficient in its failure to include any meaningful analysis of the cumulative impacts of the upgrade projects. Therefore, the court granted the petition for review and remanded.View "Delaware Riverkeeper Network, et al. v. FERC" on Justia Law

DHS filed a petition for review challenging a decision by the FLRA in a dispute arising with the FLRA on a negotiability appeal filed by the Union under the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute (FSLMRS), 5 U.S.C. 7105(a)(2)(E). The Union and CBP - an agency within DHS - had negotiated a collective bargaining agreement that included the negotiability provision at issue (Section 2). The court granted DHS's petition for review, concluding, inter alia, that the proposal in Section 2 advanced by the Union here would compromise the independence of the OIG and would be "inconsistent" with the Inspector General Act of 1978, 5 U.S.C. App. 3 sections 1-13, within the meaning of section 7117(a)(1) of the FSLMRS.View "US DHS Customs and Border v. FLRA" on Justia Law

McKesson first filed suit in 1982 after the Iranian government expropriated the interest held by McKesson in an Iranian dairy company. At issue now is the $13.4 million in attorney's fees the district court awarded McKesson. This appeal turns on the applicability vel non of Article 518 of the Iranian Civil Procedure Act of 2000. The court read Article 518's plain language to provide that "decided by the court" applies only "[i]n the instances where the amount of [attorney's fees is] not fixed in the law or official tariff." Article 518 provides a general rule that courts must use an official tariff or other amount fixed by law in awarding attorney's fees. The court has discretion only when the tariff does not apply. In this instance, the court concluded that the official tariff applies. Iran contends that, applied to McKesson's $29.3 million judgment, the tariff yields a fee award of $29,516. McKesson does not dispute the calculation. Accordingly, the court vacated the district court's fee award and instructed the district court on remand to grant McKesson $29,516 in attorney's fees.View "McKesson Corp., et al. v. Islam Republic of Iran, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against defendants, alleging that the termination of his employment violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), 29 U.S.C. 621 et seq. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of defendants. Plaintiff introduced evidence of two statements made by the person who effected his termination, both of which were indicative of a discriminatory motive. The court reversed and remanded because those statements, if proven to have been made, would permit a reasonable factfinder to conclude that age-based discrimination led to plaintiff's termination.View "Wilson v. Cox, et al." on Justia Law

Petitioners sought review of the EPA's Summit Directive, which states that "EPA may no longer consider interrelatedness in determining adjacency when making source determination decisions in its title V or NSR permitting decisions in areas under the jurisdiction of the [Sixth] Circuit." The court granted the petition for review, concluding that the Summit Directive creates a standard that gives facilities located in the Sixth Circuit a competitive advantage and, therefore, causes competitive injury to petitioner's members located outside the Sixth Circuit; the Directive is a final agency action; and petitioners' claim is ripe for review. On the merits, the court held that the Summit Directive is plainly contrary to EPA's own regulations. Accordingly, the court vacated the Summit Directive.View "Nat'l Env. Dev. Assoc. v. EPA" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed a putative class action alleging that aerial herbicide spraying of illegal coca crops had drifted across the border from Colombia and that planes themselves had actually crossed the border and sprayed in Ecuador. Plaintiffs asserted a wide variety of tort claims for alleged injuries to health, property, and financial interests. The court agreed with the district court that the Ecuadorian provinces lacked Article III standing; the court rejected the challenge brought by the 163 plaintiffs who were dismissed for failure to provide complete responses to the court-ordered questionnaires; because District of Columbia law requires expert testimony where the parties offer competing causal explanations for an injury that turns on scientific information, the district court appropriately dismissed individual plaintiffs' claims for crop damages; because expert testimony was not necessary to prove plaintiffs' claims for battery, nuisance, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, the district court erred in dismissing these claims; and because expert testimony is necessary to determine whether plaintiffs were actually in the zone of physical danger, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the negligent infliction of emotional distress claims. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further consideration., battery, nuisance, iemdView "Arias, et al. v. Dyncorp, et al." on Justia Law

This appeal concerned the EPA's decision in 2012 that it needed further studies before it could set a new, joint, "secondary" national ambient air quality standard for oxides of nitrogen and oxides of sulphur, and other related compounds found in the ambient air and considered precursors of acid deposits on the land and in the waters of the continental United States. At issue was whether EPA's decision to defer adopting a new standard at this time, pending further scientific study, violated the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. 7409(d)(1). The court concluded that, because the Act requires a reasoned judgment, and because EPA found it could not form one, EPA's explanation conformed to the authorizing statute. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review.View "Center for Biological Diversity, et al. v. EPA, et al." on Justia Law

After plaintiff was discharged by the Department of Corrections, he filed suit against the District and two officials, alleging violations of his rights under the District's whistleblower statute, D.C. Code 1-615.53, and of his liberty interests under the Fifth Amendment. The court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment on the claims under the whistleblower act where plaintiff was terminated for the misconduct that occurred in March 2005, not January 2006, where he struck a handcuffed inmate. The court also affirmed summary judgment on the Fifth Amendment claim where any deprivation of liberty by stigmatizing was not without due process. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.View "McCormick, Jr. v. D.C., et al." on Justia Law

AF Holdings, represented by Prenda Law, filed suit in district court against 1,058 unnamed John Does who it alleged had illegally downloaded and shared the pornographic film "Popular Demand" using a file-sharing service known as BitTorrent. Prenda Law's general approach was to identify certain unknown persons whose IP addresses were used to download pornographic films, sue them in gigantic multi-defendant suits that minimized filing fees, discover the identities of the persons to whom these IP addresses were assigned by serving subpoenas on the Internet service providers to which the addresses pertained, and then negotiate settlements with the underlying subscriber. The providers refused to comply with the district court's issuance of subpoenas compelling them to turn over information about the underlying subscribers, arguing that the subpoenas are unduly burdensome because venue is improper, personal jurisdiction over these Doe defendants is lacking, and defendants could not properly be joined together in one action. The court agreed, concluding that AF Holdings clearly abused the discovery process by not seeking information because of its relevance to the issues that might actually be litigated here. AF Holdings could not possibly have had a good faith belief that it could successfully sue the overwhelming majority of the John Doe defendants in this district. Although AF Holdings might possibly seek discovery regarding individual defendants in the judicial districts in which they are likely located, what it certainly may not do is improperly use court processes by attempting to gain information about hundreds of IP addresses located all over the country in a single action, especially when many of those addresses fall outside of the court's jurisdiction. Given AF Holdings' decision to name and seek discovery regarding a vast number of defendants who downloaded the film weeks and even months apart - defendants who could not possibly be joined in this litigation - one can easily infer that its purpose was to attain information that was not, and could not be, relevant to this particular suit. Accordingly, the court vacated the order and remanded for further proceedings, including a determination of sanctions, if any, for AF Holdings' use of a possible forgery in support of its claim.View "AF Holdings, LLC v. Does 1-1058" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed her conviction and sentence for offenses related to her fraudulent collection of millions of dollars from Medicaid for procedures that were never performed. The court rejected defendant's evidentiary challenges and concluded that the district court acted within its discretion in limiting the cross-examination of a Health and Human Services investigator; ruling that defendant could use the superbills at issue only as evidence of her state of mind if she first provided a foundation; refusing to declare a mistrial because of allegedly prejudicial comments made during trial; and by admitting testimony regarding the care of developmentally-disabled patients. The court concluded that defendant's sentence did not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause; the district court did not err in applying an enhancement under U.S.S.G. 3B1.3 for those who abuse a position of trust; and defendant waived her argument regarding the forfeiture argument. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.View "United States v. Wheeler" on Justia Law