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

Petitioners challenged 2009 and 2012 final rules issued by EPA revising the new source performance standards for steam generating units. The court concluded that, because EPA has not yet resolved petitioners' petitions for reconsideration, the only objections that were properly before the court were those the petitioners made during the public comment periods. The court concluded that EPA reasonably concluded that a unit emitting more than 0.03 lb/MMBtu should remain "subject to an opacity limit" and "use a COMS or perform periodic visual inspections to comply with the opacity standard" to verify that the pollution control and monitoring systems were operating properly; UARG's procedural objection to the allegedly inadequate notice and opportunity to comment was moot; UARG's contention that EPA failed to respond to comments on the 2008 proposal was moot; and the court rejected Texas' challenges to EPA's refusal to allow state-law affirmative defenses against the enforcement of new source performance standards. Accordingly, the court denied the petitions for review. View "Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA" on Justia Law

Appellant, employed with the SEC, filed a request under the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. 791 et seq., for a work schedule accommodation so that he could undergo rehabilitation without using his work leave. When the Commission did not act on his request for more than a year, appellant began the administrative appeals process. Subsequently, the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity (the Office) assigned an investigator to appellant's case. The investigator worked for a private firm, not the Office. Appellant was uneasy about a private firm having his medical records and eventually stopped participating in the investigation. The Office dismissed appellant's complaint for failure to cooperate. After unsuccessfully appealing his dismissal to the EEOC, appellant filed suit against the SEC in the district court. The district court granted summary judgment to the Commission, holding, among other things, that appellant's refusal to participate in his administrative proceedings constituted a failure to exhaust his administrative remedies and that there was no reason to excuse such failure. The court concluded that, under Rann v. Chao, appellant provided insufficient information to the agency and thus failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. The district court was well within its discretion to dismiss the claim. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Koch v. Schapiro, et al." on Justia Law

The Comptroller of the Currency found that petitioner, as the CEO and a director of the Bank, had engaged in a pattern of willfully misrepresenting the Bank's capital reserves to the OTS and the Bank's board of directors, and he issued orders prohibiting petitioner from participation in the affairs of any federally insured financial institution and assessing a civil penalty of one million dollars. Petitioner sought dismissal of the Comptroller's decision and orders, inter alia, on the grounds of legal error in relying on later-developed standards in the OTS New Directions Bulletin of 2009 when there were no clear standards at the relevant times, and in applying a "should have known" scienter standard in findings that required a more demanding level of scienter. The court concluded that petitioner failed to show that the stringent statutory requirements of 12 U.S.C. 1818 for an order of prohibition were not met. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review. View "Dodge v. Comptroller of the Currency" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration (SSA) raising constitutional challenges to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), Pub. L. No 111-148, 124 Stat. 119; raising statutory challenges to actions of HHS and the Commissioner relating to the implementation of the ACA and prior Medical legislation; and attacking the failure of defendants to render an "accounting" that would alter the American people to the insolvency towards which Medicare and Social Security programs were heading. On appeal, plaintiffs challenged the district court's dismissal of their claims. The court rejected plaintiffs' claims that 26 U.S.C. 5000A, which was sustained as a valid exercise of the taxing power, violated the Fifth Amendment's prohibition of the taking of private property without just compensation and violated the origination clause. The court concluded that plaintiffs' substantive attack on the Social Security Program Operations Manual System (POMS) provisions was clearly foreclosed by its decision in Hall v. Sebelius, holding that the statutory text establishing Medicare Part A precludes any option not to be entitled to benefits. The court rejected plaintiffs' second statutory claim attacking an interim final rule. Finally, the court concluded that plaintiffs failed to provide a legal argument for their claims against the Commissioner and Secretary, and therefore, the court lacked jurisdiction over plaintiffs' claim to an "accounting." Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Assoc. Amer. Physicians, et al. v. Sebelius, et al." on Justia Law

In 2009, defendant was sentenced to 180 months in prison for conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of crack cocaine. In 2011, the Sentencing Commission gave retroactive effect to an amendment to the Sentencing Guidelines lowering base offense levels for offenses involving crack cocaine. The court joined its sister circuits in upholding U.S.S.G. 1B1.10 as a lawful exercise of the Sentencing Commission's powers. Because U.S.S.G. 1B10(b)(2)(A) barred sentencing reductions below the applicable amended guideline range, and because defendant's sentence was already below that range, the district court properly held that a reduction in his sentence was unavailable. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court, rejecting defendant's challenge to the validity of U.S.S.G. 1B10(b)(2)(A). View "United States v. Taylor" on Justia Law

Hope 7 entered into bankruptcy in 2009 and RIASO was Hope 7's largest creditor. The bankruptcy court subsequently approved the settlement of Hope 7's fraud-based claims against RIASO, approved RIASO's proof of claim against Hope 7, and directed the payment of funds from Hope 7's estate to RIASO. Hope 7 subsequently found additional evidence relevant to RIASO's alleged fraud and moved for relief of judgment under Rule 60(b) and asked the bankruptcy court to reopen its earlier orders. The court concluded that Hope 7 had not demonstrated that it had standing to challenge the bankruptcy court's settlement order or, with regard to the remaining claims, that the bankruptcy court abused its discretion in denying the Rule 60(b) motion for relief. The district court did not err in affirming the bankruptcy court's decision, and therefore, the court dismissed in part and affirmed in part. View "In re: Hope 7 Monroe Street Ltd." on Justia Law

Petitioner received a citation for failing to obey a Montana traffic ordinance and a record of the citation made its way into a database administered by FMCSA. Petitioner complained that, in maintaining the record of citation, FMCSA violated the statute authorizing the Secretary of Transportation to maintain the database. Because the court concluded that FMCSA's action fell short of being a rule, a regulation or final order within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. 2342(3), the court lacked jurisdiction under that provision and transferred the case to the district court under 28 U.S.C. 1631. View "Weaver, Jr., et al. v. FMCSA, et al." on Justia Law

The Commission granted waivers with nunc pro tunc effect to many of the companies seeking relief from a compliance deadline regarding regulations that required digital wireless service providers to offer telephone handsets that are compatible with hearing aids. Petitioners sought review of the Commission's denial of waivers for petitioners and raised several challenges to the procedural regularity of the Commission's adjudication of their waiver petitions. Because the three petitioners did not comply until after January 1, 2007, and because they reported to the Commission that they had done nothing to seek out compliant telephones beyond contacting their existing suppliers, petitioners failed to satisfy either of the Commission's reasonable criteria for waiver. Accordingly, the Commission's decision to deny the waiver petitions was reasonable. The Commission did not treat similarly situated carriers differently without offering an adequate explanation. The court rejected petitioners' remaining arguments and denied the petition for review. View "Blanca Telephone Co., et al. v. FCC" on Justia Law

Two firms receiving gas storage service in the Washington Storage Field ceased taking service and "released" their storage rights to Paribas. The departing customers exercised their contract rights to buy back so-called "base gas" from the field's operator, Transco. Given the buy-back, Transco had to make new purchases to replenish its base gas so as to maintain service at the levels prevailing before the replacement. At the time of the exiting customers' departure, the historic customers who remained, and the new replacement customers, disputed whether the cost of the new base gas should be charged entirely to the replacement shippers ("incremental pricing") or should be charged to all shippers in proportion to their usage ("rolled-in pricing"). On appeal, Paribas challenged the Commission's ratemaking decisions under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 551 et seq. In a decision purporting to apply the familiar "cost causation" principle, the Commission chose incremental pricing. The court concluded that the Commission failed to offer an intelligible explanation of how its decision manifested the cost causation principle; failed to explain how or why or in what sense the historic customers' continued demand did not share, pro rata, in causing the need for the new base gas, or, how or why or in what sense the historic customers did not share proportionately in the benefits provided by the new base gas; and brushed off Paribas's invocation of a seemingly parallel set of the Commission's own decisions. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded. View "BNP Paribas Energy Trading GP v. FERC" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to unlawful possession of a firearm. On appeal, defendant challenged the district court's motion to suppress evidence. While waiting to execute a search warrant at the home of an arrested murder suspect, police saw defendant leave the house. Police pulled up to defendant and ordered him to put his hands on a nearby car, defendant obeyed and then fled a few seconds later, discarding guns and drugs. The court concluded that a seizure occurred where defendant's action of putting his hands on the car when told to do so by the police constituted full compliance. The court concluded that defendant's seizure was unreasonable and in violation of the Fourth Amendment where a Summers-Bailey stop was inapplicable and where the government did not attempt to justify the stop as a Terry stop. Further, the government had not met its burden to show attenuation between the illegal seizure and the discovery of the guns and drugs. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Brodie" on Justia Law