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

Plaintiffs, WildEarth and others, challenged the BLM's decision to approve the West Antelope II tracts for lease in the Wyoming Powder River Basin. The district court granted summary judgment to defendants, finding that plaintiffs lacked standing to raise one of their arguments and that their remaining arguments failed on the merits. The court concluded, however, that plaintiffs adequately raised their theory of procedural injury below and therefore had standing to challenge each of the alleged deficiencies in the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS). On the merits, the court concluded that the BLM satisfied its obligations under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq., in considering climate change and that the BLM satisfied its obligations under NEPA in considering the effect the lease developments would have on local ozone levels. The court considered and rejected plaintiffs' remaining arguments and affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "WildEarth Guardians, et al. v. Salazar, et al." on Justia Law

This appeal challenged the district court's order authorizing the Government to medicate defendant by force if necessary for the sole purpose of rendering him competent to stand trial. In Sell v. United States, the Supreme Court held that the Government may, on "rare" occasions, forcibly medicate a defendant to restore his competency. The court found no merit in defendant's claim that the district court committed reversible error in failing to consider the prospect that he might face civil confinement; even if defendant was correct that he was not dangerous apart from allegedly threatening the President of the United States with bodily harm, this fact by itself would not render unimportant the Government's interest in prosecuting him for a serious and dangerous crime; and the district court's factual findings have a sound evidentiary basis and were not clearly erroneous. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's order authorizing involuntary medication. View "United States v. Dillon" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against the Department, alleging that it retaliated against her for filing a complaint of workplace harassment based upon her sex and national origin, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e-3(a). The district court granted summary judgment to the Department. The court affirmed, concluding that no reasonable jury could find that the Department's actions - placing her on an unsuitable detail, changing her employment status to probationary, and terminating her employment - were motivated by retaliation. View "Hernandez v. Gutierrez" on Justia Law

In these three appeals, enemy combatants held by the United States at Bagram Airfield Military Base in northwest Afghanistan sought access to the writ of habeas corpus. Over three years ago, the court concluded that enemy combatants held at Bagram could not invoke the Suspension Clause to challenge their detentions. In these appeals, the court dismissed the petitions for want of jurisdiction where, because the Suspension Clause did not run to Bagram, section 7 of the 2006 Military Commissions Act, Pub. L. No. 109-366, 120 Stat. 2600, did not effect any unconstitutional suspension of the writ. The court remanded Hamidullah's petition to the district court for the limited purpose of determining whether he is in the sole custody of the government of Pakistan. View "Maqaleh, et al. v. Panetta, et al." on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his convictions for five counts of wire fraud and one count of theft. Defendant, while serving as former Senator Edward M. Kennedy's office manager, awarded himself unauthorized bonuses. The court rejected defendant's evidentiary arguments; remanded his colorable ineffective assistance claims; and vacated and remanded the restitution order because neither the jury nor the district court made factual findings sufficient to support the order. View "United States v. Pole" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit alleging that the International Plan denied him benefits to which he was entitled. The parties disputed whether plaintiff accrued enough credit under an earlier plan, the Local 963 Plan, which was later merged into the International Plan. On appeal, at issue was whether, because of the procedural irregularities in the administrator's handling of the claim, the district court should have applied a de novo standard of review. The court concluded that the district court applied the correct standard and affirmed the judgment, concluding that plaintiff had not alleged Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. 1001 et seq., violations that rose to a level requiring a more stringent standard of review. View "James v. Int'l Painters, et al." on Justia Law

Appellant challenged the district court's finding that he was not suffering from a severe mental illness when he represented himself at trial nearly six years ago. The court concluded, consistent with Indiana v. Edwards, that it had no reason to disturb the district court's fine-tuned judgment that appellant did not suffer from severe mental illness to the point where he was not competent to conduct trial proceedings by himself. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. McKinney" on Justia Law

The BOP challenged a decision and order of the Authority regarding United States Penitentiary I, a high security facility in Coleman, Florida. The Authority held that BOP was required to bargain with the Union over two proposals relating to BOP's installation of two metal detectors in the compound through which prisoners must pass to enter or exit the recreation yard. The court denied the BOP's motion to dismiss on grounds of mootness and its motion to vacate the Authority's decision and order. The court granted the Authority's cross-petition to enforce its decision and order regarding Proposal 1, and granted BOP's petition to vacate the Authority's decision and order regarding the third sentence in Proposal 2. The court remanded to the Authority to allow it to determine whether, in light of the changed circumstances occasioned by the changed use of the metal detectors, the order to bargain over Proposal 1 should be revised. View "U.S. DOJ v. FLRA" on Justia Law

Petitioners, owners and operators of electrical power generation facilities, challenged several of the Commission's orders relating to the creation of the 2011-2014 "demand curves." NYISO holds monthly auctions to set the price of electrical power capacity in New York utilizing administratively determined demand curves. The court concluded that the Commission reasonably imposed the maximum suspension period; the Commission did not act arbitrarily by ignoring petitioners' argument that the Compliance Curves would necessarily exceed the Proposed Curves; the Commission did not exceed its section 205(e) authority under the Federal Power Act, 16 U.S.C. 824d(e), by suspending the Proposed Rates for longer than the five-month statutory maximum when it accepted the NYISO's voluntarily decision to delay implementation of the new curves; and the court rejected petitioners' challenge to the Commission's approval of NYISO's March 28 filing. The court also rejected petitioners' challenge to several technical aspects of the proposed curves. Accordingly, the court denied the petitions for review. View "TC Ravenswood, LLC v. FERC" on Justia Law

Pursuant to the Library of Congress' policy, the Library recognizes certain employee organizations and gives them meeting space and other benefits. The Cook and Shaw Foundation is a non-profit organization composed of current and former employees of the Library. The Foundation and others filed suit after the Library denied recognition to the Foundation. The court concluded that the complaint failed to allege that the Library's denial of recognition constituted retaliation for statutorily protected activity by employees or applicants for employment. Absent such an allegation, the complaint failed to state a claim under Title VII, 42 U.S.C. 2000e et seq. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal for failure to state a claim. View "Howard R.l. Cook & Tommy Shaw, et al. v. Billington" on Justia Law