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

Appellant, an African-American female attorney in the Office of the Chief Counsel of the PBGC, filed suit in district court against the PBGC, claiming employment discrimination and retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. 2000e. Appellant appealed two issues: first, claims of race and gender discrimination and unlawful retaliation, arising out of four discrete episodes; second, a claim of retaliatory hostile work environment arising not only out of the four discrete episodes but also out of various other events as to which she raised claims that were time-barred. The court affirmed the district court's dismissal of appellant's claims of race and gender discrimination and of unlawful retaliation where the court did not believe that the PBGC's failure to remedy the various critiques and epithets to which appellant's fellow employees subjected her would have persuaded a reasonable employee to refrain from making or supporting charges of discrimination. The court held, however, that the district court erred to the extent that it categorically excluded her time-barred complaints in considering the hostile work environment claim, thus failing to employ the Nat'l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan analysis, including a determination of which acts exhibit the relationship necessary to be considered part of the same actionable hostile work environment claim. Accordingly, the court remanded for a determination of which, if any acts, should have been included under Morgan. View "Baird v. Gotbaum" on Justia Law

AMEA purchases power wholesale from various sources, including Southern, and sells it to 11 municipally owned utilities in Alabama. AMEA uses "unbundled" transmission service provided by one of Southern's subsidiaries. When AMEA uses Southern's transmission system for such unbundled transmission, it pays the "Open Access Transmission Tariff" paid by any party receiving such service from Southern. Southern also sells power directly to retail consumers in Alabama. For the transmission of these "bundled" retail sales, it uses the Alabama component of its transmission system, which has lower unit costs than its transmission system as a whole. According to AMEA, the relatively high cost of transmission service in Georgia drives Southern's systemwide average above its Alabama unit costs. AMEA subsequently filed a complaint with FERC, challenging the rate differential. At issue was whether Southern's pricing violated FERC's comparability policy. Giving FERC the appropriate level of deference on its interpretation of its own orders, the court concluded that it did not. Accordingly, the petition for review was denied. View "AL Municipal Elec. Authority v. FERC" on Justia Law

Church & Dwight, the leading manufacturer of condoms in the United States, appealed an order of the district court enforcing a subpoena and an accompanying civil investigation demand (CID), issued by the FTC insofar as the FTC would require it to produce information related to its sales of products other than condoms. Church & Dwight contended that such information was not reasonably relevant to the FTC's investigation into its potentially monopolistic practices in the market for condoms. Because the FTC's inquiry lawfully extended to the possibility that Church & Dwight engaged in the exclusionary bundling of rebates to retailers that sold condoms and other Church & Dwight products, the court held that the district court did not err in finding that the information on products other than condoms was reasonably relevant to the FTC's investigation. Accordingly, the court affirmed the order enforcing the subpoena and the CID against Church & Dwight. View "Federal Trade Comm'n v. Church & Dwight Co., Inc." on Justia Law

Petitioner, which operated the Los Angeles Airport Hilton Hotel and Towers, petitioned for review of the NLRB's order finding petitioner in violation of section 8(a)(1) and (3) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. 158(a)(1) & (3). At issue was whether Hilton disciplined its employees for engaging in activities protected by section 7 of the Act. The court held that the NLRB's grievance procedure finding was not supported by substantial evidence where the record demonstrated that Hilton managers addressed group grievances relating to hotel equipment, employee uniforms, working conditions, and other matters on numerous occasions. Therefore, the court granted the petition for review with respect to the NLRB's assessment of the May 11 protest and remanded the issue for reconsideration. The court held, however, that the NLRB met its burden under section 8(a)(3) where ample evidence supported the NLRB's finding that anti-union animus played a role in Hilton's decision to issue warnings. Therefore, the court enforced the portion of the NLRB's order finding that Hilton violated section 8(a)(1) & (3) by issuing the warnings at issue. Finally, the NLRB was entitled to summary enforcement of additional, effectively uncontested rulings. View "Fortuna Enterprises, L.P. v. NLRB" on Justia Law

Arc Bridges petitioned for review of a NLRB order finding it in violation of section 8(a)(1) and (3) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. 158(a)(1)&(3). At issue was whether Arc Bridges established annual wage increases as a term of employment and then unlawfully refused to implement a wage increase after its employees became unionized. The district court concluded that Arc Bridges' budget review each June and across-the-board wage increase each July amounted to an established condition of employment. Consequently, Arc Bridges' refusal to maintain that condition in 2007 was inherently destructive of the employees' rights. The court held that the NLRB's decision was arbitrary and unsupported by substantial evidence. Therefore, the court granted the petition for review, denied the cross-petition for enforcement, and set aside the NLRB's order. The court also remanded the case for further proceedings in light of the NLRB's decision to reserve judgment on the Wright Line theory. View "Arc Bridges, Inc. v. NLRB" on Justia Law

Plaintiff sued defendant, alleging that defendant had unlawfully discriminated against her in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq. Plaintiff, a medical student who was diagnosed with dyslexia and a mild processing-speed disorder, contended on remand that the district court erred by failing to apply the 2008 amendments to the ADA and in relying on her prior academic achievement in assessing whether she suffered from a disability under the ADA. The court held that because plaintiff failed to show legal or clear factual error by the district court, the judgment was affirmed. View "Singh v. GW Univ. School of Medicine, et al." on Justia Law

Appellant and a co-defendant were extradited from Panama following their indictment on one count of conspiracy to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine, intending or knowing that it would be imported into the United States from Columbia, Panama, Nicaragua, and elsewhere outside of the United States. Appellant challenged his conviction and sentence. The court held that the district court had jurisdiction over the charged conspiracy because appellant's extradition conformed with the governing treaty between the United States and Panama, and appellant waived his venue challenge by not raising it in the district court. Appellant identified no plain error affecting his substantial rights in the district court's acceptance of his guilty plea. Further, appellant failed to show he was denied effective assistance of counsel as would entitle him to reversal of his conviction. Because appellant presented no grounds for setting aside the judgment based on his guilty plea, the waiver of his right to appeal a below-Guidelines sentence set forth in the plea agreement was valid. Accordingly, the court dismissed the appeal of his sentence and affirmed the judgment of conviction View "In Re: Sealed Case" on Justia Law

Appellants appealed the dismissal of their lawsuit challenging the determination by the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA (collectively, Agencies) that two reaches of the Santa Cruz River in southern Arizona constituted traditional navigable waters (TNW) so as to come within the Agencies' regulatory authority under the Clean Water Act (CWA), 33 U.S.C. 1311(a), 1362(12). Appellants challenged the TNW determination as both procedurally and substantively defective. The district court dismissed the complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction on the ground that the CWA precluded a pre-enforcement challenge to a TNW determination. The court affirmed the dismissal on the alternative jurisdictional ground that appellants lacked Article III standing. View "Natl' Assoc. of Home Builders, et al. v. EPA, et al." on Justia Law

This case stemmed from the EPA's enactment of twin rules in 2010, pursuant to the Clean Air Act (CAA), setting emissions standards for portland cement facilities - one under a section called National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP), 42 U.S.C. 7412(a)(4), the second under a section called New Source Performance Standards (NSPS), 42 U.S.C. 7411. PCA aruged that both rules violated the CAA and were arbitrary and capricious. Environmental Petitioners filed their own petition, arguing that the EPA abused its discretion by declining to include greenhouse gas emissions standards in its NSPS rule. The court agreed that the EPA acted arbitrarily when it promulgated the final NESHAP rule and therefore granted PCA's petition for review with respect to the EPA's denial of reconsideration on that issue. The court also stayed the NESHAP standards for clinker storage piles pending reconsideration by the EPA. The court denied PCA's petitions with respect to all other issues relating to NESHAP and NSPS, and dismissed Environmental Petitioners' petition for lack of jurisdiction. View "Portland Cement Assoc. v. EPA" on Justia Law

Defendant sought reversal of his conviction by a jury for unlawful possession with intent to distribute cocaine and aiding and abetting, claiming trial evidentiary errors. Because defendant elicited testimony concerning the officer's law enforcement experience with drug trafficking in an attempt to demonstrate he was conditioned to see the benign items seized from defendant's bedroom as drug paraphernalia, and elicited his opinion regarding one of those items, defendant failed to show prejudice even assuming the testimony was improperly admitted. Circuit precedent confirmed defendant's other contentions were without merit. The district court neither abused its discretion in excluding expert evidence on the ultimate question in the case, nor erred in allowing the prosecutor to ask guilt-assuming hypothetical questions of a character witness testifying about her personal opinion. Accordingly, the court affirmed the conviction. View "United States v. Guerrero" on Justia Law