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

Appellant, a primary care physician who served Medicaid patients in the District of Columbia, appealed his convictions for health care fraud and for making false statements relating to health care matters, as well as his 53 month prison sentence. At issue was whether the district court committed evidentiary errors and improperly refused to give the good faith instruction appellant requested. Also at issue was whether appellant's sentence was procedurally unreasonable. The court found no merit in appellant's assertions of trial errors and affirmed the judgment of conviction. The court held, however, that because the district gave an inadequate explanation for its above-Guidelines sentence and because this procedural defect amounted to plain error, the court vacated the sentence and remanded for further proceedings.

Appellant and his wife filed an action against the Palestinian Authority ("PA") and the Palestinian Liberation Organization ("PLO") seeking to recover damages under the Alien Tort Statute ("ATS"), 28 U.S.C. 1350, where appellant was arrested by PA security officers and confined and tortured for several months. At issue was whether the district court erred in dismissing the action for failure to state a claim. The court affirmed the judgment of the district court where the complaint did not raise a claim cognizable within the jurisdictional grant of the ATS and further concluded that the district court did not err in declining to exercise pendant jurisdiction under the alleged negligence claim under Israeli law.

Petitioner sought review of an adverse decision of the National Labor Relations Board ("Board") where an ALJ found that petitioner violated section 8(a)(3) and (1) of the National Labor Relations Act ("Act"), 29 U.S.C. 151 et seq., when it placed a registered nurse on "investigatory suspension" because of her protected union activities. At issue was whether the ALJ's decision was supported by substantial evidence. The court held that the Board's general counsel offered insubstantial evidence, if any, to establish that the nurse's protected union activity was a motivating factor in her suspension and therefore, the general counsel failed to carry his burden under the first prong of the NLRB v. Wright Line test so as to make out a prima facie case and shift the burden of proof to petitioner. Therefore, the Board had no basis to conclude that petitioner violated section 8(a)(3) and (1) of the Act. Accordingly, the court granted the petition for review and denied the Board's cross-application for enforcement.

Petitioner, Performance Coal Company, petitioned the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission ("Commission") for temporary relief from restrictions imposed by the Mine Safety and Health Administration ("MSHA") after a coal mine disaster occurred on April 5, 2010. The Commission denied relief and petitioners appealed. At issue was whether section 105(b)(2) of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977, 20 U.S.C. 815(b)(2), authorized temporary relief from section 103(k) orders. The court held that the plain language of section 105(b)(2) unambiguously provided that petitioner was entitled to seek temporary relief from modification or termination of any order, including a section 103 order. Accordingly, the court granted the petition for review and set aside the Commission's order denying relief.

The United States appealed from the district court's decision granting defendant's petition for writ of habeas corpus. At issue was whether the district court improperly concluded that the government failed to demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence that defendant was "part of" al Qaeda. The court held that the government had demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that defendant could be detained where the district court clearly erred in regarding another detainee's statements as unreliable, improperly excluded it from consideration, and failed to give it sufficient weight to the reliable evidence it did consider. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded with instructions to the district court to deny defendant's petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

This action arose under section 628 of the Communications Act, 47 U.S.C. 151, where the Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") issued an order adopting rules to close the so-called terrestrial loophole. Petitioners contended that the FCC lacked statutory authority to regulate the withholding of terrestrial programing. The court held that given section 628's broad language and purpose, the court saw nothing in the statute that unambiguously precluded the FCC from extending its program access rules to terrestrially delivered programming. Nor could the court see any merit in petitioners' contention that the FCC's rules violated the First Amendment or in their various Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 500 et seq., challenges, with one exception. The court held however, that the FCC did act arbitrarily and capriciously by deciding to treat certain conduct involving terrestrial programing withholding as categorically "unfair" for purposes of section 628. Accordingly, the court vacated only that portion of the FCC's order and remanded for further proceedings.

Defendant was indicted for unlawful possession of a firearm and despite his repeated request for a speedy trial of his one-count single defendant case, 436 days passed before his trial began. In delaying the trial, the district court relied on a government filing, styled as a "motion" to admit evidence of other crimes pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b) as a placeholder that would suspend the 70 day time limit under the Speedy Trial Act, 18 U.S.C. 3161(c)(1). At issue was whether defendant's Sixth Amendment right to the effective assistance of counsel was violated when counsel failed to challenge whether a Rule 404(b) filing tolled the 70 day period under the Act. The court held that counsel's failure to challenge the district court's exclusion of time following the Rule 404(b) filing caused counsel to overlook court precedent holding that a closely analogous evidentiary filing did not toll the Act; the prosecutor's expression of concern during a hearing that the Rule 404(b) filing did not toll the Act's clock; and defendant's own repeated pleas to the district court and his counsel to scrutinize the record for a violation under the Act. Therefore, under the circumstances, the court vacated the judgment of conviction and remanded where the performance of counsel was constitutionally deficient.

Petitioners sought review of a Postal Regulatory Commission ("Commission") order classifying the United States Postal Services's ("Service") licensing of its intellectual property for use on third-party mailing and shipping supplies as "nonpostal" under the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, Pub. L. No. 109-435, 120 Stat. 4, 3198, and requiring the Service to discontinue that activity. Petitioners contended that the Commission improperly departed from a previous order without explanation and failed to support its findings with sufficient evidence. The court held that the Commission's order was rife with anomalies, any of which was sufficient to justify a remand, and all of which, when considered together, demonstrated the Commission was proceeding in a slapdash manner. The court also agreed with petitioner's first argument and therefore, granted petitions for review, vacated the Commission's order, and remanded for further proceedings.

In 2009, defendant pled guilty to a one-count information charging him with possession of child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2252A(a)(5)(B) and, in light of his 1999 Michigan state court proceeding where he pled guilty to distributing child pornography, the district court sentenced him to ten years imprisonment. At issue was whether defendant had such a "prior conviction" under the laws of the State of Michigan. The court concluded that if defendant had been convicted in state court of the conduct for which he was sentenced in federal court, his assignment under the Michigan Holmes Act, Mich. Comp. Laws 762.11, would have been treated as a "conviction" for determining his minimum sentence. It followed that even if Michigan law determined defendant's minimum federal sentence, he had a prior conviction under Michigan law relating to child pornography. Therefore, the court held that the district court properly imposed the ten year mandatory minimum sentence pursuant to section 2252A(b)(2).

In this case, a jury found that the FBI violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 28 U.S.C. 1447, by launching a security investigation of plaintiff, then an agent in its Saudi Arabia office, in retaliation for his filing of a discrimination complaint. On appeal, the government argued that plaintiff's claim was nonjusticiable under Supreme Court and D.C. Circuit case law because adjudicating Title VII liability called for the jury to second-guess security judgments committed by law to FBI discretion. The court vacated the judgment in plaintiff's favor and held that plaintiff's case, as presented to the jury, invited just such second-guessing. The court remanded for further proceedings, however, and held that plaintiff might be able to pursue his retaliation claims without calling into question unreviewable security decisions.