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

Plaintiff filed suit contending that USPS's custom postage program violated the prohibition against viewpoint discrimination under the First Amendment. While the parties were completing discovery and nearing summary judgment, the Postal Service adopted the 2018 Rule, which deems custom postage designs acceptable only if they are commercial or social and exclude any content that is political. After plaintiff filed a Supplemental Complaint, the district court granted the Government's motion to dismiss the viewpoint discrimination claim as moot and plaintiff's challenge to the 2018 Rule for failure to state a claim.The DC Circuit held that it had jurisdiction on appeal, because plaintiff's Supplemental Complaint raises two challenges to the Postal Service's current policies covering custom postage and neither claim is moot. First, the Supplemental Complaint incorporates the allegation that plaintiff suffers ongoing viewpoint discrimination. Second, the Postal Service has not met its heavy burden of making it absolutely clear that the allegedly wrongful behavior could not reasonably be expected to recur. Accordingly, the court reversed the viewpoint discrimination claim and remanded for further proceedings on the merits.The court reversed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's facial challenge to the 2018 Rule, because the rule's blanket ban on political content fails the objective, workable standards test articulated by the Supreme Court in Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky, 138 S. Ct. 1876, 1891 (2018). Therefore, the contested rule is unconstitutional. View "Zukerman v. United States Postal Service" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a putative class action against Autovest and its debt-collection agency under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), alleging claims related to a prior collection action.The DC Circuit vacated the district court's order granting summary judgment to defendants, holding that plaintiff lacked Article III standing because she did not suffer a concrete injury-in-fact traceable to the alleged false representations or alleged statements for requested contingency fees. Rather, plaintiff testified unequivocally that she neither took nor failed to take any action because of these statements. Nor did plaintiff testify that she was otherwise confused, misled, or harmed in any relevant way during the collection action by the contested affidavits. In this case, although plaintiff stated that Autovest's collection action caused her stress and inconvenience, she never connected those general harms to the affidavits. Therefore, the court remanded with instructions to dismiss the complaint. View "Frank v. Autovest, LLC" on Justia Law

Following an incident at President Trump's 2019 Social Media Summit involving Appellee Brian Karem, a journalist with a hard pass, and Sebastian Gorka, a Summit attendee, the Press Secretary suspended Karem's pass for thirty days on the ground that his conduct violated "professional journalistic norms."The DC Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of a preliminary injunction enjoining the enforcement of the suspension of Karem's hard pass credentials based on Fifth Amendment due process grounds. The court held that Karem is likely to succeed on his due process claim because, on this record, he lacked fair notice that the White House might punish his purportedly unprofessional conduct by suspending his hard pass for a month. The court also held that the remaining preliminary injunction factors counsel in favor of affirmance where Karem stands to suffer immediate irreparable harm absent an injunction, and the balance of the equities and the public interest factors also favor an injunction. The court limited the scope of the injunction to run only to the Press Secretary, rather than the Press Secretary and the President. View "Karem v. Trump" on Justia Law

Section 19(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 is not available as a means to challenge the reasonableness of generally-applicable fee rules. At issue in this appeal is whether fees that national securities exchanges charge for access to their "depth-of-book" data violate the Exchange Act.The DC Circuit held that section 19(d)'s text does not contemplate challenges to generally-applicable fee rules, and the remedy and notice provisions are incompatible with a challenge to fee rules that do not target specific individuals or entities. The court exercised its jurisdiction under 15 U.S.C. 78y(a) and granted the petitions for review of the Commission's decision, vacated, and remanded for further proceedings. View "The NASDAQ Stock Market, LLC v. SEC" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against the Attorney General of the United States in his official capacity as head of the Department of Justice (DOJ), alleging that the DOJ had denied her a promotion to a Division Director position because of her gender, in violation of 42 U.S.C. 2000e-16, and her age, in violation of 29 U.S.C. 633a. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the DOJ.The DC Circuit held that a reasonable jury could find that the DOJ's proffered nondiscriminatory reason for denying plaintiff the promotion that she sought was pretextual and that discrimination was the real reason. In this case, a reasonable jury could find in plaintiff's favor based on her superior qualifications, the accumulated evidence of gender discrimination, and pretext. Therefore, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Stoe v. Barr" on Justia Law

Appellant contends that he received ineffective assistance of counsel during the direct appeal of his murder conviction in D.C. Superior Court. Appellant alleged that his appellate counsel labored under two conflicts of interest and failed to argue that the government withheld exculpatory evidence. The court rejected appellant's claims that a conflict arose from counsel's prior representation of another individual present at the time of the murder where counsel had forgotten his prior representation of the individual and thus lacked an actual conflict. Consequently, appellant's second claim of conflict also failed.The court further held that counsel was not ineffective by declining to pursue a losing Brady claim. Moreover, appellant's final argument that counsel was ineffective on appeal in failing to argue that he had been ineffective at trial simply repackaged the losing Brady argument. Therefore, appellant was not denied effective assistance of appellate counsel. View "Johnson v. Wilson" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit challenging the validity of District of Columbia regulations that impose minimum education requirements for certain childcare providers. The district court held that the case was non-justiciable on grounds of standing, ripeness, and mootness.The DC Circuit held that the case is justiciable and remanded for the district court to consider the merits of the complaint. The court held that Plaintiff Sorcher's due process and equal protection claims are ripe for review, because she has demonstrated cognizable hardship where, in the absence of a decision in her favor, she will have to begin expending time and money in order to obtain the necessary credentials. The court also held that Plaintiff Sanchez's claims are not moot where there is no dispute that the regulations' education requirements continue to apply to her and her experience waiver is not permanent. Therefore, Sanchez retains a concrete interest in the outcome of the litigation and her case is also ripe. Likewise, Plaintiff Homan's claims are similar to Sorcher and Sanchez. View "Sanchez v. Office of the State Superintendent of Education" on Justia Law

The district court remanded the Fiscal Year 2014 Rule to the Secretary of Health and Human Services without vacating the Rule. The district court's decision was made in response to the challenge by a group of hospitals to a 0.2% reduction in Medicare reimbursement rates for inpatient hospital services. The Secretary subsequently increased the Medicare inpatient rates by 0.6% for Fiscal Year 2017 to offset the past effects of the abandoned rate reduction.The DC Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for the Secretary. The court held that the district court was not required to vacate the Rule or order make whole relief as the hospitals sought, and the remedy on remand reasonably addressed the problem. The court also held that the district court did not err in partially granting and denying statutory interest to certain hospitals in accord with this court's precedent. Finally, the court affirmed the partial award and denial of statutory interest. View "Shands Jacksonville Medical Center, Inc. v. Azar" on Justia Law

After appellant asked the Board to expunge or amend Army investigators' determinations recorded in his military files, the Board denied his application and the district court sustained its decision.The DC Circuit reversed, holding that a basic mistake of fact rendered the Board's decision arbitrary and capricious. In this case, the allegedly false statement was the expiration date of appellant's current military orders, which he wrote in a blank on the 2007-2008 school year registration form to re-enroll his three children at the Fort Buchanan base school. Army investigators opened a fraud investigation on the premise that appellant's assignment was for two years, rather than three. However, it is undisputed that the assignment was for three years and the investigation did not lead to any criminal prosecution or military discipline. View "Code v. McCarthy" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit granted Maryland's petition for review of the EPA's denial of its Clean Air Act section 126(b) petition requesting that the EPA impose additional limitations on certain upwind sources that were purportedly contributing to the state's nonattainment of the national ozone standards. The EPA applied the same four-step framework it developed in the implementation of section 110 and denied the section 126(b) petition at Step Three. The EPA concluded that Maryland failed to identify further cost-effective emission reductions at sources operating with catalytic controls. For the remaining sources named in Maryland's petition, the EPA explained that non-catalytic controls were not cost-effective in this context.The court held that the EPA's determination was inadequate with respect to non-catalytic controls and therefore granted Maryland's petition for review in part, remanding the issue to the EPA. The court denied all other petitions for review from Delaware and a coalition of environmental groups. The court rejected some of the EPA's Step One determinations, but found, with one exception, that it reasonably denied the petitions at Step Three. View "Maryland v. Environmental Protection Agency" on Justia Law