Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

In the context of a demurrer by defendant Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s, London Subscribing To Policy Number 11EPL-20208, the trial court interpreted the term “wage and hour or overtime law(s)” to encompass all provisions of the Labor Code. Plaintiff owned and operated over 250 Pizza Hut and Wing Street restaurants. Defendant provided to plaintiff Southern California Pizza Company, LLC, an employment practices liability insurance policy, which covered certain losses arising from specified employment-related claims brought against plaintiff. The trial court sustained defendant’s demurrer, concluding all causes of action in the underlying employment lawsuit against plaintiff fell within the scope of the Policy exclusion. Using well-established insurance policy interpretation principles, the Court of Appeal found the wage and hour law language of the exclusion was more narrow in scope than stated by the trial court: it concerned laws regarding duration worked and/or remuneration received in exchange for work. Applying that interpretation, and taking into account the Policy’s general coverage, the Court concluded many of the disputed underlying lawsuit claims were potentially subject to coverage. Thus, the trial court erred in sustaining defendant’s demurrer. View "Southern Cal. Pizza Co., LLC v. Certain Underwriters, etc." on Justia Law

The City of Evergreen, Alabama ("the City") terminated the employment of Helen Wiggins, a warrant clerk and magistrate, after the Evergreen City Council ("the Council") accepted the recommendation of the City's mayor that she be dismissed for dereliction of duty. Specifically, the City alleged she failed to perform the duties of her job as a warrant clerk and magistrate on February 16, 2017, when she declined to consider a citizen's application for arrest warrants, instead telling that citizen to return in several hours when another warrant clerk and magistrate would be there. Wiggins thereafter filed a wrongful-termination action against the City. The trial court ultimately entered a judgment in favor of the City and against Wiggins. She appealed that judgment. Because there was evidence in the record that supported the City's decision, the Alabama Supreme Court held the trial court properly entered a judgment in favor of the City. View "Wiggins v. City of Evergreen" on Justia Law

After the University terminated plaintiff, she filed suit under the False Claims Act's (FCA) anti-retaliation provision. The DC Circuit reversed the district court's dismissal of the action and held that the district court's decision reflected too narrow a view of the Act's protection for whistleblowers. The court held that the complaint sufficiently alleged that plaintiff's actions were undertaken to try to prevent what she reasonably believed would be the presentation of false claims by the University regarding the conditions of laboratory animals. The court held that the district court erred by defining protected activity as requiring plaintiff to have investigated matters that reasonably could lead to a viable FCA case, which only applied to the first prong of Section 3730(h)(1), but not the second prong. Furthermore, the district court wrongly required plaintiff to allege that her efforts were outside the scope of her responsibilities as Attending Veterinarian. The court also held that plaintiff adequately alleged termination of her position, the University's awareness of her protected activity, and facts connecting her termination to that protected activity. View "Singletary v. Howard University" on Justia Law

At issue in this appeal and cross appeal of a the trial court's ruling on a petition for writ of administrative mandate James and Karla Lindstrom (the Lindstroms) filed against the California Coastal Commission (the Commission) was a challenge to certain special conditions the Commission placed on its approval of the Lindstroms' plan to build a house on a vacant oceanfront lot on a bluff in Encinitas. The Commission appealed the trial court's disapproval of the special conditions requiring: (1) the home to be set back 60 to 62 feet from the edge of the bluff, instead of the 40-foot setback approved by the City of Encinitas (the City); and (2) a waiver by the Lindstroms of any right to construct a shoreline protective device, such as a seawall, to protect the home from damage or destruction from natural hazards at any time in the future. The Lindstroms cross-appealed the trial court's approval of the special conditions requiring: (1) removal of the home from the parcel if any government agency ordered it not be occupied due to a natural hazard; and (2) performance of remediation or removal of any threatened portion of the home if a geotechnical report prepared in the event the edge of the bluff recedes to within 10 feet of the home concludes that the home is unsafe for occupancy. The Court of Appeal concluded that with one exception, the Commission's imposition of the special conditions identified by the parties was within its discretion. Specifically, the condition requiring removal of the home from the parcel if any government agency orders that it not be occupied due to a natural hazard, including erosion or a landslide, as currently drafted, was overbroad, unreasonable and did not achieve the Commission's stated purpose in drafting it. Therefore, the Court reversed the judgment and directed the trial court to enter a new judgment ordering the Commission to either delete the special condition or to revise it to more narrowly focus on its intended purpose. View "Lindstrom v. Cal. Coastal Commission" on Justia Law

This case concerned whether the city of Tacoma (City) could be held liable for damages for imposing an unlawful condition on a building permit. The Church of the Divine submitted an application to the City to build a parsonage on property it owned. A single-family residence had previously been located on the property, but it had been demolished in 2012. City staff reviewed the permit application and placed a number of conditions on it, including, at issue here, a requirement that the Church dedicate a 30-foot-wide strip of land for right-of-way improvements to a street abutting the property. While the existing street was generally 60 feet wide in other areas, it was 30 feet wide next to the Church's property. This lack of uniformity had existed for around 100 years. The Church challenged the permit conditions, and the City eventually removed most of them but kept the requirement for a dedication. The Church appealed the decision to the City's hearing examiner, and the hearing examiner granted summary judgment in favor of the City. The Church appealed under the Land Use Petition Act (LUPA), in which it challenged the hearing examiner's decision and also sought damages under RCW 64.40.020. In addressing the propriety of the dedication, the court confined its review to the administrative record that had been before the hearing examiner and acknowledged that, in that record, the stated purpose by the City for imposing the dedication requirement was to create a uniform street. The court held that this reason was insufficient to justify the requirement and reversed the hearing examiner, invalidating the condition. A trial court denied the Church’s request for damages and the Church appealed. The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court. The Washington Supreme Court revered however, finding that the City's subjective belief that the dedication was lawful did not determine what it objectively should reasonably have known. The Court of Appeals erred in reasoning otherwise. The matter was remanded for a new trial. View "Church of the Divine Earth v. City of Tacoma" on Justia Law

The First Circuit denied Petitioner's petition for judicial review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) dismissing Petitioner's appeal of the immigration court's order of removal and its denial of his application for cancellation of removal, holding that there was no merit to Petitioner's arguments. On appeal, Petitioner argued, among other things, that the notice to appear (NTA) that initiated his removal proceedings was defective because it omitted the date and time of his initial removal hearing, and thus, the immigration court lacked jurisdiction over the proceedings and the removal order was without effect. The First Circuit affirmed, holding (1) for the same reasons as were explicated in Goncalves Pontes v. Barr, __ F.3d __ (1st Cir. 2019), Petitioner's NTA was effective to commence removal proceedings in the immigration court; and (2) the BIA did not err in rejecting Petitioner's claim for relief from removal premised upon the allegedly ineffective assistance of Petitioner's counsel. View "Ferreira v. Barr" on Justia Law

B.A. (Mother) and D.V. (Father) were the parents of six-year-old I.A.-V. (I.) and eight-year-old Is.A.-V. (Is.). Mother and Father had a history with child protective services due to ongoing domestic violence and neglect issues, resulting in the removal of their children from their care. I. and Is. were first removed from Mother in 2015. At the close of the first dependency, Mother’s reunification services were terminated, and Father received legal and physical custody. In 2017, I. and Is. were removed from Father’s custody and placed with Mother as a previously noncustodial parent. The second dependency resulted in Mother receiving legal and physical custody of the children and termination of Father’s reunification services. The third and current dependency commenced in 2018 after I., Is., and A.A. were removed from Mother’s care for the same reasons as previously. At the dispositional hearing, the San Bernardino County Children and Family Services (CFS) recommended to bypass reunification services pursuant to Welfare and Institutions Code section 361.5 (b)(10) as to all three children. The juvenile court agreed to bypass Mother’s services as to A.A. However, the court interpreted I. and Is. to be “the same child” under the statute and granted Mother reunification services as to I. and Is. Counsel for I. and Is. subsequently appealed, arguing the juvenile court erred in ordering reunification services for the parents in I. and Is.’s case after it found the bypass provision under section 361.5(b)(10) did not apply. The Court of Appeal agreed: the juvenile court’s finding that section 361.5(b)(10) did not apply to this case was reversed and the matter remanded to the juvenile court to enter an order denying reunification services to the parents in I. and Is.’s case, and to set a permanency planning hearing pursuant to section 366.26. View "In re I.A." on Justia Law

Petitioner and his attorney filed an ex parte application for discovery pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1782, which permits certain domestic discovery for use in foreign proceedings. The district court quashed the subpoenas after concluding that not all the discovery sought was subject to the state secrets privilege. Although the Ninth Circuit agreed with the district court that certain information requested was not privileged because it was not a state secret that would pose an exceptionally grave risk to national security and that the government's assertion of the state secrets privilege was valid over much of the information requested, the panel held that the district court erred in quashing the subpoenas in toto rather than attempting to disentangle nonprivileged from privileged information. In this case, the underlying proceeding was a limited discovery request that could be managed by the district court. Accordingly, the panel remanded for further proceedings. View "Husayn v. United States" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals' decision reversing the order of the Commissioner of the Department of Labor and Industry for Baywood Home Care to pay unpaid overtime wages and liquidated damages, holding that the court erred in determining that the Commissioner's conclusion that split-day plans are not permitted under the Minnesota Fair Labor Standards Act, Minn. Stat. 177.21-.35, was based on an unpromulgated rule. Baywood paid its employees using a split-day plan even after an employee had worked forty-eight hours in a workweek. The Commissioner issued compliance order ordering Baywood to cease and desist from failing to pay overtime. The court of appeals reversed. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) the Act requires employers to pay employees at least time-and-a-half wages for all hours worked in the first forty-eight hours of a given workweek, regardless of whether the employee received time-and-a-half compensation during the first forty-eight hours of employment in that workweek; (2) time-and-a-half payments for regularly scheduled work occurring before an employee has worked forty-eight hours in a workweek may not be excluded from an employee's remuneration to calculate the employee's regular rate; and (3) the Commissioner's failure to promulgate interpretive rules meant that the Department's interpretation did not receive deference, but the Court nevertheless adopted that interpretation. View "In re Minnesota Living Assistance, Inc." on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the court of appeals affirming the decision of the Commissioner of the Department of Human Services (DHS) determining that Appellant was permanently disqualified from working in a capacity where he may have contact with people who access services from a DHS-licensed program, holding that Appellant's claims on appeal failed. After DHS discovered a 2002 child-protection report that Appellant had sexually abused his son sometime around 1998, Appellant was disqualified from employment as a residence manager at a DHS-licensed substance abuse treatment program. The court of appeals affirmed DHS's decision. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) Defendant's right to due process was not violated; (2) the Department of Human Services Background Studies Act, Minn. Stat. ch. 245C, does not create a permanent, irrebuttable presumption that DHS's decision was correct; and (3) Appellant was provided constitutionally sufficient notice of his rights under the Act. View "Jackson v. Commissioner of Human Services" on Justia Law