Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

David Buller appealed a district court order granting a petition for commitment of a sexually dangerous individual. On January 23, 2020, the State filed a petition for civil commitment of Buller as a sexually dangerous individual. On January 28, 2020, following a preliminary hearing, the district court entered an order of dismissal of the petition after finding the State failed to establish Buller had a condition that was manifested by a sexual disorder, personality disorder, or other mental disorder or dysfunction. On January 30, 2020, sua sponte and without notice to the parties, the court issued an order vacating the prior order dismissing the petition and finding probable cause was established to commit Buller. On February 19, 2020, Buller filed a petition for writ of mandamus to this Court. This Court exercised supervisory jurisdiction and vacated the district court’s January 30, 2020 order after considering the procedural irregularity of the second order issued sua sponte and without notice to the parties. On March 6, 2020, the State filed a new petition and started a new proceeding seeking commitment of Buller as a sexually dangerous individual. Buller requested dismissal of the new petition asserting res judicata precluded a second petition because the January 28, 2020 order dismissing the petition following the preliminary hearing was not vacated in the first proceeding. After completion of an evaluation in which two doctors reached an opinion Buller met the criteria of a sexually dangerous individual, the district court again issued an order granting the petition seeking commitment. Buller argued the proceedings in this case were bared by res judicata and the order for commitment was not supported by clear and convincing evidence. Finding no reversible error, the North Dakota Supreme Court affirmed. View "Interest of Buller" on Justia Law

The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control reviewed wastewater treatment facility construction permit applications under regulations adopted in 1999. In 2014, DNREC revised its regulations and adopted new requirements. In this appeal, the issue presented for the Delaware Supreme Court was whether Artesian Wastewater Management, Inc.’s 2017 construction permit application, which Artesian characterized as an amendment to its existing 2013 wastewater treatment facility construction permit, had to comply with the new requirements of the 2014 regulations. The Environmental Appeals Board and the Superior Court decided Artesian did not have to comply with the new requirements. The Supreme Court agreed and affirmed. View "Keep Our Wells Clean, et al. v. DNREC" on Justia Law

Mark Caton appealed the grant of summary judgment entered in favor of the City of Pelham ("the City"), in his action alleging retaliatory discharge against the City. In approximately 2001, he was hired as a police officer by the City. In 2004, while he was still a police officer, Caton injured his neck when he was wrestling with a suspect. Caton did not receive treatment for his neck at the time, but the pain from the injury gradually increased. In April 2006, Caton transferred from the Police Department to the Pelham Fire Department. In 2012, Caton had a vertebrae-fusion surgery. In 2015 and 2016, Caton would have periods of excruciating pain leading to unexcused absences from work. He received reprimands and suspensions. Caton would consult with multiple doctors and pain specialists for rehabilitation therapy and pain management each time he was reinjured as a result of his work. In 2016, Caton was referred to Dr. Michelle Turnley, a physiatrist at the Workplace Occupational Health Clinic located on the campus of the University of Alabama at Birmingham ("UAB"). Dr. Turnley and Caton tell differing stories of an encounter at the UAB clinic September 2016. Caton testified that he asked Dr. Turnley for pain medication for the next time his pain became too intense, but Dr. Turnley reminded Caton that on his first visit he had not signed a pain contract and he had refused to provide a urine sample, so she declined to give him pain medication. Caton denied the doctor's account, but Dr. Turnley's clinical notes described her encounter with Caton as him being "fairly aggressive requesting pain medication... he was fairly loud and refused to leave the clinic and UAB police were called. ... He did not appear to have any functional deficits. Additionally, someone in the waiting room saw him sling the door open like he was about to 'pull it off the hinges'; therefore, obviously he has no strength deficits." In October, Dr. Turnley sent Caton a letter dropping him as a patient. By November, the City terminated Caton's employment, citing in part, the visit to Dr. Turnley's office. His unemployment application was denied because of his discharge from the City for misconduct. Caton sued, alleging procedural issues with the unemployment compensation hearing, adding a retaliatory-discharge claim. The trial court entered summary judgment in favor of the City, finding Caton had a full opportunity to litigate his retaliatory-discharge claim at the unemployment hearing, thus he was barred from raising it again by collateral estoppel. The Alabama Supreme Court determined application of collateral estoppel did not violate Caton's right to a trial by jury, and concurred estoppel barred his retaliatory-discharge claim against the City. "Caton does not present any other reason why the trial court's judgment should be reversed. Therefore, we affirm summary judgment in favor of the City." View "Caton v. City of Pelham" on Justia Law

Quality Choice Correctional Healthcare entered a contract with Hinds County, Mississippi to provide comprehensive medical care to inmates. Delorise Rollins was hired by Quality Choice as a nurse at the Hinds County Detention Center in Raymond and was injured in the course of her duties. At that time, Quality Choice did not carry workers’ compensation coverage. As a result, Rollins filed a petition to controvert with the Mississippi Workers’ Compensation Commission. The Commission found that the Hinds County Sheriff’s Department (HCSD) was not Rollins’s statutory employer and denied workers’ compensation benefits. Rollins then appealed, and the Court of Appeals affirmed the Commission’s decision. The Mississippi Supreme Court granted Rollins’s petition for writ of certiorari, and found that because the HCSD was not Rollins' statutory employer, workers’ compensation benefits were not available. The Court therefore affirmed decisions of the Court of Appeals and the Commission. View "Rollins v. Hinds County Sheriff's Department et al." on Justia Law

Brian Carver was employed by the Jackson Police Department as a patrolman for twenty years. In 2004, Carver was involved in an officer-involved shooting in which he shot and killed a suspect. In 2011, Brian Carver applied for non-duty-related and duty-related disability benefits due to his suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder relating ot that 2004 shooting. The Public Employees’ Retirement System of Mississippi “granted [Carver] non-duty related disability benefits but denied his request for duty-related disability benefits.” The denial by PERS was affirmed by the Disability Appeals Committee, the PERS Board of Trustees, the Hinds County Circuit Court, and the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals determined that “[a] plain-language reading of [Mississippi Code S]ection 25-11-114(7)(b) clearly distinguishes mental and physical disabilities.” The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed, finding that the plain language of Section 25-11-114(6) required, at the time Carver applied for benefits, a physical injury arising from an accident or traumatic event occurring in the line of duty. "Post-traumatic stress disorder may cause physiological changes to the brain and manifest in physiological symptoms; however, no physical injury occurred in the line of duty in the case sub judice. The PERS Board’s decision was not arbitrary or capricious, and it was based on substantial evidence." View "Carver v. Public Employees' Retirement System of Mississippi" on Justia Law

In appeals consolidated for the Mississippi Supreme Court's review, the circuit court affirmed the decision of the Mississippi Gaming Commission (MGC) to deny the gaming site application of RW Development, LLC (RW). The MGC and the circuit court found that RW’s proposed gaming site failed to meet the governing statutory and regulatory requirements under Mississippi Code Section 97-33-1 (Rev. 2014) in the first instance, and 13 Mississippi Administrative Code Part 2, Rule 1.4(d) (adopted May 1, 2013), Westlaw, in the second. The Supreme Court concurred with the Commission and circuit court that: (1) in case No. 2019-SA-01813-SCT, RW failed to provide evidence that its proposed gaming site was within eight hundred feet of the MHWL; and (2) in case No. 2019-SA-01815-SCT, RW failed to establish that the mean high water line point of reference was located on RW’s premises, that RW owned or leased the land contiguous to the point of reference and its proposed gaming site, and that the land would play an integral part in RW's project. View "RW Development, LLC v. Mississippi Gaming Commission" on Justia Law

Delaware’s Constitution contains a political balance requirement for appointments to the state’s major courts. No more than a bare majority of judges on any of its five major courts “shall be of the same political party.” Art. IV, section 3. On three of those courts, those members not in the bare majority “shall be of the other major political party.” Adams, a Delaware lawyer and political independent, sued, claiming that those requirements violate his First Amendment right to freedom of association by making him ineligible to become a judge unless he joins a major political party.The Supreme Court held that because Adams has not shown that he was “able and ready” to apply for a judicial vacancy in the imminent future, he failed to show a “personal,” “concrete,” and “imminent” injury necessary for Article III standing. A grievance that amounts to nothing more than abstract and generalized harm to a citizen’s interest in the proper application of the law is not an “injury in fact.” Adams must at least show that he is likely to apply to become a judge in the reasonably foreseeable future if not barred because of political affiliation. Adams’ only supporting evidence is his statements that he wanted to be, and would apply to be, a judge on any of Delaware’s courts. The evidence fails to show that, when he filed suit, Adams was “able and ready” to apply for a judgeship in the reasonably foreseeable future. Adams’ statements lack supporting evidence, like efforts to determine possible judicial openings or other preparations. Adams did not apply for numerous existing judicial vacancies while he was a registered Democrat. He then read a law review article arguing that Delaware’s judicial eligibility requirements unconstitutionally excluded independents, changed his political affiliation, and filed suit. View "Carney v. Adams" on Justia Law

California jurors “shall be selected at random, from a source or sources inclusive of a representative cross-section of the population of the area served by the court,” Code Civil Procedure, 197(a). “The list of registered voters and the Department of Motor Vehicles’ list of licensed drivers and identification cardholders" in the area served by the court are appropriate source lists. Marin County Local Rules state that after those source lists are combined, duplicates eliminated, and disqualified individuals purged ... a master list will be produced by using the complete randomization technique.The defendant in a Marin County capital murder case sought discovery in connection with his claim that Marin County juries were not selected from a fair cross-section of the community. He sought the county’s master list of prospective jurors, citing “Pantos,” which held a court’s “master list of qualified jurors . . . is a judicial record subject to public inspection and copying.” The court denied the request, finding that Pantos was no longer good law in light of subsequent statutory developments.The court of appeal reversed, concluding Pantos is still good law, at least as to the names and zip codes appearing on master jury lists. Section 197(c)’s new prohibition on the disclosure of information furnished by the DMV does not prohibit disclosure of master or qualified jury lists as public records. Privacy rights do not preclude disclosure of the names and zip codes on those lists. View "Alfaro v. Superior Court" on Justia Law

The New Hampshire Division for Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) petitioned the New Hampshire Supreme Court for a writ of prohibition to prevent a circuit court from joining DCYF as a party to an ongoing guardianship case and from ordering the agency to provide services for the benefit of private litigants. This petition arose from a guardianship case involving an ongoing dispute between the father of a three-year-old child and the child’s guardians, who were the child’s maternal grandparents. The father alleged the child’s guardians were willfully interfering with his rights to unsupervised parenting time and notice of his child’s medical appointments as established by previous court orders. The circuit court credited the father’s allegations and expressed concern that the case “has not progressed” since the last hearing in September 2018. The trial court was ordered to provide services on a weekly basis to father, and joined DCYF as a party to the case. DCYF contended the circuit court lacked the authority to join the agency to the private case because no statute authorized the circuit court to do so. The Supreme Court agreed and, accordingly, granted DCYF’s petition for a writ of prohibition. View "Petition of New Hampshire Division for Children, Youth and Families" on Justia Law

The National Organization of Veterans’ Advocates (NOVA), sought review under 38 U.S.C. 502. The Knee Joint Stability Rule, promulgated in 2018 and set forth in the Veterans Affairs Adjudication Procedures Manual, assigns a joint instability rating under Diagnostic Code (DC) 5257, 38 C.F.R. 4.71a, based on the amount of movement that occurs within the joint. The Knee Replacement Rule provides that evaluation under DC 5055, 38 C.F.R. 4.71a, is not available for partial knee replacement claims. The Replacement Rule was published in the Federal Register in 2015, stating that section 4.71a was amended to explain that “‘prosthetic replacement’ means a total, not a partial, joint replacement.” It was published in a 2016 Manual provision, which informs regional office staff that evaluation under DC 5055 is not available for partial knee replacement claims filed on or after July 16, 2015.The Federal Circuit referred the case for adjudication on the merits. NOVA has standing because it has veteran members who are adversely affected by the Rules. The Manual provision is an interpretive rule reviewable under 38 U.S.C. 502 and constitutes final agency action. The Knee Replacement Rule is a final agency action. The merits panel will determine whether the Manual provision or the Federal Register publication constitutes the reviewable agency action. The challenge is timely under the six-year statute of limitations, 28 U.S.C. 2401(a); Federal Circuit Rule 15(f), establishing a 60-day time limit for bringing section 502 petitions, is invalid. View "National Organization of Veterans’ Advocates, Inc. v. Secretary of Veterans' Affairs" on Justia Law