Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

In this 42 U.S.C. 1983 action, Plaintiffs, three individuals who protested against abortion, challenged Norman, Oklahoma’s disturbing-the-peace ordinance, on its face and as the City has applied it to them. The specific issue presented in this interlocutory appeal was whether the district court abused its discretion in refusing to enjoin the City from enforcing the ordinance against Plaintiffs during this litigation. The Tenth Circuit concluded the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction because they failed to show that they were substantially likely to succeed on the merits of their claims. View "Harmon v. City of Norman, Oklahoma" on Justia Law

El Paso County and BNHR, a community organization headquartered in El Paso, filed suit challenging the government's use of funds allocated for 10 U.S.C. 284 and 2808 purposes to construct a wall on the southern border. The district court enjoined defendants from using section 2808 funds to build the border wall but declined to enjoin defendants from using section 284 funds.The Fifth Circuit held that El Paso County and BNHR do not have standing to challenge either the section 2808 or section 284 expenditures. The court concluded that a county's loss of general tax revenues as an indirect result of federal policy is not a cognizable injury in fact. In this case, El Paso County only alleges a loss of general tax revenue, and thus has not established a cognizable injury in fact sufficient to establish standing to challenge the government's section 2808 expenditures. Even if El Paso County's alleged economic injury were cognizable, the county fails to demonstrate that the injury is redressable by a favorable decision in this case. The court explained that an order granting relief against the section 2808 expenditures would not rescind the proclamation and accordingly would not redress any harm caused by the proclamation. Therefore, the alleged reputational injuries do not provide El Paso County standing to challenge the section 2808 expenditures. Furthermore, BNHR failed to establish standing to challenge the government's section 2808 expenditures by establishing an injury in fact. In this case, BNHR's single vague, conclusory assertion that the organization had to divert resources is insufficient to establish that the section 2808 construction has "perceptibly impaired" the organization's ability to carry out its mission. Likewise, the court concluded that El Paso County and BNHR do not have standing to challenge the government's section 284 expenditures. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment for plaintiffs; vacated the district court's injunction enjoining the section 2808 expenditures; and remanded for dismissal of all claims for lack of jurisdiction. View "El Paso County v. Trump" on Justia Law

Esparraguera was removed for performance reasons from her position as the Army’s top labor lawyer and placed into another high-level position at the same agency but outside the Senior Executive Service (SES). Federal civil service is divided into the competitive service, the excepted service, and the SES, 5 U.S.C. 2101a, 2102, 2103. . Esparraguera’s request for reconsideration was denied by the Under Secretary. She requested an informal hearing under 5 U.S.C. 3592(a)(2), which entitled her to “appear and present arguments” before an official designated by the Merit Systems Protection Board. By statute, she could not avail herself of the ordinary appellate provisions of the Board. Esparraguera submitted exhibits designated A through UU into evidence and read a prepared statement into the record. The Army neither presented evidence nor objected to the entry of these exhibits. Esparraguera did not expressly ask the Board to review her removal—and it did not. The Board official issued the Order Referring Record, which summarized the proceedings. The Army did not change its decision.Esparraguera argued that she was deprived of constitutionally protected property and liberty interests without due process. The Federal Circuit dismissed her appeal. An “Order Referring Record” is not a “final order or decision” of the Board, as required for appellate jurisdiction. View "Esparraguera v. Department of the Army" on Justia Law

Dr. Korban and his medical practice Delta, practice diagnostic and interventional cardiology. In 2007, Dr. Deming filed a qui tam action under the False Claims Act (FCA), 31 U.S.C. 3729(a)(1)(A)–(C), (G) against Korban, Jackson Regional Hospital, and other Tennessee hospitals, alleging “blatant overutilization of cardiac medical services.” The United States intervened and settled the case for cardiac procedures performed in 2004-2012. Korban entered into an Integrity Agreement with the Office of Inspector General, effective 2013-2016 that was publicly available and required an Independent Review Organization. The U.S. Department of Justice issued a press release that detailed the exposed fraudulent scheme and outlined the terms of Korban’s settlement. In 2015, Jackson Regional agreed to a $510,000 settlement. The Justice Department and Jackson both issued press releases.In 2017, Dr. Maur, a cardiologist who began working for Delta in 2016, alleged that Korban was again performing “unnecessary angioplasty and stenting” and “unnecessary cardiology testing,” paid for in part by Medicare. In addition to Korban and Jackson, Maur sued Jackson’s corporate parent, Tennova, Dyersburg Medical Center, and Tennova’s corporate parent, Community Health Systems. The United States declined to intervene. The district court dismissed, citing the FCA’s public-disclosure bar, 31 U.S.C. 3730(e)(4). The Sixth Circuit affirmed. Maur’s allegations are “substantially the same” as those exposed in a prior qui tam action and Maur is not an “original source” as defined in the FCA. View "Maur v. Hage-Korban" on Justia Law

In case 1190468, Lewis and Ellen Richardson, and in case 1190469, Sherry Phelps (collectively, "the landowners") appealed the grant of summary judgment in favor of Mobile County, Alabama in their respective actions against the County. The landowners asserted the County was responsible for flooding that damaged the landowners' personal property, allegedly decreased the value of their residential property, and made travel over the roads in their neighborhood unsafe and inconvenient. The trial court concluded the County owed no duty to remediate the flooding. To this, the Alabama Supreme Court agreed: the landowners did not demonstrate the County owed them a duty to prevent the flooding of their property. However, the Court concluded the County did owe a duty to keep its roads safe and convenient for travel, and the landowners could seek to enforce that duty. The Supreme Court therefore affirmed the trial court in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Richardson et al. v. County of Mobile" on Justia Law

Defendants, who at the time of trial were current or former California Coastal Commissioners (Commissioners), appealed a nearly $1 million judgment after the court found they violated statutes requiring disclosure of certain ex parte communications. The Court of Appeal surmised the case turned on whether: (1) plaintiff Spotlight on Coastal Corruption (Spotlight) had standing to pursue these claims under Public Resources Code sections 30324 and 30327; and (2) the up to $30,000 penalty for “any” violation of the Coastal Act in section 30820(a)(2) applied to such ex parte disclosure violations. Concluding that Spotlight lacked standing and that section 30820(a)(2) was inapplicable, the Court reversed with directions to enter judgment for Defendants. View "Spotlight on Coastal Corruption v. Kinsey" on Justia Law

The issue this case presented for the Tenth Circuit's review centered on whether a father's adopted child could qualify as his "legitimate" child for the purposes of section 1010(b)(1)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act when the child was not his biological child. Mr. Schreiber and his wife were U.S. citizens living in Kansas. In 2012, Mrs. Schreiber's niece moved from her native South Korea to Kansas to live with the Schriebers and attend high school. In 2014, the Schreibers adopted the niece under Kansas law with the consent of the child's parents. Kansas issued the child a new birth certificate listing the Schreibers as her parents. In 2015, Mr. Schreiber filed a petition to have his adopted child classified as his "child" for the purposes of the Act. The Board of Immigration Appeals determined legitimization only applied to a parent's biological children. The Tenth Circuit concluded the BIA correctly interpreted the Act's plain meaning, and thus, did not err in ruling that a parent's non-biological child could not be his "legitimized" child within the meaning of the Act. Furthermore, the Court concluded the district court properly declined to review Mr. Schreiber's "late-blooming" gender-discrimination challenge to the BIA's final agency action. View "Schreiber v. Cuccinelli" on Justia Law

While plaintiffs sought judicial review in federal district court of their denial of Social Security disability benefits, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Lucia v. Securities and Exchange Commission, 138 S. Ct. 2044 (2018), which elucidated a possible constitutional objection to administrative proceedings pursuant to the Appointments Clause. At issue in this appeal is whether plaintiffs may raise an Appointments Clause challenge in federal court that they did not preserve before the agency.The Fourth Circuit held that claimants for Social Security disability benefits do not forfeit Appointments Clause challenges by failing to raise them during their administrative proceedings. Balancing the individual and institutional interests at play, including considering the nature of the claim presented and the characteristics of the ALJ proceedings, the court declined to impose an exhaustion requirement. Therefore, the court affirmed the judgments of the district courts remanding these cases for new administrative hearings before different, constitutionally appointed ALJs. View "Probst v. Saul" on Justia Law

Proposition 218, the Right to Vote on Taxes Act, generally required local governments obtain voter approval prior to imposing taxes. Plaintiffs Jess Willard Mahon, Jr. and Allan Randall brought this certified class action against the City of San Diego (City) claiming that the City violated Proposition 218 by imposing an illegal tax to fund the City’s undergrounding program. Specifically, plaintiffs contended the City violated Proposition 218 through the adoption of an ordinance that amended a franchise agreement between the City and the San Diego Gas & Electric Company (SDG&E). The ordinance, together with a related memorandum of understanding, further specifies that part of the money to fund the undergrounding budget will be collected by SDG&E through a 3.53 percent surcharge on ratepayers in the City that will be remitted to the City for use on undergrounding (Undergrounding Surcharge). Plaintiffs claim that the surcharge is a tax. Plaintiffs further claim that the surcharge violates Proposition 218 because it was never approved by the electorate. Plaintiffs note that the City has imposed more than 200 million dollars in charges pursuant to the Undergrounding Surcharge during the class period. Through this action, plaintiffs seek a refund of those amounts, among other forms of relief. The City moved for summary judgment, which the trial court granted on two grounds: (1) the Undergrounding Surcharge constituted compensation for franchise rights and thus was not a tax; alternatively, (2) the Undergrounding Surcharge was a valid regulatory fee and not a tax. After review, the Court of Appeal concluded the trial court properly granted the City’s motion for summary on the ground that the Undergrounding Surcharge was compensation validly given in exchange for franchise rights and thus, was not a tax subject to voter approval. View "Mahon v. City of San Diego" on Justia Law

A regulation promulgated under the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, 49 U.S.C. 30101, requires a tire dealer to help customers register their new tires with the manufacturer. The regulation prescribes three methods for tire dealers to help register a buyer’s tires. According to Thorne, Pep Boys failed to pursue any of the three when, or after, it sold her the tires. She sued on behalf of a class of Pep Boys customers who similarly received no tire registration assistance.The district court dismissed her complaint without leave to amend, holding that a dealer’s failure to help register a buyer’s tires in one of the three prescribed ways does not, by itself, create an injury-in-fact for purposes of Article III standing. The Third Circuit vacated and remanded for dismissal without prejudice. A district court has no jurisdiction to rule on the merits when a plaintiff lacks standing. Thorne’s benefit-of-the-bargain allegations do not support a viable theory of economic injury, and her product-defect argument ignores the statute’s defined terms. Unregistered tires are not worth less than Thorne paid and are not defective. Congress did not intend to give private attorneys general standing to redress the “injury” of unregistered tires. View "Thorne v. Pep Boys Manny Moe & Jack" on Justia Law