Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

The issue this case presented for appellate review centered on the air pollution controls on certain coal-fired power plants in Utah that contributed to regional haze. This haze impaired visibility in national parks and wilderness areas across the United States (known as Class I areas). Following Congress’s direction in the Clean Air Act (the CAA or Act) to regulate regional haze, EPA promulgated the Regional Haze Rule to restore natural background visibility conditions in Class I areas by the year 2064. To comply with the CAA’s regional haze requirements, states with Class I areas, or states releasing emissions that may affect visibility in those areas, had to implement the best available retrofit technology (BART) on certain existing sources of air pollution or, alternatively, adopt measures that achieved greater reasonable progress towards improving visibility than BART. The Act required each state to develop a state implementation plan (SIP) for mitigating emissions that contribute to regional haze. The EPA then reviewed the SIP to determine if it satisfied the Act. EPA twice disapproved Utah’s SIPs addressing visibility-impairing emissions at power plants operated by Respondent-Intervenor PacifiCorp. Eventually, EPA approved Utah’s July 2019 revised SIP. In the Final Rule, EPA endorsed Utah’s decision to adopt an alternative measure instead of BART to control for visibility-impairing emissions at the power plants. Petitioners Heal Utah, National Parks Conservation Association, Sierra Club, and Utah Physicians sought review of the Final Rule. According to Petitioners, EPA abused its discretion by approving Utah’s revised SIP because Utah’s alternative measure did not satisfy the CAA’s national visibility goals. They also argued EPA failed to respond to certain comments Petitioners submitted during the rulemaking process. Finding no abuse of discretion, the Tenth Circuit denied the petition for review. View "Heal Utah, et al. v. EPA, et al." on Justia Law

The Environmental Protection Agency extended the deadline for compliance with a revised national drinking water regulation, which in turn extended the deadline for states to enforce conforming revisions to their own regulations. Five states seek to challenge the federal extension, which they say will cause them various harms.   The DC Circuit dismissed the petition for review for lack of Article III standing. The court explained that the states’ uncertainty also is not redressable in this litigation. Their harm is not knowing what future obligations they will face, making it difficult to plan. But the Delay Rule gives the states more time to hedge their bets. Setting it aside would worsen any problem of regulatory uncertainty, taking as a given EPA’s unreviewable decision to consider changes to the Revision Rule. View "State of Arizona v. EPA" on Justia Law

Petitioners Idahoans for Open Primaries and Reclaim Idaho filed an original action to the Idaho Supreme Court, claiming that the Idaho Attorney General’s short and general ballot titles for “The Idaho Open Primaries Act” failed to comply with Idaho Code section 34-1809(2)(d) and (e). Petitioners asked the Supreme Court to declare the ballot titles deficient, certify Petitioners’ proposed short and general ballot titles to the Idaho Secretary of State, or in the alternative, retain jurisdiction of this matter and order the Attorney General to immediately prepare ballot titles consistent with Petitioners’ proposed titles and submit them to this Court for review. Petitioners also requested a writ of mandamus compelling the Secretary of State to extend the deadline for Petitioners to obtain signatures to qualify the initiative for placement on the 2024 general election ballot. After review, the Supreme Court granted certiorari review, holding that the short and general titles failed to substantially comply with Idaho Code section 34-1809. The Attorney General was ordered to provide revised, substantially compliant short and general ballot titles. The request for mandamus relief was denied. View "Idahoans for Open Primaries v. Labrador" on Justia Law

Relator John Hendrix and five public-agency exemplar plaintiffs claim that J-M Manufacturing Co. (“J-M”) violated the federal and various state False Claims Acts (“FCAs”) by representing that its polyvinyl chloride (“PVC”) pipes were compliant with industry standards. In Phase One of a bifurcated trial, a jury found that J-M knowingly made false claims that were material to the public agencies’ decisions to purchase J-M pipe. After the jury was unable to reach a verdict in Phase Two, the district court granted J-M judgment as a matter of law (“JMOL”) on actual damages and awarded one statutory penalty for each project involved in plaintiffs’ claims.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed. The panel held that sufficient evidence of falsity, materiality, and scienter supported the Phase One verdict. A reasonable jury could conclude that plaintiffs received some pipe not meeting industry standards. Further, the jury reasonably found that plaintiffs would not have purchased or installed J-M pipe had they been told the truth that J-M knew it had stopped producing pipes through processes materially similar to those used at the time of compliance testing and also knew that a significant amount of the pipe later produced did not meet industry standards. Plaintiffs’ failure to prove that any individual stick of pipe that they received was non-compliant did not mean that they failed to establish scienter. The panel held that the district court properly awarded JM judgment as a matter of law on actual damages under the federal False Claims Act. Plaintiffs did not establish actual damages by showing that they would not have bought the pipe had they known the truth. View "JOHN HENDRIX, ET AL V. J-M MANUFACTURING CO., INC., ET AL" on Justia Law

Two consolidated cases arise out of the Hungarian government’s confiscation of property owned by Jews during the Holocaust. The questions raised by these appeals bear on whether survivors of the Hungarian Holocaust may hale the Hungarian government and its instrumentalities into United States courts to answer for a subset of the wrongs they committed. The plaintiffs invoked the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act’s expropriation exception as a means to pierce the Hungarian state’s sovereign immunity and assert jurisdiction in federal district court. Defendants object that the exception is inapplicable. The district court dismissed the claims of the plaintiffs asserting statelessness but concluded that most of the plaintiffs asserting Czechoslovakian nationality could proceed.   The DC Circuit largely affirmed. The court concluded that the plaintiffs claiming statelessness—have not made out a recognized claim within a Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act exception. Assuming without deciding that those plaintiffs were de facto stateless at the time of the alleged takings, as they claim, the plaintiffs have nevertheless failed to identify adequate affirmative support in sources of international law for their contention that a state’s taking of a stateless person’s property amounts to a taking “in violation of international law” within the meaning of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.   The court affirmed the district court’s denial of Defendants’ motions to dismiss the claims of some of the plaintiffs asserting Czechoslovakian nationality, with a few exceptions. The district court correctly determined that four of those plaintiffs had plausibly alleged they were Czechoslovakian nationals at the time of the takings. The court concluded that as for the five Lebovics sisters, the district court should have dismissed their claims. View "Rosalie Simon v. Republic of Hungary" on Justia Law

Fisheries Reform Group alleges that shrimp trawlers operating in North Carolina’s Pamlico Sound are violating the Clean Water Act by engaging in two types of unpermitted activity: throwing bycatch overboard and disturbing sediment with their trawl nets.   The Fourth circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Fisheries’ complaint. The court explained that though the Clean Water Act’s includes the term “biological materials” in its definition of “pollutant,” that is not clear authorization for the EPA to regulate bycatch under the Act. So Fisheries Reform Group’s first claim— that shrimpers are violating the Clean Water Act by discarding bycatch overboard without a Section 1342 permit—was properly dismissed. The court further explained that Fisheries’ second claim—that shrimpers are violating the Act by using trawl nets without a permit—fares no better. The shrimpers are not “dredging” the Pamlico Sound with their nets, so they cannot be discharging “dredged spoil.” And the dirt and sand that their nets kick up is not “added”—and thus not “discharged”—into the Sound. View "North Carolina Coastal Fisheries Reform Group v. Capt. Gaston LLC" on Justia Law

Plaintiff brought suit in federal district court against the Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, alleging fraud under California law. Plaintiff is a former member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. (The Corporation is the legal entity behind the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We refer to both the Corporation and the Church as “the Church.”) Plaintiff alleged that, from 1993 until 2015, he contributed substantial amounts of cash and corporate shares to the Church as tithes. He alleged that during at least some of that time, he relied on false and misleading statements by the Church about its use of tithing money. The district court granted the Church’s motion for summary judgment. It held that no reasonable juror could find that the Church had fraudulently misrepresented how tithing funds were used.   The Ninth Circuit reversed in part, affirmed in part, and remanded. The court held that there is evidence in the record from which a reasonable juror could conclude that the Church knowingly misrepresented that no tithing funds were being or would be used to finance the development of the shopping mall and that Huntsman reasonably relied on the Church’s misrepresentations. The panel rejected the Church’s argument that Plaintiff’s fraud claims are barred by the First Amendment. The panel held that the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine did not apply because the questions regarding the fraud claims were secular and did not implicate religious beliefs about tithing itself. Nor was the panel required to examine Plaintiff’s religious beliefs about the appropriate use of church money. View "JAMES HUNTSMAN V. CORPORATION OF THE PRESIDENT, ET AL" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Energy Policy Advocates challenged a trial court’s conclusion that certain communications between different state attorney general offices were protected from disclosure under a public-records request, and further, that the trial court erred in declining to grant in-camera review of these documents. Additionally, plaintiff argued the trial court improperly granted only half of its fees despite substantially prevailing. The Vermont Attorney General’s Office (AGO) cross-appealed the trial court decision granting plaintiff any fees, arguing plaintiff was not entitled to fees as it did not substantially prevail. After review, the Vermont Supreme Court affirmed the trial court decision with respect to the withheld documents and reversed regarding the award of attorney’s fees. View "Energy Policy Advocates v. Attorney General’s Office" on Justia Law

Petitioner is a pilot and flight instructor. After she failed to produce her pilot logbooks and training records upon request by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the FAA suspended Petitioner’s pilot certificate. Petitioner appealed the suspension to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) but, days later, complied with the records request. The FAA then terminated her suspension, which lasted 14 days in total and reinstated her certificate. Nonetheless, an NTSB administrative law judge held a hearing on Petitioner’s appeal and concluded that the suspension was reasonable. Petitioner appealed the decision to the full NTSB, but it dismissed the matter as moot. Petitioner petitioned for a review of the NTSB’s final order under 49 U.S.C. Sections 44709(f) and 46110.   The Eighth Circuit concluded that Petitioner lacked Article III standing and dismissed the petition for lack of jurisdiction. The court explained that the first problem with Petitioner’s theory of future injury is that she has not shown with particularity how her brief suspension for noncompliance with a records request would harm her job prospects. Further, the court wrote that even assuming the 14-day suspension would be damaging to her job prospects, Petitioner’s claims are not y “real and immediate.” Moreover, the court explained that the record here lacks any facts showing that Petitioner’s suspension would harm her reputation in the estimation of the pilot community. Instead, Petitioner relied on vague, blanket statements of reputational harm. View "Amy McNaught v. Billy Nolen" on Justia Law

Police officers seized just over $8,000 in a search of Appellant’s home carried out as part of a drug trafficking investigation into her then-boyfriend, K.B. The local police turned over the funds to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which initiated an administrative forfeiture procedure to claim the funds as proceeds from drug sales. Acting pro se, Appellant filed a claim to the assets, forcing the government to terminate its administrative seizure and open a judicial forfeiture proceeding in district court.  She failed to timely oppose the ensuing judicial proceeding, and the clerk of court entered default against the funds. Appellant, still acting pro se, then sent several letters to the district court and the U.S. Attorney’s Office seeking leave to file a belated claim to the seized assets. The district court held that Appellant had not shown excusable neglect, denied her an extension of time to file a claim, and entered final default judgment against the seized assets.
The Second Circuit vacated the grant of the motion to strike and the entry of default judgment and remanded for further proceedings. The court held that the district court erred in granting default judgment to the government. Appellant’s letters are properly viewed as seeking both to lift the entry of default and to be granted leave to file an untimely claim to the assets. So understood, Appellant’s motion should have been assessed under the more permissive good cause standard, as is any other motion to lift entry of default in a civil suit. View "U.S. v. Starling" on Justia Law