Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff began working for McDonnell Douglas in 1985. He stayed there until it merged with The Boeing Company (Boeing) in 1997. In 2017 and 2018, Plaintiff unsuccessfully applied for promotions within Boeing. Both times, the promotion was given to younger candidates who scored better in the interview. In 2017, the promotion went to an employee aged 33; in 2018, to one aged 34. Plaintiff alleged that Boeing discriminated against him on the basis of age, in violation of the Missouri Human Rights Act (MHRA). Plaintiff brought two separate lawsuits, now consolidated, alleging age discrimination in relation to the 2018 opening and a claim for constructive discharge.  The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Boeing on both claims, holding that Plaintiff (1) failed to demonstrate a material dispute as to whether Boeing’s stated rationale for the hiring decision was a mere pretext for age discrimination and (2) failed to timely file a complaint with the Missouri Commission on Human Rights within six months of when his constructive-discharge claim accrued.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court concluded that Plaintiff failed to rebut the non-age-based, legitimate reasons offered by Boeing for its choice to hire the other applicant instead of him. Further, Plaintiff alleged that his termination paperwork started the clock, not his email. The court explained that Plaintiff gave his employer a little more than five weeks’ notice. But his claim still accrued then—on the day he gave notice, not the day he filed the paperwork. Because May 28, 2020, falls 185 days after November 25, 2019, Plaintiff’s complaint was untimely and thus barred. View "Jeff Bonomo v. The Boeing Company" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the district court upholding the ruling of the Montana Human Rights Commission dismissing Appellant's discrimination claim against the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME), holding that the Commission correctly found that Appellant's complaint was not timely filed.Appellant, a medical student, filed a complaint against the NBME alleging that NMBE discriminated against her for having a mental disability when it denied her request for test-taking accommodations. The Human Rights Bureau dismissed the complaint on the basis that Appellant filed it outside of the 180-day statutory time limit. The Commission affirmed, and the district court dismissed Appellant's petition for review. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that Appellant's complaint was not timely filed within 180 days of the date when the alleged discriminatory act occurred and Appellant discovered it. View "Zolnikov v. Nat'l Bd. of Medical Examiners" on Justia Law

Plaintiff suffers from a condition that causes her to faint from positional changes, particularly in hot weather. Plaintiff sometimes utilizes a wheelchair. She was doing so in September 2019 when she went to her local Office of Motor Vehicles (OMV) to have her address changed on her driver’s license. Because Plaintiff was in a wheelchair, OMV employees asked that Plaintiff have her doctor fill out the entirety of a short medical form regarding possible conditions related to her ability to drive. Plaintiff later sued the State of Louisiana, the Department of Public Safety and Corrections, the Office of Motor Vehicles, and Secretary James LeBlanc, in his official capacity as Secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Corrections. In her amended complaint, Plaintiff claimed that OMV violated the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act by (1) determining that she required additional screening before renewing her license solely because she was in a wheelchair and (2) failing to offer her reasonable accommodation. The district court dismissed Plaintiff’s claim at the summary judgment stage.   The Fifth Circuit affirmed. The court held that the scope of the ADA is broad, but it is not so broad as to encompass Plaintiff’s claims here, where she was asked to endure a minimal—at most—burden to ensure safety on the public roadways. The court, having found that the State’s request that Plaintiff has her physician fill out the medical form did not violate the ADA via disparate treatment or failure to accommodate, similarly found as a matter of law that the State did not act with “something more than deliberate indifference” toward Plaintiff’s disability. View "Clark v. State of LA, Dept of Pub Sfty" on Justia Law

On November 22, 2021—the day federal employees were required to be vaccinated—Appellant filed suit in District Court, challenging the mandate’s constitutionality. Characterizing Appellant’s suit as a “workplace dispute involving a covered federal employee,” the District Court found Appellant’s claims were precluded under the CSRA and dismissed the suit for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. On appeal, Appellant insisted that he challenges the vaccine mandate’s constitutionality, as opposed to contesting a workplace dispute under the CSRA. According to his complaint, however, he alleged that the vaccine mandate is unconstitutional—at least in part—because it requires that he obtain the vaccine to avoid adverse employment action.   The DC Circuit affirmed. The court explained that all attempts to characterize his argument as anything but a challenge to adverse employment action fail for jurisdictional purposes because Appellant himself admitted that his standing to challenge the vaccine mandate is rooted in the looming disciplinary action he now faces as a result of his continued noncompliance. In other words, Appellant challenges the vaccine mandate to maintain his employment while continuing to defy the mandate that he views as unlawful. And while his constitutional arguments are relevant to the merits, they do not change the fact that one of Appellant’s interests in this suit is to avoid the impending adverse employment action. Appellant’s claims are not wholly collateral because challenges to adverse employment actions are the type of claims that the MSPB regularly adjudicates. Thus, the court found that should Appellant choose to continue challenging the vaccine mandate, he must do so through the CSRA’s scheme. View "Jason Payne v. Joseph Biden, Jr." on Justia Law

Individuals Plaintiffs, Uber, Inc. (Uber) and Postmates, Inc. (Postmates, and collectively Plaintiffs) appealed the district court’s orders denying their motion for a preliminary injunction and dismissing their Second Amended Complaint. Plaintiffs filed this action to enjoin the State of California and the Attorney General of California (Defendants), from enforcing California Assembly Bill 5, 2019 Cal. Stats. Ch. 296 (A.B. 5), as amended by California Assembly Bill 170, 2019 Cal. Stats. Ch. 415 (A.B. 170) and California Assembly Bill 2257, 2020 Cal. Stats. Ch. 38 (A.B. 2257, and collectively A.B. 5, as amended), against them. A.B. 5, as amended, codified the “ABC test” adopted by the Supreme Court of California in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles, 4 Cal. 5th 903 (2018).1 A.B. 5, as amended, however, incorporated numerous exemptions into its provisions.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part district court orders dismissing Plaintiffs’ Second Amended Complaint and denying Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction and remanded. The panel first held that, even under the fairly forgiving rational basis review, Plaintiffs plausibly alleged that A.B. 5, as amended, violated the Equal Protection Clause for those engaged in app-based ride-hailing and delivery services. Thus, Plaintiffs plausibly alleged that the primary impetus for the enactment of A.B. 5 was the disfavor with which the architect of the legislation viewed Uber, Postmates, and similar gig-based business models. The panel held that the district court correctly dismissed Plaintiffs’ due process claims because Plaintiffs failed to plausibly allege that A.B. 5, as amended, completely prohibited them from exercising their “right to engage in a calling.” View "LYDIA OLSON, ET AL V. STATE OF CALIFORNIA, ET AL" on Justia Law

Petitioner, an employee of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Department of Homeland Security (“ICE” or “Agency”), petitions for review of the final judgment of the Merit Systems Protection Board (the “Board”), which rejected Petitioner’s claim that the Agency suspended him for two days in retaliation for his disclosures of misconduct.   The Fourth Circuit denied the petition. The court explained that after conducting a hearing and considering the evidence, the administrative judge denied the corrective action sought by Petitioner, concluding that Petitioner’s protected disclosures were not contributing factors to the discipline imposed and, alternatively, that the Agency proved by clear and convincing evidence that it would have taken the action even in the absence of the disclosures. The court denied the petition explaining that the administrative judge committed no legal error and his factual findings are supported by substantial evidence. View "Yuriy Mikhaylov v. Dept. of Homeland Security" on Justia Law

Pro se Plaintiff filed a whistleblower claim against his former employer, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and his former supervisors in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. But before doing so, Plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies as required by the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 (WPA) and the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. The district court thus dismissed the claim for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.
The Second Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Plaintiff’s whistleblower claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) for failure to exhaust administrative remedies. Plaintiff did not file a complaint with the Office of Special Counsel or the Merit Systems Protection Board, as required by the CSRA. Instead, he went straight to federal court. The district court thus lacked “jurisdiction to entertain a whistleblower cause of action . . . in the first instance” because Plaintiff failed to follow the proper administrative process. Second, the court wrote that Plaintiff’s argument that his failure to exhaust should be excused on equitable grounds is meritless. The court noted that it has “no authority to create equitable exceptions to jurisdictional requirements.” And, in any event, Plaintiff offers no reason why he should be granted such an equitable exception. View "Chinniah v. Fed. Energy Regul. Comm'n" on Justia Law

Smucker’s is a federal contractor that supplies food items to the federal government. In 2021, by Executive Order, President Biden directed all federal contractors to “ensure that all [their] employees [were] fully vaccinated for COVID-19,” unless such employees were “legally entitled” to health or religious accommodations. The order made contractors “responsible for considering, and dispositioning, such requests for accommodations.” In September 2021, Smucker’s notified its U.S. employees that it would “ask and expect” them to “be fully vaccinated.” A month later, in the face of “deadlines in the federal order,” Smucker’s announced a formal vaccine mandate with exemptions based on “sincerely held religious beliefs.”The plaintiffs unsuccessfully sought religious exemptions, then sued Smucker's under the First Amendment's free-exercise guarantee. The Sixth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the suit. When Smucker’s denied the exemption requests, it was not a state actor. Smucker’s does not perform a traditional, exclusive public function; it has not acted jointly with the government or entwined itself with it; and the government did not compel it to deny anyone an exemption. That Smucker’s acted in compliance with federal law and that Smucker’s served as a federal contractor, do not by themselves make the company a government actor. View "Ciraci v. J.M. Smucker Co." on Justia Law

Plaintiff brought a civil rights suit alleging that he was asked racially and religiously biased questions in a psychological evaluation required for his parole review. He claimed that the psychologists were prejudiced against him as an African-American Muslim man, which influenced their conclusion that Plaintiff presented a “high” risk of future violence. The psychologists contended that they were absolutely immune from suit because they performed a discretionary function integral to the Board of Parole Hearings (“Board”) quasi-judicial decision-making.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of absolute immunity to California Board of Parole Hearings psychologists who prepare comprehensive risk assessment reports for the parole board. Applying the functional approach laid out in the watershed case Antoine v. Byers & Anderson, Inc., 508 U.S. 429 (1993), the panel declined to extend absolute immunity in this case. The panel held that the psychologists’ assessments, while informative, were neither binding nor controlling in any way, nor did the psychologists function in a judicial decision-making capacity. Thus, while the psychologists provided a risk level based on their clinical experience, they had no power of decision in the judicial sense; the psychologists were not members of the Board, and the Board made its own determination about an inmate’s current risk of dangerousness if released to the community. The panel did not address whether qualified immunity was available, leaving the question for the district court to consider. View "OMAR GAY V. AMY PARSONS, ET AL" on Justia Law

The Supreme Judicial Court held that the single justice of the county court neither erred nor abused his discretion by denying, without a hearing, Petitioner's petition for relief under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 211, 3, holding that the single justice neither erred nor abused his discretion by denying extraordinary relief.In 1985, Petitioner was convicted of aggravated rape and other offenses. In 2005, the Sex Offender Registration Board issued a decision ordering Petitioner to register as a level three sex offender, thereafter denying Petitioner's motion for relief from the registration requirement. In this petition, Petitioner brought, among other claims, constitutional challenges to both federal and state sex offender registration laws. The single justice denied relief. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed, holding that the single justice did not abuse his discretion in finding that no exceptional circumstances were present in this case warranting extraordinary relief. View "Rancourt v. Attorney General" on Justia Law