Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

In 2006-2008, plaintiffs each applied, unsuccessfully, for Social Security disability benefits, 42 U.S.C. 423(d)(2)(A), 1382c(a)(3)(B). Each plaintiff retained Kentucky attorney Conn to assist with a subsequent hearing. Each plaintiff’s application included medical records from one of four examining doctors. In each case, ALJ Daugherty relied exclusively on the doctor's opinion to conclude, without a hearing, that plaintiffs were disabled and entitled to benefits. Daugherty took bribes from Conn to assign Conn’s cases to himself and issue favorable rulings. Nearly 10 years after the agency learned of the scheme, it initiated “redeterminations” of plaintiffs’ eligibility for benefits and held new hearings, disregarding all medical evidence submitted by the four doctors participating in Conn’s scheme. Plaintiffs had no opportunity to rebut the assertion of fraud as to this evidence. Each plaintiff was deemed ineligible for benefits as of the date of their original applications; their benefits were terminated. Plaintiffs sued, alleging violations of the Due Process Clause and the Social Security Act. The Sixth Circuit held that the plaintiffs are entitled to summary judgment on their due-process claim and the agency is entitled to summary judgment on the Social Security Act claims. The agency must proffer some factual basis for believing that the plaintiffs’ evidence is fraudulent. Plaintiffs must have an opportunity to “rebut the Government’s factual assertions before a neutral decisionmaker.” Congress has already told the agency what to do when redetermination proceedings threaten criminal adjudications; the answer is not to deprive claimants of basic procedural safeguards. View "Griffith v. Commissioner of Social Security" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs have failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact on whether racial considerations predominated the City of Los Angeles's redistricting process. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's protective order and its order granting summary judgment for the City in an action alleging that race was the predominant motivator in drawing the boundaries of council districts in the Council District 10 redistricting ordinance.Viewed in the light most favorable to plaintiffs, the panel held that the record failed to show that successive boundary amendments were driven predominantly by racial considerations. Rather, the Commission sought to rebalance the populations in each Council District, while preserving communities and unifying as many Neighborhood Councils as possible in a single Council District. The panel also held that the legislative privilege protected local officials from being deposed. View "Lee v. City of Los Angeles" on Justia Law

Courthouse News Service (CNS) sought injunctive relief under 42 U.S.C. 1983, arguing that the First Amendment requires the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, to release newly filed complaints to the press at the moment of receipt by her office—not after processing. The Seventh Circuit reversed the district court’s order granting a preliminary injunction and ordered the action dismissed without prejudice, noting that neither the Seventh Circuit nor the U.S. Supreme Court provides the press with such instant access to court filings, but undertake certain administrative processing before a filing is made publicly available. Adhering to the principles of equity, comity, and federalism, the district court should have abstained from exercising jurisdiction over this case. The court noted that the procedures at issue involve a delay of no more than one business day in access to the vast majority of electronically filed complaints and stated that the state courts deserve the first opportunity to hear such a constitutional challenge to their internal procedures. View "Courthouse News Services v. Brown" on Justia Law

The government's decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program is subject to judicial review. Upon review, the Ninth Circuit held that plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their claim that the rescission of DACA is arbitrary, capricious, or otherwise not in accordance with law.After concluding that neither the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) nor the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) precluded judicial review, the panel held that DACA was a permissible exercise of executive discretion, notwithstanding the Fifth Circuit's conclusion that the related Deferred Action for Parent Arrivals (DAPA) program exceeded DHS's statutory authority. In this case, DACA was being implemented in a manner that reflected discretionary, case-by-base review, and at least one of the Fifth Circuit's key rationales in striking down DAPA was inapplicable with respect to DACA. Therefore, because the Acting Secretary was incorrect in her belief that DACA was illegal and had to be rescinded, the panel held that plaintiffs were likely to succeed in demonstrating that the rescission must be set aside.The panel also held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in issuing a nationwide injunction; the district court properly dismissed plaintiffs' APA notice and comment claim and substantive due process rights claim; and the district court properly denied the government's motion to dismiss plaintiffs' APA arbitrary and capricious claim, due process rights claim, and equal protection claim. Accordingly, the panel affirmed the district court's grant of preliminary injunctive relief, and affirmed in part the district court's partial grant and partial denial of the government's motion to dismiss. View "Regents of the University of California v. USDHS" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court held that a physician’s due process rights do not attach at the investigative stage of a complaint made to the Nevada State Board of Medical Examiners (Board), thereby extending the holding in Hernandez v. Bennett-Haron, 287 P.3d 305 (Nev. 2012).Appellant, a physician, filed a writ petition and a motion for injunctive relief in the district court, arguing that the Board violated his due process rights by keeping a complaint filed against him and identity of the complainant confidential during its investigation. The district court denied relief. On appeal, Appellant argued that the Board’s investigative procedures violated his due process rights. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the district court appropriately applied Hernandez to find that the investigation did not require due process protection because it did not also adjudicate the complaint, and therefore, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Appellant’s motion for a preliminary injunction; and (2) the Board reasonably interpreted Nev. Rev. Stat. 630.336 to mean that the complaint and complainant may be kept confidential from the licensee. View "Sarfo v. State Board of Medical Examiners" on Justia Law

The parents of O.D., B.D., and G.D. appealed a circuit court order terminating their parental rights over their children, on the ground that they failed to correct the conditions leading to a finding of neglect. They argued the circuit court violated their due process rights by terminating their parental rights without requiring the New Hampshire Division for Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) to file new abuse or neglect petitions against them after the court issued an ex parte order removing the children from their home during ongoing neglect proceedings and by failing to appoint counsel for them during the neglect proceedings. Finding no abuse of discretion or other reversible error, the New Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed. View "In re O.D." on Justia Law

A certified class of minor children in the Permanent Managing Conservatorship (PMC) of DFPS filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, seeking injunctive relief and alleging that Texas' maintenance of its foster care system exposes them to a serious risk of abuse, neglect, and harm to their physical and psychological well-being. The district court granted plaintiffs a permanent injunction requiring sweeping changes to the state's foster care system.The Fifth Circuit held that facts in the record adequately supported the finding that a policy or practice of maintaining overburdened caseworkers directly causes all PMC children to be exposed to a serious risk of physical and psychological harm; the district court correctly found that the State was deliberately indifferent to a substantial risk of serious harm to the Licensed Foster Care (LFC) subclass as a result of its insufficient monitoring and oversight, and that these deficiencies were a direct cause of the constitutional harm; the district court erred in concluding that inadequate placement array causes constitutionally cognizable harm to the LFC subclass and that the State was deliberately indifferent to a substantial risk of serious harm; and to the extent that the lack of awake-night supervision may have sustained a constitutional claim under the circumstances, the remaining policies and their effects did not cause foster group homes (FGH) children an amplified risk of harm sufficient to overcome the threshold hurdle.The court also held that Rule 23-specific arguments were waived. While the district court entered an expansive injunction mandating dozens of specific remedial measures and it was entitled to grant plaintiffs injunctive relief, the court held that the injunction was significantly overbroad. Accordingly, the court vacated the injunction and remanded with instructions to remove the remedial provisions related to placement array and FGHs, and to strike provisions that were not necessary to achieve constitutional compliance. View "M.D. v. Abbott" on Justia Law

The Supreme Judicial Court vacated the judgment of the superior court dismissing as untimely Appellant’s petition seeking review of a rule promulgated by the Department of Corrections (DOC), holding that the court should have treated Appellant’s petition as a complaint for declaratory judgment and allowed him to amend his petition to that effect.In his petition, Appellant, a prisoner at the Maine State Prison, claimed that the DOC had promulgated and enforced a rule that violated Me. Rev. Stat. 34-A, 3039 and several provisions of the state and federal Constitutions. The superior court dismissed the petition without reaching the merits of Appellant’s statutory and constitutional arguments. The Supreme Judicial Court vacated the judgment, holding that, given Appellant’s clear challenge to the legality of the DOC rule itself and not its application to his individual circumstances, the court abused its discretion in declining to allow Appellant to amend his complaint and seek relief through a declaratory judgment action. View "Sweeney v. Department of Corrections" on Justia Law

In the event a local agency believes it is entitled to subvention for a new unfunded state mandate, the agency may file a “test claim” with the Commission on State Mandates (Commission). Here, the Commission denied consolidated test claims for subvention by appellants Paradise Irrigation District (Paradise), South Feather Water & Power Agency (South Feather), Richvale Irrigation District (Richvale), Biggs-West Gridley Water District (Biggs), Oakdale Irrigation District (Oakdale), and Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District (Glenn-Colusa) (collectively, the Water Districts). The Commission determined the Water Districts had sufficient legal authority to levy fees to pay for any water service improvements mandated by the Water Conservation Act of 2009. The trial court agreed and dismissed a petition for writ of mandate brought by the Water Districts. On appeal, the Water Districts presented a question left open by the Court of Appeal's decision in Connell v. Superior Court 59 Cal.App.4th 382 (1997), addressing the statutory interpretation of Revenue and Taxation Code section 2253.2 (recodified in pertinent part without substantive change in Government Code section 17556). Connell held local water districts were precluded from subvention for state mandates to increase water purity levels insofar as the water districts have legal authority to levy fees to cover the costs of the state-mandated program. In so holding, Connell rejected an argument by the Santa Margarita Water District and three other water districts that they did not have the “practical ability in light of surrounding economic circumstances.” The Connell Court reasoned that crediting Santa Margarita’s argument “would create a vague standard not capable of reasonable adjudication. Had the Legislature wanted to adopt the position advanced by [Santa Margarita], it would have used ‘reasonable ability’ in the statute rather than ‘authority.’ ” This appeal addresses that issue by considering whether the passage of Proposition 218 changed the authority of water districts to levy fees so that unfunded state mandates for water service must now be reimbursed by the state. The Court of Appeal concluded Proposition 218 did not undermine Connell, thus, the Commission properly denied the reimbursement claims at issue here because the Water Districts continued to have legal authority to levy fees even if that authority was subject to majority protest of customers. View "Paradise Irrigation Dist. v. Commission on State Mandates" on Justia Law

Appellant Ronda Marcy, resident of Matanuska-Susitna Borough, filed suit against the borough and citizens who had sponsored a borough ballot initiative prohibiting commercial marijuana businesses. The suit, filed 32 days before the borough election, sought declaratory and injunctive relief that the initiative was unconstitutional and unlawful and should be removed from the election ballot. Given the imminent election, the superior court ordered the case held in abeyance pending the initiative vote’s outcome. After borough voters rejected the initiative, the court dismissed the case as moot. Marcy appealed, arguing the merits of her declaratory judgment claim should have been heard under the public interest exception to the mootness doctrine and that the superior court issued procedurally defective orders, violated her due process rights, and erroneously awarded attorney’s fees against her. The Alaska Supreme Court affirmed the superior court because it did not abuse its discretion in its procedural decisions; the resident’s due process rights were not violated; the Court declined to invoke the public interest exception to address the moot claims; and the resident failed to properly bring her attorney’s fees appeal. View "Marcy v. Matanuska-Susitna Borough" on Justia Law