Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

Since 1935, federal law has regulated the hours of service of truck drivers operating in interstate commerce. Drivers must keep paper records showing their driving time and other on‐duty time. In 2012, Congress directed the Department of Transportation to issue regulations to require most interstate commercial motor vehicles to install electronic logging devices (ELDs) linked to vehicle engines to automatically record data relevant to hours of services: whether the engine is running, the time, and the vehicle’s approximate location. Congress instructed the Department to consider factors including driver privacy and preventing forms of harassment enabled by the ELDs, 49 U.S.C. 31137. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration promulgated the final rule: Electronic Logging Devices and Hours of Service Supporting Documents, 49 C.F.R. Pts. 385, 386, 390, 395 (2015). The Seventh Circuit rejected a challenge by the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association and drivers. The court rejected arguments that the rule permits ELDs that are not entirely automatic; uses a narrow definition of “harassment” that will not sufficiently protect drivers; that the agency’s cost‐benefit analysis was inadequate; that the agency did not sufficiently consider confidentiality protections for drivers; and that the ELD mandate imposed, in effect, an unconstitutional search or seizure on truck drivers. Even if the rule imposes a search or a seizure, inspection of ELD data recorded would fall within the “pervasively regulated industry” exception to the warrant requirement. View "Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, Inc. v. United States Department of Transportation" on Justia Law

This appeal arose out of the passage of two weapons related bills passed by the Georgia General Assembly during the 2013-2014 legislative session. Appellant GeorgiaCarry.Org, Inc., (“GCO”) filed a complaint against the Code Revision Commission and its members, David Ralston, in his official capacity as Speaker of the House of Representatives of Georgia, Lowell Cagle, in his official capacity as President of the Senate of Georgia, and Governor Nathan Deal, seeking a writ of mandamus to compel the Code Revision Commission (CRC) to amend the text of OCGA 16-11-127.1 and a judgment declaring that it was not a crime for a person with a weapons carry license to carry a firearm within a school safety zone. After motions to dismiss filed by both the Governor and CRC were granted in separate orders, GCO appealed the order granting CRC’s motion to dismiss. The Supreme Court found that GCO was not entitled to relief under "any state of provable facts" alleged in its amended complaint, there was no actual controversy which would have authorized a declaratory judgment, and the trial did not err in granting CRC's motion to dismiss. View "Georgiacarry.org v. Code Revision Comm'n" on Justia Law

Leslie Feldman and others filed suit challenging Arizona House Bill 2023 (H.B. 2023), which precludes individuals who do not fall into one of several exceptions (e.g., election officials, mail carriers, family members, household members, and specified caregivers) from collecting early ballots from another person. Plaintiff argues that this state statute violates section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 52 U.S.C. 10301, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the First Amendment because, among other things, it disproportionately and adversely impacts minorities, unjustifiably burdens the right to vote, and interferes with the freedom of association. The district court denied plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction and plaintiff filed this emergency interlocutory appeal. The court concluded that it has jurisdiction over this interlocutory appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1292(a)(1). The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding plaintiff was unlikely to succeed on her Voting Rights Act claim. In this case, the district court did not clearly err in concluding that plaintiff adduced no evidence showing that H.B. 2023 would have an impact on minorities different than the impact on non-minorities, let alone that the impact would result in less opportunity for minorities to participate in the political process as compared to non-minorities. The court concluded that the district court did not clearly err in finding that H.B. 2023 imposed a minimal burden on voters’ Fourteenth Amendment right to vote, in finding that Arizona asserted sufficiently weighty interests justifying the limitation, and in ultimately concluding that plaintiff failed to establish that she was likely to succeed on the merits of her Fourteenth Amendment challenge. The court also concluded that ballot collection is not expressive conduct implicating the First Amendment, but even if it were, Arizona has an important regulatory interest justifying the minimal burden that H.B. 2023 imposes on freedom of association. Therefore, the district court did not err in concluding that the plaintiff was unlikely to succeed on the merits of her First Amendment claim. In this case, plaintiff is not only unlikely to prevail on the merits, but, as the district court concluded, her interest in avoiding possible irreparable harm does not outweigh Arizona’s and the public’s mutual interests in the enforcement of H.B. 2023 pending final resolution of this case. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's denial of plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction. View "Feldman v. Arizona Secretary of State's Office" on Justia Law

The Department of Industrial Relations, Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) imposed a $179,329.60 penalty, pursuant to Labor Code section 3722(b) against Taylor for failure to maintain workers’ compensation insurance as required by section 3700. Taylor requested an administrative hearing and then filed a petition for writ of administrative mandamus under section 3725. The petition was dismissed. The court of appeal affirmed, rejecting Taylor’s statutory construction and equal protection challenges to the penalty and section 3722(b). The court held that “calendar year,” as used in section 3722(b), means the 12-month period immediately preceding a determination that an employer has been uninsured for the requisite period. View "Taylor v. Department of Industrial Relations" on Justia Law

The issue presented by this matter for the Tenth Circuit's review centered on whether section 5 of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) preempted a Kansas law requiring documentary proof of citizenship ("DPOC") for voter registration as applied to the federally-mandated voter-registration form that is part of any application to obtain or renew a driver's license. The U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas granted a motion for a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the Kansas DPOC requirements, holding that plaintiffs-appellees made a strong showing that the Kansas law was preempted by NVRA section 5. Defendant-appellant Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach appealed the district court’s entry of the preliminary injunction, which required him to register to vote any applicants previously unable to produce DPOC and to cease enforcement of Kansas’s DPOC requirement with respect to individuals who apply to register to vote at the Kansas Department of Motor Vehicles ("DMV") through the "motor voter" process. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals found after review that the district court did not abuse its discretion in granting the preliminary injunction because the NVRA preempted Kansas's DPOC law as enforced against those applying to vote while obtaining or renewing a driver's license. "Having determined that Secretary Kobach has failed to make this showing, we conclude that the DPOC required by Kansas law is more than the minimum amount of information necessary and, therefore, is preempted by the NVRA. We affirm the grant of a preliminary injunction." View "Fish v. Kobach" on Justia Law

The Pennsylvania State Education Association was an organization made up of 150,000 public school teachers, support staff, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, custodians, secretaries and teachers’ aides. In 2009, the organization and fourteen of its member public school employees (collectively, “PSEA”) filed suit against the Office of Open Records, its Executive Director, and the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development (collectively, the “OOR”), seeking preliminary and permanent injunctive relief to prevent the release of home addresses of public school employees, and a declaration that the home addresses of public school employees are exempt from public access. PSEA asserted that numerous school districts had received requests for the names and addresses of public school employees, and some had already released this information. Contending that the public school employees lacked any adequate procedural remedy to prevent the release of private information protected by the Pennsylvania Constitution. The issue this case presented for the Supreme Court's review involved an examination of the scope of the “personal security” exception to disclosure under the Right to Know Law (“RTKL”), and, more specifically, whether school districts must disclose the home addresses of public school employees. Under the prior Right to Know Act, (repealed, effective January 1, 2009) (“RTKA”), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had on three occasions ruled that certain types of information, including home addresses, implicated the right to privacy under Article 1, Section 1 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, and thus required a balancing to determine whether the right to privacy outweighs the public’s interest in dissemination. "Our task here is to determine whether this analysis continues to obtain under the RTKL. We hold that it does." View "Pennsylvania State Ed. Assoc. v. Pennsylania" on Justia Law

Citizens for a Better Flathead brought this lawsuit challenging Flathead County’s 2012 Revised Growth Policy, asserting that the Flathead County Planning Board and the County Commission violated Montana statutes, the Montana Constitution, and Flathead County’s own procedures when they developed the revised policy without adequate public participation. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the district court (1) did not abuse its discretion in striking Citizens’ expert report; (2) did not err in determining that the Commission substantially complied with the growth policy’s mandatory procedures for adopting revisions; (3) did not err in determining that the Commission allowed for meaningful public participation in the revision process; (4) did not err in determining that the Commission adequately incorporated public comments into its decision-making process; and (5) properly concluded that Part 6 of the revised growth policy is not unconstitutional. View "Citizens for a Better Flathead v. Bd. of County Comm’rs of Flathead County" on Justia Law

In the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, 12 U.S.C. 5491, Congress established a new independent agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), an independent agency headed not by a multi-member commission but rather by a single Director. PHH is a mortgage lender that was the subject of a CFPB enforcement action that resulted in a $109 million order against it. PHH seeks to vacate the order, arguing that the CFPB’s status as an independent agency headed by a single Director violates Article II of the Constitution. The court concluded that CFPB’s concentration of enormous executive power in a single, unaccountable, unchecked Director not only departs from settled historical practice, but also poses a far greater risk of arbitrary decisionmaking and abuse of power, and a far greater threat to individual liberty, than does a multi-member independent agency. The court noted that this new agency lacks that critical check and structural constitutional protection, yet wields vast power over the U.S. economy. The court concluded that, in light of the consistent historical practice under which independent agencies have been headed by multiple commissioners or board members, and in light of the threat to individual liberty posed by a single-Director independent agency, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States cannot be stretched to cover this novel agency structure. Therefore, the court held that the CFPB is unconstitutionally structured. To remedy the constitutional flaw, the court followed the Supreme Court’s precedents and simply severed the statute’s unconstitutional for-cause provision from the remainder of the statute. With the for-cause provision severed, the court explained that the President now will have the power to remove the Director at will, and to supervise and direct the Director. Because the CFPB as remedied will continue operating, the court addressed the statutory issues raised by PHH and agreed with PHH that Section 8 of the Act allows captive reinsurance arrangements so long as the amount paid by the mortgage insurer for the reinsurance does not exceed the reasonable market value of the reinsurance; CFPB’s order against PHH violated bedrock principles of due process; and the CFPB on remand still will have an opportunity to demonstrate that the relevant mortgage insurers in fact paid more than reasonable market value to the PHH-affiliated reinsurer for reinsurance, thereby making disguised payments for referrals in contravention of Section 8. Accordingly, the court granted the petition for review, vacated the order, and remanded for further proceedings. View "PHH Corp. v. CFPB" on Justia Law

The focus of this appeal centered on the validity of HB 2630; 2014 Okla. Sess. Laws c. 375 (effective November 1, 2014). HB 2630 created the Retirement Freedom Act (74 O.S. Supp. 2014, sec. 935.1 et seq.), with the stated purpose as creating a new defined contribution system within the Oklahoma Public Employees Retirement System (OPERS) for persons who initially became a member of OPERS on or after November 1, 2015 (this included most state employees hired on or after this date). Plaintiffs-appellants filed a Petition for Declaratory and Supplemental Relief challenging the validity of HB 2630, claiming HB 2630 was void because it was passed by the Legislature in violation of the Oklahoma Pension Legislation Actuarial Analysis Act (OPLAA). Both parties filed a motion for summary judgment. The trial court granted defendants-appellees' motion for summary judgment and the appellants appealed. Agreeing with the trial court that the OPLAA had not been violated, the Supreme Court affirmed the grant of summary judgment in defendants' favor. View "Stevens v. Fox" on Justia Law

The district court dismissed, for lack of jurisdiction, a constitutional challenge to an electronic surveillance program operated by the National Security Agency (NSA) under the authority of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), 50 U.S.C. 1881a. The court noted that the plaintiff failed to plead facts from which one might reasonably infer that his own communications had been seized by the federal government. The Third Circuit vacated and remanded. The second amended complaint alleged that because the government was “intercepting, monitoring and storing the content of all or substantially all of the e-mail sent by American citizens,” plaintiff’s own online communications had been seized in the dragnet. That allegation sufficiently pleaded standing to sue for a violation of plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. Plaintiff may lack actual standing to sue; the government may, on remand to make a factual jurisdictional challenge to that pleading. The alleged facts—even if proven—do not conclusively establish that a dragnet on the scale alleged by plaintiff. On remand, the court must closely supervise limited discovery. View "Schuchardt v. President of the United States" on Justia Law