Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

President Biden invoked his authority under the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949 (“Procurement Act”) to direct federal agencies to include in certain contracts a clause requiring covered contractor employees to follow COVID-19 safety protocols, including vaccination requirements, in order for employees to be eligible to work on federal government projects. Plaintiffs sued to enjoin the vaccination mandate. This lawsuit revolved around four documents that comprise the Contractor Mandate: the Executive Order, the Task Force Guidance, the Office of Management and Budget Determination, and the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council Guidance. The district court granted a permanent injunction against the Contractor Mandate, effective in any contract that either involved a party domiciled or headquartered in Arizona and/or was performed “principally” in Arizona.   The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s order granting a permanent injunction and dissolved the injunction. First, the panel held the Major Questions Doctrine—which requires that Congress speak clearly if it wishes to assign to an agency decisions of vast economic and political significance—did not apply. Second, the panel held that even if the Major Questions Doctrine applied, it would not bar the Contractor Mandate because the Mandate is not a transformative expansion of the President’s authority under the Procurement Act. Third, the panel held that the Contractor Mandate fell within the President’s authority under the Procurement Act. Fourth, the panel held that the nondelegation doctrine and state sovereignty concerns did not invalidate the Contractor Mandate. Finally, the panel held that the Contractor Mandate satisfied the Office of Federal Procurement Policy Act’s procedural requirements. View "KRISTIN MAYES, ET AL V. JOSEPH BIDEN, ET AL" on Justia Law

This case was one of many lawsuits concerning Act 13 of 2012, which amended Pennsylvania’s Oil and Gas Act. Act 13 included the grant of authority by the General Assembly to the Agencies to promulgate regulations for unconventional gas wells. In October 2016, the Marcellus Shale Coalition (the “MSC”) filed a Petition seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, raising seven counts, only one of which was at issue in this appeal. That count pertained to portions of the regulations set forth at Sections 78a.1 and 78a.15. Each challenged regulatory provision interacted to some degree with Section 3215 of the Oil and Gas Act of 2012, titled “Well location restrictions.” In this appeal as of right, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was asked to pass upon the breadth of the legislative rulemaking authority given to the Department of Environmental Protection (the “Department”) and the Environmental Quality Board (the “Board”) (collectively, the “Agencies”) by the General Assembly in the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Act of 1984. The Agencies contended the Commonwealth Court erroneously concluded that they exceeded their authority and consequently struck down certain regulations designed to aid the Agencies in information gathering attendant to the issuance of permits for new unconventional gas wells. The Supreme Court found the General Assembly intended to give the Agencies the leeway to promulgate the challenged regulations and that those regulations were reasonable. The Court therefore reversed the Commonwealth Court. View "Marcellus Shale Coalition v. Dept. of Environmental Protection, et al." on Justia Law

In March 2016, Appellant Jose Vellon was arrested for DUI of alcohol pursuant to Subsection 3802(a)(1) of the Pennsylvania Vehicle Code, 75 Pa.C.S. § 3802(a)(1) (general impairment). A violation of this statute constituted an “ungraded misdemeanor.” Vellon was accepted into the Accelerated Rehabilitation Disposition (“ARD”) Program. Several months later, police charged Vellon with another DUI. As a result of the Second DUI, the trial court entered an order removing Vellon from ARD. Vellon pleaded guilty to the First and Second DUIs, and in October 2017, he was sentenced on both DUI violations. Appellee Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Transportation, Bureau of Driver Licensing (“PennDOT”) informed Vellon that it would be suspending his driving privileges as a collateral consequence of his DUI convictions pursuant to Section 3804 of the Vehicle Code. Vellon appealed only his license suspension for the First DUI. In this appeal, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was asked whether the Commonwealth Court erred in concluding that, in drafting Section 3806, the General Assembly intended to mandate that, when a defendant is sentenced for two driving-under- the-influence (“DUI”) offenses on the same day, both offenses had be considered prior offenses to each other with each warranting civil recidivist collateral consequences, despite the facts that the defendant committed the DUI violations at different points in time and had never previously been convicted of DUI. To this, the Supreme Court disagreed with the Commonwealth Court and reversed that court’s order. View "Vellon v. Dept of Transportation" on Justia Law

This appeal concerned whether Dr. Timothy Shrom and Debra Shrom were eligible under the Pennsylvania Storage Tank and Spill Prevention Act (Act) for payment from the Underground Storage Tank Indemnification Fund (Fund) for costs they incurred in remediating contamination caused by fuel releases from underground storage tanks (USTs or tanks) located on their property. The Fund concluded, and the Underground Storage Tank Indemnification Board (Board) ultimately agreed, that the Shroms were ineligible for such payment because the subject USTs were not registered with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) as required by Section 503 of the Act and the registration fees were not paid at the time of the fuel releases that gave rise to the Shroms’ claim for remediation costs. The Commonwealth Court reversed the Board’s decision on appeal, concluding that: (1) the Shroms were eligible to receive payment from the Fund for remediation costs under the Act; (2) the Board’s holding relative to the timing of the payment of the Section 503 registration fees constituted an unlawful de facto regulation; and (3) contrary to the Board’s finding, payment of the Shroms’ claim did not appear to pose any imminent risk to the Fund’s solvency. Finding no error in the Commonwealth Court’s decision, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed. View "Shrom, et al v PA Underground Storage Tank" on Justia Law

People working part-time may qualify for weekly unemployment benefits, but must accurately report their income so the Indiana Department of Workforce Development can reduce their benefits accordingly. A claimant who knowingly fails to disclose earnings on a weekly application must repay all benefits received for that week and is subject to a civil penalty of 25% of that forfeited amount. Grashoff omitted her part-time income on 24 weekly applications. The Department determined that she knowingly violated the law and assessed a forfeiture and penalty totaling $11,190. An ALJ affirmed the sanction. Grashoff did not seek state judicial review but filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 alleging that the sanction violates the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause. The district court rejected the claim, classifying the entire forfeiture as remedial rather than punitive. The penalty is a punitive sanction subject to Eighth Amendment scrutiny but is not grossly disproportionate to the seriousness of the offense.The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Grashoff conceded that the difference between the benefits she received and the smaller amount she would have received had she reported her income is purely remedial. The remaining forfeiture amount, even when considered together with the 25% penalty, is not a grossly disproportionate sanction for Grashoff’s knowing violations of the law. View "Grashoff v. Payne" on Justia Law

Air Excursions, LLC provides air transportation services in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. It claims that the United States Department of Treasury (Treasury) erroneously disbursed pandemic relief funds to a competitor airline and challenges that disbursement as unlawful under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).   The DC Circuit vacated the district court’s order dismissing the complaint on the merits and remanded with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. The court reasoned that the competitor standing doctrine supplies the link between increased competition and tangible injury but does not, by itself, supply the link between the challenged conduct and increased competition. The latter must be apparent from the nature of the challenged action itself—as in U.S. Telecom Association—or from the well-pleaded allegations of Plaintiff’s complaint. The court concluded that the complaint failed to establish that Air Excursions has suffered a competitive injury satisfying Article III’s injury in fact requirement. View "Air Excursions LLC v. Janet Yellen" on Justia Law

Article XIIIC was added to the California Constitution in 1996 after the passage of the Right to Vote on Taxes Act, or Proposition 218. Article XIIIC required that any new tax or increase in tax be approved by the voters. In 2010, article XIIIC was amended when Proposition 26 passed. Since then, “'tax' has been broadly defined to encompass 'any levy, charge, or exaction of any kind imposed by a local government.'” Several charges were expressly excluded from this definition, but at issue in this case are charges “imposed for a specific government service or product provided directly to the payor that is not provided to those not charged, and which does not exceed the reasonable costs to the local government of providing the service or product.” The government service or product at issue was electricity: Appellant was an individual residing in the City of Anaheim (the City) who claimed her local public electric utility approved rates which exceed the cost of providing electricity. She claimed the City has been transferring utility revenues to its general fund and recouping these amounts from ratepayers without obtaining voter approval. But because voters approved the practice through an amendment to the City’s charter, the Court of Appeal concluded the City has not violated article XIIIC, and affirmed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment to the City on this basis. View "Palmer v. City of Anaheim" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the district court affirming the decision of the Board of County Commissioners of Albany County approving ConnectGen Albany County LLC's application for a Wind Energy Conversion System (WECS) permit to construct a wind farm on Albany County land, holding that Appellants were not entitled to relief.Specifically, the Supreme Court held (1) contrary to Appellants' argument on appeal, ConnectGen was not required to obtain a conditional use permit in addition to the WECS special use permit; (2) the Board's approval of the WECS special use permit was not arbitrary or capricious; and (3) Appellants failed to establish that the Board's approval of the WECS special use permit was a taking of private property in violation of Wyo. Const. art. 1, 32. View "Aanonsen v. Bd. of County Commissioners of Albany County" on Justia Law

Plaintiff sought the services of the customized postage program to print copies of an adaptation of his drawing of Uncle Sam being strangled by a snake labeled “Citizens United” and configured as a dollar sign. However, acting through Zazzle, Inc., a third-party vendor, USPS rejected Plaintiff’s proposed design due to its partisan message, even as it accepted other customers’ postage designs with obvious political content. Plaintiff filed a complaint in the District Court against the Postal Service, contending that USPS’s customized postage program violated the prohibition against viewpoint discrimination under the First Amendment. In 2018, while Plaintiff’s case was pending in district court, the Postal Service amended the guidelines of its customized postage program to prohibit, inter alia, all “political” stamps. Plaintiff filed a Supplemental Complaint incorporating by reference every allegation from his First Amended Complaint and further alleging that the 2018 Guidelines were unconstitutional on its face. The district court granted summary judgment and declaratory relief to Plaintiff but declined to award injunctive relief.   The DC Circuit affirmed. The court first noted that Plaintiff has standing to seek injunctive and declaratory relief. The Postal Service rejected his customized stamp design due to its partisan message, even as USPS accepted other customers’ postage designs with obvious political content. As a result, Plaintiff suffered viewpoint discrimination, and his continuing inability to speak through custom stamps while others can is sufficient to support standing. However, the fact that Plaintiff has suffered injury sufficient to confer standing to seek injunctive relief does not necessarily make such relief appropriate on the merits. View "Anatol Zukerman v. USPS" on Justia Law

In March 2021, the Camden County Commission voted to ban Plaintiff from county property for one year because he allegedly disrupted and harassed county officials and employees. Plaintiff sued Camden County, the Camden County Commission, and Commissioner (collectively, “Defendants”), claiming that Defendants retaliated against him for exercising his rights under the First Amendment.Defendant sought a preliminary injunction against Defendants and a damages claim against the Commissioner. The District Court granted the preliminary injunction over the Commissioner’s qualified immunity defense, finding that Plaintiff adequately alleged a violation of clearly established rights. However, the court determined Defendants’ appeal of the injunction was moot because it would have expired in March 2022. View "Nathan Rinne v. Camden County" on Justia Law