Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

In consolidated appeals, the issue presented for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's review centered on the Commonwealth Court’s holding that, to be held liable for damages under Pennsylvania’s inverse condemnation statute, an entity had to be "clothed with the power of eminent domain" to the property at issue. In 2009, Appellee, UGI Storage Company filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (the “Commission” or “FERC”), seeking a certificate of public convenience and necessity to enable it to acquire and operate certain natural gas facilities. Appellee wished to acquire and operate underground natural gas storage facilities, which the company referred to as the Meeker storage field. Appellee also sought to include within the certificated facilities a 2,980-acre proposed "buffer zone." FERC ultimately granted the application for Appellee to acquire and assume the operation of the Meeker storage field, but denied Appellee’s request to certificate the buffer zone. Appellants petitioned for the appointment of a board of viewers to assess damages for an alleged de facto condemnation of their property, alleging that though their properties had been excluded by FERC from the certificated buffer zone, they interpreted Appellee’s response to the Commission’s order as signaling its intention to apply for additional certifications to obtain property rights relative to the entire buffer zone. The common pleas court initially found that a de facto taking had occurred and appointed a board of viewers to assess damages. Appellee lodged preliminary objections asserting Appellants’ petition was insufficient to support a de facto taking claim. The Supreme Court reversed the Commonwealth Court: "we do not presently discern a constitutional requirement that a quasi-public entity alleged to have invoked governmental power to deprive landowners of the use and enjoyment of their property for a public purpose must be invested with a power of eminent domain in order to be held to account for a de facto condemnation. ... a public or quasi-public entity need not possess a property-specific power of eminent domain in order to implicate inverse condemnation principles." The case was remanded for the Commonwealth Court to address Appellants’ challenge to the common pleas court’s alternative disposition (based upon the landowners’ purported off-the-record waiver of any entitlement to an evidentiary hearing), which had been obviated by the intermediate court’s initial remand decision and that court’s ensuing affirmance of the re-dismissal of Appellants’ petitions. View "Albrecht, et al. v. UGI Storage Co. et al." on Justia Law

Teachers and school administrators challenge the denial of motions to preliminarily enjoin the enforcement of an order issued by the New York City Commissioner of Health and Mental Hygiene mandating that individuals who work in New York City schools be vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus.The Second Circuit concluded that the Vaccine Mandate does not violate the First Amendment on its face. However, the court concluded that plaintiffs have established their entitlement to preliminary relief on the narrow ground that the procedures employed to assess their religious accommodation claims were likely constitutionally infirm as applied to them. The court explained that the Accommodation Standards as applied here were neither neutral nor generally applicable to plaintiffs, and thus the court applied a strict scrutiny analysis at this stage of the proceeding. The court concluded that these procedures cannot survive strict scrutiny because denying religious accommodations based on the criteria outlined in the Accommodation Standards, such as whether an applicant can produce a letter from a religious official, is not narrowly tailored to serve the government's interest in preventing the spread of COVID-19. Accordingly, the court vacated the district court's orders denying preliminary relief and concurred with and continued the interim relief granted by the motions panel as to these fifteen individual plaintiffs. The court remanded for further proceedings. View "Kane v. De Blasio" on Justia Law

David Bronner, secretary-treasurer of the Public Education Employees' Health Insurance Plan ("PEEHIP"), and individual members of the Board of Control of PEEHIP ("the PEEHIP Board"), the remaining defendants in this action (collectively, "defendants"), appealed the grant of summary judgment entered in favor of the plaintiffs and members of a purported class, who were all active public-education employees and PEEHIP participants married to other active public-education employees and PEEHIP participants and who had dependent children. Before October 1, 2010, all public-education employees participating in PEEHIP earned a monthly "allocation" or benefit, which could be used to obtain certain coverage alternatives under PEEHIP. In May 2010, the PEEHIP Board voted to eliminate "the combining allocation program" and to phase in a new premium rate structure ("the 2010 policy"), which required a public-education employee married to another public-education employee to gradually begin paying the same monthly premiums for family hospital-medical coverage that other PEEHIP participants were required to pay. In May 2014, the original named plaintiffs, individually and on behalf of a class of similarly situated individuals, filed a purported class action against the defendants, among others, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1983. In their complaint, the original named plaintiffs sought a judgment declaring that the 2010 policy was unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution because, they claimed, the 2010 policy denied them and the members of the purported class a benefit for the payment of insurance accorded every other PEEHIP participant. The original named plaintiffs sought an order enjoining the defendants from denying them and the members of the purported class the use of that benefit, which, they claimed, would permit them and the members of the purported class to obtain family coverage at no cost. The defendants thereafter moved for a summary judgment, which the trial court denied. The Alabama Supreme Court reversed, finding nothing to indicate that the defendants intended to single out the public-education plaintiffs for disparate treatment under the 2010 policy. Accordingly, the Court concluded the 2010 policy was neither arbitrary nor discriminatory and that it did not violate either the Equal Protection Clause or the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. View "Bronner, et al. v. Barlow et al." on Justia Law

In 1992, Michigan voters, wanting to amend Michigan’s Constitution to establish term limits for state legislators, state executives, and members of Congress, got a petition on the ballot; 58.8% of voters approved the measure. Term limits became part of the Michigan Constitution (six years in Michigan’s House of Representatives; eight years in the Michigan Senate). Some voters sued, arguing that the term limits violated their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The Sixth Circuit upheld the term limits. About 20 years later, a bipartisan group of veteran legislators challenged the term-limit provision, making many of the same ballot-access and freedom-of-association claims, and citing two procedural provisions of the Michigan Constitution.The district court granted Michigan summary judgment. After determining that it had jurisdiction because the legislators raise claims under the Federal Constitution, the Sixth Circuit affirmed. Precedent bars their claims as voters. Voters have no fundamental right to “vote for a specific candidate or even a particular class of candidates.” As candidates, the legislators hold no greater protection than the voters they wish to represent. Candidates do not have a fundamental right to run for office. Michigan has several legitimate government interests in enacting term limits, including its sovereign interest in structuring its government as it sees fit. View "Kowall v. Benson" on Justia Law

At issue before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in this case centered on a determination of Appellant Manheim Township School District (“School District”) that one of its students, Appellee J.S., made terroristic threats to another student through social media – outside of the school day and off school property – substantially disrupting the school environment, and leading to his expulsion. The Supreme Court granted review to consider whether the School District denied J.S. due process during the expulsion process and to consider the proper standard by which to determine whether J.S. engaged in threatening speech unprotected under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, or created a substantial disruption of the school environment. The Court determined J.S. did not engage in unprotected speech, and did not cause a substantial disruption to the school environment. Therefore, the Court concluded that the School District improperly expelled J.S., and affirmed the order of the Commonwealth Court. View "J.S., et al. v. Manheim Twp. SD" on Justia Law

The State of Alaska and numerous intervenors filed suit challenging the Forest Service's issuance of the Roadless Rule, which prohibits (with some exceptions) all road construction, road reconstruction, and timber harvesting in inventoried roadless areas on National Forest System lands. After the district court dismissed the case on statute-of-limitations grounds, the DC Circuit reversed and remanded. On remand, the district court granted the summary-judgment motions of the Agriculture Department and its intervenor supporters. After briefing but before oral argument, the Agriculture Department granted Alaska's request to conduct a rulemaking to redetermine whether to exempt the Tongass National Forest from the Roadless Rule. The DC Circuit ordered the appeals stayed pending completion of the rulemaking, and on October 29, 2020, the Agriculture Department issued a final rule exempting the Tongass from the Roadless Rule.The DC Circuit concluded that Alaska's claims regarding application of the Roadless Rule to the Tongass National Forest are moot, and dismissed these claims and vacated those portions of the district court's decision regarding the Tongass. The court dismissed the remaining claims on appeal for lack of standing. View "Alaska v. United States Department of Agriculture" on Justia Law

In an original proceeding filed to the Colorado Supreme Court, at issue were the final legislative redistricting plans for the Colorado Senate and House of Representatives, adopted and submitted to the Court by the Colorado Independent Legislative Redistricting Commission (the “Commission”). Under article V, section 48.3, the Court's jurisdiction was limited to whether the Plans complied with the criteria listed in section 48.1 of article V, and the Court had to approve those Plans unless the it concluded the Commission abused its discretion in applying or failing to apply those criteria in light of the record before it. Finding no such abuse of discretion here, the Colorado Court approved the Plans and ordered the Commission to file those Plans with the Colorado Secretary of State as required by article V, section 48.3(5). View "In re Colo. Indep. Legis. Redistricting Comm'n" on Justia Law

This case concerns OSHA's November 5, 2021 Emergency Temporary Standard requiring employees of covered employers to undergo COVID-19 vaccination or take weekly COVID-19 tests and wear a mask.The Fifth Circuit granted petitioners' motion for a stay pending review, holding that the Nken factors favored a stay. The court concluded that petitioners' challenges to the Mandate are likely to succeed on the merits. The court stated that, on the dubious assumption that the Mandate does pass constitutional muster, it is nonetheless fatally flawed on its own terms. The court wrote that the Mandate's strained prescriptions combine to make it the rare government pronouncement that is both overinclusive (applying to employers and employees in virtually all industries and workplaces in America, with little attempt to account for the obvious differences between the risks facing, say, a security guard on a lonely night shift, and a meatpacker working shoulder to shoulder in a cramped warehouse) and underinclusive (purporting to save employees with 99 or more coworkers from a "grave danger" in the workplace, while making no attempt to shield employees with 98 or fewer coworkers from the very same. The court found that promulgation of the Mandate grossly exceeds OSHA's statutory authority and found arguments to the contrary unavailing.The court also concluded that it is clear that denial of petitioners' proposed stay would do them irreparable harm where the Mandate threatens to substantially burden the liberty interests of reluctant individuals, companies, and the States. In contrast, the court stated that a stay will do OSHA no harm whatsoever. Finally, the court concluded that a stay is firmly in the public interest. View "BST Holdings, LLC v. Occupational Safety and Health Administration" on Justia Law

This case concerned the effect of the Alaska Legislature’s failure to exercise its confirmation power during the disruptions in regular government activity due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The legislature relied on a preexisting statute and a 2020 modification of it to assert that its failure to act is the same as a denial of confirmation for all those appointees, with the consequence that they could not continue to serve as recess appointments. The governor argued that his appointees remained in office and continued to serve until the legislature voted on their confirmation, one way or the other, in joint session. The superior court granted summary judgment to the legislature, and the governor appealed. In April 2021, the Alaska Supreme Court considered the appeal on an expedited basis and reversed the superior court’s judgment in a brief order, concluding that the laws defining legislative inaction as tantamount to rejection violated article III, sections 25 and 26 of the Alaska Constitution, which required that the legislature consider a governor’s appointees in joint session. This opinion explained the Court’s reasoning. View "State of Alaska, Office of the Governor Mike Dunleavy, in an official capacity v. The Alaska Legislative Council, on behalf of the Alaska State Legislature" on Justia Law

In this case, the issue presented for the Washington Supreme Court’s review centered on whether Governor Inslee exceeded his constitutional authority to veto whole bills, “entire section[s]” of bills, and “appropriation items” when he vetoed a single sentence that appeared seven times in various portions of section 220 of ESHB 1160, the 2019 transportation appropriations bill. Section 220 appropriated moneys to the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) for public transportation-related grants. The vetoed sentence (the “fuel type condition”) barred WSDOT from considering vehicle fuel type as a factor in the grant selection process. The Supreme Court concluded the Governor did exceed his authority; the bill was a valid legislative limit on an executive agency’s expenditure of appropriated funds. The Court therefore affirmed the superior court’s ordered on summary judgment in favor of the legislature. View "Washington State Legislature v. Inslee" on Justia Law