Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff appealed from a judgment denying his petition for writ of mandate, contending that the trial court misinterpreted the conditions placed on the approved vesting tentative map for a small subdivision he is attempting to develop. The trial court interpreted the conditions to require a fire suppression system, with functional fire hydrants to be in place, before the county would approve the final subdivision map.In the published portion of the opinion, the Court of Appeal held that plaintiff's claims of misinterpretation are not barred by the 90-day period set forth in Government Code section 66499.37. The court held that a claim of misinterpretation is distinct from a claim challenging the validity of the condition of approval and the two types of claims accrue at different times. View "Honchariw v. County of Stanislaus" on Justia Law

Appellant, Overstock.com, Inc. (Overstock) appealed a superior court judgment awarding Appellees/Plaintiff-Relator William French and the State of Delaware (Plaintiffs), $22,000 in civil penalties and $7,266,412.94 in treble damages for violations of the Delaware False Claims and Reporting Act (the DFCRA or the Act). Plaintiffs alleged Overstock engaged in what they described as a scam to evade its obligation to escheat balances owed on abandoned gift cards to the Delaware State Escheator. It did so, they claimed, by making it falsely appear that its gift cards were held by an Ohio company, not Overstock. It was undisputed that Overstock did not file escheat reports or pay the money value of abandoned gift cards to the Delaware Escheator during the years in question. The case was tried before a jury on a theory that Overstock violated the Act between 2010 to 2013. Overstock raised several claims on appeal, but the Delaware Supreme Court addressed only one. Overstock contended the superior court misinterpreted the Act and erred by instructing the jury that the knowing failure to file escheat reports when required to do so was no different than actively making a false statement. Overstock contended that the failure to file such reports does not satisfy the Act’s requirement that a false record or statement be made or used to avoid, conceal or decrease an obligation to pay money to the Government. Furthermore, Overstock contended it did not make or use any false record or statement in connection with gift cards that violated the Act. The Supreme Court agreed that the evidence failed to establish the making or use of a false record or statement in violation of the Act. Accordingly, the superior court’s judgment was reversed and the matter remanded for further proceedings. View "Overstock.com, Inc. v. State" on Justia Law

The plaintiff class in this case sued the State of Washington and the Office of Public Defense (OPD), alleging ongoing violations of the right to counsel in Grays Harbor County Juvenile Court. They premised state liability not only on alleged systemic, structural deficiencies in the state system, but also on the State and OPD’s alleged knowledge of Grays Harbor County’s specific failures to safeguard the constitutional right to counsel. The Washington Supreme Court determined that while the State bears responsibility to enact a statutory scheme under which local governments can adequately fund and administer a system of indigent public defense, it was not directly answerable for aggregated claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. Rather, to prevail on their claims against the State, the plaintiff class had to show that the current statutory scheme systemically failed to provide local governments, across Washington, with the authority and means necessary to furnish constitutionally adequate indigent public defense services. Given that standard, the Supreme Court rejected plaintiffs’ claims premised on the State and OPD’s alleged knowledge or awareness of Grays Harbor County’s failure to provide adequate public defense services. “Such an allegation cannot support state liability even if we could fairly impute knowledge or awareness or awareness of a particular county’s failings to the State. Plaintiffs’ claims alleging systemic, structural deficiencies in the public defense system remained viable. Therefore, the Court affirmed the superior court’s denial of the State’s motion for summary judgment in part, and remanded the matter for further proceedings. View "Davison v. Washington" on Justia Law

The Court of Appeals held that the certificate of public convenience and necessity issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to National Fuel Gas Supply for its proposed construction of a ninety-nine-mile natural gas pipeline satisfied Eminent Domain Procedure Law (EDPL) 206(A) so as to entitle National Fuel to exercise eminent domain over the land in dispute without undertaking additional review of the pipeline's public benefit.National Fuel commenced this EDPL vesting proceeding seeking to acquire, by eminent domain, temporary construction easements and a fifty-foot-wide permanent easement over property owned by Landowners to facilitate construction of the pipeline. Supreme Court granted the EDPL petition, concluding that National Fuel made a prima facie showing of entitlement to the easements based on the FERC certification. The Appellate Division reversed, reasoning that the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation's intervening denial of National Fuel's application for a water quality certification meant that National Fuel no longer held a qualifying federal certificate for purposes of the EDPL 206(A) exemption. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that because the FERC-issued certificate of public convenience and necessity did not condition National Fuel's eminent domain power on receipt of a water qualify certification, the federal certificate remained valid at all relevant times. View "National Fuel Gas Supply Corp. v. Schueckler" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the court of appeals granting the city of Xenia's request for a writ of mandamus ordering the Greene County Board of Commissioners (the county) to approve the city's annexation petition, holding that the city's petition satisfied the conditions of Ohio Rev. Code 709.23(E).The proposed annexation in this case concerned approximately forty-five acres of land located between Central State University and Xenia. The county denied the petition, determining that the petition did not satisfy section 709.023(E)(1), (4), (5), or (7). Thereafter, the city filed an original action in the court of appeals requesting a writ of mandamus compelling the county to approve the petition. The court of appeals issued the writ. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) a writ of mandamus is a proper vehicle to compel the county to grant the petition; and (2) the city's petition satisfied the conditions specified in section 709.023(E). View "State ex rel. Xenia v. Greene County Board of Commissioners" on Justia Law

On March 13, 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in California, the Superior Court of Contra Costa County announced it would be closed to the public between March 16 and April 1 and ceased conducting most, but not all, proceedings. Bullock, charged with human trafficking and pimping, contends his custodial preliminary hearing should have occurred during the March closure period under Penal Code section 859b, which establishes a 10-court-day timeframe for a preliminary hearing.The court of appeal dismissed Bullock’s petition for a writ of mandate. Good cause to delay the hearing was not established: the Superior Court’s finding that “the unprecedented [COVID-19] pandemic conditions that California was facing directly impacted the court[] operations” is insufficient. In the absence of a particularized showing of a nexus between the pandemic and the Superior Court’s purported inability to conduct Bullock’s preliminary hearing in a timely fashion, the Superior Court abused its discretion in finding no violation of section 859b. However, Bullock recently pled no contest to one of the charges against him pursuant to a negotiated disposition. View "Bullock v. Superior Court" on Justia Law

General’s clinicians perform services in long-term care facilities. General bills Medicare under 42 U.S.C. 1395. A Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) contractor, AdvanceMed, initiated audits in 2002 after the CMS fraud unit received complaints about General’s billing practices. In 2004 AdvanceMed initiated an audit of General’s physicians without providing any notice to General. AdvanceMed sent records requests to physicians at 12 General facilities, covering 382 claims involving 278 patients in 2002-2004. General was not notified of these requests. AdvanceMed did not request any records from General. AdvanceMed determined that 35 of the 382 claims were allowed as billed; 33 claims were allowed at different levels than billed. The remaining 314 claims were denied: 3 did not meet policy guidelines, 73 had no documentation to support the services, and 238 were medically unnecessary.General learned of this audit when it received a letter in 2007, indicating that General had been overpaid by $16,778.80; the overpayment was extrapolated to a universe of 41,818 claims. The total amount of overpayment demanded was $1,836,646.56. The Appeals Council determined and the Sixth Circuit affirmed that no remedy should be granted because the lack of notice was inconsequential and did not prevent General from ably and thoroughly arguing the principal issues resulting from the audit, the validity of the sampling methodology, and the coverage of the reviewed claims. The addition of more medical records would not have materially impacted its findings. View "General Medicine, P.C. v. Azar" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit granted the petition for writ of mandamus in part and ordered the district court to grant the government's Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 48 motion to dismiss the charges against Michael Flynn, former National Security Advisor to President Donald J. Trump, who pleaded guilty to making false statements under 18 U.S.C. 1001. The court held that the district court's orders appointing an amicus and scheduling a proposed hearing constitute legal error. The court also held that this is not the unusual case where a more searching inquiry is justified, and there is no adequate remedy for the intrusion on "the Executive's long-settled primacy over charging decisions."The court stated that, although Rule 48 requires "leave of court" before dismissing charges, "decisions to dismiss pending criminal charges—no less than decisions to initiate charges and to identify which charges to bring—lie squarely within the ken of prosecutorial discretion." The court reasoned that, whatever the precise scope of Rule 48's "leave of court" requirement, this is plainly not the rare case where further judicial inquiry is warranted. The court explained that Flynn agrees with the government's motion to dismiss and there has been no allegation that the motion reflects prosecutorial harassment, and the government's motion includes an extensive discussion of newly discovered evidence casting Flynn's guilt into doubt. The court stated that the government specifically points to evidence that the FBI interview at which Flynn allegedly made false statements was "untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Flynn." In light of this evidence, the government maintains that it cannot "prove either the relevant false statements or their materiality beyond a reasonable doubt." The court also stated that the government's representations about the insufficiency of the evidence are entitled to a "presumption of regularity," and, on the record before the district court, there is no clear evidence contrary to the government’s representations. Therefore, the court held that these clearly established legal principles and the Executive's "long-settled primacy over charging decisions" foreclose the district court's proposed scrutiny of the government's motion.The court also held that the district court's appointment of the amicus and demonstrated intent to scrutinize the reasoning and motives of the Department of Justice constitute irreparable harms that cannot be remedied on appeal. The court stated that the district court's actions will result in specific harms to the exercise of the Executive Branch's exclusive prosecutorial power, and the contemplated proceedings would likely require the Executive to reveal the internal deliberative process behind its exercise of prosecutorial discretion, interfering with the Article II charging authority. Furthermore, circumstances of this case demonstrate that mandamus is appropriate to prevent the judicial usurpation of executive power.The court denied Flynn's petition to the extent that he seeks reassignment of the district judge where the district judge's conduct did not indicate a clear inability to decide this case fairly. The court vacated the district court's order appointing an amicus as moot. View "In re: Michael Flynn" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court granted a writ of prohibition to prevent the City of Toledo from conducting an administrative hearing to adjudicate Susan Magsig's liability for violating a municipal traffic ordinance, holding that Toledo had no jurisdiction to conduct its own quasi-judicial proceedings.Toledo's automated system generated a notice of liability for a speeding offense that Magsig allegedly committed. Magsig brought an action for a writ of prohibition to prevent Toledo from conducting the administrative hearing on the grounds that Ohio Rev. Code 1901.20(A)(1), as amended by 2019 Am.Sub.H.B. No. 62, vested exclusive jurisdiction in the municipal courts to adjudicate alleged noncriminal traffic-law violations. The Supreme Court granted the writ, holding that section 1901.20(A)(1) expressly vests exclusive jurisdiction over noncriminal traffic-law adjudications in the municipal courts. View "State ex rel. Magsig v. City of Toledo" on Justia Law

Plaintiff School districts located in Midwest City/Del City, Enid, Ponca City, and Oklahoma City filed an action alleging they received insufficient State Aid payments for the years 1992-2014. The named defendants were: the Superintendent of Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE); the Oklahoma Tax Commission; and (3) the Oklahoma State Treasurer. Plaintiffs sought writs of mandamus to compel defendants to demand and recoup excessive State Aid payments made to other school districts, and then pay the correct apportionments to plaintiffs. Plaintiffs sought summary judgment, and intervenors, school districts in Tulsa County, sought summary judgment against plaintiffs. The district court granted intervenors' motion for summary judgment and concluded the defendants did not have a duty to seek repayment of excessive State Aid payments made to other schools until an audit was performed by auditors approved by the State Auditor and Inspector. Plaintiffs appealed and after review, the Oklahoma Supreme Court held the audit used by the State Board of Education when demanding repayment must be performed by auditors approved by the State Auditor and Inspector. A school district possesses a legal right to a proper apportionment of State Aid regardless of excessive payments made to other districts. A school district lacked a cognizable legal interest and standing in a claim to compel the State Board of Education to fund a lapsed appropriation. Plaintiffs' filings raised the issue of their standing to judicially compel legislative appropriations; standing would have to be adjudicated on remand. View "Independent School District # 52 v. Hofmeister" on Justia Law