Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff, 64 years old, was discharged at age 18 or 19, soon after joining the Navy, because of mental illness. Sexually abused by his parents and others as a child, he suffers post-traumatic stress disorder, panic disorder, and bipolar disorder. He may be schizophrenic. He has received intensive psychiatric treatment over the last 23 years from the Veterans Administration. Beginning in 2007 a therapist employed at a VA medical center, assigned to treat plaintiff, began a sexual relationship with him. Plaintiff complained to his psychologist and the VA conducted an investigation that resulted in her admitting the sexual relationship. Plaintiff claims that the relationship caused emotional distress and made his mental illnesses worse. The Federal Tort Claims Act makes the federal government liable for acts or omissions by its employees that would be torts in the state in which they occurred had they been committed by someone other than a federal employee, 28 U.S.C. 2674, with exceptions, including one for claims “arising out of . . . battery.” The plaintiff argued that his suit charges not battery by the therapist but negligence by her supervisors in failing to detect and prevent her actions. The Seventh Circuit affirmed dismissal. View "Glade v. United States" on Justia Law

In this appeal, the question presented to the Supreme Court based on the facts of this case was: "[w]hen a physician is alleged to have acted as an apparent agent of a hospital, does the Maine Health Security Act require that the alleged negligent acts or omissions of that physician be evaluated by the mandatory prelitigation screening and mediation panel before a claim may be brought in court against the hospital based on that physician’s conduct? The Court answered that question in the affirmative: "[b]ecause Maine law requires that a prelitigation screening panel evaluate a physician's alleged professional negligence before consideration at trial, and because that did not occur in the instant case," the Court vacated the judgment and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "Levesque v. Central Maine Medical Center" on Justia Law

Plaintiff was a passenger on a bus operated by the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART) when the bus was involved in an accident. Plaintiff filed an application for no-fault benefits with SMART's insurer soon thereafter, but waited more than seven months to notify SMART that she might pursue liability in tort. SMART moved for partial summary judgment, arguing that the notice provision of the Metropolitan Transportation Authorities Act required notice of plaintiff’s tort claims within 60 days of the accident as a condition precedent to maintaining those claims. The circuit court granted SMART partial summary judgment, but the Court of Appeals reversed. Upon review of the applicable statute and Plaintiff's appeal brief, the Supreme Court concluded that notice of plaintiff’s application for no-fault insurance benefits, even when supplemented with SMART’s presumed "institutional knowledge" of the underlying facts of the injury, did not constitute written notice of a third-party tort claim against SMART sufficient to comply with MCL 124.419. The judgment of the Court of Appeals was reversed. View "Atkins v. Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transp." on Justia Law

Christina McCahan was injured in an automobile accident on the campus of the University of Michigan in 2007. The other driver, Samuel K. Brennan, was driving a car owned by the university and was on university business at the time. In 2008, McCahan’s counsel sent a letter to the university indicating that counsel intended to represent McCahan in a lawsuit concerning the accident. After McCahan brought the action against Brennan and the University of Michigan Regents in the Court of Claims, the university moved for summary judgment on the basis that the notice of intent had not been filed within the six-month period provided in MCL 600.6431(3). The court agreed with the university and granted summary judgment in its favor. McCahan appealed. The Court of Appeals affirmed. Upon review of the matter, the Supreme Court concluded the Court of Appeals correctly determined that when the Legislature conditions the ability to pursue a claim against the state on a plaintiff’s having filed specific statutory notice, the courts may not require an "actual prejudice" component onto the statute as a precondition to enforcing the legislative prohibition: "such statutory notice requirements must be interpreted and enforced as plainly written and that no judicially created saving construction is permitted to avoid a clear statutory mandate." View "McCahan v. Brennan" on Justia Law

Respondents, a county, city, village, and other government officials, established speed cameras that recorded, among others, Petitioners traveling in their vehicles over the posted speed limit. Respondents issued citations to Petitioners. Petitioners subsequently filed a complaint in the circuit court, asserting claims sounding in tort and seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. Petitioners asserted that Respondents' contracts with their common speed monitoring contract, ACS State and Local Solutions, violated Md. Code Ann. Transp. 21-809(j), which prohibited the county from remunerating, on a per-citation basis, a contractor who operates a speed monitoring system on the county's behalf. The circuit court granted Respondents' motions for summary judgment on all counts. The intermediate appellate court affirmed. The Court of Appeals affirmed but on different grounds, holding (1) section 21-809 does not provide an express or implied private cause of action in tort; and (2) Petitioners lacked the necessary taxpayer standing to pursue their injunctive and declaratory relief claims. View "Baker v. Montgomery Co." on Justia Law

This case stemmed from plaintiff's claim for survivor benefits after her husband was awarded total disability benefits in 1993 under the Black Lung Benefits Act, 30 U.S.C. 932, until his death in 2000. The liable employer subsequently filed a modification request seeking reconsideration of the award of benefits. In 2004, the ALJ agreed to modify the 1993 award, retroactively denying plaintiff's living miner's claim and also rejecting her survivor's claim. On plaintiff's petition for review of the ALJ's decision, the court vacated and remanded for further proceedings, holding that the ALJ had failed to exercise the discretion accorded to him with respect to the modification request. On remand, the ALJ again denied plaintiff's claims but the Benefits Review Board (BRB) reversed. The employer petitioned for review and the court denied the petition, affirming the BRB's decision denying modification. View "Westmoreland Coal Co. v. Sharpe" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, cattle producers, appealed the district court's dismissal of their Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. 1346(b)(1), complaint, alleging that a government employee negligently caused illness and death within their cattle herd by mandating a toxic plant mixture on pasture land enrolled in a conservation program. The district court held that the allegations of negligence involved the employee's exercise of protected discretion and therefore fell within the discretionary function exception to the FTCA's waiver of sovereign immunity. The court held that the employee's selection of a seeding plan was discretionary but that it was not the type of discretionary action Congress intended to shield from suit. View "Herden, et al. v. United States" on Justia Law

John Woodruff appealed a circuit court order dismissing his malicious-prosecution, false imprisonment, and tort-of-outrage claims against the City of Tuscaloosa ("the City") and several of its employees. On October 16, 2006, Woodruff went to the Tuscaloosa Police Department headquarters to resolve a warrant that had been sworn against him for harassing communications. After presenting himself, Woodruff was arrested and handcuffed by a Tuscaloosa police officer and told to wait until another officer could arrive to complete the booking process. While waiting in the public lobby of police headquarters, Woodruff became involved in a verbal altercation with an off-duty Tuscaloosa police officer, and he was subsequently charged by Officer Canterbury with disorderly conduct, another Class C misdemeanor. Woodruff was thereafter booked and transported to the county jail, where he was released on bond later that night. On October 19, 2006, Woodruff returned to the Tuscaloosa Police Department to file a written complaint regarding the events surrounding his arrest and booking on October 16. The Tuscaloosa Police Department ultimately determined that Woodruff's complaint was without merit. On November 15, 2006, Woodruff was convicted of disorderly conduct. He thereafter sought a trial de novo on the charge in Circuit Court; however, in December 2008, while the matter was still pending, Woodruff and the City apparently reached an agreement to nol-pros the charge if Woodruff would undergo counseling. On January 2, 2009, the disorderly conduct charge was formally dropped. On January 3, 2011, Woodruff filed the this action. Upon review, the Supreme Court concluded that it was "evident" that Woodruff did not state a claim upon which relief could be granted. The Court affirmed the circuit court in denying his claims. View "Woodruff v. City of Tuscaloosa" on Justia Law

James Mickelson appealed a judgment affirming a Workforce Safety and Insurance ("WSI") decision denying his claim for workers' compensation benefits. He argued WSI erred in deciding he did not suffer a compensable injury. Upon review, the Supreme Court concluded WSI misapplied the definition of a compensable injury, and the Court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Mickelson v. Workforce Safety & Ins." on Justia Law

Plaintiff-Appellant Jimmie Allison’s causes of action arose from conduct on Kirtland Air Force Base, a federal enclave established in 1954. Because Allison’s state law claims were based on legal theories created by common law after that date, they are barred unless federal statutory law allows them to go forward. Because no federal statute authorized state employment and tort claims of the sort underlying this case to be asserted against federal contractors, Plaintiff's suit was barred by the federal enclave doctrine. Accordingly, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court's order dismissing Plaintiff's case.