Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of defendant's Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss an action challenging a Connecticut law imposing recycling fees on electronics manufacturers. VIZIO alleged that Connecticut's E-Waste Law effectively regulated interstate commerce in violation of the Commerce Clause. The court analyzed the claim through a "well-worn path," N.Y. Pet Welfare Ass'n, Inc. v. City of New York, 850 F.3d 79, 89 (2d Cir. 2017), and held that VIZIO failed to articulate entitlement to relief under this familiar rubric. The court declined to extend the extraterritoriality doctrine in such a way as to prohibit laws that merely consider out‐of‐state activity, did not apply the user fee analysis to VIZIO's case, and found no burden on interstate commerce that was clearly excessive to the considerable public benefits conferred by Connecticut's E‐Waste Law. View "VIZIO, Inc. v. Klee" on Justia Law

Thirteen Illinois municipalities claimed that the online travel agencies (OTAs), including Expedia, Priceline, and Travelocity, have withheld money owed to them under their local hotel tax ordinances. The OTAs operate their online travel websites under the “merchant model”; customers pay an OTA directly to reserve rooms at hotels the OTA has contracted with. The participating hotels set a room rental rate. The OTA charges the customer a price that includes that rate, the estimated tax owed to the municipality, and additional charges for the OTA’s services. After the customer’s stay, the hotel invoices the OTA for the room rate and taxes and remits the taxes collected to the municipality. Contracts between hotels and the OTAs confirm that the OTAs do not actually buy, and never acquire the right to enter or grant possession of, hotel rooms. The municipalities claim that OTAs do not remit taxes on the full price that customers pay. The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of the OTAs. None of the municipal ordinances place a duty on the OTAs to collect or remit the taxes, so the municipalities have no recourse against the OTAs View "Village of Bedford Park v. Expedia, Inc." on Justia Law

Between 1996-1999, Skulason was convicted of three misdemeanors involving the operation of a vehicle. In 2000, she applied for a real estate salesperson’s license. The Bureau of Real Estate initiated an administrative proceeding by filing a statement listing Skulason’s three convictions and alleging that they “constitute[d] cause for denial of [Skulason’s] application,” Gov. Code, 11504. The proceeding settled in 2004. Skulason admitted the allegations; the Board agreed to issue a restricted license. The settlement did not require the parties to maintain its confidentiality. In 2010, Skulason obtained an unrestricted license. Three years later, she obtained court dismissals of her three misdemeanor convictions. The Bureau maintains a public website that contains information about real estate licensees, including Skulason. It identifies her license number, its unrestricted status, the dates of issuance and expiration, and actions the Bureau has taken involving her license. Under the heading “Disciplinary or Formal Action Documents,” is a link to the case number of the administrative proceeding that resulted in Skulason’s 2004 restricted license. The court of appeal reversed an order that the Bureau remove the information. The Board has no mandatory duty to remove from its website publicly available information about a licensee’s convictions, including convictions that are eventually dismissed under Penal Code sections 1203.4 and 1203.4a. View "Skulason v. California Bureau of Real Estate" 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

Tennessee and North Carolina municipalities that provide broadband service would like to expand their networks beyond their current territorial boundaries to underserved nearby areas. State laws either forbid or put onerous restrictions on such expansion by municipal telecommunications providers. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), citing its statutory mandates to remove barriers to broadband service and to promote competition in the telecommunications market, issued an order purporting to preempt these state statutory provisions. The Sixth Circuit reversed the order, which “essentially serves to re-allocate decision-making power between the states and their municipalities.” No federal statute or FCC regulation requires the municipalities to expand or otherwise to act in contravention of the preempted state statutory provisions. This preemption by the FCC of the allocation of power between a state and its subdivisions requires at least a clear statement in the authorizing federal legislation. Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, cited by the FCC, states that the FCC “shall” take action to promote broadband deployment, but “falls far short of such a clear statement.” View "State of Tenn. v. Fed. Commc'n Comm'n" on Justia Law

Petitioners challenge the Commission's 2015 Open Internet Order, which reclassified broadband service as a telecommunications service, subject to common carrier regulation under Title II of the Communications Act, 47 U.S.C. 201. The Commission determined that broadband service satisfies the statutory definition of a telecommunications service: “the offering of telecommunications for a fee directly to the public.” In accordance with Brand X, the Commission's conclusions about consumer perception find extensive support in the record and together justify the Commission’s decision to reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service. See National Cable & Telecommunications Ass’n v. Brand X Internet Services. The court rejected petitioners' numerous challenges to the Commission's decision to reclassify broadband, finding that none have merit. The court concluded that the Commission adequately explained why it reclassified broadband from an information service to a telecommunications service and its decision was not arbitrary and capricious. US Telecom never questions the Commission’s application of the statute’s test for common carriage, and US Telecom cites no case, nor is the court aware of one, holding that when the Commission invokes the statutory test for common carriage, it must also apply the NARUC test. See National Ass’n of Regulatory Utility Commissioners v. FCC. Where the Commission concluded that it could regulate interconnection arrangements under Title II as a component of broadband service, the court rejected US Telecom's two challenges to the Commission's decision. The court rejected mobile petitioners’ arguments and find that the Commission’s reclassification of mobile broadband as a commercial mobile service is reasonable and supported by the record. In the Order, the Commission decided to forbear from numerous provisions of the Communications Act. The court rejected Full Service Network's procedural and substantive challenges to the Commission’s forbearance decision. The Commission promulgated five rules in the Order: rules banning (i) blocking, (ii) throttling, and (iii) paid prioritization; (iv) a General Conduct Rule; and (v) an enhanced transparency rule. The court rejected Alamo's challenge to the anti-paid-prioritization rule as beyond the Commission’s authority and rejected US Telecom's challenge to the General Conduct Rule as unconstitutionally vague. Having upheld the FCC’s reclassification of broadband service as common carriage, the court concluded that the First Amendment poses no bar to the rules and the court rejected Alamo and Berninger's challenges. Accordingly, the court denied the petitions for review. View "United States Telecom Assoc. v. FCC" on Justia Law

California’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003 (OPPA), under the unfair competition law (Bus. & Prof. Code 17200 et. seq.), addresses the obligations of an operator of a commercial Web site or online service regarding the posting of a privacy policy on the Internet. The state sought damages and injunctive relief under OPPA, alleging that Delta’s Fly Delta mobile application violated the privacy policy requirements. The trial court dismissed, finding the suit expressly preempted by the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 (49 U.S.C. 41713 (b)(1)). The court of appeal affirmed. To compel Delta to comply with the OPPA would effectively interfere with the airline’s “selection and design” of its mobile application, a marketing mechanism “appropriate to the furnishing of air transportation service,” for which state enforcement has been held to be expressly preempted. View "Harris v. Delta Air Lines" on Justia Law

John Fanning founded Jerk LLC (Jerk) and Jerk.com in 2009. From 2009 to 2014, Jerk operated Jerk.com. In 2014, the Federal Trade Commission (Commission) filed an administrative complaint charging Jerk and Fanning with engaging in deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce in violation of the Federal Trade Commission Act. The Commission entered a summary decision finding Fanning personally liable for misrepresentations contained on Jerk.com. Fanning petitioned for review. The First Circuit (1) affirmed the Commission’s finding of liability and the recordkeeping provisions and order acknowledgement requirement of the Commission’s remedial order; but (2) vacated Fanning’s compliance monitoring provisions, holding that these provisions were overbroad and not reasonably related to Fanning’s violation. View "Fanning v. Fed. Trade Comm'n" on Justia Law

Daoud, an 18-year-old American citizen, had an email conversation with undercover FBI employees posing as terrorists who responded to messages that he had posted online. Daoud planned “violent jihad” and discussed his interest in committing attacks in the U.S, using bomb-making instructions that he had read in Inspire magazine, an English-language organ of Al Qaeda, and online. Daoud selected a Chicago bar as the target of a bomb that the agent would supply. The agent told him the bomb would destroy the building and would kill “hundreds” of people. Daoud replied: “that’s the point.” On September 14, 2012, Daoud parked a Jeep containing the fake bomb in front of the bar. In an alley, in the presence of the agent, he tried to detonate the fake bomb and was arrested. In jail, he tried to solicit someone to murder the undercover agent with whom he had dealt. The government notified Daoud, under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), 50 U.S.C. 1801, that it intended to present evidence derived from electronic surveillance conducted under the Act. His attorney sought access to the classified materials submitted in support of the government’s FISA warrant applications. The government supplied a heavily redacted, unclassified response and a classified version, accessible only to the court with a statement that disclosure “would harm the national security.” The harm was detailed in a classified affidavit signed by the FBI’s Acting Assistant Director for Counterterrorism. The district judge ordered the materials sought by defense counsel turned over. In an interlocutory appeal, the Seventh Circuit reversed, stating that in addition to having the requisite security clearance the seeker of such information must establish need to know. View "United States v. Daoud" on Justia Law

Lavabit, a company that provided encrypted email service, and Ladar Levison, the company's sole and managing member, appealed the district court's order of contempt and imposition of monetary sanctions because Lavabit and Levison failed to comply with the Government's court orders under both the Pen/Trap Statute, 18 U.S.C. 3123-27, and the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. 2701-12, requiring Lavabit to turn over particular information related to a target in a criminal investigation. The court concluded that the district court did not err in finding Lavabit and Levison in contempt once they admittedly violated the order. In view of Lavabit's waiver of its appellate arguments by failing to raise them in the district court, and its failure to raise the issue of fundamental or plain error review, there was no cognizable basis upon which to challenge the order. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Lavabit, LLC, et al." on Justia Law