Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

The Information Security Management Act, 44 U.S.C. 3541â49, requires that federal agencies meet information security standards. Compliance is monitored by the Office of Management and Budget. The Department of Justice purchased a license for plaintiffâs compliance product. Plaintiff participated with DOJ in seeking designation as a "Center of Excellence." Without notifying plaintiff, DOJ developed an alternative product, accessing plaintiff's database to learn the systemâs architecture. OMB selected DOJ as a Center of Excellence and required agencies to purchase from COEs. DOJâs product substituted its alternative for plaintiff's software. Plaintiff filed, in district court, a Lanham Act claim; a common law unfair competition claim; and a breach of fiduciary duty claim. Months later, plaintiff filed, in the Court of Federal Claims, claims of: breach of oral or implied contract, breach of license agreement, and breach of duty of good faith and fair dealing. The district court dismissed all but the Lanham Act claim. The Claims Court dismissed all claims, applying 28 U.S.C. 1500, which precludes it from exercising jurisdiction over "any claim for or in respect to which the plaintiff ⦠has pending in any other court any suit ⦠against the United States." The Federal Circuit reversed, in part, reasoning that the license agreement claim does not arise from substantially the same facts as the district court claim.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, considering a suit by the city to collect taxes from a ticket reseller, requested a determination of whether municipalities may require electronic intermediaries to collect and remit amusement taxes on resold tickets. The Illinois Supreme Court held that state law preempts such a tax. The state has a long history of protecting consumers and has regulated auctioneers for more than 10 years and ticket resales for 20 years; it has regulated scalping in some form since 1923. The statutory scheme, and the debates which produced the Ticket Sale and Resale Act (720 ILCS 375/0.01) evince an intent to allow internet auction listing services to opt out of any obligation regarding local tax collection. The city overstepped its home rule authority.

Petitioner Barry Gregg challenged a Workersâ Compensation Commission (Commission) holding that denied him permanent partial disability benefits. Petitioner was injured on the job for Respondent Natchez Trace Electric Power (Natchez) and was unable to satisfactorily return to his job nor earn on-call compensation. Petitioner unsuccessfully appealed the Commissionâs decision to the circuit court and the Court of Appeals. On appeal to the Supreme Court, Petitioner argued that the Commission erred in reaching its decision. In the decision adopted by the Commission, the administrative law judge observed that Petitioner made more money after his injury than before he was injured. The appellate court affirmed the Commissionâs decision on the basis of a presumption that because of that earning discrepancy, Petitioner failed to prove that he suffered a loss of âwage-earning capacity.â The Supreme Court found that the Commission erred by considering Petitionerâs higher wage post-injury as determinative of his earning capacity. The Court found that Petitioner had rebutted the presumption regarding his earning capacity. Subsequently, the Court reversed both the Commissionâs and the appellate courtâs holdings and remanded the case for further proceedings.