Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

The Georgia Parties, Gwinnett County, Georgia, and the United States Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps) appealed from a grant of summary judgment in this consolidated suit arising from more than 20 years of litigation between the parties. All of the underlying cases related to the Corps' authority to operate the Buford Dam and Lake Lanier, the reservoir it created, for local water supply. On appeal, the parties raised several jurisdictional matters and asserted a number of substantive claims. The court held that the district court erred in finding that it had jurisdiction to hear certain parties because the Corps had not taken final agency action. The court also held that the district court and the Corps erred in concluding that water supply was not an authorized purpose of the Buford Project under the Rivers and Harbors Act (RHA), Pub. L. No. 79-525, 60 Stat. 634. The court also held that the district court erred in finding that the 1956 Act expired after 50 years. The court also provided certain instructions to the Corps on remand and the Corps shall have one year to make a final determination of its authority to operate the Buford Project under the RHA and the Water Supply Act, 43 U.S.C. 390b(a).

Respondent filed an action under the False Claims Act ("FCA"), 31 U.S.C. 3730(e)(4)(A), alleging that his former employer had submitted hundreds of false claims for payment under its federal contracts. At issue was whether a federal agency's written response to a request for records under the Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA"), 5 U.S.C. 552, constituted a "report" within the meaning of the public disclosure bar. The Court held that a federal agency's written response to a FOIA request for records constituted a "report" within the meaning of the FCA's public disclosure bar where a "report," in this context, carried its ordinary meaning; where the Labor Department's three written responses in this case, along with the accompanying records produced to respondent's wife, were "reports" within the public disclosure bar's ordinary meaning; where the Court was not persuaded by assertions that it would be anomalous to read the public disclosure bar to encompass written FOIA responses; and whether respondent's suit was "based upon... allegations or transactions" disclosed in the reports at issue was a question to be resolved on remand.

Plaintiffs, two non-profit organizations, sought injunctive and declaratory relief to remedy the delays in the provision of mental health care and adjudication of service-connected death and disability compensation claims by the Department of Veterans Affairs ("VA"). At issue was whether these delays violated veterans' due process rights to receive the care and benefits they were guaranteed by statute for harms and injuries sustained while serving our country. While the court affirmed the district court's ruling, with respect to various claims for specific forms of relief under the Administrative Procedures Act ("APA"), 5 U.S.C. 500 et. seq., that the APA prevented the court from granting veterans the statutory relief they sought, the court reversed the district court's ruling on plaintiffs' constitutional claims and held that the VA's failure to provide adequate procedures for veterans facing prejudicial delays in the delivery of mental health care violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The court further held that the district court erred in concluding that it lacked jurisdiction to review plaintiffs' due process challenge to delays and procedural deficiencies in the compensation claims adjudication system and that it erroneously denied plaintiffs' the relief to which they were entitled under the Due Process Clause.

Appellee, as personal representative for her son's estate, brought a wrongful death suit against a tugboat owner, appellant, and sought contribution from the United States as co-tortfeasor, when her son was killed during a Navy training exercise where his rigid-hull inflatable boat collided with the tug boat when it was pushing an eight-barge flotilla up the James River. At issue was whether the district court properly determined that appellant was negligent for failing to post a proper lookout on the night of the accident and whether the district court properly dismissed appellant's third-party claim for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The court declined to disturb the district court's findings as to liability for the collision and apportionment of fault where the district court understood and properly applied the appropriate legal standard pursuant to Inland Navigation Rule 5 and where appellant's additional arguments were unavailing. The court affirmed the district court's order granting the government's motion to dismiss appellant's third-party claim where the district court found that the Feres-Stencel Aero doctrine applied to appellant's action and barred its attempt to obtain contribution from the United States for damages when the government had not waived its sovereign immunity.

The Department of Veterans Affairs disability rating schedule governs entitlement to compensation based on loss of earning capacity. The Veterans Court held that the petitioner, whose 100% disability rating is based on multiple disabilities, no one of which is rated at 100%, did not qualify under 38 U.S.C. 1114(s), which provides $320 in additional monthly compensation to a veteran with âa service-connected disability rated as totalâ if the veteran either has another independently rated disability or combination of disabilities rated at 60%, or is permanently housebound by reason of service-connected disability. The Federal Circuit affirmed. The use of the singular and plural terms was purposeful and intended to limit payment of the special monthly compensation to a veteran who has at least one condition that has been rated as totally disabling. The court rejected an argument based on a rule that allows the Secretary to rate the veteran as âtotally disabled based on individual unemployabilityâ even if a veteran does not qualify for a rating of 100%.

After the Board of Veteransâ Appeals denied the veteran's claim for service-connected benefits for a thyroid disorder, the Veterans Court vacated and remanded the case for reconsideration. The veteran sought fees of $11,710.57 for attorney work under the Equal Access to Justice Act, 28 U.S.C. 2412. The district court awarded $8,601.80 and denied a request for supplemental fees for time spent defending the original fee request. The Federal Circuit reversed and remanded. A veteran is entitled to attorney fees incurred throughout the litigation, including those incurred in preparation and defense of the fee application to the extent those fees are defensible; the veteran was partially successful in defending his original fee application.

The VA denied the plaintiff's claim for benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from a sexual assault that she claimed occurred in 1984, while she was stationed in Japan. The Veterans Court and Federal Circuit affirmed. The Veterans Court committed harmless error in stating that a medical opinion based on a post-service exam cannot be used to establish the occurrence; the Veterans Board of Appeals detailed its consideration of all of the plaintiff's evidence and determined that the preponderance of the evidence was against a finding of verification of the occurrence.

In 1978 the VA published an Agent Orange Program Guide that was the basis for denial of many claims of service-related injury. While a suit, challenging the Guide as issued in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), was pending, Congress enacted the 1984 Veteransâ Dioxin and Radiation Exposure Compensation Standards Act, which rendered the Guide irrelevant to new claims. Plaintiffs continued to pursue their suit and, in 2005, new named plaintiffs were added. In 2008, the district court granted the government's 1979 motion for judgment. The D.C. Circuit first remanded the case for transfer under the 1988 Veterans Judicial Review Act, 38 U.S.C. 502, but, on rehearing, ordered dismissal. The veterans refiled in the Federal Circuit, which dismissed for failure to file within the Act's six-year limitations period. When the claim was filed, no court had jurisdiction to hear APA challenges to VA regulations and the 1988 Act did not retroactively create a cause of action.

The district court rejected a challenge to 5 U.S.C. 3328, which bars males who have knowingly and willfully failed to register for the draft by age 26 from employment by the executive branch. The First Circuit vacated and remanded for entry of a judgment denying relief for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The exclusive remedy for the plaintiffs, who were dismissed or resigned from federal employment after discovery of their failure to register, is under the Civil Service Reform Act. Although the claims implicate constitutional violations, Congress intended to consolidate employee removal actions in a single forum. The Merit System Protection Board cannot grant relief by invalidating the statute, but a court could do so on review of board action. The court characterized the constitutional challenges as "unpromising."