Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant-Appellant Kerry Raina Bryant appealed her conviction for theft by an officer or employee of a gaming establishment on Choctaw Indian lands. She entered a conditional plea, reserving the right to appeal the denial of her motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. She was sentenced to a two-year probation, and ordered to pay restitution. On appeal, Defendant argued that the statute under which she was charged (18 U.S.C. 1168) did not apply to her because she was not a casino employee, and that 18 U.S.C. 2 did not apply because it punishes illegal acts against the "United States," and the Choctaw tribe is "not the United States." Upon review, the Tenth Circuit found that Defendant committed her crime with her sister, who was a casino employee, and the applicable statute declares Defendant a "principal" for aiding and abetting theft by a casino employee. Furthermore, the Court found Defendant's crime was against a "a gaming establishment licensed by the National Indian Gaming Association that sits on territory subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. Plainly, there was a crime against the United States." The Court affirmed Defendant's conviction.

Petitioner-Appellant Jean Mathia is the widow of Doyle Mathia, who was a limited partner in Greenwich Associates. Greenwich was a partnership that incurred losses that were passed through to the couple’s income tax returns for the years 1982–84. After an investigation of numerous related tax shelters, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue disallowed these losses. Petitioner was assessed more than $150,000 in taxes following lengthy administrative and judicial proceedings involving the partnership. Petitioner appealed to the United States Tax Court to challenge the assessments as untimely, and to assert that the government bore the burden of proof in establishing timeliness. The Tax Court denied the appeal. On appeal to the Tenth Circuit, Petitioner contended the tax assessments were untimely because the relevant statute of limitations had run. The Tenth Circuit concluded that Petitioner's contention turned on whether Mr. Mathia entered into a settlement agreement under the tax code that resolved his partnership tax liability on an individual basis. The Court agreed with the tax court that he entered into no such agreement which would have qualified under the tax code as a settlement of Mr. Mathia's liability as an individual partner. Therefore, the Court concluded the assessments were timely and properly applied by the IRS.

Plaintiff-Appellant John Conger appealed the Commissioner's denial of his application for supplemental social security income benefits. Plaintiff applied for benefits in 2005 alleging he was unable to work because of degenerative disk disease, spondylosis, arthritis, depression, and problems sleeping. His application was denied at the administrative level after a hearing before an administrative law judge (ALJ). The ALJ further found that Plaintiff had the residual functional capacity (RFC) to perform simple and routine medium exertional work that required no more than occasional stooping and no contact with the public. After the Appeals Council denied his request for review, Plaintiff filed his complaint in the district court. The district court adopted the report and affirmed the Commissioner's denial of benefits. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit found no error in the ALJ's RFC finding and that the decision was supported by substantial evidence. The Court affirmed the district court and Commissioner's rulings.

Pro se Plaintiff-Appellant Richard Dumas appealed the dismissal of his workplace discrimination suit against Proctor and Gamble (P&G). Plaintiff was employed as a contractor assigned to work at P&G's Kansas City manufacturing plant in 2005. Between 2005 and 2007, Plaintiff alleged he was subjected to discrimination in the workplace including the use of racial epithets, misuse of company disciplinary proceedings, and an incident in which a chair was pulled away as Dumas was attempting to sit on it. Dumas resigned in November of 2007. In 2011, he filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) alleging discrimination. The EEOC closed the claim as untimely. Plaintiff then filed a complaint in district court against P&G, and P&G moved to dismiss, alleging Plaintiff failed to timely exhaust his administrative remedies. Plaintiff responded that he was given bad advice by an unnamed EEOC agent. The district court concluded that Dumas failed to meet the narrow requirements for equitable tolling and dismissed the claim. Finding that Plaintiff failed to carry his burden of establishing that an EEOC agent actually misled him, and insufficiently present his state law claims, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgement in dismissing Plaintiff's case.

Plaintiff-Appellant Bruce Field filed a wrongful termination action against his former employer the Board of Water Commissioners for the City and County of Denver (Denver Water), alleging three "1983" retaliation claims. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Denver water and dismissed the case with prejudice. Plaintiff was a project manager. He came to suspect misconduct between senior engineers and several contractors at three projects he was working on. Plaintiff expressed his concerns to his superiors, who responded that the matters were "taken care of." Denver Water assured Mr. Field they were retaining a national auditing firm to conduct an external review, but he alleged the firm was unqualified and biased. Plaintiff's supervisor issued a recommendation for corrective action against Plaintiff, noting that an internal auditor had "seen nothing that could not be corrected" at the end of the projects. Further, the supervisor reported that Plaintiff was insubordinate and "willing to go to extreme lengths to prove his unreasonable belief that the contractors and Denver Water management are corrupt." The supervisor recommended that Plaintiff be terminated. Finding that the district court "accurately and thoroughly examined Mr. Field's claims and concluded they were all meritless," the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court's decision to dismiss Plaintiff's case.

Plaintiff-Appellant Kathryn Johns appealed the district court’s denial of her motion for attorneys' fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) which followed the court's remand to the Commissioner of her claims for Social Security disability benefits. In denying Plaintiff's application for disability benefits, the administrative law judge (ALJ) concluded that her diagnosed mental impairments were not severe apart from alcohol abuse. Plaintiff argued before the district court that the ALJ had failed to apply the correct analysis in assessing her alcoholism. Specifically, the ALJ did not first find that she was disabled, and only then could the ALJ determine whether she would still be disabled if she stopped using alcohol. The government admitted that the ALJ did not follow the specified procedure, but argued that the error was harmless because the dispositive question was the same. Ultimately the district court remanded the case back to the Commissioner. Plaintiff then moved for fees under the EAJA. The government responded by arguing that a fee award was inappropriate because it believed the error by the ALJ was harmless. The district court denied Plaintiff's motion for fees. Finding that the district court believed that application of harmless error in this case was a close call, the Tenth Circuit concluded that under those circumstances, the district court did not "cross the bounds of the rationally available choices available to it when it concluded that the Commissioner's position was substantially justified." Accordingly, the Court affirmed the denial of fees.

Respondent Alena Berridge relocated to Denver, Colorado from the Czech Republic with her two children. Subsequently, Petitioner Max Joseph Lesler, Respondent’s ex-husband and father of the children, filed a petition seeking return of the children to the Czech Republic pursuant to the Hague Convention and ICARA. In this appeal, the issue before the Tenth Circuit was whether the Court could grant any meaningful relief when the district court granted a petition for the return of children based not on a finding of wrongful removal, but instead on the parents' stipulation that the children would return to the country of habitual residence for a custody hearing. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit held this action was moot, resting on the fact that the district court made no finding of wrongful removal, and not on the basis of the children's then-current location. Accordingly, the appeal was dismissed and the district court's opinion was vacated. The case was remanded for dismissal due to lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

Petitioners Anschutz Company and Philip and Nancy Anschutz appealed a Tax Court decision to hold them responsible for substantial income tax deficiencies for the taxable years 2000 and 2001. Those deficiencies, the Tax Court concluded, resulted from their failure to recognize taxable gain when a subsidiary of the Anschutz Company entered into a series of related agreements that included a variable prepaid forward contract for the sale of certain shares of stock and accompanying share-lending agreements. Finding no error in the Tax Court's decision, the Tenth Circuit affirmed.

Claimant Debra Ann Luttrell appealed a district court order that affirmed the Commissioner's decision to deny her social security disability and supplemental security income benefits. Claimant challenged the Commissioner's decision on the grounds that the ALJ did not perform: (1) a proper determination at step five; (2) a proper analysis of the medical source opinions; and (3) a proper credibility determination. Finding that the ALJ's decision was free of legal error and supported by substantial evidence, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the denial of benefits.

Petitioner Dewey MacKay, M.D. petitioned the Tenth Circuit to review a decision of the Deputy Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that revoked his registration to dispense controlled substances and denied all pending requests for renewal of modification. This case concerned Petitioner's prescribing behavior from 2005 to 2009 when his practice focused primarily on chronic pain management. The DEA began investigating Petitioner after receiving information from local authorities that he was issuing unlawful prescriptions for controlled substances. the Deputy Administrator of the DEA issued an order to show cause why it should not revoke Petitioner's registration, alleging that Petitioner "issued numerous purported prescriptions for controlled substances without a legitimate medical purpose outside the usual course of professional practice." The Tenth Circuit denied Petitioner's petition for review: "Petitioner never admitted any fault or taken responsibility for his misconduct. Nor [could] he point to any evidence that he reformed his habits. Instead, he continued to illegitimately dispense controlled substances even when he knew the DEA was investigating him. The Deputy Administrator’s revocation of [Petitioner's] registration is consistent with the DEA’s policy and practice of revoking registration under such circumstances."