Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

These consolidated appeals focus on a Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq., visible emissions regulation promulgated by the State of Alabama and submitted to the EPA as a revision to Alabama's State Implementation Plan (SIP). The court held that the EPA's 2011 disapproval was unauthorized by the Act because the EPA failed to make the statutorily required error determination. The court rejected the EPA's reliance on its inherent authority and the court's remand order as authorization for the 2011 disapproval. Finally, the court dismissed challenges to the 2008 approval and affirmed the validity of the action. View "Alabama Environmental Council, et al. v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency" on Justia Law

The State appealed from the district court's order enjoining it from requiring plaintiff to submit to a suspicionless drug test pursuant to Section 414.0652 of the Florida Statutes, as a condition for receipt of government-provided monetary assistance for which he was otherwise qualified. Plaintiff applied for financial assistance benefits for himself and his son through Florida's Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (TANF). The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in granting the preliminary injunction enjoining the State from enforcing the statute because the court concluded that the State had failed to establish a substantial special need to support its mandatory suspicionless drug testing of TANF recipients. View "Lebron v. Secretary, FL Dept. of Children and Families" on Justia Law

Starship, a purveyor of various novelty items including sexually explicit materials, appealed the judgment of the district court dismissing under Rule 12(b)(6) its federal constitutional claims brought under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against defendants and refusing to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over its state constitutional claims. Starship's claims stemmed from the County's decision to uphold the Business Director's denial of its application for a business license to operate a retail bookstore. The court found no error in the district court's dismissal of Starship's 1983 claims because they were barred by res judicata and the district court's decision not to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Starship's state law claims. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Starship Enterprises of Atlanta v. Coweta County, GA, et al" on Justia Law

Plaintiff sued a police officer for damages under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that the officer used excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The officer shot plaintiff seven times while plaintiff was in his car. The officer and the city police department subsequently appealed the district court's denial of the officer's motion for summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity. The court concluded that the officer was not entitled to qualified immunity where no reasonable police officer would have used deadly force against plaintiff and where clearly established law gave the officer fair notice that his actions violated the Fourth Amendment. Further, state agent immunity did not apply to the assault and battery claim. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Morton v. Kirkwood" on Justia Law

This appeal involved a county ordinance for permitting stevedores at the Port of Miami in Miami-Dade County. FTS filed suit against the County, which owns and operates the Port. FTS alleged that the County's Port Director did not follow the ordinance's requirements at all but instead protected incumbent stevedores and kept out new entrants and competition, like FTS, by rubber-stamping and automatically renewing permits for all existing stevedore permit holders at the Port and automatically denying permits to all new applicants in violation of the dormant Commerce Clause. The court held that the ordinance as applied violated the dormant Commerce Clause and the market-participant exception was not applicable. The court also held that the evidence provided a sufficient legal basis for the jury's damages award. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Florida Transportation Service v. Miami-Dade County" on Justia Law

The Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum appealed the district court's post-trial order denying it declaratory and injunctive relief. The Museum challenged the jurisdiction of the USDA to regulate the Museum as an animal exhibitor under the Animal Welfare Act (AWA), 7 U.S.C. 2131 et seq. The court concluded that the Museum's exhibition of the Hemingway cats (descendants of Hemingway's polydactyl cat, Dexter), which roamed freely on the Museum's grounds, substantially affected interstate commerce where the Museum invited and received thousands of admission paying visitors from beyond Florida, many of whom were drawn by the Museum's reputation for and purposeful marketing of the Hemingway cats and where the exhibition of the Hemingway cats was integral to the Museum's commercial purpose. Therefore, Congress had the power to regulate the Museum and the exhibition of the Hemingway cats via the AWA. View "907 Whitehead Street, Inc. v. Secretary of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, et al" on Justia Law

This case involved the City of Atlanta's compliance with two consent decrees which resolved complex, multi-party litigation arising from Atlanta's violation of the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. 1251 et seq. The court held that the district court exceeded the scope of its authority by exercising jurisdiction over the state service delivery proceedings. The district court's order enjoining Fulton County and Sandy Springs from pursuing the state service delivery proceedings in state court was vacated and remanded for the district court to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction Atlanta's Amended Third-Party Complaint against Sandy Springs. View "City of Atlanta v. City of Sandy Springs, et al" on Justia Law

In these three consolidated appeals, the court must decide issues about the enforceability of German bonds issued during the period between World War I and World War II. The court concluded that the district court had jurisdiction under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. 1330, 1302-1311, over the complaint against Germany filed by Sovereign Bonds regarding its Agra bonds issued in the territory that later became East Germany; all the bonds were subject to the 1953 Validation Treaty and must be validated before they could be enforced in American courts; the complaint filed by World Holdings to enforce its validated bonds was untimely; and the district court did not abuse its discretion when it denied discovery to Sovereign Bonds on the issue of validation. View "World Holdings, LLC v. Federal Republic of Germany" on Justia Law

Leon County appealed the dismissal of its complaint against the FHFA, it's acting director, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac, for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. On appeal, Leon County argued that by directing Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks to refrain from purchasing mortgages encumbered with certain first-priority lien obligations, some of which were held by Leon County, the FHFA engaged in rulemaking without providing notice and comment pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 12 U.S.C. 4526(b). The court agreed with the district court that, under the specific facts in this case, the FHFA's directive not to purchase Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) encumbered mortgages was within the FHFA's broad powers as conservator. Accordingly, because 12 U.S.C. 4617(f) provided that "no court may take any action to restrain or affect the exercise of powers or functions of the [FHFA] as a conservator or receiver," the district court held that section 4617(f) barred Leon County's claims. View "Leon County Florida, et al v. Federal Housing Finance Agency, et al" on Justia Law

In this matter, the court must decide whether it had original subject matter jurisdiction over several petitions for review of an administrative rule that exempted transfers of waters of the United States from the requirements for a permit under the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. 1251 et seq., or whether the court could avoid deciding that question and instead exercise hypothetical jurisdiction to decide the merits of the petitions. The court held that, under the plain language of the governing statute, the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to review the petitions and could not exercise hypothetical jurisdiction over them. Accordingly, the court dismissed the petitions. View "Friends of the Everglades v. United States Environmental Protection Agency" on Justia Law