Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

Petitioner National Labor Relations Board (the Board or NLRB) sought enforcement of its order against Respondent Contemporary Cars, Inc. (Contemporary). In 2008, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (the Union) filed a petition with the Board seeking certification as the representative of Mercedes-Benz service technicians employed at Contemporary. The Board held a hearing, determined the proposed bargaining unit was appropriate under two different theories, and directed that an election occur. Contemporary requested that the Board review the Regional Director’s decision regarding the bargaining unit. Despite only having two members, the Board summarily denied the request. Members of the bargaining unit voted in for representation by the Union, and the Regional Director certified the Union. To preserve its right to challenge the validity of the bargaining-unit determination in a court of appeals, Contemporary refused to bargain. The Union filed an unfair labor practice charge with the Board. Contemporary conceded the violation, and in 2009, the two-member Board issued an order finding Contemporary in violation of the National Labor Relations Act (the Act). Contemporary filed a petition for review of the NLRB’s order with the federal district court. The NLRB cross-petitioned seeking enforcement. The circuit court granted Contemporary's motion to hold the case in abeyance pending the Supreme Court's decision in "New Process Steel, L.P. v. NLRB" (130 S. Ct. 2635 (2010)). In 2010, the NLRB issued an order setting aside its previous two-member decision to "take further action as appropriate." The original two members plus an obligatory third member issued a new order, again affirming the Regional Director's bargaining-unit decision. The NLRB subsequently filed a petition for enforcement of its order with the Eleventh Circuit. Upon review, the Court found that it lacked jurisdiction to consider Contemporary's due process challenge raised on appeal of the 2010 NLRB order. Furthermore, Contemporary did not meet its burden of demonstrating the Board's determination lacked substantial evidentiary support. Therefore, the Court granted the NLRB's petition.

This appeal involved the district court's entry of a preliminary injunction preventing enforcement of Alabama Act No. 3010-761 (Act). The Act would prohibit a state or local government employee from arranging "by payroll deduction or otherwise" the payment of any contribution for "political activity." The district court found that the statute impinged on important free speech rights protected by the First Amendment and that appellees were likely to succeed in showing the Act was both overbroad in its restrictions and unduly vague as to what constituted political activity. The court concluded that the constitutional question before it turned upon a question of state law and therefore delayed final judgment as to the preliminary injunction until the Alabama Supreme Court had an opportunity to render is interpretation of the Act by answering the court's certified questions.

Plaintiff appealed the district court's judgment dismissing his petition for a writ of mandamus and his complaint seeking declaratory and injunctive relief under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 551 et seq. Plaintiff's complaint requested the district court to mandamus the defendants (1) to determine as a matter of law that plaintiff had been "admitted" to the United States for purposes of his application for adjustment of status under 8 U.S.C. 1255(a) and (2) to re-open and re-adjudicate plaintiff's application for adjustment of status, which was previously denied. The court held that plaintiff could not satisfy the requirements for mandamus relief and that he had not demonstrated that he lacked an adequate remedy for obtaining relief. In fact, plaintiff had sued under the APA, which provided an adequate remedy. Therefore, the court held that because plaintiff had an adequate remedy available to him, the district court properly dismissed his request for mandamus relief. The court also held that the plain language of section 1255(a) limited eligibility for status adjustment to an alien who had been inspected and admitted or paroled. That an alien with Temporary Protected Status had lawful status as a nonimmigrant for purposes of adjusting his status did not change section 1255(a)'s threshold requirement that he was eligible for adjustment of status only if he was initially inspected and admitted or paroled. Accordingly, the court held that the district court's ruling was consistent with the plain language of the statute. Furthermore, even if the statutory language was ambiguous, the court deferred to the Department of Homeland Security's consistent and well-reasoned interpretation of the interplay between section 1255(a) and section 1254a(f)(4). Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the petition and complaint.

Plaintiffs, citizens and residents of Bolivia, brought suit under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), 28 U.S.C. 1350, against the former President and Defense Minister of Bolivia (defendants) for decisions these leaders allegedly made while in high office. Plaintiffs asserted that defendants violated international law by committing extrajudicial killings; by perpetrating crimes against humanity; and by violating rights to life, liberty, security of person, freedom of assembly, and freedom of association. The court held that because the pertinent international law was not already clear, definite, or universal enough to reach the alleged conduct (especially after the pleadings were stripped of conclusory statements), the court declined to expand the kinds of circumstances that could be actionable under the ATS to cover the facts alleged in this case. Accordingly, the court held that the denial of the motion to dismiss these claims was reversed.

The United States appealed an award of attorney's fees and costs under the Hyde Amendment, Pub. L. No. 105-119, section 617, 111 Stat. 2440, 2519, and two attorneys, Sean Cronin and Andrea Hoffman, appeal public reprimands entered against them based on their work as Assistant United States Attorneys in an underlying criminal action marked by hard adversarial tactics. The court held that the district court abused its discretion when it imposed sanctions against the United States for a prosecution that was objectively reasonable, and the district court violated the constitutional right to due process of the two lead prosecutors, when it denied them notice of any charges of misconduct and an opportunity to be heard. Therefore, the court vacated the award of attorney's fees and costs against the United States and the public reprimand of Cronin and Hoffman, but the court denied the request of Cronin and Hoffman that the court reassign the case to a different district judge at this stage.

The city filed a complaint in admiralty against defendant, a vessel, claiming that defendant committed the maritime tort of trespass because it remained at the city marina after the city explicitly revoked its consent, and seeking to foreclose its maritime lien for necessaries (unpaid dockage provided to defendant by the city). Claimant, owner of the vessel, appealed from the district court's entry of an order of summary judgment and an order of final judgment for the city in an in rem proceeding against defendant. The court held that the district court did not err in concluding that it had federal admiralty jurisdiction over defendant where defendant was a "vessel" for purposes of admiralty jurisdiction; the district court's factual findings regarding the amount claimant owed under the city's maritime lien for necessaries were not clearly erroneous; the district court did not err in granting summary judgment to the city on claimant's affirmative defense of retaliation; the district court correctly concluded that the city was not estopped from bringing its action in admiralty against defendant; and the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to apply collateral estoppel because the issues at stake were significantly different from those in dispute in the state court proceeding. Accordingly, the district court's orders were affirmed.

Plaintiffs brought this action challenging the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Pub. L. 111-148, 124 Stat. 119, amended by Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (HCERA), Pub. L. No. 111-152, 124 Stat. 1029 (Act). The government subsequently appealed the district court's ruling that the individual mandate was unconstitutional and the district court's severability holding. The state plaintiffs cross-appealed the district court's ruling on their Medicaid expansion claim. The court held that the Act's Medicaid expansion was constitutional. The court also held that the individual mandate was enacted as a regulatory penalty, not a revenue-raising tax, and could not be sustained as an exercise of Congress's power under the Taxing and Spending Clause; the individual mandate exceeded Congress's enumerated commerce power and was unconstitutional; and the individual mandate, however, could be severed from the remainder of the Act's myriad of reforms. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part and reversed in part the judgment of the district court.

Florida Water Environment Association Utility Council and South Florida Water Management District (appellants) appealed the district court's order approving a consent decree between the EPA and a group of environmentalist organizations (plaintiffs). The consent decree settled a suit by plaintiffs against the EPA that alleged that the agency failed to promulgate timely new water-quality standards for the State of Florida. Appellants claimed that the consent decree was substantively and procedurally unreasonable and that the district court abused its discretion in approving the decree. The court held that because appellants have not demonstrated a live case or controversy that would give the court jurisdiction over their case, the court dismissed their appeal.

Plaintiffs, Cindy Fils and Nemours Maurice, raised claims under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that certain named police officers used excessive force to subdue plaintiffs at a club. The court denied the officers' motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity and the officers appealed. The court affirmed the district court with respect to Maurice's excessive force claims against Officer Bergert and Williams; reversed the district court with respect to Fils' excessive force claims against Officer Bergert and Burns; affirmed the district court's decision to dismiss the remaining claims; and remanded the case to the district court for further proceedings.

Plaintiffs, visually or manually impaired Florida citizens who were registered to vote in Duval County, Florida and were represented by the American Association of People with Disabilities, filed a putative class action against defendants, alleging that defendants violated federal statutory and state constitutional provisions by failing to provide handicapped-accessible voting machines to visually or manually impaired Florida voters after the 2000 general election. The court vacated its prior opinion and in its revised opinion, held that the district court erroneously granted plaintiffs' requested declaratory judgment and injunction against purported violations of the American with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12101-12213, and the regulations promulgated thereunder. The opinion, however, based that outcome exclusively on the ground that voting machines were not "facilities" under 28 C.F.R. 35.151(b).