Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

The Bald Knob Cross is a well-known Illinois tourist attraction, claiming to be the largest cross in the Western Hemisphere. It had fallen into disrepair. The non-profit group Friends of the Cross was formed to solicit donations. In 2008 Friends secured a $20,000 grant from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. Sherman, an atheist, filed suit, alleging violation of the Establishment Clause (42 U.S.C. 1983) and claiming standing as a taxpayer. A magistrate ruled that Sherman lacked standing and that his claim was moot. The district court dismissed. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. "Whatever may be lurking in the background of this appropriations legislation, the $20,000 grant to Friends was not the result of legislative action; rather, it can be traced at most to the initiative of a single legislator. The ultimate pool of $5 million was in the hands of an executive agency, which was formally responsible for the decision to hand out the $20,000 to Friends." Taxpayer standing is foreclosed under these circumstances.

The State of Illinois, facing a significant and unprecedented fiscal deficit, brokered a series of compensation agreements with the exclusive bargaining representative for 40,000 state employees. The parties trimmed several hundred million dollars in fiscal years 2011 and 2012 by deferring general wage increases and instituting a voluntary furlough program. Despite these measures, the fiscal year 2012 budget did not contain sufficient appropriations for deferred wage increases due employees of 14 state agencies. The state froze the pay of those employees, repudiating agreements with the union. The district court dismissed a suit that alleged violations of the Contracts Clause and the Equal Protection Clause and state law. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding the Contracts Clause claim barred by the Eleventh Amendment. The court noted that the state’s actions did not bar a breach of contract suit. There was a rational relationship between those actions and a legitimate governmental purpose, precluding an equal protection claim.

In 2011 the court vacated a rule issued by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration about the use of electronic monitoring devices in commercial trucks. Petitioners, commercial truck drivers, sought attorneys’ fees and costs under the Equal Access to Justice Act 28 U.S.C. 2412. The other party, Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, was not included in the petition, but was the only party responsible for paying the fees. The EAJA defines a party eligible for an award as “an individual whose net worth did not exceed $2,000,000” or an “organization, the net worth of which did not exceed $7,000,000.” The Seventh Circuit denied fees. The absence of OOIDA from the petition indicates that it is not eligible for fees. Even if the petitioners did not have an explicit fee arrangement among themselves, their fee arrangements with the same law firm, which had represented OOIDA for over 20 years, resulted in an implicit arrangement whereby the organization paid all fees and costs and the individual drivers were not responsible for any payment. The purpose of the EAJA would not be served by awarding fees to the individuals. Financial considerations would not have deterred them from pursuing this action. .

The Atomic Energy Act, 42 U.S.C. 2011, requires that nuclear generators implement access authorization programs. Many employees at privately-owned nuclear power plants must receive a security clearance with "unescorted access" privileges. When such access is denied or revoked, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires owner-licensees to provide the aggrieved worker with a review procedure. From 1991 to 2009, the Commission took the position that labor arbitrators could review access denials at unionized facilities. Courts agreed. In 2009, the Commission completed post-9/11 overhaul of security requirements. New language was ambiguous as to whether the Commission had changed its policy to prohibit arbitral review. The district court entered declaratory judgment that the amendments prohibited arbitration of access denial decisions. The Seventh Circuit reversed, concluding that the Commission did not "flip-flop on an important, longstanding, and controversial policy without clearly indicating either in the text of the rule or at any point in the rulemaking history that it was doing so."

Romasanta worked in Chicago as an expediter, helping developers obtain construction permits. In testifying against Curescu, a developer, she admitted bribing 25 to 30 city employees between 2004 and 2007. She paid an $8,000 bribe to a zoning inspector on behalf of Curescu. Convicted of bribery of an agency that receives federal assistance, 18 U.S.C. 666 and conspiracy, 18 U.S.C. 371, Curescu was sentenced to six months and the zoning inspector to 41 months in prison. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting various challenges to testimony and to the court's refusal to severe the cases.

Employers must maintain a log of work-related deaths, injuries, and illnesses, 29 C.F.R. 1904.4(a); an incident is "work-related" if "the work environment either caused or contributed to the resulting condition." Employees in the company's packing department fill containers, a process requiring repetitive hand movements, and pronation. When an employee developed lateral epicondylitis, painful swelling of ligaments and tendons around a joint, in her right arm, the company did not log the injury. The Department of Labor assessed a $900 penalty for failing to log a work-related injury. An ALJ sustained the penalty. The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission declined review. The Seventh Circuit vacated, holding that substantial evidence was not enough to sustain the administrative decision. The ALJ was required to take account of competing evidence and inferences; the ALJ ignored strong indications that its favored witness was wrong. The court noted that inclusion of the work-relatedness requirement, requiring employers to judge the source of injury, "is a puzzle."

In 2009 the fire protection district adopted an ordinance requiring commercial buildings and multi-family residences to have fire alarms equipped with wireless radio technology to send alarm signals directly to the district's central monitoring board. The ordinance provided that the district would contract with one private alarm company to provide and service signaling equipment, displacing several private fire alarm companies that have competed for these customers. The alarm companies sued on claims under the U.S. Constitution, federal antitrust law, and state law. The district court granted summary judgment for the alarm companies on the basis of state law and enjoined the district from implementing the ordinance. The Seventh Circuit affirmed in part, holding that the district has statutory authority to require that commercial and multi-family buildings connect directly to its monitoring board through wireless radio technology. The district does not, however, have authority to displace the entire private market by requiring all customers to buy services and equipment from itself or just one private company.

Plaintiff was terminated from his position as Senior Humane Officer for the city after refusing to support defendant's successful mayoral campaign and brought suit, claiming that the position of SHO was not subject to political termination and that his dismissal violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The district court, relying on an official job description, found that the SHO was a policy-making position, and that plaintiff could be dismissed for political reasons. The Seventh Circuit affirmed on the basis that city ordinances authorized the SHO to exercise policy-making discretion.

ESBC, billing agent for the Fire Department, determined that each of the individual defendants owned a vehicle involved in a collision to which the Fire Department responded and each had insurance coverage, and billed response costs incurred for each collision. The defendants refused to pay and ESBC sought a declaration that defendants were liable under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, 42 U.S.C. 9601. Under CERCLA, the owner of a “facility” from which hazardous substances have been released is responsible for response costs that result from the release. Insurer-defendants counterclaimed for injunctive relief from ESBC’s billing practices and alleging violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. 1692, unjust enrichment, unlawful fee collection, fraud, constructive fraud, and insurance fraud. The district court granted defendants judgment on the pleadings and dismissed counterclaims without prejudice. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Motor vehicles for personal use fall under the "consumer product in consumer use” exception to CERCLA’s definition of facility

A supervising building inspector was convicted of conspiracy to commit bribery, 18 U.S.C. 371, and two counts of making false statements to federal agents, 18 U.S.C. 1001(a)(2) and was sentenced to a total of 60 months' imprisonment. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The district court properly allowed testimony about the 2005 gift list of a city businessman; the testimony was probative of intent and not so prejudicial as to cause the jury to decide the case on an improper basis. Although the court erred by admitting the list itself as a business record, the error was harmless. The court properly barred recordings between defendant and one of the witnesses who testified against him, which contained self-exculpatory statements. The court properly held defendant accountable for more than $112,500 in bribes, which resulted in an eight-level increase to the USSG offense level.