Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff, a member of the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), believed that God was punishing America for tolerating homosexuality and the WBC expressed its views by protesting at funerals, including those of American soldiers. Plaintiff brought a First Amendment challenge to a Manchester, Missouri ordinance that regulated protests near funerals. The district court ruled in favor of plaintiff, awarding nominal damages and enjoining enforcement of the ordinance. The court agreed that plaintiff had standing to challenge the ordinance where the ordinance specifically targeted plaintiff's conduct, but challenges to two earlier versions of the ordinance were moot. The court held that the district court erred in concluding that the ordinance was a content based regulation. The court affirmed, however, the district court's alternative conclusion, relying on Phelps-Roper v. Nixon, that the ordinance could not survive because it was not narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest where Manchester had no significant interest "in protecting funeral attendees from unwanted communication." Accordingly, the judgment of the district court was affirmed.

Appellee applied for supplemental security income under Title XVI of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. 1382. The Commissioner of the Social Security Administration subsequently appealed the district court's decision, arguing that the ALJ permissibly discounted appellee's testimony and that the district court substituted its own judgment for that of the ALJ in concluding otherwise. In the alternative, the Commissioner asserted that even if the ALJ erred, the district court should have remanded for additional proceedings and erred in directing the entry of an award of benefits. The court held that valid reasons supported the ALJ's adverse credibility determination and that substantial evidence in the record supported the ALJ's determination that appellee could perform sedentary work as long as he had the option of alternating between sitting and standing. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's decision and remanded for the district court to affirm the decision of the Commissioner.

Appellee sued the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration (SSA), seeking review of the SSA's denial of benefits to her daughter. At issue was whether a child conceived through artificial insemination more than a year after her father's death qualified for benefits under the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. 402, 416. The Commissioner interpreted the Act to provide that a natural child of the decedent was not entitled to benefits unless she had inheritance rights under state law or could satisfy certain additional statutory requirements. The court held that the Commissioner's interpretation was, at a minimum, reasonable and entitled to deference, and that the relevant state law did not entitle the applicant in this case to benefits. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's judgments.

The FTC sued Lundbeck, Inc., alleging that its acquisition of the drug NeoProfen violated the Federal Trade Commission Act, 15 U.S.C. 41 et seq., the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. 1-7, the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C. 12-27, the Minnesota Antitrust Law of 1971, and unjustly enriched Lundbeck. At issue was whether the district court properly determined that the FTC failed to identify a relevant market where the FTC did not meet its burden of proving that the drugs Indocin IV and Neoprofen were in the same product market. The court held that the district court's finding was not clearly erroneous and affirmed the judgment.

The United States brought this civil action under 26 U.S.C. 7408 to enjoin defendant from promoting several fraudulent tax schemes. After a court trial, the district court permanently enjoined defendant from promoting his schemes, ordered him to advise the IRS of any tax arrangements or business entities formed at his discretion, and required him to provide a copy of its order to his clients. On appeal, defendant argued that the injunction was not supported by adequate factual findings and legal conclusions, and that it was overbroad, an impermissible delegation of Article III power, and an unconstitutional prior restraint. The court rejected defendant's hypertechnical criticisms of the district court's order where section 6700 was a linguistically complex and intricate statute and where the district court need not include the entire statutory language in each of its findings and conclusions. Therefore, the court held that the district court's exhaustive order more than satisfied each of the requirements in section 6700 and affirmed the judgment of the district court.

The City of Indianola (City) adopted a land-use ordinance requiring the enclosure of "figure eight cars," among other racing vehicles, when two or more such cars were present. Iowa Assurance Corporation and its co-plaintiffs (collectively referred to as "Watson") sued the City, arguing that the ordinance created an uncompensated regulatory taking in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. At issue was whether the district court erred in using the Penn Central Transportation Co. v. City of New York framework to analyze his takings claim. The court held that the district court correctly determined that the ordinance should not be analyzed under the standards of Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., where the ordinance did not erode Watson's right to exclude others from property, which was central to establishing a Loretto claim. The court also held that the district court correctly concluded that the takings test articulated in Nollan v. California Coastal Commission did not apply to the ordinance where the ordinance did not require Watson to dedicate any portion of his property to either the City's or the public's use. Accordingly, the court affirmed the well-reasoned judgment of the district court in its entirety.

This case arose when Leiferman Enterprises LLC (Leiferman) unilaterally suspended negotiations with the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 82 (Union) regarding the renewal of the two parties' collective-bargaining agreement. The NLRB eventually filed a complaint but, during the litigation's pendency, a secured creditor forced Leiferman into receivership. During the receivership, the secured creditor sold Leiferman to Auto Glass Repair and Windshield Replacement Service (WRS), agreeing to indemnify WRS against any potential Board liability. At length, the Board found Leiferman liable for certain unfair labor practices and imposed that liability on WRS, which it determined to be a liable successor-in-interest under Golden State Bottling Co. v. NLRB. The Board subsequently petitioned the court to enforce its order and Leiferman cross-petitioned for review of the order. The court held that the record, reviewed as a whole, contained substantial evidence to support the Board's conclusion that WRS was Leiferman's Golden State successor-in-interest and therefore, the court enforced the Board's order and denied WRS's petition for review.

Petitioners filed a joint petition for review of an order of the Surface Transportation Board (Board), which found, among other things, that a railroad company's practice of charging petitioners interest on certain unpaid charges at a rate of 1-2% per month was not an unreasonable practice under 49 U.S.C. 10702(2). The Board filed a motion to dismiss the petition, arguing that 28 U.S.C. 1336(b) vested a federal district court with jurisdiction to review the Board's determination of the interest-rate issue to the extent one of the petitioners (Railroad Salvage) raised it. The court agreed and dismissed the petition to the extent that it asked the court to review the Board's resolution of the interest-rate issue with respect to Railroad Salvage. The court held that, although its jurisdiction to review the Board's determination of the interest-rate issue as to the other petitioner (Wiedeman) was not in dispute, its resolution of the issue could moot the referring district court's resolution of the issue with respect to Railroad Salvage. To ensure that the district court was allowed a meaningful review of the issue, the court held the petition in abeyance to the extent Wiedeman sought review of the Board's determination of the interest-rate issue.

Appellant appealed the denial of her application for Social Security Administration (SSA) disability benefits where the ALJ concluded that she retained the ability to perform her past relevant work and was therefore not disabled. The court held that the ALJ was not required to give controlling weight to the opinions of appellant's treating physician. The court also held that because there was substantial evidence in the record to support the ALJ's findings, the court declined to disturb the ALJ's decision on the ground that the ALJ failed to comply with the SSA Commissioner's policies in evaluating the severity of appellant's fibromyalgia and that the ALJ failed to give adequate weight to appellant's statements and the statements of her family and friends. The court further held that the ALJ's hypothetical to the vocational expert was proper and there was no evidence in this case to support a finding that bias impacted the ALJ's decision. Accordingly, the Commissioner's final decision to deny appellant's application for benefits was affirmed.

Appellant appealed the district court's order, which affirmed the decision of the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration (Commissioner), denying appellant's application for disability benefits (DIB) under Title II of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. 401 et seq. At issue was whether the ALJ committed legal error by failing to correctly apply the requisite five-step sequential evaluation process. The court held that the ALJ's failure to follow the mandated procedure was more than a mere oversight in opinion writing and that the ALJ was required to follow one of two paths at step five of the sequential process and there was no record indicating that the ALJ followed either path. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's order affirming the Commissioner's decision and instructed the district court to remand the case to the Commissioner for further proceedings.