Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

Mohamed Tawid Al-Saffy, an Egyptian-American Muslim employed by the Foreign Agricultural Service, filed suit under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. 2000e et seq., alleging that the Agriculture and State Departments each discriminated against him based on religion and national origin, and retaliated against him for filing an EEO complaint. The district court granted summary judgment to the government. The court concluded that, because Title VII requires final agency action to notify the employee of his right to appeal and the governing time limitation, the order dismissing the 2012 Complaint did not trigger the ninety-day deadline for Al-Saffy to file suit. Instead, given the lack of timely final action by the agency, Al-Saffy could have and did file a civil action more than 180 days after the filing of the 2012 Complaint with the agency. Therefore, Al-Saffy’s October 10, 2013 filing in district court thus preserved his claims from the 2012 Complaint. The court also concluded that the district court erred in granting summary judgment for the government on Al-Saffy's claims against the State Department because there are genuine issues of material fact regarding whether Al-Saffy had an employment relationship with the State Department within the meaning of Title VII, and whether Al-Saffy knew about the State Department’s alleged role in discrimination against him prior to 2013. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Al-Saffy v. Vilsack" on Justia Law

Until recently, incumbent public utilities were free to include in their tariffs and agreements “the option to construct any new transmission facilities in their particular service areas, even if the proposal for new construction came from a third party.” The Commission ordered utilities to remove rights of first refusal from their existing tariffs and agreements. In S.C. Pub. Serv. Auth. v. FERC, the court upheld the Commission's removal mandate. Under the Mobile-Sierra doctrine, FERC must presume a contract rate for wholesale energy is just and reasonable and cannot set aside the rate unless it is contrary to the public interest. The Commission had reserved judgment on whether to apply this presumption to the rights of first refusal until evaluating the individual utilities’ compliance filings. The court also reserved judgment. Petitioners seek review of FERC's determination at the compliance stage, urging that the Commission erred in concluding that Mobile-Sierra does not in fact protect their rights of first refusal contained in their Regional Transmission Organization (RTO) Membership Agreement. The court held that the Commission painted with a broader brush than necessary in applying potentially applicable Supreme Court precedent, but the court denied the petition nonetheless because nothing in the Mobile-Sierra doctrine requires its extension to the anticompetitive rights of first refusal at issue here. View "Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co. v. FERC" on Justia Law

SFPP and several shippers challenged aspects of three of FERC's orders related to filings by SFPP for cost-of-service tariffs on its pipelines. SFPP disputes FERC’s choice of data for calculating SFPP’s return on equity and the Commission’s decision to grant only a partial indexed rate for the 2009 index year. Shippers claim that FERC’s tax allowance policy for partnership pipelines, such as SFPP, is arbitrary or capricious and results in unjust and unreasonable rates. The court concluded that FERC's choice of data for assessing SFPP's real return on equity was arbitrary or capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 706(2)(A), because the Commission provided no reasoned basis to justify its decision to rely on the September 2008 data. Therefore, the court granted SFPP's petition on this issue. The court concluded that FERC's indexing analysis was not arbitrary or capricious where FERC complied with the plain text of its regulations when it found that granting SFPP a full indexed rate adjustment would result in unjust and unreasonable rates. Finally, the court also concluded that FERC must demonstrate that there is no double recovery of taxes for partnership pipelines. Accordingly, the court granted SFPP's petition in part and denied the petition in part. The court granted Shippers' petition and vacated FERC's orders with respect to the double recovery issue, and remanded to FERC. View "United Airlines, Inc. v. FERC" on Justia Law

Alaska Native tribes filed suit against the Department, challenging the regulation implementing the prohibition barring the Department from taking land into trust for Indian tribes in Alaska. After the district court held that the Department’s interpretation was contrary to law, the Department, following notice and comment, revised its regulations and dismissed its appeal. Alaska intervened and now seeks to prevent any new efforts by the United States to take tribal land to trust within the State's borders. In this case, Alaska intervened in the district court as a defendant and brought no independent claim for relief. The court concluded that once the Department rescinded the Alaska exception, this case became moot. Even assuming, as Alaska argues, that the district court’s interpretation of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), 43 U.S.C. 1601 et seq., injured the State, such injury cannot extend the court's jurisdiction by creating a new controversy on appeal. Accordingly, the court dismissed Alaska's appeal for lack of jurisdiction. View "Akiachak Native Community v. DOI" on Justia Law

NFB filed suit challenging the DOT's rule requiring that air carriers begin to purchase ticketing kiosks accessible to blind persons within three years of the rule taking effect so that 25 per cent of kiosks eventually will be blind-accessible. The district court concluded that it lacked jurisdiction under 49 U.S.C. 46110(a) because the rule is an “order” over which the court of appeals has exclusive jurisdiction. The district court did not dismiss the complaint, but instead, transferred it to this court re-styled as a petition for review. NFB subsequently filed a notice of appeal - which the court construed as a petition for a writ of mandamus - challenging the district court’s conclusion that it lacked jurisdiction. The court concluded that section 46110(a) includes review of DOT rulemakings. The court did not reach NFB’s arguments on the merits because the court concluded that the district court lacked jurisdiction of NFB’s complaint and that reasonable grounds do not excuse NFB’s untimely filing. View "National Fed. of the Blind v. DOT" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a citizen of Burkina Faso, filed suit under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552, after DHS failed to disclose many of the immigration documents he had requested and gave no particularized explanation for its withholding decision. Shortly after plaintiff filed suit, the Department reversed course and spontaneously released a number of previously withheld documents, while offering a heavily revamped explanation for its remaining withholdings. The district court dismissed the case for failure to exhaust administrative remedies. The court reversed and remanded, concluding that the only live FOIA decision now under review is the one the Department chose to make for the first time in litigation, and for which there was no administrative avenue to exhaust. Once the government abandoned its original FOIA decision, the dispute between the parties centered on the correctness of the Department’s materially novel and different in-court disclosure decision. View "Bayala v. DHS" on Justia Law

Petitioners challenge the Commission's 2015 Open Internet Order, which reclassified broadband service as a telecommunications service, subject to common carrier regulation under Title II of the Communications Act, 47 U.S.C. 201. The Commission determined that broadband service satisfies the statutory definition of a telecommunications service: “the offering of telecommunications for a fee directly to the public.” In accordance with Brand X, the Commission's conclusions about consumer perception find extensive support in the record and together justify the Commission’s decision to reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service. See National Cable & Telecommunications Ass’n v. Brand X Internet Services. The court rejected petitioners' numerous challenges to the Commission's decision to reclassify broadband, finding that none have merit. The court concluded that the Commission adequately explained why it reclassified broadband from an information service to a telecommunications service and its decision was not arbitrary and capricious. US Telecom never questions the Commission’s application of the statute’s test for common carriage, and US Telecom cites no case, nor is the court aware of one, holding that when the Commission invokes the statutory test for common carriage, it must also apply the NARUC test. See National Ass’n of Regulatory Utility Commissioners v. FCC. Where the Commission concluded that it could regulate interconnection arrangements under Title II as a component of broadband service, the court rejected US Telecom's two challenges to the Commission's decision. The court rejected mobile petitioners’ arguments and find that the Commission’s reclassification of mobile broadband as a commercial mobile service is reasonable and supported by the record. In the Order, the Commission decided to forbear from numerous provisions of the Communications Act. The court rejected Full Service Network's procedural and substantive challenges to the Commission’s forbearance decision. The Commission promulgated five rules in the Order: rules banning (i) blocking, (ii) throttling, and (iii) paid prioritization; (iv) a General Conduct Rule; and (v) an enhanced transparency rule. The court rejected Alamo's challenge to the anti-paid-prioritization rule as beyond the Commission’s authority and rejected US Telecom's challenge to the General Conduct Rule as unconstitutionally vague. Having upheld the FCC’s reclassification of broadband service as common carriage, the court concluded that the First Amendment poses no bar to the rules and the court rejected Alamo and Berninger's challenges. Accordingly, the court denied the petitions for review. View "United States Telecom Assoc. v. FCC" on Justia Law

The SEC created a new class of securities offerings freed from federal-registration requirements so long as the issuers of these securities comply with certain investor safeguards (Regulation A-Plus). Petitioners, the chief securities regulators for Massachusetts and Montana, seek review of Regulation A-Plus. The court concluded that, because Regulation A-Plus does not conflict with Congress’s unambiguous intent, it does not falter at Chevron Step 1. Furthermore, because the Commission’s qualified-purchaser definition is not “arbitrary, capricious, or manifestly contrary to the statute,” it does not fail Chevron Step 2. By providing a reasoned analysis of how its qualified-purchaser definition strikes the “appropriate balance between mitigating cost and time demands on issuers and providing investor protections,” the court concluded that the Commission has complied with its statutory obligation under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 702. Accordingly, the court denied the consolidated petitions for review. View "Lindeen v. SEC" on Justia Law

Appellant, while pursuing her Ph.D. in Politics, submitted requests to the DOD under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552. By statute, educational institutions are eligible for reduced fees when they make FOIA requests. The Government has long determined that teachers who make FOIA requests are eligible for those reduced fees because teachers are part of an educational institution. But at the same time, the Government has determined that students who make FOIA requests are not eligible for those reduced fees because they are supposedly not part of an educational institution. The court disagreed, concluding that if teachers can qualify for reduced fees, so can students. Students who make FOIA requests to further their coursework or other school-sponsored activities are eligible for reduced fees under FOIA because students, like teachers, are part of an educational institution. Therefore, appellant is eligible for reduced fees for her FOIA request in this case. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Sack v. DOD" on Justia Law

Appellants filed suit under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 551 et seq., seeking to obtain a copy of a report authored by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Before the Committee conducted a comprehensive review of the program of detention and interrogation formerly run by the CIA, arrangements and rules were memorialized in a June 2, 2009, letter sent by the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee to the CIA Director. In 2014, after completing its review and receiving comments and proposed edits, the Committee produced an end product that included a 6,000-plus page investigative report (Full Report) and a 500-plus page Executive Summary. The court concluded that the June 2009 Letter manifests a clear intent by the Senate Committee to maintain continuous control over its work product, which includes the Full Report. Therefore, the Full Report always has been a congressional document subject to the control of the Senate Committee. The mere transmission of the Full Report to agency officials for their consideration and use within the Executive Branch did not vitiate the command of the June 2009 Letter or constitute congressional relinquishment of control over the document. Accordingly, the Full Report is a congressionally generated and controlled document that is not subject to disclosure under FOIA. The court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the suit based on lack of jurisdiction. View "ACLU v. CIA" on Justia Law