Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

Petitioner Zen Magnets, LLC (“Zen”) challenged a regulation promulgated by Respondent Consumer Product Safety Commission (“the Commission”) restricting the size and strength of the rare earth magnets that Zen sold. The sets consisted of small, high-powered magnets that users could arrange and rearrange in various geometric designs. The component magnets are unusually small (their diameters are approximately five millimeters) and unusually powerful. Magnets of this type have been marketed and sold to consumers (by Zen and other distributors) as desktop trinkets, stress-relief puzzles, and toys, and apparently also for educational and scientific purposes. Although the strength of these magnets was part of their appeal, it could also pose a grave danger when the magnets are misused, particularly if two or more magnets were ingested. During 2011, in response to reports of injured children, Commission staff began evaluating whether the magnet sets currently on the market complied with ASTM F963 (“the toy standard”). In May 2012, the Commission required the thirteen leading magnet set distributors to report any information of which they were aware reasonably supporting the conclusion that their magnets did not comply with an applicable safety standard, contained a defect, or created an unreasonable risk of serious injury. Four months after eliminating ten of the leading magnet set distributors, the Commission proposed a new safety standard aimed at regulating the size and strength of all magnet sets. Unlike the toy standard, the final rule was not limited to magnets designed or marketed as toys for children under fourteen years of age, but rather applied to all magnet sets. Zen was the only remaining importer and distributor of the magnet sets targeted by the final rule. Over the years, Zen made efforts to comply with the toy standard by implementing age restrictions and placing warnings on its website and packaging, as well as by imposing sales restrictions on its retail distributors. Its magnet sets, however, did not comply with the strength and size restrictions of the final rule. Zen sought judicial review of that safety standard. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that the Commission’s prerequisite factual findings, which were compulsory under the Consumer Product Safety Act, were incomplete and inadequately explained. Accordingly, the Court vacated and remanded this case back to the Commission for further proceedings. View "Zen Magnets v. Consumer Product Safety Comm'n" on Justia Law

Plaintiff-Appellant Hardscrabble Ranch, L.L.C. appeals from the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the government. Hardscrabble sued the government under the Federal Tort Claims Act in connection with the Forest Service’s response to the Sand Gulch Fire, which damaged Hardscrabble’s land. On April 26, 2011, lightning ignited a wildfire in the Wet Mountains of Colorado, in a remote area of the San Carlos Ranger District in the Pike and San Isabel National Forests, and the Cimarron and Comanche National Grasslands. When the United States Forest Service (USFS) responded, the fire was still small and could have been extinguished then and there. The USFS instead instituted a partial suppression strategy, with the twin goals of allowing the fire to continue burning on Forest Service land while at the same time containing the fire from spreading onto private property, which bordered about half a mile to the east. High winds in advance of a snow storm caused the fire to jump the containment lines the USFS had created, and the fire grew from covering 25–30 acres to a size of more than 200 acres. The USFS changed to a full suppression strategy. That evening the predicted snow came and partially smothered the fire. By the time the fire was declared fully contained several days later, it had burned 496 acres, 154 of which were owned by Hardscrabble Ranch. Hardscrabble contends that the USFS failed to follow numerous policies, regulations, and protocols in its handling of the fire, and that as a result the government was responsible for the harm caused to the Ranch. The district court held that the discretionary function exception to the FTCA barred jurisdiction. Finding no error with that judgment, the Tenth Circuit affirmed. View "Hardscrabble Ranch v. United States" on Justia Law

Plaintiff-Appellant Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) sought to recover on a financial institution crime bond and appealed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendant-Appellee Kansas Bankers Surety Co. (KBS) and the subsequent denial of reconsideration. The district court held that the underlying bank, the New Frontier Bank of Greeley, Colorado, (Bank) had failed to submit a timely and complete proof of loss, thereby barring FDIC’s recovery on the bond. Finding no error in the district court's decision, the Tenth Circuit affirmed. View "FDIC v. Kansas Bankers Surety Company" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs appealed the district court’s denial of their request for a preliminary injunction to prevent the drilling of certain oil and gas wells in the Mancos Shale formation of the San Juan Basin in New Mexico. The district court concluded that Plaintiffs had failed to satisfy three of the four elements required to obtain a preliminary injunction: (1) Plaintiffs had not demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of their claims; (2) the balance of harms weighed against Plaintiffs; and (3) Plaintiffs failed to show that the public interest favored an injunction. Finding no reversible error in the district court's denial, the Tenth Circuit affirmed. View "Dine Citizens v. Jewell" on Justia Law

Petitioners American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign, The Cloud Foundation, Return to Freedom, Carol Walker, and Kimerlee Curyl filed this action against Sally Jewell, the Secretary of the Department of the Interior, and Neil Kornze, the acting director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), seeking review of BLM’s decision to remove wild horses in certain areas of public land located in southwestern Wyoming within an area known as the “Checkerboard.” The Checkerboard was comprised of over one million acres of generally high desert land, and “derives its name from the pattern of alternating sections of private and public land which it comprises.” Under a 2013 consent decree, BLM agreed to remove all wild horses located on private lands in the Checkerboard. BLM maintained that “due to the unique pattern of land ownership” within the Checkerboard, “and as recognized in the Consent Decree, it is practically infeasible for the BLM to meet its obligations under Section 4 of the [Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act ("the Act")] while removing wild horses solely from the private lands sections of the [C]heckerboard.” Petitioners alleged, in pertinent part, that the removal violated the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA). The district court rejected these claims. Petitioners appealed. The Tenth Circuit reversed, finding it was "improper" for BLM to construe the unambiguous terms “privately owned land” and “private lands,” as used in Section 4 of the Act, to include the public land sections of the Checkerboard. And, in turn, with respect to the FLMPA claims, it was improper for BLM to conduct what it described as a Section 4 gather on the public land sections of the Checkerboard. "By doing so, BLM violated the duties that Section 3 clearly imposes on it with respect to wild horses found on the public land sections of the Checkerboard." The Court reversed the district court and remanded this case for further proceedings. View "American Wild Horse v. Jewell" on Justia Law

The issue presented by this matter for the Tenth Circuit's review centered on whether section 5 of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) preempted a Kansas law requiring documentary proof of citizenship ("DPOC") for voter registration as applied to the federally-mandated voter-registration form that is part of any application to obtain or renew a driver's license. The U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas granted a motion for a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the Kansas DPOC requirements, holding that plaintiffs-appellees made a strong showing that the Kansas law was preempted by NVRA section 5. Defendant-appellant Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach appealed the district court’s entry of the preliminary injunction, which required him to register to vote any applicants previously unable to produce DPOC and to cease enforcement of Kansas’s DPOC requirement with respect to individuals who apply to register to vote at the Kansas Department of Motor Vehicles ("DMV") through the "motor voter" process. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals found after review that the district court did not abuse its discretion in granting the preliminary injunction because the NVRA preempted Kansas's DPOC law as enforced against those applying to vote while obtaining or renewing a driver's license. "Having determined that Secretary Kobach has failed to make this showing, we conclude that the DPOC required by Kansas law is more than the minimum amount of information necessary and, therefore, is preempted by the NVRA. We affirm the grant of a preliminary injunction." View "Fish v. Kobach" on Justia Law

Tulsa Airports Improvement Trust (TAIT) sought reimbursement for amounts it paid to a third-party contractor in furtherance of a noise abatement program funded primarily by grants from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Because its petition for review of agency action was not timely filed, The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the action. View "Tulsa Airports Improv. Trust v. FAA" on Justia Law

Petitioner State of Wyoming (the State) filed suit against the federal Department of the Interior, the Secretary of the Department, and the acting director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) seeking judicial review of what the State claimed was their failure to comply with non-discretionary obligations imposed upon them by the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act. Specifically, the State alleged that respondents were statutorily obligated, but had failed, to properly manage the overpopulation of wild horses on seven areas of public land in Wyoming. Respondents moved to dismiss the petition for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. The district court granted respondents’ motion and dismissed the action. The State appealed. Of particular relevance here, subsection (b) of Section 3 of the Act outlined the Secretary’s duties with respect to inventorying wild horses and dealing with overpopulation issues. The State argued that the subsection served as grounds for the Secretary to act. The Tenth Circuit found that subsection (b)(1)’s use of the phrase “whether action should be taken to remove excess animals” afforded the BLM with discretion to decide whether or not to remove excess animals. "[I]t is indisputable that only the first of these statutory requirements has been met, i.e., the determination of an overpopulation in each of the seven HMAs. Importantly, the second requirement has not been satisfied because the BLM has not determined that action is necessary to remove the excess animals. Consequently, the State cannot establish that the BLM has 'unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed' action that it was required to take under Section 3 of the Act, and thus has failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted under the APA." View "State of Wyoming v. Dept. of the Interior" on Justia Law

The Court consolidated two cases in this opinion. Plaintiffs in both cases complained they were denied due process when the Board of County Commissioners of Elbert County (the Board) required them to rezone their properties before they could subdivide them. They argued that after the Board lost the documents reflecting the prior comprehensive zoning ordinance, it created new documents without following proper procedures for enacting an ordinance and covered up their misconduct. "Perhaps these allegations state a claim under Colorado law." After review, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals found that were not deprived of their right to due process under the United States Constitution. View "Onyx Properties v. Elbert Board of County Commissioners" on Justia Law

Brayan Alexis Osuna-Gutierrez was arrested in Kansas. He was a passenger in a rental vehicle on a cross-country trip. The police found approximately seven grams of marijuana belonging to Gutierrez that he had legally purchased in Colorado. Police also found approximately three kilograms of methamphetamine in the rear portion of the car. The government charged Gutierrez and his co-defendants with possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine. Gutierrez ultimately pled guilty to “Possession of Marijuana with Intent to Distribute" (the government dropped the methamphetamine charges). The district court sentenced him to time served, approximately seven months. After leaving jail, Gutierrez was immediately transferred to immigration custody and served with Notice of Intent to Issue a Final Administrative Removal Order (the expedited removal process). During the removal process, an officer within DHS concluded that Gutierrez was not a legal permanent resident, having come to the United States from Mexico with his mother when he was one year old without being legally admitted. Further, Gutierrez had pled guilty to an aggravated felony. Gutierrez timely petitioned for review of his removal and was deported back to Mexico. Gutierrez argued his deportation was improper because: (1) the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) expedited removal process is illegal; and (2) in any event, it was improper for DHS to use the expedited removal process on Gutierrez because he pled guilty to a misdemeanor, not a felony. The Tenth Circuit found Gutierrez was wrong on both counts, and denied Gutierrez's petition for review. View "Osuna-Gutierrez v. Johnson" on Justia Law