Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

In the 1970s the FCC began enforcing 18 U.S.C. 1464, which bans broadcast of "any obscene, indecent, or profane language." This case concerns two isolated utterances of obscene words during live broadcasts aired by Fox and an ABC television show during which the nude buttocks of an adult female character were shown for approximately seven seconds and the side of her breast for a moment. Under 2001 Guidelines, a key consideration was whether the material dwelled on or repeated at length the offending description or depiction. After these incidents, the FCC issued its Golden Globes Order, declaring that fleeting expletives could be actionable. It concluded that the broadcasts violated this standard. On remand, the Second Circuit found the policy unconstitutionally vague and invalid. The Supreme Court held that, because the FCC failed to give Fox or ABC fair notice prior to the broadcasts, its standards were vague as applied to the broadcasts. Although the FCC declined to impose a forfeiture on Fox and said that it would not consider the broadcasts in renewing licenses or in other contexts, it has statutory power to take prior offenses into account when setting a penalty, 47 U.S.C. 503(b)(2)(E), and due process protection against vague regulations "does not leave [regulated parties] ... at the mercy of noblesse oblige." The challenged orders could also have an adverse impact on Fox’s reputation with audiences and advertisers. The Court declined to address the constitutionality of the current indecency policy.

Petitioner requested that the Secretary of the Interior take into trust on its behalf a tract of land known as the Bradley Property, which petitioner intended to use "for gaming purposes." The Secretary took title to the property and respondent subsequently filed suit under the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 500 et seq., asserting that the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA), 25 U.S.C. 465, did not authorize the Secretary to acquire the property because petitioner was not a federally recognized tribe when the IRA was enacted in 1934. At issue was whether the United States had sovereign immunity from the suit by virtue of the Quiet Title Act (QTA), 86 Stat. 1176, and whether respondent had prudential standing to challenge the Secretary's acquisition. The Court held that the United States had waived its sovereign immunity from respondent's action under the QTA. The Court also held that respondent had prudential standing to challenge the Secretary's acquisition where respondent's interests came within section 465's regulatory ambit.

An Indiana statute, the "Barrett Law," Ind. Code 36-9-15(b)(3), authorized Indiana's cities to impose upon benefited owners the cost of sewer improvement projects. The Law also permitted those lot owners to pay either immediately in the form of a lump sum or over time in installments. In 2005, the city of Indianapolis adopted a new assessment and payment method, the "STEP" plan, and it forgave any Barrett Law installments that lot owners had not yet paid. A group of lot owners who had already paid their entire Barrett Law assessment in a lump sum believed that the City should have provided them with equivalent refunds. At issue was whether the City's refusal to do so unconstitutionally discriminated against them in violation of the Equal Protection Clause, Amdt. 14, section 1. The Court held that the City had a rational basis for distinguishing between those lot owners who had already paid their share of project costs and those who had not. Therefore, the Court concluded that there was no equal protection violation.

Respondent gave birth to twins conceived through in vitro fertilization using her deceased husband's frozen sperm. Respondent applied for Social Security survivors benefits for the twins, relying on 42 U.S.C. 416(e) of the Social Security Act, which defined child to mean, inter alia, "the child or legally adopted child of an [insured] individual." The Social Security Administration (SSA), however, identified subsequent provisions of the Act, sections 416(h)(2) and (h)(3)(C), as critical, and read them to entitle biological children to benefits only if they qualified for inheritance from the decedent under state intestacy law, or satisfied one of the statutory alternatives to that requirement. The Court concluded that the SSA's reading was better attuned to the statute's text and its design to benefit primarily those supported by the deceased wage earner in his or her lifetime. And even if the SSA's longstanding interpretation was not the only reasonable one, it was at least a permissible construction that garnered the Court's respect under Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.

Respondent, a firefighter employed by the City of Rialto, brought an action under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against the City, the Fire Department, the private attorney hired by the City, and other individuals. The district court granted summary judgment to the individual defendants based on qualified immunity. The Ninth Circuit concluded that the attorney the City hired was not entitled to seek qualified immunity because he was a private attorney, not a City employee. At issue before the Court was whether an individual hired by the government to do its work was prohibited from seeking qualified immunity, solely because he worked for the government on something other than a permanent full-time basis. The Court held that a private individual temporarily retained by the government to carry out its work was entitled to seek qualified immunity from suit under section 1983. Therefore, the Court reversed the judgment of the Ninth Circuit.

Claiming that the FAA, DOT, and SSA violated the Privacy Act of 1974, 5 U.S.C. 552a(g)(4)(A), by sharing his records with one another, respondent filed suit alleging that the unlawful disclosure to the DOT of his confidential medical information, including his HIV status, had caused him "humiliation, embarrassment, mental anguish, fear of social ostracism, and other severe emotional distress." The District Court granted summary judgment against respondent, concluding that respondent could not recover damages because he alleged only mental and emotional harm, not economic loss. Reversing the District Court, the Ninth Circuit concluded that "actual damages" in the Act was not ambiguous and included damages for mental and emotional distress. Applying traditional rules of construction, the Court held that the Act did not unequivocally authorize an award of damages for mental or emotional distress. Accordingly, the Act did not waive the Government's sovereign immunity from liability for such harms. Therefore, the Court reversed the judgment of the Ninth Circuit and remanded for further proceedings.

Petitioners brought a civil action under the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 500 et seq., to challenge the issuance by the EPA of an administrative compliance order under section 309 of the Clean Water Act (Act), 33 U.S.C. 1319. The order asserted that petitioners' property was subject to the Act, and that they have violated its provisions by placing fill material on the property; and on this basis it directed them immediately to restore the property pursuant to an EPA work plan. The Court concluded that the compliance order was final agency action for which there was no adequate remedy other than APA review, and that the Act did not preclude that review. Therefore, the Court reversed the judgment of the Ninth Circuit and remanded the case for further proceedings.

The Court granted certiorari in these cases to decide whether Medicaid providers and recipients could maintain a cause of action under the Supremacy Clause to enforce a federal Medicaid law. Since the Court granted certiorari, however, the relevant circumstances have changed. The federal agency in charge of administering Medicaid, CMS, approved the state statutes as consistent with the federal law. In light of the changed circumstances, the Court believed that the question before it was whether, once the agency approved the state statutes, groups of Medicaid providers and beneficiaries could still maintain a Supremacy Clause action asserting that the state statutes were inconsistent with the federal Medicaid law. Given the present posture of the cases, the Court did not address whether the Ninth Circuit properly recognized a Supremacy Clause action to enforce the federal law before the agency took final action. To decide whether these cases could proceed under the Supremacy Clause now that the agency has acted, it would be necessary on remand to consider at least the matters addressed by the Court. Accordingly, the Court vacated the judgment and remanded for further proceedings.

The 2010 census showed an enormous increase in Texas' population which required the State to redraw its electoral districts for the United States Congress, the State Senate, and the State House of Representatives, in order to comply with the Constitution's one-person, one-vote rule. The State also had to create new districts for the four additional congressional seats it received. Plaintiffs subsequently brought suit in Texas, claiming that the State's newly enacted electoral plans violated the United States Constitution and section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. 1973. The Court held that because it was unclear whether the District Court for the Western District of Texas followed the appropriate standards in drawing interim maps for the 2012 Texas elections, the orders implementing those maps were vacated, and the cases were remanded for further proceedings.

This case concerned the BIA's policy for deciding when resident aliens could apply to the Attorney General for relief from deportation under a now-repealed provision of the immigration law. The Court held that the BIA's policy for applying section 212(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. 1182(c), in deportation cases was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 706(2)(A). The Court concluded that the BIA's comparable-grounds rule was unmoored from the purposes and concerns of the immigration laws. It allowed an irrelevant comparison between statutory provisions to govern a matter of the utmost importance -whether lawful resident aliens with longstanding ties to this country could stay here. And contrary to the Government's protestations, it was not supported by text or practice or cost considerations. Therefore, the BIA's approach could not pass muster under ordinary principles of administrative law.