Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

=Public Water Supply District No. 1 of Greene County, Missouri (“PWSD”) and the City of Springfield, Missouri (the “City”) filed cross motions for summary judgment, and the district court1 granted summary judgment in favor of the City. The district court also denied PWSD’s subsequent motion to alter or amend the judgment under Rule 59(e) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. PWSD appealed these decisions. PWSD asserts its claims are timely under the continuing-violations doctrine because the City continues to provide water to customers within the Disputed Subdivisions.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed the finding that PWSD’s claims are time-barred. Here, it is undisputed that the City began serving each of the Disputed Subdivisions in or before 1994. Based on the principles set forth above, a § 1926(b) violation must occur (and the statute of limitations accrues) when a municipality begins providing service to a new subdivision, and “not when it continues to do so.” Contrary to PWSD’s contention, it is not a continuing violation, and the statute of limitations does not reset when a municipality continues to add and provide service to customers in a subdivision it already serves. View "Public Water Supply District No. 1 of Greene Co v. City of Springfield, Missouri" on Justia Law

In response to President Biden's Executive Order 13990, the State of Missouri and twelve other States ("the States") then filed this action against President Biden, the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases and other agencies, asserting four causes of action: (1)“Violation of the Separation of Powers;” (2) “Violation of Agency Statutes;” (3)“Procedural Violation of the APA”; and (4) “Substantive Violation of the APA.”The district court concluded the States lack Article III standing and their claims are not ripe for adjudication, granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, and denied Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction as moot. The States appealed.The Eighth Circuit affirmed, finding that the States' request for the court to grant injunctive relief that directs “the current administration to comply with prior administrations’ policies on regulatory analysis [without] a specific agency action to review,” is “outside the authority of the federal courts” under Article III of the Constitution. View "State of Missouri v. Joseph Biden, Jr." on Justia Law

Plaintiff brought suit against LAMMICO d/b/a Lammico Risk Retension Group, Inc. (LAMMICO); Mercy Hospital-Fort Smith (Mercy); various doctors, Mercy Clinic Fort Smith Communities; and John Does 1-10, alleging liability under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), 42 U.S.C. Section 1395dd. Plaintiff claimed that Mercy made an “inappropriate transfer”. Plaintiff alleged that the delay in receiving vascular surgery within a six-hour window after the injury caused her leg to be amputated. Plaintiff further alleged that Mercy’s statutory duty under EMTALA is strict or absolute.”   The district court granted summary judgment. On appeal, Plaintiff argued that the district court erred in granting summary judgment to Defendants. Further, she argued that EMTALA imposes a strict liability standard for noncompliance with its directions.    The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained EMTALA’s aim is to discourage bad-faith hospitals from dumping patients. Imposing liability upon a hospital’s good-faith effort to secure appropriate care for a patient that is beyond its capabilities is off the mark. Such liability would run contrary to EMTALA’s purpose and would undermine the express target of securing adequate care for patients who could not otherwise afford it. EMTALA’s “appropriate transfer” requirement should be assessed from the perspective of a reasonable transferring hospital at the time the hospitals agreed to the transfer and the patient departed the transferring hospital. Under this standard, Mercy effected an “appropriate transfer”: it sent Plaintiff to a hospital that, based on the information conveyed to it by the hospital, had “qualified personnel” for her treatment. View "Kimberly Ruloph v. LAMMICO" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Courthouse News is a national “news service that reports on civil litigation in state and federal courts throughout the country.” When Missouri switched to an e-filing system, same-day access became the exception, not the rule. Newly filed petitions remain unavailable until court staff processes them, which can sometimes take “a week or more.” Courthouse News sued the Circuit Clerk for St. Louis County and the Missouri State Courts Administrator, alleging First Amendment violations. In their motion to dismiss Defendants asked the district court to either abstain under Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971), or rule that Courthouse News’s complaint failed to state a First Amendment claim. The district court decided to abstain and never ruled on the merits.   At issue on appeal is: First, does sovereign immunity protect state-court officials who run an e-filing system that delays public access to newly filed civil petitions? Second, should federal courts abstain from hearing this type of case anyway? The Eighth Circuit reversed concluding that the answer to both is no. The court explained that the case-at-issue does not resemble the classic Younger situation: a litigant runs to federal court to cut off an impending or actual state-court proceeding that is unlikely to go well. Here, the dispute about who gets to see newly filed petitions and when, and neither is the subject of any pending state-court proceeding. The court reasoned that if Courthouse News eventually prevails on its constitutional claim, declaratory relief would mitigate this concern to some degree by giving Missouri courts “the widest latitude in the ‘dispatch of [their] own internal affairs.’” View "Courthouse News Service v. Joan Gilmer" on Justia Law

The Northwest Arkansas Conservation Authority is a public corporation created to handle wastewater treatment for municipalities in northwest Arkansas. After a series of pipeline failures, the Authority sued the pipeline contractor and its surety, alleging deficient construction. The Authority sued outside the time periods specified in the relevant statutes of limitations and repose, but asserted that the time did not run against its claims, because the Authority was suing as a public entity seeking to vindicate public rights. The district court concluded that the rights the Authority sought to enforce were merely proprietary and that its claims were therefore time-barred.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that the relevant proprietary interests are not transformed into public rights just because the Authority spent public money to repair the pipeline. Every action by a public entity impacts the public fisc to some degree. But if financial implications alone were enough to invoke nullum tempus, then the public-rights exception would swallow the general rule that statutes of limitations and repose run against municipal entities. Here, the damages sought would replenish the public entity’s coffers, but the relief would not vindicate a distinct public right. The Authority therefore cannot invoke nullum tempus to avoid the statutes of limitations or repose. View "NW AR Conservation Authority v. Crossland Heavy Contractors" on Justia Law

Northshore Mining Company filed a petition for review of a Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) order stating that Northshore had failed to maintain the walkway in good condition after an employee was injured in 2016. The order attributed the violation to Northshore’s reckless disregard of and unwarrantable failure to comply with the walkway-maintenance mandatory standard. In addition, MSHA designated the violation as “flagrant.” Commission’s conclusions on reckless.The Secretary cross-petitioned for review of the Commission’s conclusions on the flagrant designation and individual liability. The Eighth Circuit denied Northshore’s petition on the issue of the company's reckless disregard and unwarrantable failure and granted the Secretary’s cross-petition for review of the Commission’s conclusions on the flagrant designation and individual liability. View "Northshore Mining Company v. Secretary of Labor" on Justia Law

Mount Rushmore played host to Fourth of July fireworks shows. Unfortunately, visitor safety and fire-danger concerns put the practice on hold. The Park Service later changed course and granted a permit that said it was for the “year 2020 and [did] not mean an automatic renewal of the event in the future.” South Dakota tried again. This time, the Park Service denied the request, citing COVID-19 risks, concerns about tribal relationships, effects on other Mount Rushmore visitors, a then-in-progress construction project, and ongoing monitoring of water-contamination and wildfire risks. The denial led South Dakota to sue the agency on two grounds. South Dakota asked the court to convert its order denying a preliminary injunction into a final judgment. Despite having doubts about whether the continuing dispute over the permit denial was still live (given that the Fourth of July had already passed), the court went ahead and granted the request because the non-delegation issue presented a “non-moot appealable issue.   On appeal, the Eighth Circuit vacated the district court’s judgment and dismissed the appeal. The court explained that it cannot change what happened last year, and South Dakota has not demonstrated that deciding this otherwise moot case will impact any future permitting decision. The court explained that the problem for South Dakota is redressability. The declaration it seeks is that “the statutes granting [the Park Service] permitting authority are unconstitutional for want of an intelligible principle.” But it cannot identify how the “requested relief will redress [its] alleged injury,” which is not being able to hold a Fourth of July fireworks show at Mount Rushmore. View "Kristi Noem v. Deb Haaland" on Justia Law

Plaintiff was removed from a political rally and arrested for violating a St. Louis, Missouri ordinance that prohibits disturbing the peace. After Plaintiff was acquitted of that charge in state court, he brought claims against, as pertinent to this appeal, three St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department officers. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the officers, and Plaintiff appealed.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed holding that it was objectively reasonable for the officers to mistakenly believe, under the totality of the circumstances that Plaintiff was engaged in acts or conduct inciting violence or intended to provoke others to violence. The court explained that two of the officers had arguable probable cause to arrest and then initiate prosecution against Plaintiff meaning that it was not clearly established that doing so would violate Plaintiff’s right to be free from unlawful seizure, malicious prosecution, or First Amendment retaliation. Thus, the court affirmed the district court’s grant of qualified immunity to those officers. Further, the court wrote that the district court properly granted qualified immunity to the remaining officer because it was not clearly established that initiating prosecution against Plaintiff would violate his Fourth Amendment right to be free from malicious prosecution or his corresponding right under Missouri law. View "Rodney Brown v. Matthew T. Boettigheimer" on Justia Law

Missouri challenged the Secretary of the Treasury’s implementation of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA), Pub. L. No. 117-2, 135 Stat. 4. Missouri argues that the Secretary’s “erroneously broad interpretation” of a provision in ARPA—the “Offset Restriction”—is unconstitutional. The district court dismissed the case, finding that Missouri lacked standing and that Missouri’s claims were not ripe for adjudication.   On appeal, Missouri identifies five specific ways it has been injured: (1) the broad interpretation of the Offset Restriction punishes Missouri for exercising its constitutional right to set taxes; (2) the Secretary’s “embrace of the broad interpretation” has harmed Missouri’s interest in the offer Congress provided to the State; (3) Treasury’s regulations make ARPA’s requirement more onerous, leading to greater compliance costs; (4) under the broad interpretation, there is an increased chance Missouri will lose ARPA funds; and (5) under the pre-enforcement test, Missouri has alleged an intention to engage in conduct arguably affected with a constitutional interest, but proscribed by statute, with a credible threat of enforcement hanging over it.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed, finding that Missouri has not alleged an injury in fact. The court explained that Missouri has only alleged a “conjectural or hypothetical” injury, not one that is actual or imminent. It has also not alleged a future injury that is “certainly impending” or even likely to occur. Instead, Missouri asked the court to declare, in the abstract, what a statute does not mean. It asked the court to enjoin a hypothetical interpretation of the Offset Restriction that the Secretary has explicitly disclaimed, without alleging any concrete, imminent injury from the Secretary’s actual interpretation. View "State of Missouri v. Janet Yellen" on Justia Law

A sheriff’s deputy sexually abused J.T.H.’s 15-year-old son. J.T.H., who also worked in law enforcement, threatened to sue for the abuse. Before long, Spring Cook, a child-welfare investigator, showed up at his door after someone had apparently called the child-abuse hotline and accused J.T.H. (and his wife) of neglect. The parents asked for the case to be reassigned to an investigator from another county, but Cook kept it for herself. Cook ultimately issued a preliminary written finding of neglect. Unsatisfied with the outcome, the parents requested a formal administrative review. Cook was the circuit manager, so she reviewed and upheld her own finding. The second step required Cook, the parents, and their attorney to appear before Missouri’s Child Abuse and Neglect Review Board. Following that meeting, the Board concluded that Cook’s findings of “neglect were unsubstantiated.” The parents sued Cook for allegedly retaliating against them for exercising their First Amendment rights. The magistrate judge, acting by consent of the parties, concluded that neither absolute nor qualified immunity applied. The Eighth Circuit reversed: "the availability of absolute immunity depends on 'the nature of the function performed,' not the type of claim brought. ... So even if there is a general right to be free of retaliation, the law is not clearly established enough to cover the 'specific context of the case': retaliatory investigation. Cook is entitled to qualified immunity for both investigative acts." View "J.T.H. v. Cook" on Justia Law