Justia U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff, a medical doctor, filed suit arguing that he has the right to obtain, and the DOJ has an obligation to provide, the correction of statements the DOJ made about him in a 2009 press release. Plaintiff argued that the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 500 et seq., provides for judicial review of the DOJ's denial of his correction requests under the Information Quality Act (IQA), Pub. L. No. 106-554, 114 Stat. 2763. The court concluded that the DOJ’s exclusion of press releases from the ambit of the IQA guidelines was within the discretion accorded to the agency and that the DOJ’s exclusion of press releases applies to the press release of which plaintiff seeks correction. Applying the second step of the Chevron analysis, the court concluded that the DOJ’s determination that the 2009 press release fell within its exclusion of press releases is neither erroneous nor inconsistent with the scope of dissemination as defined in the agency-specific guidelines. Therefore, the DOJ’s determination is accorded Auer v. Robbins deference. The court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the suit. View "Harkonen v. USDOJ" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552, seeking information from federal agencies about federal investigations related to Plaintiff Naji Hamdan and any U.S. role in his detention and torture by U.A.E. officials. The court affirmed the district court’s rulings on the adequacy of the agencies’ searches or the invocation of the challenged exemptions because the FBI and the State Department conducted searches reasonably calculated to produce records responsive to plaintiffs’ request, and because the FBI and the DIA properly withheld some records under several exemptions to FOIA’s disclosure requirements. However, the court vacated the grant of summary judgment and remanded this case to the district court for a segregability analysis because the district court did not make any findings as to whether there was non-exempt information in the withheld records that could reasonably be segregated and disclosed, and the court could not say on this record that the error was harmless. View "Hamdan v. U.S. Dep't of Justice" on Justia Law

After PG&E's natural gas pipeline ruptured in San Bruno, killing and injuring several people, San Francisco filed suit against the Agency, alleging that the Agency failed to comply with the Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act of 1968, 49 U.S.C. 60101 et seq. The court concluded that the plain statutory language, the statutory structure, the legislative history, the structure of similar federal statutes, and interpretations of similar statutory provisions by the Supreme Court and its sister circuits lead to the conclusion that the Pipeline Safety Act does not authorize mandamus-type citizen suits against the Agency. The court also concluded that San Francisco's claims that the Agency violated the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 701(a)(2), by unlawfully withholding the action of deciding whether the CPUC adequately enforces federal pipeline safety standards, and arbitrarily and capriciously approving the CPUC’s certification and providing federal funding to the CPUC, were not cognizable under the APA. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the suit. View "City & Cnty. of San Francisco v. U.S. D.O.T." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, veterans' organizations and individuals subject to U.S. military chemical and biological weapons experiments, filed an individual and class action complaint seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against the DOD, the Army, the CIA, and the VA. Two of plaintiffs’ claims, brought under section 706(1) of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 706(1), are at issue in this appeal: first, the Army has unlawfully failed to notify test subjects of new medical and scientific information relating to their health as it becomes available; and second, the Army has unlawfully withheld medical care for diseases or conditions proximately caused by their exposures to chemicals during the experiments. The court held that Chapter 3–2(h) of AR 70-25 imposes a duty on the Army to provide all former test subjects with newly acquired information that may affect their well-being, and that this duty is judicially enforceable under section 706(1); the district court did not abuse its discretion in entering its injunction to enforce that duty; the district court was right to find that Chapter 3–1(k) imposes a duty to provide medical care; but, the district court did not, however, have the power to decline to compel care on the ground that another agency was providing similar care to some former test subjects. Accordingly, the court vacated the district court’s summary judgment for the government on this claim and remanded to the district court. View "Vietnam Veterans of America v. CIA" on Justia Law

Petitioners filed suit challenging the EPA's regional haze regulations for the State of Montana. Petitioner PPL Montana operates and partially owns the Colstrip Steam Electric Generating Station and the J.E. Corette Steam Electric Station. Petitioner NPCA are nonprofit conservation organizations. The court concluded, inter alia, that EPA’s best available retrofit technology (BART) determination for nitrogen oxide emissions at Colstrip Units 1 and 2 is arbitrary and capricious; EPA’s responses to petitioners’ more minor challenges to its cost-effectiveness analysis make clear that it is capable of the required rational explanation; because the rule offers no reasoned explanation to support its requirement of a fourth scrubber at Colstrip Units 1 and 2, the court concluded that such requirement is arbitrary and capricious; the inconsistency in EPA’s BART determinations at Colstrip Units 1 and 2 and Corette is, absent explanation, arbitrary and capricious; by requiring PPL Montana to install selective non-catalytic reduction (SNCR) at Colstrip Units 1 and 2 without sufficient assurance of any improvement at all, EPA has offered no reasoned explanation; and EPA’s determination that installation of additional technology to control emissions from Corette was not cost-effective suffers the same failure of explanation as its BART determinations at Colstrip. Finally, the court rejected NPCA's contention that EPA’s decision not to require any additional emission-reducing technology, let alone installation of selective catalytic reduction (SCR), at Colstrip Units 3 and 4 was arbitrary and capricious. Accordingly, the petitions for review are granted in part, denied in part, and vacated and remanded. View "Nat'l Parks Conservation Ass'n v. EPA" on Justia Law

The Department appealed the district court’s order expanding a preliminary injunction forbidding the Department from decreasing the individual budgets of a class of participants in and applicants to Idaho’s Developmental Disabilities Waiver program (DD Waiver program) without adequate notice. The court rejected the Department's ripeness argument and concluded that the dispute is ripe for adjudication where plaintiffs alleged that they have already felt the effects of the Department's actions in a concrete way; the district court reasonably found that participants’ services are capped by their individual budgets under Idaho law; the district court also did not abuse its discretion in holding that plaintiffs were likely to show that the 2011 Budget Notices did not comply with the notice requirements of the Medicaid regulations; the district court did not abuse its discretion in holding that plaintiffs were likely to prevail on their claim that they were denied adequate notice under the Due Process Clause; the Department waived its argument that plaintiffs failed to show that the proposed class was likely to suffer irreparable harm; the court joined a number of its sister circuits in rejecting Eleventh Amendment challenges directed at orders reinstating social assistance benefits prospectively; and the court declined to exercise jurisdiction to review the district court’s order denying the motion to approve the 2013 Proposed Notice. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment. View "K.W. v. Armstrong" on Justia Law

In 2004, the Ninth Circuit decided California ex rel. Lockyer v. FERC, which held that FERC may authorize market-based energy tariffs so long as that regulatory framework incorporates both an ex ante market power analysis and enforceable post-approval transaction reporting. In the instant case, Petitioners, the people of the state of California and related parties, sought review of a series of orders issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on remand following the Court’s decision in Lockyer, arguing that FERC failed to follow Lockyer and violated the Federal Power Act by requiring proof of excessive market share as a necessary condition for relief for transaction reporting violations. The Ninth Circuit granted the petition for judicial review, holding that FERC structured the remand proceedings in a manner contrary to the terms of the Lockyer decision. Remanded to FERC for further proceedings. View "People of State of Cal. v. FERC" on Justia Law

Since 1998, Crow Tribal Housing Authority (“Crow Housing”) has received Indian housing block grants made under the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”). In 2001, HUD discovered that it had overpaid Crow Housing and sought to recover the overpayments through deductions from future grants. The district court concluded that HUD acted under 25 U.S.C. 4161 and 4165 when it sought to recover the overage and that HUD violated the notice and hearing requirements under those sections because it did not provide Crow Housing with a hearing at which these deductions could be contested. The Ninth Circuit reversed, holding (1) HUD did not act under section 4161, but its actions did trigger the opportunity for a hearing under section 4165; and (2) because Crow Housing did not request a hearing, HUD did not violate its statutory obligation under section 4165 and did not improperly deprive Crow Housing of a hearing. View "Crow Tribal Housing Auth. v. U.S. Dep’t of Housing & Urban Dev." on Justia Law

Defendant, a car dealership, employed or employs Plaintiffs as “service advisors.” Plaintiffs filed this action alleging, inter alia, that Defendant violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by failing to pay overtime wages. The district court dismissed the overtime claim, concluding that Plaintiffs fell within a statutory exemption from the the FLSA’s overtime pay requirements for “any salesman, parts man, or mechanic primarily engaged in selling or servicing automobiles.” Plaintiffs appealed, arguing that the courts must defer to the United States Department of Labor’s regulatory definitions. The Ninth Circuit reversed the dismissal of the FLSA overtime claim and supplemental state-law claims, holding that, where there are two reasonable ways to interpret the exemption, and the Department has chosen one interpretation, the Court must defer to that choice pursuant to Chevron; and (2) because Plaintiffs did not meet the regulatory definitions, they are not exempt from the FLSA’s overtime wage provisions. Remanded. View "Navarro v. Encino Motorcars, LLC" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs in these consolidated appeals were two local educational agencies in California, a school district and a county office of education. In separate actions, Plaintiff sued the California Department of Education in federal court alleging that, in resolving disputes between parents and the school districts, the Department routinely violated certain procedural requirements imposed by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and its implementing regulations. The district court dismissed the actions, concluding that Plaintiffs lacked a statutory right of action to seek declaratory and injunctive relief regarding alleged violations of procedural requirements imposed by the IDEA. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding that school districts lack a right of action to challenge a State’s non-compliance with the IDEA’s procedural protections in the context of complaint resolution proceedings. View "Fairfield-Suisun Unified Sch. Dist. v. Cal. Dep’t of Educ." on Justia Law