468 results for 'court:"USDC District of Columbia"'.
J. Contreras grants the secretary of the Treasury’s partial motion to dismiss a suit brought by individuals and business entities over the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control’s designation of the individuals as “specially designated nationals” on the “specially designated nationals and blocked persons list.” The court dismisses two counts asserting the department did not act within its authorities.
Court: USDC District of Columbia, Judge: Contreras, Filed On: April 19, 2024, Case #: 1:24cv285, NOS: Other Statutory Actions - Other Suits, Categories: Agency
J. Boasberg denies the apartment manager's motion for judgment on the pleadings in the driver's suit alleging that its privately hired "special police officers" improperly assaulted him and pepper sprayed him while he was handcuffed, threatening to take his children away before determining that they did not have authority to make traffic stops or probable cause to arrest him. The driver's first amended complaint does not "necessarily rely" on the existence of a contract between it and its security contractor, and therefore the contract was not incorporated by reference into the complaint and need not be considered at this time. He has adequately argued vicarious liability for the purposes of this motion, though he may not for a summary judgment motion. A motion to amend is granted as to certain clarifying amendments, but the driver is not granted leave to add new entities as defendants. He may add certain additional claims against the security contractor.
Court: USDC District of Columbia, Judge: Boasberg, Filed On: April 17, 2024, Case #: 1:22cv3098, NOS: Other Civil Rights - Civil Rights, Categories: Civil Rights, Tort, Premises Liability
J. Moss denies the state of Florida's motion for a stay of a prior order granting partial summary judgment to environmental groups in a suit alleging that federal regulators improperly delegated permitting authority to Florida regulators, and denies its motion for final judgment while granting its alternative request for relief in the form of partial final judgment. A limited stay in this case “is neither workable nor desirable,” and would require the Court to develop a program splitting work between different agencies over those agencies’ objections and result in needless redundancy. The final judgment motion is denied because one count, regarding the Army Corps of Engineers’ retained waters list, has remaining controversies to resolve. This count, however, is substantially distinct from the other counts in its legal theory and the administrative record it involves, so final, appealable judgment is entered as to the other counts.
Court: USDC District of Columbia, Judge: Moss, Filed On: April 12, 2024, Case #: 1:21cv119, NOS: Environmental Matters - Other Suits, Categories: Administrative Law, Civil Procedure, Environment
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J. Boasberg grants the National Labor Relations Board's motion to dismiss the Starbucks employees' action challenging procedures that protect against the removal of Board members. The employees have not shown that they have suffered an injury because of the protections, which are intended to maintain the independence of the agency, and their claims that the protections violate the Constitution's separation-of-powers guarantees also fail on their merits.
Court: USDC District of Columbia, Judge: Boasberg, Filed On: April 10, 2024, Case #: 1:23cv2954, NOS: Other Statutory Actions - Other Suits, Categories: Constitution, Government, Labor / Unions
J. Lamberth grants a motion by the Department of the Interior and other federal defendants to sever the offshore wind farm opponents' action seeking to challenge approvals of two such projects into separate actions for each project, and partially grants the projects' developers' motion to intervene. Judicial economy and efficiency factors favor severance, and the claims to be severed do not present common questions of law or fact. The developer of one project is permitted to intervene in this case, but the motion to intervene is denied as to the other project's developer, given the severance of claims related to its project.
Court: USDC District of Columbia, Judge: Lamberth, Filed On: April 10, 2024, Case #: 1:24cv141, NOS: Environmental Matters - Other Suits, Categories: Energy, Environment, Agency
J. Cooper denies the travel company's motion to dismiss the photographer's suit alleging that it copied and shared her videos and photographs from her Instagram account without her permission, and grants the photographer's motion for leave to file a third amended complaint. The photographer's proposed third amended complaint cures the pleading defects the travel company points out in its motion to dismiss, namely a lack of specificity in the dates of alleged infringement, and, accepting as true her claimed dates of discovery of the infringement, her claims are not time-barred. Instagram's policies also did not unambiguously grant the travel company the right to share the photographer's copyrighted works.
Court: USDC District of Columbia, Judge: Cooper, Filed On: April 9, 2024, Case #: 1:23cv1528, NOS: Copyrights - Property Rights, Categories: Civil Procedure, Copyright
J. Nichols grants the communications conglomerate's motion to dismiss the right-wing broadcaster's counterclaims seeking indemnification in a suit brought by a voting machine company alleging that the broadcaster defamed the voting machine company in connection with the 2020 presidential election. The broadcaster has not pleaded facts tying this suit to allegedly disparaging statements made by the conglomerate's subsidiaries or its former board chair, nor presented a plausible theory as to why those statements would have influenced the voting machine maker to sue the broadcaster. Non-disparagement provisions in the broadcaster's contract with the communications conglomerate, therefore, do not create an obligation to indemnify the broadcaster. Tortious interference claims also fail, since the broadcaster has not plausibly alleged that the board chair was acting as an agent of the voting machine company or its majority owner when the communications company's subsidiary satellite TV provider dropped the broadcaster.
Court: USDC District of Columbia, Judge: Nichols, Filed On: April 9, 2024, Case #: 1:21cv2130, NOS: Assault, Libel, & Slander - Torts - Personal Injury, Categories: Elections, Defamation, Indemnification
J. Walton grants the music festival operators' motion for a preliminary injunction preventing continued organization of live music events under the name "Moechella" in and around Washington D.C. The festival operators have shown that they have valid trademarks for "Coachella," "Chella" and other related marks, that the use of "Moechella" is likely to cause confusion, and that they are likely to suffer irreparable harm absent an injunction.
Court: USDC District of Columbia, Judge: Walton, Filed On: April 4, 2024, Case #: 1:23cv288, NOS: Trademark - Property Rights, Categories: Trademark, Injunction
J. Moss grants the Air Force's motion for summary judgment as to the former employee's Freedom of information Act claim, but declines to dismiss his Privacy Act claim. The documents the employee seeks, related to a medical-malpractice investigation and finding, were produced or compiled for a medical quality assurance program, and are protected from disclosure under a FOIA exemption for such documents. The motion to dismiss the Privacy Act claim on its merits is premature, as the employee has not alleged or shown that he has exhausted his administrative remedies for the claim. He is ordered to show cause as to why the court has subject matter jurisdiction over this claim, so that jurisdictional questions can be litigated.
Court: USDC District of Columbia, Judge: Moss, Filed On: March 31, 2024, Case #: 1:23cv473, NOS: Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) - Other Suits, Categories: Privacy, Jurisdiction, Military
J. Upadhyaya grants the employee's petition for attorneys' fees and costs in the amount of $10,421.68, finding that the requested amount is reasonable, sufficiently supported and timely.
Court: USDC District of Columbia, Judge: Upadhyaya, Filed On: March 31, 2024, Case #: 1:22cv1816, NOS: Fair Labor Standards Act - Labor, Categories: Attorney Fees, Labor
J. Friedrich grants the Department of Justice's motion for summary judgment and partially grants the nonprofit's motion for summary judgment in the nonprofit's Freedom of Information Act action seeking records on the procurement of lethal-injection drugs. The names of contractors providing the drugs are confidential commercial information, as are key contract terms, and the department has shown that foreseeable harm would result from their disclosure. The department has, however, waived an exemption for some materials by publicly sharing it elsewhere. The department is ordered to produce sixteen challenged records and five publicly disclosed records for in camera review.
Court: USDC District of Columbia, Judge: Friedrich, Filed On: March 31, 2024, Case #: 1:19cv3626, NOS: Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) - Other Suits, Categories: Government, Public Record
J. Kelly grants the coal company owner's estate's and the company's subsidiaries' motion to dismiss the miners' pension plan's trustees' suit alleging that the coal company's withdrawal from a collective bargaining agreement during its 2019 bankruptcy proceedings left the subsidiaries with $6.5 billion in withdrawal liability. Under the agreement, for trustees to take action on behalf of the plan, that action requires agreement by one of two union trustees and one of two employer trustees. In this case, the employer trustee pursuing the action was not properly appointed as a trustee, having been appointed as an alternate only for the purpose of addressing matters related to the bankruptcy. That trustee was not a "successor" trustee or otherwise sufficiently authorized to bring this suit.
Court: USDC District of Columbia, Judge: Kelly, Filed On: March 30, 2024, Case #: 1:21cv567, NOS: Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) - Labor, Categories: Employment, Erisa, Trusts
J. Kelly grants the hospital's motion for summary judgment in its suit against the Secretary of Health and Human Services challenging an administrative finding that the Provider Reimbursement Review Board could not review the hospital's full-time equivalent resident cap for the years from 2004-2007, in which it inadvertently omitted four programs from reimbursement calculations. The Board's decision was based on a flawed reading of the Medicare Modernization Act. The hospital's full-time equivalent resident cap was not an unreviewable "determination" made by the Secretary. Even if it was, the 2006 and 2007 caps are not precluded from review, since the Secretary only used the hospital's 2002 cap in determining the hospital's "otherwise applicable resident limit."
Court: USDC District of Columbia, Judge: Kelly, Filed On: March 30, 2024, Case #: 1:20cv3160, NOS: Medicare Act - Contract, Categories: Administrative Law, Health Care
J. Friedrich dismisses the assignees' claims against the drugmaker in their suit alleging a scheme in which the drugmaker donated its drugs to Patient Assistance Programs in an effort to push under-resourced patients benefiting from those programs into taking the drugmaker's drugs, then increase its prices to benefit from the resulting increase in health insurance claims for those drugs. The assignees have not shown that their unnamed assignors would have standing to pursue claims on their own, nor that their named assignors' would have standing to pursue state law claims. They have shown that they have standing to pursue the named assignors' federal RICO claims, but RICO does not provide a private right of action to pursue such claims by indirect purchasers. They also have not sufficiently pleaded any RICO predicate.
Court: USDC District of Columbia, Judge: Friedrich, Filed On: March 30, 2024, Case #: 1:22cv1419, NOS: Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) - Other Suits, Categories: Fraud, Medicare, Racketeering
J. Jackson grants the Department of Energy's motion for summary judgment in the nonprofit's Freedom of Information Act suit seeking information on an ethics matter involving a former deputy assistant secretary. Documents withheld in the Department's original response to the nonprofit's FOIA request fell under an exemption for attorney work product, attorney-client privilege and deliberate process privilege. The privacy interest involved in the redaction of two documents related to a conflict of interest outweighs any public interest in those documents.
Court: USDC District of Columbia, Judge: Jackson, Filed On: March 30, 2024, Case #: 1:21cv2486, NOS: Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) - Other Suits, Categories: Government, Privacy, Privilege
J. Moss denies the Bureau of Land Management and State of Utah's motions for partial dismissal and partially grants their motions for summary judgment in the animal activist group's action challenging their management plans for wild horse populations, and partially grants the activist group's motion for summary judgment. The four ten-year plans the group challenges are set aside insofar as they purport to authorize new gathers of wild horses after achieving "appropriate management levels," but the group's challenge to a specific 2021 gather in the Onaqui Mountain Herd Management Area is moot, its challenge of the ten-year gather plans themselves under the National Environmental Policy Act fails because the Bureau sufficiently analyzed them under NEPA, and its claim that the Bureau departed from prior policy without an explanation does not identify a specific requirement that the bureau has failed to meet. All these are therefore dismissed.
Court: USDC District of Columbia, Judge: Moss, Filed On: March 30, 2024, Case #: 1:18cv2029, NOS: Administrative Procedure Act/Review or Appeal of Agency Decision - Other Suits, Categories: Administrative Law, Environment
J. Contreras partially dismisses a former Veterans Affairs labor management relations specialist’s civil rights claims arising from VA’s termination of his remote work agreement, decision to transfer him from a Texas facility to an Arkansas one, and denial of a pay raise. His failure to accommodate claim fails because he did not specify what accommodations he needs or requested; he failed to allege causation for his disability discrimination claim; he succeeded in arguing that he may have been discriminated against when he wasn't chosen for a labor specialist role, however.
Court: USDC District of Columbia, Judge: Contreras, Filed On: March 29, 2024, Case #: 1:22cv3209, NOS: Employment - Civil Rights, Categories: Administrative Law, Jurisdiction, Medicare
J. McFadden agrees that an Amtrak rider, whose medical condition prevents him from wearing a face mask, has agreed to arbitrate his lawsuit against Amtrak over his removal from a train for not wearing a mask. However, the motion to compel arbitration is put on hold until a trial or an evidentiary hearing can be held over whether the arbitration agreement is unconscionable.
Court: USDC District of Columbia, Judge: McFadden, Filed On: March 29, 2024, Case #: 1:22cv3684, NOS: Amer w/Disabilities - Other - Civil Rights, Categories: Arbitration, Civil Rights, Ada / Rehabilitation Act
J. Boasberg rules in favor of the Department of Defense on the Fifth Amendment claim brought by a Palestinian man working in military intelligence. He lost on his claim before, and proposes amending it, but the DoD is right to say the amendments are futile.
Court: USDC District of Columbia, Judge: Boasberg, Filed On: March 29, 2024, Case #: 1:23cv1471, NOS: Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) - Other Suits, Categories: Arbitration, Civil Rights, Ada / Rehabilitation Act
J. Contreras offers a mixed bag to both the National Parks Conservation Association and the Department of the Interior, which the association is suing for allegedly failing to protect Florida’s Biscayne National Park. ON the one hand, the federal government has delayed the implementation of a marine reserve zone for too long, but on the other, it has not issued a final agency action that the court can review for being arbitrary and capricious. The association is owed FOIA attorney fees. The government is ordered to propose a zone designation as soon as it can.
Court: USDC District of Columbia, Judge: Contreras, Filed On: March 29, 2024, Case #: 1:20cv3706, NOS: Environmental Matters - Other Suits, Categories: Administrative Law, Environment, Agency