Edward Leavy

The case involved Quang Van Han's challenge under 42 U.S.C. § 405(g) to the denial of Supplemental Security Income benefits, claiming disability from back pain, Grave's disease, and cataracts that prevented him from performing his past work as a herbal medicine store clerk in Vietnam. The Administrative Law Judge found Han not disabled after determining he could still do his prior light, semiskilled work, a decision upheld by the Appeals Council and affirmed by the district court. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding that substantial evidence supported the ALJ's conclusion, including Dr. Ebert's uncontradicted opinion that Han could perform light to medium work and the rejection of Han's subjective pain complaints due to inconsistencies in his testimony and behavior. The court also upheld the application of SSR 82-40, which treats foreign past work the same as domestic work for disability evaluation purposes if the claimant retains the functional capacity to perform it.

healthcarefederal power

The case involved the State of Oregon's challenge to two Interior Board of Land Appeals (IBLA) decisions denying its applications for additional federal lands under the Admission Act of 1859, which granted the state sections 16 and 36 in every township for school support, with rights to select indemnity lands when those sections were unavailable. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) had audited historical transactions and concluded Oregon had already received excess public lands, including issues stemming from past exchanges under the Forest Lieu Act and claims involving fractional townships delineated only by protraction. The court granted summary judgment to the BLM, upholding the IBLA rulings that the state was not entitled to further selections. The core reasoning was that the IBLA correctly interpreted federal statutes allowing audits of past transactions, properly determined title issues from historical exchanges, and required use of the pro rata acreage rule under 43 U.S.C. § 852(b) rather than actual acreage estimates from unsurveyed protractions, as no survey had created defined boundaries.

propertyfederal power

The case involved former female employees of Bumble Bee Seafoods who sued the United States, alleging negligence by the EEOC in administering a consent decree that resolved a Title VII sex discrimination action against their former employer and established a fund for back pay claims. The plaintiffs contended that deficiencies in notification, claim processing, and related procedures caused some eligible women to receive reduced amounts or be excluded entirely. Treating the government's motion as one for summary judgment, the court granted it for the defendant after finding no genuine dispute of material fact on any negligence claim, no attorney-client or other duty running from the EEOC to the individual plaintiffs, and no evidence that the government's conduct created a foreseeable risk of harm. A later motion for new trial or to amend the judgment was denied on the same grounds. The decision rested on the absence of any breach or causation linking the EEOC's actions to the plaintiffs' alleged losses.

civil rightslabor & employmentproceduretorts & liability

This case involved a ship owner suing the United States after its vessel ran aground on a reef in the Columbia River, claiming the Coast Guard negligently mispositioned a navigational buoy. On remand from the Ninth Circuit to make additional findings, the district court held that the Coast Guard's Thirteenth District Office was not shielded by the discretionary function exception and had been negligent both in generating an inaccurate grid for positioning Buoy No. 4 and in failing to warn mariners that the buoy was off station. The court found that the District Office had access to better surveyed data that would have produced an accurate grid meeting its own guidelines but instead relied on insufficient information, and that it did not promptly communicate the buoy's incorrect position despite known issues and heavy river traffic. These acts and omissions were determined to be the proximate cause of the grounding.

torts & liabilityfederal power

The case involved Claudia Potter seeking judicial review of a denial of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits for the periods August 1983 through November 1983 and December 1983 through June 1985, following a prior court order directing payment of benefits on her 1982 application. The Social Security Administration found her ineligible because she owned a house that was not her principal residence (exceeding resource limits) and later held a $14,000 sales contract from its sale, which also exceeded the statutory resource ceiling of $1,500 (later $1,600). After an administrative hearing upheld the denial, the district court affirmed the Secretary's decision, concluding that the regulations clearly excluded the home only if it was her principal residence and treated the contract as a countable resource, with the findings supported by substantial evidence and correct application of the law.

healthcarefederal power

The case involved a bankruptcy proceeding in which the plaintiff sought to recover $11,997.89 in undercharges from AT&T Technologies under 49 U.S.C. § 10761(a) for a common carrier's failure to collect its published tariffs. The court granted summary judgment to the plaintiff, finding no triable issues of fact and rejecting defenses such as fraud, estoppel, negligence, waiver, and setoff. The core reasoning was that statutory liability to pay filed tariffs is absolute absent relief from the Interstate Commerce Commission, which had not been shown, and that the matter was a straightforward collection action not requiring deference to the Commission.

business & regulatoryprocedurefederal power

This case involves several publicly-owned utilities in Oregon and Washington suing the Administrator of the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) and other federal defendants over the allocation of power from the Hanford Generating Project. The plaintiffs, as preference customers under a Requirements Contract, claimed that BPA violated the contract by selling half of Hanford's output to investor-owned utilities and sought a declaration and injunction to include all of Hanford's output in the Federal Base System Resources used to serve them. The court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, concluding that the dispute constitutes a "rate matter" subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit under the Regional Power Act. The reasoning is that challenges to BPA's power allocations affecting rates must be pursued through BPA rate case proceedings and reviewed by the Ninth Circuit, not in district court.

federal powerbusiness & regulatory

The case involved a Panamanian corporation owning a vessel that grounded on Warrior Rock Reef in the Columbia River in 1980, suing the United States under the Suits in Admiralty Act for damages based on the claim that the Coast Guard negligently mispositioned a navigational buoy marking the reef. The United States denied the buoy was mispositioned, attributed the grounding to negligence by the vessel's licensed river pilot, and argued that any suit must proceed under the Public Vessels Act instead. The district court tried the issues of which statute conferred jurisdiction and the question of liability, analyzing the history and scope of the two acts along with precedents involving Coast Guard aids to navigation. The court concluded that the Suits in Admiralty Act provides the proper jurisdictional basis for such claims of maritime negligence against the government and addressed the standards for determining liability in the admiralty context.

torts & liabilityprocedurefederal power