John Helm Pratt

The case involved a lawsuit by Marian Washington, coach of the Kansas Jayhawks women's basketball team, against Dick Vitale's basketball preview magazine and related parties for defamation, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The claims stemmed from statements in the magazine predicting poor performance due to "suspect coaching" and that the coach "usually finds a way to screw things up." The court granted summary judgment to the defendants, holding that the statements were protected opinions under the First Amendment because they expressed subjective views rather than verifiable facts on a matter of public concern.

free speechtorts & liability

The case involved the Coordination Council for North American Affairs (CCNAA), representing Taiwan's interests in the U.S., seeking declaratory and injunctive relief to prevent Northwest Airlines from applying the Warsaw Convention's liability limits to damage claims on flights to and from Taiwan, on the grounds that Taiwan is not a signatory and should not be treated as a province of the People's Republic of China. Northwest moved to dismiss, arguing there was no actual pending claim and any ruling would be an advisory opinion. The court granted the motion and dismissed the case, holding that it lacked jurisdiction because no definite case or controversy existed—the dispute was hypothetical and not ripe, with any injury from prior decisions being moot and future claims not yet arising. The court further found no standing, as it could not redress the claimed injury through the requested relief and lacked authority to issue broad prospective orders on treaty applicability.

procedurefederal power

This case concerned a challenge by Texas banks and trade associations to the National Credit Union Administration's approval of membership expansions for Communicators Federal Credit Union, including seven unrelated occupational groups and a large regional senior citizen/retiree association. The court reviewed the approvals under the Administrative Procedure Act for compliance with the Federal Credit Union Act's common bond requirement. It upheld the additions of the occupational groups as consistent with the NCUA's reasonable multiple group policy. However, it vacated the senior citizen/retiree association because the group lacked a sufficient associational common bond, having been formed primarily to obtain credit union services without adequate shared activities, dues, or member interaction. The court granted summary judgment in part to each side and permanently enjoined similar senior/retiree expansions.

business & regulatoryfederal powerprocedure

In FEC v. NRSC, the Federal Election Commission sued the National Republican Senatorial Committee for allegedly making excessive contributions totaling $183,563 to the Jim Santini for Senate committee in 1985-1986 and failing to report them, in violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act. The enforcement action was filed in April 1993, more than six years after an administrative complaint was lodged and seven years after the underlying events. The court granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment in part, dismissing the claim for civil penalties as time-barred under the five-year statute of limitations in 28 U.S.C. § 2462, which applies to FECA penalty actions, but denied summary judgment on the claims for injunctive and declaratory relief. The core reasoning was that § 2462 serves as a catch-all limitations period for civil penalties where none is specified in the underlying statute, it begins to run when the claim accrues, and applying it here prevents open-ended threats of penalties in matters affecting core political activities.

electionsfederal powerprocedure

The case involved the Bank of Cape Verde suing New York-based attorneys (the Bronson and Gibney defendants) who had provided legal opinion letters in connection with loans made by the Bank to entities later revealed to be operating a massive Ponzi scheme, after the Bank obtained an uncollectible default judgment against the borrowers. The court granted the defendants' motions to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. The core reasoning was that the attorneys' contacts with the District of Columbia were minimal and not of a quality showing deliberate and voluntary association with the forum, as they had never represented the Bank, performed no work there, and only sent documents and made calls at the plaintiff's request, which did not satisfy the D.C. long-arm statute. The court dismissed the case with prejudice without reaching the merits or due process questions.

procedurebusiness & regulatory

In Public Citizen v. Kantor, the plaintiffs sought injunctive and declaratory relief to require the United States Trade Representative and the Office of the United States Trade Representative to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement for the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act, along with adopting procedures to ensure future NEPA compliance. The court denied the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment and granted the defendants' motion. The ruling followed from the Administrative Procedure Act's requirement of final agency action for judicial review, which could not be satisfied because the Trade Acts assign final action on trade agreements to the President rather than an agency. Mandamus relief was also unavailable, as the relevant duties were not considered nondiscretionary given the President's role in the process.

environmentbusiness & regulatoryfederal powerprocedure

The case involved a challenge by several banks and the American Bankers Association to the National Credit Union Administration's approvals allowing AT&T Family Federal Credit Union to expand its membership to employees of unrelated employers. Plaintiffs argued that this expansion violated the common bond provision of the Federal Credit Union Act, which they claimed required a single common bond for all members of a credit union. The court applied the Chevron framework to review the agency's interpretation, finding the statutory language ambiguous on whether multiple unrelated groups could each share their own common bond within one credit union. It determined that the NCUA's broader interpretation since 1982 was reasonable and consistent with the statute's purposes of promoting credit union stability and growth. Accordingly, the court denied the plaintiffs' renewed motion for summary judgment and granted the defendants' motions.

business & regulatoryfederal power

This case is an interpleader action brought by the 1992 Republican Senate-House Dinner Committee to determine ownership of $500,000 in political contributions received from Michael Kojima and his company IMB, which various judgment creditors of Kojima also claim. The court considered cross-motions for summary judgment on the competing claims to the funds held by the court. It denied the Committee's motion and granted in part the motions of Bank of Trade, Soon Kojima, and Topanga Plaza Limited Partnership. The core reasoning involved analysis of choice-of-law rules for fraudulent conveyance claims, priority among creditors including those holding judgments for business debts and child support, and whether the political contributions could be reached by creditors under applicable state law standards for value and intent.

electionsprocedurefamily lawbusiness & regulatory

This case arose after plaintiff Sandra Limo suffered paraplegia during a spinal embolization procedure performed by Dr. Paul Pevsner at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in 1988; she sued the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) and later added Pevsner as a defendant. Pevsner moved for summary judgment, asserting immunity on the ground that he was a federal employee acting within the scope of his employment. The court denied the motion, holding that Pevsner was an independent contractor rather than an employee. Applying the Supreme Court’s control test from Logue and Orleans, the court found that the detailed research protocol governing his earlier work had ended, that subsequent contracts expressly disclaimed employee status, and that the government no longer exercised the degree of day-to-day control required to establish employment under the FTCA.

torts & liabilityfederal powerprocedure

The case involved two African American women who alleged they were denied seating at a Washington, D.C. restaurant due to their race and sex after arriving without reservations, being offered bar seating, leaving, then returning later to argue about empty tables but never requesting to be seated. They brought claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1981, Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the D.C. Human Rights Act against the restaurant corporation, its operator, and several officers/directors. The court granted summary judgment to all defendants on the federal claims, finding the undisputed facts showed no causal connection between the plaintiffs' race and any denial of service, with no racial or sexual comments made and the plaintiffs never seeking to form a contract on their return visit. It dismissed the D.C. law claims without prejudice for lack of pendent jurisdiction over the state claims.

civil rightsprocedure

The case was a Federal Tort Claims Act suit brought by Madolyn Crumpton, widow of Army Colonel Alfred Crumpton, alleging intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress from the Army's FOIA release of investigative reports detailing alleged misconduct by her husband prior to his 1986 suicide. The court found that the releases occurred in response to press FOIA requests and were handled with due care through multiple layers of review assessing applicable exemptions. It also determined that the decisions involved discretionary judgment in weighing privacy interests against public disclosure under FOIA. The court therefore held that both the due care and discretionary function exceptions to the FTCA applied, depriving it of jurisdiction due to sovereign immunity, and entered judgment for the defendant dismissing the action with prejudice.

federal powerproceduretorts & liability

In this diversity action, plaintiff Doe alleged that defendant Roe tortiously transmitted herpes and genital warts through sexual encounters, one in Virginia and one in the District of Columbia, and sought recovery under theories including negligence, fraud, and battery. The court considered the defendant's motion for summary judgment, which turned on a choice-of-law dispute between District of Columbia and Virginia substantive law. Applying the District of Columbia's modified governmental interests analysis under Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws § 145, the court held that the law of each jurisdiction governs the conduct occurring within its borders. It noted that Virginia law bars recovery because fornication is criminalized and the state's courts refuse to allow tort claims arising from illegal acts, while District of Columbia law may permit recovery when the plaintiff is less culpable than the defendant.

torts & liabilitycriminal lawprocedure

The case involved the board of a condominium association seeking to enforce a large state court judgment against a judgment-proof developer by piercing the corporate veil to reach the Resolution Trust Corporation as receiver for the developer's bankrupt parent company. The court granted the RTC's motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), concluding that it lacked jurisdiction over the alter ego claim. The core reasoning was that the automatic bankruptcy stay applied because the claim was property of the bankruptcy estate, plaintiff lacked independent standing to pursue it outside bankruptcy court, and allowing the action would risk inconsistent verdicts with the bankruptcy proceedings.

business & regulatoryprocedure

The case concerned whether the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) required the Department of Defense to prepare environmental impact statements for U.S. military installations in Japan. Plaintiffs argued that NEPA applied overseas based on precedent involving Antarctica, while defendants maintained it did not extend to actions involving a sovereign foreign nation under treaty arrangements. The court granted summary judgment for the defendants, holding that the presumption against extraterritorial application of statutes barred NEPA's use here due to the governing treaties with Japan, the risk of interfering with foreign relations, and the lack of congressional intent for such application. The court distinguished the unique status of Antarctica from U.S. bases in Japan, which operate under the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security and a Status of Forces Agreement that includes a joint environmental subcommittee. Even assuming NEPA could apply initially, the court noted that foreign policy interests would override any requirement to prepare the statements.

environmentfederal power

The case involved the parents of a deceased U.S. Marine seeking damages under the Federal Tort Claims Act and Military Claims Act for emotional distress caused by the evisceration of their son's body during embalming in El Salvador, which they attributed to negligence by Navy and State Department personnel. The district court granted the government's motion for summary judgment on the ground that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction. The court reasoned that the FTCA's foreign-country exception barred the claim because the alleged acts and omissions occurred in El Salvador, that no headquarters exception applied, and that the MCA provided no basis for judicial review of the administrative denial of the claim.

torts & liabilityprocedurefederal power

The case involved recreational boat owners challenging a user fee imposed by the Coast Guard under the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990, which applied graduated annual charges to larger noncommercial vessels but not commercial ones, along with the agency's broad definition of waters subject to the fee and its decision to charge the statutory maximum. Plaintiffs claimed violations of equal protection and that the Coast Guard exceeded its authority by failing to tie fees to actual costs. The court granted summary judgment to the United States, holding that the statutory distinction between recreational and commercial boats met rational basis review, that Congress had authorized indirect fees to help fund general Coast Guard operations, and that the agency had properly exercised its discretion in implementing the statute.

business & regulatoryfederal powertaxes

The case involved a Medicare provider, National Medical Enterprises, challenging the Secretary of Health and Human Services' decision to reclassify costs for nurses administering IV therapy at Century City Hospital from an ancillary cost center to a routine cost center for fiscal years 1982 and 1983, affecting reimbursement amounts of about $406,000. The provider had allocated these salary and benefit costs as ancillary services eligible for utilization-based reimbursement, but the fiscal intermediary and later the Deputy Administrator reversed that classification. The court denied the provider's summary judgment motion and granted the Secretary's, holding that section 2203 of the Provider Reimbursement Manual required classification as routine when that was the common or established practice among similar California hospitals, as confirmed by the Loma Linda decision surveying 450 hospitals. The court found insufficient evidence of contrary prevailing practice to override that standard, even after considering isolated examples from other facilities.

healthcarebusiness & regulatory

This case involved an environmental nonprofit and individual plaintiffs challenging a 1970 land exchange agreement and subsequent federal approvals for a highway interchange on the George Washington Memorial Parkway in Virginia. The agreement allowed a developer to obtain an easement for access to a planned commercial and residential project on Daingerfield Island in exchange for conveying sensitive wetlands (Dyke Marsh) to the National Park Service. Plaintiffs alleged violations of statutes including NEPA, the National Park Service Organic Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, the APA, and related executive orders governing floodplain management and historic resources. The court granted summary judgment to the defendants, finding no genuine dispute of material fact and that the agency approvals and consultation processes satisfied applicable legal requirements.

environmentfederal powerpropertyprocedure

This Federal Tort Claims Act case concerned a plaintiff who was lawfully arrested for driving under the influence and then fell while being escorted by U.S. Capitol Police officers into their headquarters, sustaining a right orbital fracture, facial lacerations, and other injuries. The court found the defendant liable because the ramp at the entrance was not flush with the floor, causing the plaintiff to trip at the threshold. After a bench trial, the court awarded the plaintiff $33,500 in damages, covering stipulated past medical expenses of $17,000, $1,500 in additional psychiatric care, temporary aggravation of preexisting symptoms, minor vision impairment, facial scars, and associated emotional distress and pain and suffering. The court declined to award damages for future medical expenses or lost earnings because those claims were not proven to a reasonable certainty under applicable legal standards.

torts & liabilityprocedurefederal power

The case involved parents suing the District of Columbia Public Schools under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) for reimbursement of tuition at a private school where they unilaterally placed their emotionally disturbed son after DCPS proposed public placements. The court granted summary judgment to the defendants and denied reimbursement. The core reasoning was that the private Somerset School did not meet state educational standards required by the IDEA, the parents failed to follow the proper cooperative process or valid appeal after due process hearings, and the statute does not authorize retroactive payments for unauthorized private facilities when a free appropriate public education was available.

civil rightsprocedure