Edward Matthew Curran

This case involves a Medicare provider, Home Health Care, Inc., challenging the Secretary of Health and Human Services' disallowance of reimbursement for leased car costs and an employee's salary and travel expenses under the Medicare Act. The court ruled that the disallowance of over half the car lease costs violated the Act's prohibition on federal interference with medical service provision (42 U.S.C. 1395) to the extent those costs related to home visits, as the mileage benchmarks effectively prevented leasing cars, but upheld the disallowance for administrative use as consistent with regulations and comparable provider costs. It also sustained the full disallowance of the employee's costs, finding substantial evidence that the duties could have been handled by existing staff and lacking proof of clerical work. The decision partially reversed the agency's action on the car costs while affirming it on the salary issue.

healthcarebusiness & regulatoryfederal power

The plaintiff sued the Department of Defense, the Department of the Army, and several former secretaries, alleging that he contracted cancer from exposure to the chemical defoliant Agent Orange while serving in the Vietnam War. After an earlier partial dismissal, the case proceeded only against three former secretaries in their individual capacities on claims of intentional torts violating Fifth Amendment due process rights. The court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss, holding that the doctrine of intra-military immunity barred the claims. The core reasoning was that such immunity is essential to protect military commanders during combat operations, even though the United States was not formally at war, and the court followed prior district court decisions applying similar immunity principles.

torts & liabilityfederal power

This case under the Federal Tort Claims Act involved a plaintiff who fell and fractured her elbow while walking on the semi-circular granite platform steps around a fountain at the Smithsonian's Museum of History and Technology. The plaintiff claimed the steps were unreasonably dangerous due to their design, lack of visual cues from the variegated granite, absence of markings or warnings, and the government's prior knowledge of similar incidents. The court found that the defendant's architects had approved a faulty design despite recognizing the hazard, establishing actual notice and negligence as the proximate cause of the injury. It rejected contributory negligence and awarded the plaintiff $30,000 in damages for medical expenses, pain, and limited mobility. The ruling was based on evidence of the steps' visual defects, public usage observations showing frequent trips, and internal government documents expressing design concerns.

torts & liabilityfederal power

This case involves a wrongful death and survival action brought by the co-administratrices of Corine Morgan's estate against the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act, alleging negligence by St. Elizabeths Hospital in its handling of Joseph Morgan, who had been committed there after assaulting his wife. The court found that the hospital negligently prepared a competency report to the D.C. Court of General Sessions and failed to follow its own diagnostic standards, which contributed to Morgan's erroneous release despite his organic brain damage from alcohol and risk of violent behavior. These errors were a concurring cause of Morgan's release and his subsequent killing of his wife on March 26, 1967. The court awarded $90,000 in damages on the wrongful death count and $10,000 on the survival count.

torts & liabilityhealthcare

In Fisher v. Renegotiation Board, Georgetown University law students sued under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain three categories of documents from the Renegotiation Board concerning excess profits determinations for eight defense contractors. After in camera review on remand, the district court ordered full public disclosure of seventeen unilateral Board orders and 153 renegotiation agreements, minus confidential commercial details in attached exhibits, while upholding the withholding of contractor reports, statements of non-applicability, and thirty-eight internal memoranda. The court reasoned that Exemption 4 protects trade secrets and confidential financial information supplied by contractors, and Exemption 5 shields deliberative inter-agency materials, but final agency opinions and orders reflecting the Board's own determinations are not exempt and must be released without redactions beyond protected data.

business & regulatoryfederal powerprocedure

This case involved a plaintiff who was subjected to multiple "vagrancy observations" by District of Columbia police while walking in public areas at night, leading him to seek declaratory and injunctive relief against these practices and the underlying vagrancy statute. The court held that the police's vagrancy observation practices were unconstitutional as applied to the plaintiff because the officers lacked specific and articulable facts justifying the stops under standards from Terry v. Ohio, and ordered the expungement of related records while declaring the plaintiff's right to be in public spaces while sober and well-behaved. The court did not address the constitutionality of the vagrancy statute itself, as the practices were found invalid first. It rejected class action status and limited relief to the individual plaintiff.

criminal lawcivil rights

The case involved a defendant's appeal from the denial of his motion to reopen a preliminary hearing in a criminal prosecution, seeking mandamus relief to set aside the magistrate's order binding him over and to allow further proceedings. After an indictment was returned by the grand jury, the court addressed the proper function of preliminary hearings under the Federal Magistrates Act of 1968 and Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 5, concluding that such hearings serve solely to determine whether probable cause exists to hold the accused for grand jury action rather than to provide discovery or require the government to call all potential witnesses. The court found that the magistrate had applied the correct probable cause standard, the government had met its burden with sufficient evidence, and the defendant had been given full opportunity to present his own witnesses but had not done so. Accordingly, the court denied leave to appeal the denial of the motion to reopen.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved a U.S. Army soldier stationed in South Korea who filed a habeas corpus petition challenging his potential transfer to Korean authorities for trial on charges of murder and arson stemming from an off-post incident. The petitioner argued that the 1966 U.S.-Republic of Korea Status of Forces Agreement was not constitutionally approved and that Korean trial procedures would violate his due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. The court dismissed the petition, holding that the agreement was validly entered pursuant to the Mutual Defense Treaty and prior agreements, that it properly allocated jurisdiction, and that any potential differences in foreign legal standards did not outweigh U.S. national interests in maintaining forces abroad under precedents such as Wilson v. Girard. The decision allowed the soldier to remain in U.S. military custody pending the outcome of Korean proceedings but rejected the constitutional challenges.

criminal lawfederal powercivil rights

In United States v. Laughlin, the court had previously dismissed a perjury indictment against defendant James J. Laughlin, and the government moved for reconsideration, claiming sufficient corroborative evidence from witness testimony and telephone records, as well as arguing that the court had improperly applied trial-level evidentiary standards to the indictment stage. The court denied the motion, holding that the telephone records failed to provide the required direct and positive corroboration of falsity needed for perjury cases, as they only showed calls between numbers without personal knowledge of the participants. The court further reasoned that evidence obtained through unauthorized interceptions violating 47 U.S.C. § 605 was presented to the grand jury and was so intertwined with any competent evidence that the indictment could not stand, even under the lower threshold for indictments established in Costello v. United States.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved a perjury indictment against defendant Laughlin for allegedly false grand jury testimony denying that he knew or had spoken with Bernice Gross, a witness in a related criminal matter. The government sought to introduce tape recordings of telephone conversations between Laughlin and Gross that were made in the U.S. Attorney's office using an induction coil, after Gross had been questioned by prosecutors. The court granted the motion to dismiss the perjury indictment, holding that the recordings constituted an interception under 47 U.S.C. § 605 without voluntary consent from a party to the calls, rendering them inadmissible and undermining the materiality element of the perjury charge; the motion to dismiss a related conspiracy indictment was denied.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved Merritt Corporation seeking an injunction to halt multiple seizure actions by FDA officials against its acne lotion product Clarimycin, which contains neomycin sulfate and was marketed for treating acne without prior new drug approval. The court denied the injunction and granted summary judgment to the defendants. It reasoned that the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act permits unlimited seizures for new drug violations without a probable cause determination, that a drug can qualify as new based on a novel recommended use or prolonged duration of administration even if previously approved for other purposes, and that conflicting expert opinions on safety meant the product was not generally recognized as safe, allowing officials to act in good faith under their discretionary authority.

business & regulatoryhealthcare

This case is a civil action under 35 U.S.C. § 145 in which Rem-Cru Titanium, Inc. sought a court order directing the Commissioner of Patents to issue a patent on claims 16-31 of a divisional application for titanium alloys, after the Patent Office had rejected them. The claims describe titanium base alloys with specific combinations and percentages of iron, chromium, manganese, or molybdenum, processed to achieve a mixed alpha-beta microstructure with particular strength and ductility properties. The court held that the application provided sufficient disclosure to support all the claims, that they were not unduly broad, and that they were not unpatentable over the cited prior art references including the Jaffee patent and Kroll article. The reasoning centered on the specification's clear description of alloy ranges, processing steps, and results, which enabled a person skilled in the art to make and use the invention without needing additional examples or narrower limitations.

business & regulatory

This case involves Shell Development Company suing the Commissioner of Patents under 35 U.S.C. § 145 to compel issuance of a patent on claim 13 of an application for the chemical compound bicyclo-(2.2.1)-2,5-heptadiene, after the Patent Office rejected it. The court ruled for the defendant, upholding the rejection and finding the claim unpatentable. The core reasoning was that the compound had already been sufficiently described in a 1940 prior publication called the Ring Index, which listed the same name and a related structural formula that a skilled chemist could use to derive the exact claimed structure, constituting anticipation under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a). The court rejected arguments that additional reduction to practice was needed, citing precedent that prior disclosure alone bars patentability even without prior practical isolation methods.

propertyprocedure

This case was a civil action under 35 U.S.C. § 145 in which Rem-Cru Titanium, Inc. sued the Commissioner of Patents to obtain issuance of a patent on claims 7 and 8 of an application for a titanium-aluminum alloy containing 34-46% aluminum by weight, characterized by a single-phase microstructure and properties including maintained hardness and oxidation resistance at high temperatures up to 1250°C. The Patent Office had rejected the claims as unpatentable over prior art including the Gray patent, the Hansen publication, and Science Abstracts. The court ruled for the plaintiff, authorizing issuance of the patent, after determining that the prior art did not teach the critical composition range or the specific properties and microstructure recited in the claims.

business & regulatoryfederal powerprocedure

The case involved a habeas corpus petition by John Lawrence Poff, a sixteen-year-old committed by the Juvenile Court of the District of Columbia to the National Training School for Boys after adjudications on four petitions alleging unauthorized use of automobiles and taking property without right. The court decided that the commitments were unconstitutional because Poff was not advised of his right to counsel under the Sixth Amendment. The core reasoning was that although Juvenile Court proceedings are non-criminal in character, when the underlying acts would constitute crimes if committed by an adult, due process requires the same constitutional guarantees, including effective assistance of counsel; the Juvenile Court Act was intended to enlarge rather than diminish such protections, and a minor cannot competently waive them.

criminal lawcivil rightsprocedurefamily law

This case is a suit for maintenance brought by Angela Gage against her husband Vincent Gage in the District of Columbia. The husband defended by presenting a Nevada divorce decree obtained after he traveled to Reno, stayed the minimum statutory period, and left the state on the same day the divorce was granted. The court held that the Nevada decree was not entitled to full faith and credit because the husband never acquired a bona fide domicile in Nevada, as evidenced by his lack of employment, bank accounts, taxes paid, or other ties, and his immediate departure after the decree. Jurisdiction for divorce requires genuine domicile with intent to remain indefinitely, not a simulated presence solely to obtain the divorce. The court therefore awarded the wife permanent maintenance of $75 per month plus $200 in attorney's fees.

family law

This case involves a trustee seeking court guidance on construing a 1907 will and distributing the residuary trust estate after the death of the life beneficiary, Anna J. Stith. The will directed the trust to end upon her death and distribute the corpus to the testator's then-living nephews and nieces or their issue, with substitution if any had predeceased. The court ruled that the nephews' and nieces' remainder interests vested at the testator's death, were divested only if they died leaving surviving children (who would take per stirpes), and otherwise passed to the estates of those who died without issue; shares were allocated in twenty-fifths among living relatives, descendants of deceased ones, and certain estates. The reasoning rested on the will's language specifying substitution only upon death with issue, combined with the District of Columbia Code provision establishing tenancy in common for such devises rather than the pre-1902 common-law joint tenancy rule.

propertyfamily law