The D.C. Circuit releases opinions on Tuesdays and Fridays. We read them all so you don’t have to. On Tuesday (July 24), the court issued four opinions:
Sorenson Communications, LLC v. Federal Communications Commission. The FCC regulates a technology known as Video Relay Service, a Skype-like video service that allows people with hearing or speech impairments to communicate with people using standard telephones. A user communicates in sign language over live video with an interpreter, who then speaks with a hearing person using a phone. The companies that operate the service are reimbursed at rates set by the FCC. Sorenson, the largest operator of the service, challenged the FCC’s 2017 tiered rate structure, which set higher rates for Sorenson’s smaller competitors than it did for Sorenson. In an opinion by Judge Griffith (joined by Judges Millett and Pillard), the court upheld the FCC’s rates under Chevron deference, saying it was reasonable for the agency to adopt different rates for different companies in order to preserve long-term competition in the market. The court also rejected a separate challenge to the rates from a group calling itself the Video Relay Services Consumer Association. The opinion implies that the association is really just a front group for Sorenson.
Palmieri v. United States. In the summer of 2011, the Department of Defense suspended Matthew Palmieri’s security clearance after he failed to be forthcoming about his contacts with Syrian nationals. Palmieri lost his engineering job with a U.S. government contractor as a result of this suspension, and after failing to regain his security clearance through administrative proceedings, he filed a 30-count complaint primarily alleging violations of his rights to privacy and due process. The trial judge dismissed Palmieri’s claims. On appeal, Judge Henderson (joined by Judge Griffith and Judge Katsas) affirmed the trial judge’s rulings since Palmieri’s many allegations of being subjected to a “Soviet-style government conspiracy” were deemed forfeited or meritless. Katsas wrote a concurrence in which he suggested that the court may need to determine in the future whether the Supreme Court precedent that the trial judge relied upon to dismiss many of Palmieri’s claims appropriately bars judicial review of cases “arising from the revocation of a security clearance.”
Utility Workers Union of America Local 464 v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. After the owners of a major power plant in Massachusetts decided to shut the plant down, retail electricity customers argued that the owners had timed the shutdown in order to manipulate the market for future electricity prices, which derive from annual electricity capacity auctions. They said the timing of the shutdown inflated electricity prices in those auctions, and they challenged FERC’s approvals of the auctions. In a previous case, the D.C. Circuit denied challenges to the 2014 auction due to a lack of jurisdiction. The customers came back into court to challenge two subsequent auctions, but Judge Pillard (joined by Judges Rogers and Millett) rejected the follow-up challenges, saying the customers did not have standing. The facts were too attenuated to show a causal connection between the two auctions at issue and the high electrical bills that the customers complained of
Waters v. Lockett. Lewis Waters was convicted in D.C. court in 2006 of numerous charges, including assault, kidnapping, and armed robbery. He first appealed his convictions to the D.C. Court of Appeals and lost. Then he filed a pro se petition for habeas corpus in federal district court, arguing that the D.C. court improperly denied his ineffective assistance of counsel claim. The district judge denied his petition, and the D.C. Circuit affirmed. In an opinion by Judge Griffith (joined by Judges Tatel and Wilkins), the court applied a “doubly deferential” standard, reasoning that “a state-court decision has a reasonable basis so long as fairminded jurists could disagree over its correctness.”
Circuit Breaker contributor Jake Goldberg assisted with this story.
