Justia Military Law Opinion Summaries

The Georgia Parties, Gwinnett County, Georgia, and the United States Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps) appealed from a grant of summary judgment in this consolidated suit arising from more than 20 years of litigation between the parties. All of the underlying cases related to the Corps' authority to operate the Buford Dam and Lake Lanier, the reservoir it created, for local water supply. On appeal, the parties raised several jurisdictional matters and asserted a number of substantive claims. The court held that the district court erred in finding that it had jurisdiction to hear certain parties because the Corps had not taken final agency action. The court also held that the district court and the Corps erred in concluding that water supply was not an authorized purpose of the Buford Project under the Rivers and Harbors Act (RHA), Pub. L. No. 79-525, 60 Stat. 634. The court also held that the district court erred in finding that the 1956 Act expired after 50 years. The court also provided certain instructions to the Corps on remand and the Corps shall have one year to make a final determination of its authority to operate the Buford Project under the RHA and the Water Supply Act, 43 U.S.C. 390b(a). View "In Re: MDL-1824 Tri-State Water Rights Litigation" on Justia Law

In 1968, petitioner sustained a gunshot wound to his thigh. In 1995 he was granted service connection for the thigh wound, shrapnel wounds on forehead, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Petitioner appealed the rating, referring to pain and the inability to stand. The Veterans' Court remanded for an examination to determine muscle injury. The rating did not change; the board and the court affirmed, rejecting an argument that a change in diagnostic code to represent an injury to a different muscle group was an impermissible severance of service connection under 38 U.S.C. § 1159, which provides that service connection in force for ten or more years shall not be severed, except upon proof of fraud or that the veteran did not have the requisite service or discharge. The Federal Circuit affirmed, reasoning that a diagnostic code is most similar to the level of disability element of a claim for benefits and is not protected by the statute. The disability remains the same and remains service-connected. View "Read v. Shinseki" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, four Afghan and five Iraqi citizens captured and subsequently held in Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively, by the United States military sued defendants, seeking damages and declaratory relief as the result of their treatment while in U.S. custody. Each plaintiff asserted two Bivens claims, namely, defendants tortured him in violation of his due process right under the Fifth Amendment and defendants' conduct constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Plaintiffs also brought claims under the ATS based on defendants' alleged infliction of "prolonged arbitrary detention," "torture," and "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." Plaintiffs appealed the dismissal of their constitutional claims and ATS claims. The court held that defendants were protected from plaintiffs' constitutional claims by qualified immunity. The court also held that, even if defendants were not shielded by qualified immunity and plaintiffs could claim the protections of the Fifth and Eighth Amendments, the court would decline to sanction a Bivens cause of action because special factors counseled against doing so. The court further held that plaintiffs' claim under the ATS alleged a violation of the law of nations, not of the ATS, and therefore, did not violate a statute of the United States within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. 2679(b)(2)(B). The court finally held that because plaintiffs have not alleged a cognizable cause of action, they have no basis upon which to seek declaratory relief. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment of dismissal. View "Ali v. Rumsfeld" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed a district court order dismissing for lack of subject matter jurisdiction his suit against defendants, asserting that federal constitutional and state common law torts arising out of allegations that defendant fraudulently enlisted plaintiff into the National Guard. At issue was whether plaintiff's suit was barred by the doctrine of intra-military immunity in Feres v. United States because it sought monetary damages for injuries arising out of or were in the course of activity incident to military service. The court held that the Feres doctrine did not bar a discharged serviceman, who remained in the Individual Ready Reserve, from suing active duty National Guard recruiters whom he accused of forging his signature on re-enlistment papers where the alleged injury was not incident to the plaintiff's service. The court also held that defendants met the prima facie test as federal employees under the Westfall Act, 28 U.S.C. 2671, and remanded for further factual determinations on this issue.

The veteran, active in the Navy 1968-1971, reported traumatic events during a 1991 psychiatric evaluation. In 1993-1994 he sought benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder, again reporting an incident involving the death of a friend. In 1999 the VA awarded 100% disability, effective as of 1993. The veteran's complaints about how his claim was handled led to an OIG inspection in 2004, which disclosed that the veteran was not present at the accident that killed his friend. The veterans' court upheld a decision to severe benefits on the basis of fraud. The veteran had already receive about $320,000 and was subsequently convicted of fraud and sentenced to 48 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution. The federal circuit affirmed the veterans' court. The veteran had only claimed one stressor, so the VA was not required to investigate other possible stressors before terminating benefits. The VA properly followed its own procedures after determining that the matter exceeded the jurisdictional cap under the Program Fraud Civil Remedies Act, 31 U.S.C. 3801. The Act is not an exclusive remedy and the veteran was afforded due process.

Plaintiff appealed from a judgment entered by the district court granting an oral motion of defendants, plaintiff's former employer, for judgment as a matter of law pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50 with respect to plaintiff's claims arising under section 4312(a) of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act ("USERRA"), 38 U.S.C. 4301 et seq, where plaintiff was eventually terminated by defendants after returning to work upon completion of his call to active duty by the Army. At issue was whether the district court erred in granting the motion where plaintiff claimed that defendants discriminated against him on account of his military service. The court affirmed the judgment and held that there was no reasonable basis to find a violation of section 4312(a) where plaintiff was rehired with the same title, salary, and other conditions of employment after his immediate return from military service.

The Air Force petitioned for review of the decision and order of the Federal Labor Relations Authority ("FLRA") that a union proposal for uniform cleaning was a negotiable condition of employment. Based on a recently discovered Conference Report, the Air Force contended that the expenditure under 5 U.S.C. 5901(a) of funds was not authorized for the provision of services related to uniforms and statutory silence did not leave it discretion to do so. At issue was whether the court lacked jurisdiction under 5 U.S.C. 7123(c) to entertain the Air Force's petition because the Air Force failed to present its new interpretation of the uniform statutes. The court held that the Air Force's belated discovery of a constructional appropriations bar was an extraordinary circumstance under section 7123(c) that permitted consideration of an argument not presented by the FLRA. Were the exception not to apply, the FLRA's order would, in effect, permit the Air Force, by contract with the union, to authorize the expenditure of funds beyond what Congress had approved and therefore, the court granted the petition for review. Accordingly, whether as a matter of the plain text of the two uniform statues, or the Air Force's permissible interpretation of any statutory ambiguity to which the FLRA must defer, the Air Force correctly maintained that the union's uniform cleaning proposal was non-negotiated because the statute the Department of Defense administered did not authorize such payments for appropriated funds.

Respondent filed an action under the False Claims Act ("FCA"), 31 U.S.C. 3730(e)(4)(A), alleging that his former employer had submitted hundreds of false claims for payment under its federal contracts. At issue was whether a federal agency's written response to a request for records under the Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA"), 5 U.S.C. 552, constituted a "report" within the meaning of the public disclosure bar. The Court held that a federal agency's written response to a FOIA request for records constituted a "report" within the meaning of the FCA's public disclosure bar where a "report," in this context, carried its ordinary meaning; where the Labor Department's three written responses in this case, along with the accompanying records produced to respondent's wife, were "reports" within the public disclosure bar's ordinary meaning; where the Court was not persuaded by assertions that it would be anomalous to read the public disclosure bar to encompass written FOIA responses; and whether respondent's suit was "based upon... allegations or transactions" disclosed in the reports at issue was a question to be resolved on remand.

Plaintiffs, two non-profit organizations, sought injunctive and declaratory relief to remedy the delays in the provision of mental health care and adjudication of service-connected death and disability compensation claims by the Department of Veterans Affairs ("VA"). At issue was whether these delays violated veterans' due process rights to receive the care and benefits they were guaranteed by statute for harms and injuries sustained while serving our country. While the court affirmed the district court's ruling, with respect to various claims for specific forms of relief under the Administrative Procedures Act ("APA"), 5 U.S.C. 500 et. seq., that the APA prevented the court from granting veterans the statutory relief they sought, the court reversed the district court's ruling on plaintiffs' constitutional claims and held that the VA's failure to provide adequate procedures for veterans facing prejudicial delays in the delivery of mental health care violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The court further held that the district court erred in concluding that it lacked jurisdiction to review plaintiffs' due process challenge to delays and procedural deficiencies in the compensation claims adjudication system and that it erroneously denied plaintiffs' the relief to which they were entitled under the Due Process Clause.

Appellee, as personal representative for her son's estate, brought a wrongful death suit against a tugboat owner, appellant, and sought contribution from the United States as co-tortfeasor, when her son was killed during a Navy training exercise where his rigid-hull inflatable boat collided with the tug boat when it was pushing an eight-barge flotilla up the James River. At issue was whether the district court properly determined that appellant was negligent for failing to post a proper lookout on the night of the accident and whether the district court properly dismissed appellant's third-party claim for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The court declined to disturb the district court's findings as to liability for the collision and apportionment of fault where the district court understood and properly applied the appropriate legal standard pursuant to Inland Navigation Rule 5 and where appellant's additional arguments were unavailing. The court affirmed the district court's order granting the government's motion to dismiss appellant's third-party claim where the district court found that the Feres-Stencel Aero doctrine applied to appellant's action and barred its attempt to obtain contribution from the United States for damages when the government had not waived its sovereign immunity.