Justia U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Petitioner appealed from the district court's judgment affirming the Commissioner's denial of his application for disability benefits. The court held that the ALJ erred in her treatment of plaintiff's claim that he suffered from fibromyalgia by failing to accord the proper weight to the opinion of plaintiff's treating physician, by misconstruing the record, and by failing to evaluate the claim in light of medically accepted diagnostic criteria. The court also held that the ALJ's determination that plaintiff could perform light work was not supported by substantial evidence, and that the ALJ further erred by not determining whether plaintiff's reaching limitation was non-eligible and would therefore require the testimony of a vocational expert. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for further proceedings. View "Selian v. Astrue" on Justia Law

Defendants appealed the district court's denial of their motion for summary judgment. Plaintiffs' commitments were effected by means of an executive-branch effort aimed at preventing the release of some "sexually violent predators." The court agreed with the district court that there was sufficient evidence in the record to support plaintiffs' procedural due process claims and therefore defeated the motion for summary judgment. The court also concluded that at the time of the Initiative, the constitutional principal that, absent some emergency or other exigent circumstance, an individual could not be involuntarily committed to a psychiatric institution without notice and a predeprivation hearing was firmly established. Because the law pertaining to the involuntary civil commitment of prisoners was firmly established, the district court properly determined that defendants should not enjoy qualified immunity. View "Bailey v. Pataki" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs appealed from the district court's dismissal of their action brought under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), 18 U.S.C. 2331 et seq., against UBS, alleging that plaintiffs were direct or indirect victims of terrorist attacks in Israel facilitated by UBS's furnishing of United States currency to Iran, which the U.S. Department of State had listed as a state sponsor of terrorism. The district court dismissed plaintiffs' First Amended Complaint (FAC) for lack of standing and failure to state a claim. On appeal, plaintiffs contended principally that the FAC alleged a chain of causation between transfers of funds to Iran by UBS and plaintiffs' injuries at the hands of various terrorist groups sponsored by Iran, sufficient to establish traceability for purposes both of standing and of stating a claim under the ATA. The court concluded that the FAC was sufficient to show Article III standing but insufficient to state a claim on which relief could be granted. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Rothstein v. UBS AG" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a former sergeant with the Hartford Police Department, appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants where plaintiff alleged, inter alia, that defendants wrongfully failed to promote him and defendants instigated several internal affairs investigations into his conduct on the basis of his race or national origin. With respect to plaintiff's discrimination claims, the court held that he failed to introduce factual evidence that defendants' nondiscriminatory reasons for the investigation and failure to promote him were pretextual or that plaintiff's race or national origin was a motivating favor. With respect to Chief Croughwell, although the court agreed with plaintiff that his statement to the press implicated a matter of public concern, the court affirmed the judgment on the district court's alternative ground that Chief Croughwell was protected from liability by qualified immunity. View "Garcia v. Hartford Police Dept." on Justia Law

The NRC granted Entergy an exemption from compliance with certain fire safety regulations at its Indian Point nuclear plant operating unit No. 3. Plaintiffs alleged that the NRC's award of the exemption to Entergy violated the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 551 et seq., the Atomic Energy Act (AEA), 42 U.S.C. 2011 et seq., and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq. The court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Entergy on all of these claims except in one respect. Insofar as plaintiffs contended that the NRC granted the challenged exemption in violation of NEPA's regulations, which allowed for public involvement where appropriate and practicable, the court concluded that the agency record did not permit a reviewing court to determine whether a reasoned basis existed for the NRC's decision not to afford any such public involvement in the exemption decision. View "Brodsky v. United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, in two separate appeals, challenged the grant of motions to dismiss in favor of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The court affirmed the district courts' conclusion that 12 U.S.C. 4617 precluded judicial review of a Directive issued by the FHFA to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks. The court also held that plaintiffs have failed to show that it was likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that their claims against the OCC would be redressed by vacatur of the Bulletin at issue, and therefore, the claims against the OCC were properly dismissed for lack of standing. View "Town of Babylon v. Federal Housing Finance Agency; Natural Resources Defense Council v. Federal Housing Finance Agency" on Justia Law

This opinion sets out a procedure for all immigration cases pending in this Court that will enable an interested petition and the Government to evaluate whether remand to the BIA, according to terms specified, is appropriate. View "In the Matter of Immigration" on Justia Law

This case arose when plaintiffs submitted Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552, requests to defendants for "any and all documents containing guidance" provided by the OLC to any representatives of HHS or USAID "relating to the enforcement" of the pledge requirement purporting to require all organizations that receive funds for HIV/AIDS and anti-trafficking work to have "a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking." Defendants subsequently appealed from the district court's order granting summary judgment for plaintiff, denying defendants' cross-motion for summary judgment. The court ordered disclosure by defendants of three memoranda prepared by the OLC because they were not covered by the deliberative process exemption, 5 U.S.C. 552(b)(5), from the general requirement of disclosure contained in the FOIA. The court concluded that one such memorandum was incorporated by reference in a USAID document such that the protection of the exemption was surrendered, but that the other two were not and retained their exempt status. View "Brennan Center for Justice v. United States Department of Justice" on Justia Law

Plaintiff sued defendants, Queens County Assistant District Attorneys, alleging that defendants' interrogation of her following the arrest of her boyfriend, former New York State Senator Hiram Monserrate, violated her civil rights. Defendants appealed from the denial of absolute immunity in an action brought under, inter alia, 42 U.S.C. 1983. The court concluded that, viewed through the eye of a reasonable prosecutor, defendants' acts in the present case were well within their legitimate functions as prosecutors. Because the objective circumstances triggered absolute immunity, the court vacated the district court's order denying absolute immunity and remanded for further proceedings. View "Giraldo v. City of New York" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs appealed from two orders of the district court granting in part and denying in part each side's motion for summary judgment resolving the applicability of Exemption 6 of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(b)(6), to a federal agency's decision to withhold names and duty-station information from personnel records for over 800,000 federal civilian employees. The court held that the district court correctly found that the names could be withheld, but erred insofar as it found that the agency must disclose all of the duty-station information. View "Long v. Office of Personnel Management" on Justia Law