Justia U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff, along with her late husband, filed suit challenging a city ordinance that requires at least fifty percent of their residential yard to contain turf grass. The Eighth Circuit affirmed plaintiff's substantive due process claim, but held that the district court was without jurisdiction to dismiss the Eighth Amendment claim on the merits. In this case, plaintiff's claim that the city's ordinance violated her due process rights was barred by the doctrine of res judicata. Furthermore, the Eighth Amendment claim was not ripe for review, because it is unknown whether the city will impose sanctions or, if sanctions are imposed, what they might be. View "Duffner v. City of St. Peters" on Justia Law

The Eighth Circuit reversed the district court's order granting summary judgment to the Metropolitan Council on LPA's claim that the Council violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and other federal and state laws. In this case the Council is the sole defendant and LPA filed suit prior to a final agency action.The court held that the district court lacked jurisdiction to hear LPA's claim, because Eighth Circuit precedent expressly rejects the viability of a NEPA cause of action outside of the Administrative Procedure Act framework, especially when the only defendant is a state agency. Therefore, LPA has no cause of action through which it could state a plausible claim. The court remanded with instructions to dismiss the case. View "Lakes and Parks Alliance of Minneapolis v. The Metropolitan Council" on Justia Law

The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's claims challenging the city's ordinance based on lack of standing. The challenged ordinance made it unlawful for any person to own, possess, keep, exercise control over, maintain, harbor, transport or sell within the City of Sioux City, Iowa, any pit bull. In this case, plaintiff admitted that she does not currently own a dog because she and her fiance work full time and do not have the time to own a dog, but she intended to adopt a dog in the near future.The court held that, to the extent plaintiff sought prospective relief against future conduct, she failed to show that she owns a dog and does not live in the city. Furthermore, her intention to adopt a dog in the near future was uncertain and insufficient to confer standing. The court also held that plaintiff's past injuries did not grant her standing because she failed to demonstrate how her proposed relief redressed them. Finally, the district court did not abuse its discretion by declining to hold an evidentiary hearing prior to its sua sponte dismissal of plaintiff's claim. View "Myers v. Sioux City" on Justia Law

Hospitals challenged the method the Secretary used to calculate the volume-decrease adjustment (VDA) for certain fiscal years during the mid-2000s, as well as the Administrator's classification of certain costs as variable costs when calculating the adjustment.The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's decision to uphold the Secretary's actions and held that the Secretary's interpretation of the relevant regulations was a reasonable interpretation of the plain language of the Medicare statute. Given the lack of guidance in the statute and the substantial deference the court affords to the agency, the Secretary's decision reasonably complied with the mandate to provide full compensation. That the Secretary has prospectively adopted a new interpretation was not a sufficient reason to find the Secretary's prior interpretation arbitrary or capricious. The court also held that the Secretary's interpretation of the relevant regulations in these cases was clearly consistent with their text, and the costs at issue were reasonably classified as variable costs. View "Unity HealthCare v. Azar" on Justia Law

The Eighth Circuit denied Petitioner’s petition for review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirming the immigration judge’s (IJ) denial of Petitioner’s motion to terminate removal proceedings, holding that substantial evidence supported the finding of the lower courts that Petitioner’s convictions qualified as crimes involving moral turpitude.Based on Petitioner’s Missouri convictions for receiving stolen property and passing bad checks, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) charged Petitioner with removability. Petitioner filed a motion to terminate removal proceedings, alleging that DHS did not demonstrate that her convictions qualified as crimes involving moral turpitude. The IJ denied the petition, and the BIA affirmed. The Eighth Circuit affirmed, holding that, applying the modified categorical approach, Petitioner’s four Missouri convictions for passing a bad check qualified as crimes involving moral turpitude. View "Dolic v. Barr" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed a class action against the State of Missouri and others, alleging that the state failed to meet its constitutional obligation to provide indigent defendants with meaningful representation. The Eighth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of the State and the governor's motion to dismiss based on sovereign immunity and legislative immunity.The court held that the Missouri Supreme Court would apply long-established principles to cases involving prospective equitable relief and hold that the state was immune; neither the statute nor the Missouri Constitution's general-enforcement provision make the governor an Ex parte Young defendant; to the extent plaintiffs claim that the governor's general enforcement authority and appointment authority were non-legislative acts that lead to a constitutional violation, the governor was subject to sovereign immunity for those acts because they did not satisfy Ex parte Young; and even if the governor's appropriation-reduction authority was not shielded by sovereign immunity through Ex parte Young, legislative immunity, a separate defense, foreclosed suit against the governor. View "Church v. Missouri" on Justia Law

The Eighth Circuit denied a petition for review of the USDA's 2017 orders withdrawing an interim final rule and two proposed regulations promulgated under the Packers and Stockyards Act (PSA). The court held that the USDA actions were not arbitrary nor capricious where the USDA provided legitimate regulatory and substantive concerns. In this case, the USDA explained that it was withdrawing the interim final rule and taking no further action on the proposed regulations because the proposed regulatory change of course would generate protracted litigation, adopt vague and ambiguous terms, and might prevent innovation and foster vertical integration that would hinder new market entrants. The court held that the USDA did not unlawfully withhold action by failing to comply with an absolute congressional deadline in Section 11006 of the 2008 Farm Bill. View "Organization for Competitive Markets v. U.S. Department of Agriculture" on Justia Law

An unpaid lobbyist unsuccessfully sued to enjoin enforcement of Mo. Rev. Stat. Sections 105.470 and 105.473 which require lobbyists to register and report certain activities. The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The district court properly analyzed the claims under an intermediate or exacting level of scrutiny, rather than strict scrutiny, citing the “Citizens United” decision. Missouri has a sufficiently important governmental interest in government transparency to require both paid and unpaid lobbyists to register and report and the registration requirements in Sec. 105.473 are substantially related to Missouri's interest in transparency. The burden placed on the plaintiff is not disproportionate to Missouri's interest and the court did not err in finding the statute was constitutional as applied to the plaintiff. The court rejected a facial challenge to the word "designated" in the definition of a legislative lobbyist. The term is clearly defined, and the statute uses the word within its plain meaning; “people of ordinary intelligence” would have a “reasonable opportunity to understand” what “designated” means in the context of the statute. View "Calzone v. Hagan" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, by his parent and legal guardian, filed suit against the United States for negligence and negligent supervision, alleging that the Government knew or should have known of the sexual abuse history of a priest that was hired at the Tripler Army Medical Center, and that the Government was negligent in failing to warn families of the priest's sexual propensities.The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of the action based on lack of subject matter jurisdiction because the United States was entitled to sovereign immunity. The court held that the decision whether to warn of the priest's sexual propensities or to take other action to restrict his contact with children was susceptible to policy analysis. The court explained that balancing safety, reputational interests, and confidentiality was the kind of determination the discretionary function exception was designed to shield and thus the Government's conduct was within the discretionary function exception. View "Croyle v. United States" on Justia Law

Petitioners challenged the FCC's 2017 order altering regulations for business data services (BDS). ILEC Petitioners challenged new price cap rates in the order and CLEC Petitioners challenged most of the other changes in the order. The Eighth Circuit granted CLEC's petitions in part and vacated in part. The court denied the petitions for review on all other issues.The court held that the FCC's 2016 notice gave CLEC adequate notice of large scale deregulation and of the adopted Competitive Market Test, but the notice failed to give sufficient notice of its ending of ex ante regulation of transport services. This failure prevented interested parties from informed participation in that portion of the rulemaking and release of a draft of the proposed order did not remedy the FCC's violation of its obligations under the Administrative Procedure Act. Therefore, the court vacated that portion of the final rule affecting time division multiplex transport services and remanded for further proceedings. The court rejected challenges to the FCC's adoption of the Competitive Market Test. The court also held that the FCC did not act unreasonably in excluding low bandwidth Ethernet business data services from price caps; in declining to extend the Interim Wholesale Access Rule to business data services; and in setting the "X-factor" annual price cap reduction at 2%. View "Citizens Telecommunications Company of Minnesota v. FCC" on Justia Law