Congressional Court Watcher: Recent Appellate Decisions of Interest to Lawmakers (May 13–May 19, 2024)

Legal Sidebari

Congressional Court Watcher: Recent

Appellate Decisions of Interest to Lawmakers

(May 13–May 19, 2024)

May 20, 2024

The federal courts issue hundreds of decisions every week in cases involving diverse legal disputes. This

Sidebar series selects decisions from the past week that may be of particular interest to federal lawmakers,

focusing on orders and decisions of the Supreme Court and precedential decisions of the courts of appeals

for the thirteen federal circuits. Selected cases typically involve the interpretation or validity of federal

statutes and regulations, or constitutional issues relevant to Congress’s lawmaking and oversight

functions.

Some cases identified in this Sidebar, or the legal questions they address, are examined in other CRS

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Decisions of the Supreme Court

Last week, the Supreme Court issued opinions in three cases for which it heard arguments:

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Arbitration: A unanimous Court ruled that when a district court determines that claims

raised in a suit are arbitrable, Section 3 of the Federal Arbitration Act mandates that the

district court stay the case while arbitration is pending, leaving the court with no

discretion to dismiss the suit (Smith v. Spizzirri).

Consumer Protection: In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court upheld the statute that

authorizes the funding mechanism for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)

as consistent with the Appropriations Clause of the Constitution. Under 12 U.S.C. § 5497,

the CFPB communicates its funding needs to the Federal Reserve, and the Federal

Reserve transfers the requested funding to the CFPB so long as the amount does not

exceed a statutory cap. The majority held that the Appropriations Clause requires only

that Congress authorize an expenditure from a specified source for a designated purpose,

and that Section 5497 meets that test (CFPB v. Cmty. Fin. Servs. Ass’n of Am., Ltd.).

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Labor & Employment: In a 9-0 ruling, the Court held that 5 U.S.C. § 7703(b)(1)(A)’s

60-day filing deadline for a federal employee to seek review of a final decision of the

Merit Systems Protection Board by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is

not jurisdictional, and that the filing deadline is subject to exceptions such as equitable

tolling (Harrow v. Dep't of Def.).

The Court also took action on an emergency application:

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Election Law: Over the dissent of three Justices, the Court granted an emergency

application to stay a district court’s order pending appeal to the Court. The order had

blocked Louisiana from relying on a new congressional redistricting map that establishes

two majority-Black congressional districts for the 2024 election after a finding from the

lower court that the map violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause

because it established an impermissible racial gerrymander. The challenged map was

drawn after an earlier proposed map—which had established a majority-Black district—

had been found to impermissibly dilute the votes of Black Louisianans in violation of the

Voting Rights Act. The stay of the lower court order will remain in place pending further

action by the Court, likely meaning that the new congressional redistricting map

establishing two majority-Black congressional districts will be in effect for the 2024

elections (Robinson v. Callais).

Decisions of the U.S. Courts of Appeals

Topic headings marked with an asterisk (*) indicate cases where the appellate court’s controlling opinion

recognizes a split among the federal appellate courts on a key legal issue resolved in the opinion,

contributing to a nonuniform application of the law among the circuits.

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Criminal Law & Procedure: The Second Circuit joined other circuits in holding that the

crime of robbery under the Hobbs Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1951, does not contain a specific

intent element that is present in common law definitions of robbery. As a result, the

government need not prove that a defendant has the specific intent to steal and

permanently deprive the owner of property, only that the taking of the property was done

knowingly and voluntarily. The circuit panel also held that the Supreme Court’s 2022

decision in United States v. Taylor did not abrogate circuit precedent recognizing a

substantive Hobbs Act robbery offense as a categorical crime of violence subject to a

sentencing enhancement under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) if done while possessing a firearm

(United States v. Barrett).

Civil Procedure: The Fifth Circuit joined at least two other circuits in recognizing that a

hospital is not acting under the direction of the federal government when it uses an online

patient portal with tracking pixels that share private health information with third-party

websites. The defendant hospital invoked the federal officer removal statute, 28 U.S.C. §

1442(a)(1), and removed a state class action to federal court. Under the statute and Fifth

Circuit precedent, a defendant can remove a case to federal court when, among other

things, the defendant acted pursuant to a federal officer’s directions. The Fifth Circuit

concluded that the defendant was not acting pursuant to a federal officer’s directions

when it created the online portal because it was merely complying with federal law and

was not helping the federal government carry out any tasks. Because the federal officer

removal statute did not apply, the Fifth Circuit held that a state court was the proper

forum to hear the dispute (Martin v. LCMC Health Holdings, Inc.).

Criminal Law & Procedure: The D.C. Circuit affirmed a former high-ranking executive

agency official’s conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 1519 for obstruction of justice. The

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conviction was based on the official’s repeated falsification of information on annual

financial disclosure forms used to detect potential conflicts of interests. Section 1519

proscribes persons from knowingly falsifying information “with the intent to impede,

obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the

jurisdiction of any department or agency.” The circuit panel rejected the defendant’s

argument that Section 1519 applies only to formal, adversarial, or adjudicative

proceedings. Instead, the panel held that the plain text of Section 1519 and legislative

context of its enactment made clear the statute covered less formal inquiries, including

the agency’s review of the defendant’s financial disclosure forms (United States v.

Saffarinia).

Environmental Law: A divided panel of the D.C. Circuit upheld the U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) renewable fuels standards for 2020, 2021, and 2022. Under

the Clean Air Act’s Renewable Fuel Standard program, transportation fuel sold in the

United States must contain specified amounts of renewable fuels. Congress directed the

EPA to set annual percentage standards to achieve statutory volume targets based on

certain factors and projections. The statute requires EPA to adjust the statutory volumes in

some circumstances, such as through the statute’s cellulosic waiver authority and reset

provision. The final rule issued by EPA establishing the 2020-2022 standards was

challenged by a variety of regulated parties, including renewable fuel producers, who

claimed the standards were too low, and petroleum refiners, who claimed that they were

too high. In holding that the EPA complied with the law and reasonably exercised its

discretion in setting the standards, the circuit panel majority upheld the total renewable

fuel, cellulosic biofuel, and advanced biofuel volumes (including the EPA’s application of

the cellulosic waiver and reset provisions), the agency’s new formula for calculating the

annual percentage standards, and a supplemental standard established to address an

earlier court ruling (Sinclair Wyoming Ref. Co. LLC v. EPA).

Health: A divided panel of the Eleventh Circuit held that a health insurance provider can

be liable under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when it denies coverage for

certain types of medical care to a transgender employee because the employee is

transgender. The defendant employer denied the plaintiff’s vaginoplasty request, which

her health care providers determined was medically necessary surgery. The panel

majority affirmed that this denial was facially discriminatory and violated Title VII

because the denial was a blanket refusal of coverage for gender-affirming surgery and

transgender employees are the only plan participants who would seek this kind of

surgery. Therefore, the court concluded the defendants were denying coverage based on

transgender status (Lange v. Hous. Cnty., Ga.).

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Immigration: The Fourth Circuit held that a petitioner’s conviction under D.C. law for

attempted second degree child sexual abuse was “a crime of child abuse” that made him

removable from the United States under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(E)(i).

Section 1227(a)(2)(E)(i) does not define “a crime of child abuse”; employing principles

of statutory interpretation, the Fourth Circuit defined it as an act or omission that either

causes injury to a child or creates a sufficiently high risk that a child will be injured. The

court rejected petitioner’s argument that attempted offenses do not fall within the

meaning of “a crime of child abuse.” The court explained that an attempted injury upon a

child meets that definition so long as the underlying offense requires a likelihood or

reasonable probability of harm to a child. Given that criminal attempt under D.C. law

requires an act that comes within “dangerous proximity” of completing a crime, the court

held that the petitioner’s attempted child sexual abuse offense sufficiently posed a

reasonable probability of harm and fell within the meaning of “a crime of child abuse.”

Additionally, the court rejected the notion that Congress did not intend to include attempt

offenses within the broad scope of Section 1227(a)(2)(E)(i) because it did not expressly

refer to them in the statute, holding that context indicated that Congress did not intend its

silence as exclusion (Cruz v. Garland).

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA): A divided D.C. Circuit panel held that 2017

communications between executive branch agencies and Members of Congress and their

staff regarding possible legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act were not “intraagency memorandums or letters” exempted from FOIA’s disclosure requirements. The

D.C. Circuit and some other circuits have endorsed the “consultant corollary” doctrine,

under which FOIA’s exemption of certain “intra-agency” communications also protects

certain materials that have been supplied to an agency by external consultants and used

by the agency in its deliberative processes. The circuit panel decided that the Supreme

Court had narrowed the application of the doctrine so that it extends at most to

documents shared with an agency by outside persons who have no independent stake in

the matter being considered. The panel held that Members of Congress and their staff

represented their own interests when communicating with the agencies on the potential

healthcare legislation, so the FOIA exemption did not apply. The court explicitly declined

to decide whether Members and their staff could ever satisfy the consultant corollary

(Am. Oversight v. U.S. Dep’t of Health and Human Servs.).

Public Benefits: The Federal Circuit upheld a district court’s dismissal of a suit brought

by Texas residents seeking continued payment under the Pandemic Unemployment

Assistance program (PUA) following Texas’s June 2021 withdrawal from the program.

The PUA was a temporary unemployment assistance program established by the

Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, under which the

Secretary of Labor provided unemployment assistance to covered persons, through early

September 2021, by way of participation agreements with states that administered the

program and were reimbursed for its costs. The court held that Texas residents were not

eligible for PUA benefits after Texas withdrew from the participation agreement, as the

governing statute directed the Secretary to provide funds to states that agreed to

administer the program, not to individuals directly (Ireland v. United States).

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Veterans: A divided Federal Circuit panel held that, in calculating a veteran’s additional

special monthly compensation (SMC) on account of “disability resulting from a personal

injury suffered ... in line of duty ... during a period of war,” the Board of Veterans’

Appeals should have considered the petitioner’s entitlement to multiple SMC increases

on account of having multiple qualifying disabilities. The majority held that the

applicable regulation, 38 C.F.R. § 3.350(f)(3), did not limit a qualifying veteran to one

SMC increase, but set forth an entitlement that could apply multiple times subject only to

a statutory cap (Barry v. McDonough).

Author Information

Michael John Garcia

Deputy Assistant Director/ALD

Alejandra Aramayo

Legislative Attorney

Disclaimer

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