Justia U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Pro se Plaintiff-Appellant Richard Dumas appealed the dismissal of his workplace discrimination suit against Proctor and Gamble (P&G). Plaintiff was employed as a contractor assigned to work at P&G's Kansas City manufacturing plant in 2005. Between 2005 and 2007, Plaintiff alleged he was subjected to discrimination in the workplace including the use of racial epithets, misuse of company disciplinary proceedings, and an incident in which a chair was pulled away as Dumas was attempting to sit on it. Dumas resigned in November of 2007. In 2011, he filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) alleging discrimination. The EEOC closed the claim as untimely. Plaintiff then filed a complaint in district court against P&G, and P&G moved to dismiss, alleging Plaintiff failed to timely exhaust his administrative remedies. Plaintiff responded that he was given bad advice by an unnamed EEOC agent. The district court concluded that Dumas failed to meet the narrow requirements for equitable tolling and dismissed the claim. Finding that Plaintiff failed to carry his burden of establishing that an EEOC agent actually misled him, and insufficiently present his state law claims, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgement in dismissing Plaintiff's case. View "Dumas v. Proctor & Gamble" on Justia Law

Plaintiff-Appellant Bruce Field filed a wrongful termination action against his former employer the Board of Water Commissioners for the City and County of Denver (Denver Water), alleging three "1983" retaliation claims. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Denver water and dismissed the case with prejudice. Plaintiff was a project manager. He came to suspect misconduct between senior engineers and several contractors at three projects he was working on. Plaintiff expressed his concerns to his superiors, who responded that the matters were "taken care of." Denver Water assured Mr. Field they were retaining a national auditing firm to conduct an external review, but he alleged the firm was unqualified and biased. Plaintiff's supervisor issued a recommendation for corrective action against Plaintiff, noting that an internal auditor had "seen nothing that could not be corrected" at the end of the projects. Further, the supervisor reported that Plaintiff was insubordinate and "willing to go to extreme lengths to prove his unreasonable belief that the contractors and Denver Water management are corrupt." The supervisor recommended that Plaintiff be terminated. Finding that the district court "accurately and thoroughly examined Mr. Field's claims and concluded they were all meritless," the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court's decision to dismiss Plaintiff's case. View "Field v. Board of Water Commissioner" on Justia Law

Plaintiff-Appellant Kathryn Johns appealed the district court’s denial of her motion for attorneys' fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) which followed the court's remand to the Commissioner of her claims for Social Security disability benefits. In denying Plaintiff's application for disability benefits, the administrative law judge (ALJ) concluded that her diagnosed mental impairments were not severe apart from alcohol abuse. Plaintiff argued before the district court that the ALJ had failed to apply the correct analysis in assessing her alcoholism. Specifically, the ALJ did not first find that she was disabled, and only then could the ALJ determine whether she would still be disabled if she stopped using alcohol. The government admitted that the ALJ did not follow the specified procedure, but argued that the error was harmless because the dispositive question was the same. Ultimately the district court remanded the case back to the Commissioner. Plaintiff then moved for fees under the EAJA. The government responded by arguing that a fee award was inappropriate because it believed the error by the ALJ was harmless. The district court denied Plaintiff's motion for fees. Finding that the district court believed that application of harmless error in this case was a close call, the Tenth Circuit concluded that under those circumstances, the district court did not "cross the bounds of the rationally available choices available to it when it concluded that the Commissioner's position was substantially justified." Accordingly, the Court affirmed the denial of fees. View "Johns v. Astrue" on Justia Law

Respondent Alena Berridge relocated to Denver, Colorado from the Czech Republic with her two children. Subsequently, Petitioner Max Joseph Lesler, Respondent’s ex-husband and father of the children, filed a petition seeking return of the children to the Czech Republic pursuant to the Hague Convention and ICARA. In this appeal, the issue before the Tenth Circuit was whether the Court could grant any meaningful relief when the district court granted a petition for the return of children based not on a finding of wrongful removal, but instead on the parents' stipulation that the children would return to the country of habitual residence for a custody hearing. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit held this action was moot, resting on the fact that the district court made no finding of wrongful removal, and not on the basis of the children's then-current location. Accordingly, the appeal was dismissed and the district court's opinion was vacated. The case was remanded for dismissal due to lack of subject matter jurisdiction. View "Leser v. Berridge" on Justia Law

Petitioners Anschutz Company and Philip and Nancy Anschutz appealed a Tax Court decision to hold them responsible for substantial income tax deficiencies for the taxable years 2000 and 2001. Those deficiencies, the Tax Court concluded, resulted from their failure to recognize taxable gain when a subsidiary of the Anschutz Company entered into a series of related agreements that included a variable prepaid forward contract for the sale of certain shares of stock and accompanying share-lending agreements. Finding no error in the Tax Court's decision, the Tenth Circuit affirmed. View "Anschutz Company v. CIR" on Justia Law

Claimant Debra Ann Luttrell appealed a district court order that affirmed the Commissioner's decision to deny her social security disability and supplemental security income benefits. Claimant challenged the Commissioner's decision on the grounds that the ALJ did not perform: (1) a proper determination at step five; (2) a proper analysis of the medical source opinions; and (3) a proper credibility determination. Finding that the ALJ's decision was free of legal error and supported by substantial evidence, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the denial of benefits. View "Luttrell v. Astrue" on Justia Law

Petitioner Dewey MacKay, M.D. petitioned the Tenth Circuit to review a decision of the Deputy Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that revoked his registration to dispense controlled substances and denied all pending requests for renewal of modification. This case concerned Petitioner's prescribing behavior from 2005 to 2009 when his practice focused primarily on chronic pain management. The DEA began investigating Petitioner after receiving information from local authorities that he was issuing unlawful prescriptions for controlled substances. the Deputy Administrator of the DEA issued an order to show cause why it should not revoke Petitioner's registration, alleging that Petitioner "issued numerous purported prescriptions for controlled substances without a legitimate medical purpose outside the usual course of professional practice." The Tenth Circuit denied Petitioner's petition for review: "Petitioner never admitted any fault or taken responsibility for his misconduct. Nor [could] he point to any evidence that he reformed his habits. Instead, he continued to illegitimately dispense controlled substances even when he knew the DEA was investigating him. The Deputy Administrator’s revocation of [Petitioner's] registration is consistent with the DEA’s policy and practice of revoking registration under such circumstances."

Pro se Plaintiff-Appellant Mark Jordan brought this action under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the Privacy Act. Plaintiff was convicted of multiple armed robberies in 1994 and the stabbing death of a fellow inmate in 1999. When he filed this action, he was imprisoned at an Administrative Maximum Facility, known as the ADX or the Supermax. Plaintiff claimed that Defendants improperly denied several separate requests for information he made pursuant to FOIA or the Privacy Act. First, Plaintiff asked for the names and titles of all staff at the Supermax, denied on the basis that the request could "reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of any individual." Second, Plaintiff asked for all documents pertaining to his psychological or psychiatric profile maintained by the prison. Plaintiff was given redacted copies of the information because some of the information in those files would not otherwise be available by law to anyone other than "an agency in litigation with the agency." In his third request, Plaintiff asked for copies of all mail that was sent to or from him and copied to staff at the Supermax. This request was denied as "records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes that would disclose" law enforcement or prosecutorial strategy that otherwise would not be subject to disclosure. The district court entered judgment in favor of Defendants. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit was not persuaded that Plaintiff was entitled to the documents he requested through FOIA, and affirmed the district court's judgment.

On its second trip to the Tenth Circuit, this case arose from a dispute over payment for trial transcripts. After the City ordered and paid for original hearing transcripts prepared by Ms. Bean, Mr. Livingston asked the special master to direct the City to file copies with the clerk so the plaintiffs could access them without having to obtain copies from Ms. Bean at higher cost. When the special master refused, Mr. Livingston ordered copies of the transcripts directly from the City through New Mexico’s Inspection of Public Records Act. After Ms. Bean complained to the district court, the court ordered the plaintiffs to pay reasonable court reporter’s fees for any copies of transcripts, the district court also placed a lien on any future recovery by the plaintiffs to secure payment of the yet-to-be determined amount claimed by Ms. Bean. The case eventually settled, and a final judgment entered. After he failed to submit a motion for costs and fees, including any fees owed to Ms. Bean under the lien, the court found Mr. Livingston personally liable for Ms. Bean’s fees and held back a portion of the funds from his fee payment. Mr. Livingston appealed, arguing that Ms. Bean was not a party in the district court proceedings and had not asked to intervene. The Tenth Circuit concluded Ms. Bean did not have a proprietary interest in the contents of the transcripts, and reversed the decision releasing funds to her. Ms. Bean did not appeal to the state supreme court but instead filed a "special appearance to object to subject matter jurisdiction" to vacate the Tenth Circuit's prior order. In this second appeal before the Tenth Circuit, the Court concluded it lacked jurisdiction because Ms. Bean's appeal was not preserved because she did not appeal to the state supreme court.

The issue on appeal to the Tenth Circuit was whether Plaintiff Altheia Allen was disabled when her employer SouthCrest Hospital allegedly failed to accommodate her disability and terminated her employment. Because the Tenth Circuit concluded after review of the trial court record that Plaintiff failed to demonstrate a genuine issue of material fact concerning her alleged disability, the Court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of SouthCrest.