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

Appellants in this case are companies that submitted high bids on certain oil and gas leases at a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) auction (collectively, the Energy Companies). After the auction but before the leases were issued, newly appointed Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar decided not to lease the parcels at issue. Salazar announced his decision at a February 4, 2009, press conference and memorialized his determination in a February 6 memorandum to the BLM’s Utah State Director. On February 12, 2009, a subordinate BLM official mailed letters to the high bidders indicating that the leases would not be issued. Exactly ninety days later, the Energy Companies filed suit challenging the Secretary’s authority to withdraw the leases. The district court dismissed their suit as time-barred under the Mineral Leasing Act (MLA), which provides that “[n]o action contesting a decision of the Secretary involving any oil and gas lease shall be maintained unless such action is commenced or taken within ninety days after the final decision of the Secretary relating to such matter.” A majority of the Tenth Circuit agreed with the district court that the Secretary’s final decision in this matter occurred no later than February 6, and thus, the suit was time-barred. The panel majority also agreed with the district court that the Energy Companies were not entitled to equitable tolling in this matter: the BLM notified the high bidders just six days after the Secretary made his decision. And the government notified the Energy Companies of its position that February 6 was the operative date during agency proceedings. Although the Energy Companies had time to prepare their claims before the limitations period expired, they gambled that a court would accept their proffered limitations theory. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the district court. View "Impact Energy Resources, LLC, et al v. Salazar, et al" on Justia Law

Plaintiff-Appellant William Foster sued his former employer, Defendant-Appellee PPG Industries, Inc. (PPG), and Defendant-Appellee the PPG Industries Employee Savings Plan (collectively, Defendants) under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) to recover Plan benefits allegedly due him after Foster’s ex-wife fraudulently withdrew Foster’s entire Plan account balance. The district court upheld the decision of the Plan Administrator, who had determined that the Plan was not liable to reimburse Foster for the fraudulently withdrawn benefits. Foster appealed. Finding no merit to Foster's argument, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court. View "Foster v. PPG Industries, Inc., et al" on Justia Law

Plaintiff James Bannister was injured in a motorcycle accident on the freeway near Oklahoma City in 2009. According to Bannister, he was forced to lay down and slide his motorcycle at a high speed when a car in front of him braked suddenly, that car having been cut off by another car. Bannister slammed into the wall of the freeway and suffered substantial injuries. He did not collide with any other vehicle; neither of the aforementioned cars remained at the scene of the accident; and no witnesses besides Bannister ever gave an account of the crash. Bannister filed an insurance claim with his insurer, defendant State Farm Automobile Insurance Company (State Farm). State Farm denied Bannister’s claim, finding him to be majority at fault in the accident. Bannister subsequently filed suit in Oklahoma state court, and State Farm removed the case to the Western District of Oklahoma. By the time the case went to trial, Bannister sought relief solely on a tort theory: that State Farm violated its duty of good faith and fair dealing in denying his claim. The jury found in favor of Bannister, but the district court granted State Farm’s renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law (“JMOL”), ruling essentially that the evidence showed that State Farm’s denial of Bannister’s claim was based on a reasonable dispute regarding whether Bannister was majority at fault, and that no evidence suggested that further investigation would have undermined the reasonableness of that dispute. Bannister failed to “make a showing that material facts were overlooked or that a more thorough investigation would have produced relevant information” that would have delegitimized the insurer’s dispute of the claim. As such, the Tenth Circuit concluded his inadequate-investigation theory of bad faith was without merit, and JMOL in favor of State Farm was appropriate. View "Bannister v. State Farm Mutual Auto Ins Co" on Justia Law

After Sun Travis was abducted, raped, and shot dead, an Oklahoma jury found Anthony Banks, by that time already in prison for another killing, guilty of murdering Mrs. Travis and sentenced him to death. After an unsuccessful direct appeal and two rounds of collateral review in state court, Mr. Banks filed a federal habeas petition. The district court denied his petition but granted him a certificate of appealability to pursue several arguments before the Tenth Circuit. After careful review and "in accord with the decisions of all the courts that have preceded," the Tenth Circuit concluded none merited relief. View "Banks v. Workman" on Justia Law

Congress authorized the State of Colorado to regulate hazardous wasted in the state. Invoking that regulatory authority, Plaintiff-Appellant Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, Hazardous Materials and Waste Management Division (“Colorado” or “CDPHE”), declared the chemical weapons stored at an Army weapons depot near Pueblo awaiting destruction to be hazardous waste. In this action, Colorado sought to enforce its regulation prohibiting storage of any hazardous waste against the Depot. The specific question presented by this appeal was whether Congress’s mandate that the Army destroy these chemical weapons at the Depot by 2017 preempted Colorado’s enforcement against the Depot of its regulation prohibiting storage of any hazardous waste. Ultimately, the Tenth Circuit was persuaded by the "detailed manner with which Congress has addressed and mandated the destruction of the chemical weapons stored at the Depot to conclude that that federal law preempts Colorado’s attempt to regulate that destruction process by enforcing its prohibition of the storage of hazardous waste against the Depot." View "Colorado Department of Public v. United States, et al" on Justia Law

Stephanie and Kenneth Woolsey attempted to discharge a second mortgage on their home held by Citibank, N.A. through Chapter 13 bankruptcy. In their plan, they took the position that the bankruptcy code voided Citibank’s lien because it was unsupported by any current value in the home. The bank objected to the Woolseys’ plan and eventually persuaded the bankruptcy court to reject it. The district court affirmed the bankruptcy court, and the Woolseys appealed to the Tenth Circuit. In their argument on appeal, "[t]hey choose to pursue instead and exclusively a line of attack long foreclosed by Supreme Court precedent. To be sure, the Woolseys argue[d] vigorously and with some support that the Supreme Court ha[d] it wrong. But, as Justice Jackson reminds us, whether or not the Supreme Court is infallible, it is final." The Tenth Circuit was "obliged" to apply the Supreme Court's current case law and affirmed the district and bankruptcy court's decisions. View "Woolsey, et al v. Citibank, N.A." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs in this case are owners of "chat" restricted by virtue of plaintiffs' membership in the Quapaw Tribe. They alleged that Bingham Sand and Gravel Company, Inc., owner of unrestricted chat, had been removing tailings from one of two piles of co-mingled chat without compensating the restricted owners. Under plaintiffs’ theory of the case, federal law prohibits the sale or removal of any chat from commingled piles without the approval of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (“BIA”). Despite numerous informal requests that the BIA halt chat removal by Bingham and the Estate of Joseph Mountford (another owner of unrestricted chat), the agency has not done so. Seeking to stop chat removal and obtain an accounting for the chat that has already been removed, plaintiffs sued the Secretary of the Interior and several BIA officials. The district court dismissed these claims for failure to exhaust administrative remedies. Although it assumed that plaintiffs could plead a common law accounting claim outside the ambit of the APA, the court nonetheless required exhaustion as a matter of judicial discretion. As to the private defendants, plaintiffs asserted claims for conversion and an accounting. Following dismissal of the federal defendants, the district court concluded it lacked jurisdiction over these claims. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court's conclusion that plaintiffs had not exhausted their administrative remedies; the Court reversed the district court's conclusion that it lacked jurisdiction over the conversion and accounting claims. View "Gilmore, et al v. Weatherford, et al" on Justia Law

Defendant Jay Stuart De Vaughn mailed twelve hoax anthrax letters to the President of the United States, seven members of Congress, and two Argentine consulates in the United States. He pled guilty to multiple counts of mailing threatening communications. Defendant challenged the validity of the charges, arguing his statements did not constitute "threats" and that applying these statutes to him violated the First Amendment. "Addressing these arguments requires some straightforward statutory construction and the application of controlling Supreme Court precedent. Yet this case is not as simple as it seems." Defendant pled guilty unconditionally without reserving a right to appeal, but the Government has failed to raise the preclusive effect of Defendant's guilty plea. The issue before the Tenth Circuit included then a determination of whether Defendant's guilty plea deprives the Court of jurisdiction and prevented it from reaching the merits. The Government also sought to dismiss two of the cases on appeal for lack of territorial jurisdiction. Ultimately, the Tenth Circuit concluded that it had jurisdiction over the case and affirmed. View "United States v. De Vaughn" on Justia Law

Petitioner Baltazar Sosa-Valenzuela illegally entered the United States from Mexico in 1981 at the age of three, and became a lawful permanent resident in 1992. In 1994, when he was sixteen, he shot and seriously injured a gang member. He pled guilty to attempted murder in the second degree and to unlawful possession of a firearm by a juvenile. After a successful post-conviction ineffectiveness of counsel petition, the state district court amended Petitioner's guilty plea to first degree assault and crime of violence with a deadly weapon. In 1996, while Petitioner was in juvenile detention, the Immigration and Naturalization Service issued a show cause order, charging Petitioner as deportable because of his criminal conviction. The immigration proceedings were then delayed for several years, while Petitioner was released and successfully completed his parole. Petitioner conceded deportability but requested a section 212 waiver which was then available as a form of discretionary relief under federal law and an adjustment of status. Both forms of relief were granted by the IJ and then denied by the BIA. Petitioner appealed the BIA's decision and order of deportation on three grounds: (1) the procedural regularity of the BIA decision as a collateral attack on the IJ's waiver decision; (2) the merits of the BIA's decision to reverse the IJ's waiver, arguing that it conflicted with the Supreme Court's decision in "Judulang v. Holder," (132 S. Ct. 476 (2011)); and (3) the BIA abused its discretion in denying him an adjustment of status based on his marriage to an American citizen. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit found the BIA was not precluded from reviewing the IJ's waiver decision, but we must remand to the BIA so that it may evaluate its decision in light of the Supreme Court's ruling in "Judulang." The Court affirmed the BIA's discretionary denial of adjustment of status. View "Sosa-Valenzuela v. Holder, Jr." on Justia Law

Petitioner Catherine Robert had worked as supervisor of released adult offenders for ten years when she developed sacroiliac joint dysfunction. After a lengthy leave of absence, including a period authorized by the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), Petitioner remained unable to perform all of her required duties, and she was terminated. She appealed her employer's, the Brown County, Kansas Board of Commissioners, decision. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit concluded that Petitioner's discharge did not constitute discrimination in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, retaliation in violation of the FMLA, breach of contract, or abridgment of procedural due process. View "Robert v. Board of County Commissioners, et al" on Justia Law