D.C. Circuit Upholds Injunction Barring the Involuntary Transfer to an Unidentified Third Country of a U.S. Citizen Alleged to be an Enemy Combatant

2018 ◽  
Vol 112 (4) ◽  
pp. 759-763

On May 7, 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit blocked the transfer to an unidentified third country of a dual U.S.-Saudi national detained in Iraq as an alleged enemy combatant. The decision, Doe v. Mattis, also upheld a district court order requiring the government to provide seventy-two hours’ notice before transferring him to another country. In an opinion authored by Judge Srinivasan and joined by Judge Wilkins, the court emphasized that while it was “respectful of—and with appreciation for—the considerable deference owed to the Executive's judgments in the prosecution of a war,” “things are different” for alleged enemy combatants who are U.S. citizens. Further proceedings in the district court could potentially address whether the U.S. military campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is lawful under U.S. domestic law.

1989 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 368-371
Author(s):  
Jerome M. Marcus

In an action brought in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, plaintiff, the National Petrochemical Co. of Iran (NPC), sought damages against Monnris Enterprises of Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, Rotexchemie Brunst & Co. of Hamburg (Rotex), and Rotex’s Geneva affiliate, Formula S.A., for breach of an agreement to sell chemicals to NPC. Asserting that NPC is a subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Co., which is in turn owned wholly by the Government of Iran, defendants moved to dismiss on the ground that the United States does not recognize the Khomeini Government of Iran and, hence, that neither Iran nor its instrumentality NPC has standing to sue in U.S. courts. The district court granted the motion, NPC appealed and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held: (1) that a foreign state may have standing to sue in U.S. courts even if the United States does not recognize its government or have diplomatic relations with it; (2) that an unrecognized government will have standing to sue if the U.S. executive branch has evinced a willingness to permit the plaintiff to litigate its claims in U.S. courts; and (3) that the level of intercourse between the United States and Iran, and a Statement of Interest filed in this case by the United States as amicuš curiae, show that the executive branch is willing to permit NPC to litigate its claims in U.S. courts.


1989 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. 918-923
Author(s):  
Daniel M. Price

In response to a request by Canadian tax authorities under the United States-Canada Double Taxation Convention (Convention), the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued summonses to obtain U.S. bank records concerning certain accounts of respondents, Canadian citizens whose Canadian tax liability was under investigation. Respondents sought to quash the summonses, arguing that because under 26 U.S.C. §7609(b) the IRS is prohibited by U.S. law from using its summons authority to obtain information about a U.S. taxpayer once a case is referred to the Justice Department for prosecution, and because the tax investigation of respondents was part of a Canadian criminal investigation, the IRS should be precluded from using its summons authority to honor the Canadian request under the Convention. Unsuccessful in the district court, respondents prevailed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which held that under the “good faith” standard applicable to enforcement of domestic summonses, the IRS may issue a summons pursuant to a Convention request only if it first determines and makes an affirmative statement to the effect that the Canadian investigation has not reached a stage analogous to a Justice Department referral by the IRS. The U.S. Supreme Court (per Brennan, J.) reversed, and held: (1) that if the summons is issued in good faith, it is enforceable regardless of whether the Canadian request is directed toward criminal prosecution under Canadian law; and (2) neither United States law nor anything in the text or the ratification history of the Convention supports the imposition of additional requirements. Justice Kennedy (joined by O’Connor, J.), concurring in part and in the judgment, filed a brief opinion to state his view that it is unnecessary to decide whether Senate preratification materials are authoritative sources for treaty interpretation. Justice Scalia, concurring in the judgment, wrote separately to oppose the use of such materials in treaty construction.


Author(s):  
Bruce J. Dierenfield ◽  
David A. Gerber

This chapter examines and analyzes the five-year journey of Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School District (1993) from the federal district court in Tucson to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to the U.S. Supreme Court. William Bentley Ball, the Zobrests’ attorney, and John Richardson, the school district’s attorney, clashed over whether the Establishment Clause permitted any government aid to a Catholic school. Many religious and civil libertarian groups—but just one national deaf association—filed arguments to sway the court. Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who wrote the majority decision favoring the Zobrests, misunderstood the complicated function of a sign language interpreter to permit what he regarded as incidental parochial school aid. Rehnquist maintained the aid was permissible because the plaintiffs and their deaf son were its main beneficiaries.


2003 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-168
Author(s):  
Guillermo A. Montero

In Patel v. Midland Memorial Hospital & Medical Center, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that the defendant hospital did not violate the plaintiff's due process rights by suspending his clinical privileges without a pre-suspension hearing, where there were reasonable grounds for assuming that patient safety was at risk. Dr. P.V. Patel, a board-certified cardiologist, brought an action against Midland Memorial Hospital and several of its doctors, alleging that the suspension of his clinical privileges violated his right to a pre-suspension hearing; was the result of racial discrimination; and resulted in anticompetitive behavior in violation of antitrust laws. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas granted Midland's motion for summary judgment. The parties filed cross appeals, Dr. Patel on the ground that there were genuine issues of fact for all of his claims, and Midland on the ground that, with the exception of the civil rights claim, it was immune from all of Dr. Patel's claims under the Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986 (HCQIA).


Author(s):  
Sarah K. Fields

This chapter explores the Don Newcombe's lawsuit against Coors Brewing Company Newcombe played in the Negro baseball leagues until 1949, when the Brooklyn Dodgers signed him after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947. He had a stellar career, winning the Most Valuable Player award, the Cy Young Award, and the Rookie of the Year award. However, his career in Major League Baseball was cut short in 1960, in part because of a continuing battle with alcohol. Eventually, Newcombe acknowledged his problem, and, as a recovering alcoholic, he served as a spokesman for the National Institute on Drug and Alcohol Abuse. As an anti-alcohol advocate, Newcombe was shocked when he discovered an advertisement for Killian's Irish Red Beer (a brand produced by Coors Brewing) that featured a drawing of an old-time baseball game in which the pitcher was a recognizable version of Newcombe. He sued Coors for a violation of his right of publicity but lost in the federal district court. Despite that decision, the Ninth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals agreed with Newcombe and overturned the lower court, establishing that celebrity athletes had the right to choose how their image was used in advertising and allowing them to disassociate themselves from products they found distasteful.


Significance These operations follow the recapture of Tikrit, Sinjar, Ramadi and Fallujah from Islamic State group (ISG) in the past 18 months. Western countries backing the government and supporting its military campaign have pledged to increase their support for initiatives to stabilise recaptured areas. However, these initiatives have significant drawbacks that limit their prospects of success. Impacts Western criticism of Baghdad's military campaigns and anti-ISG strategy will remain muted. International aid organisations will be at risk of attack. Absent meaningful reconciliation, ISG will drive new terrorist attacks in Iraq, other Middle East conflict zones and the West.


1999 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-202
Author(s):  
Allan Gomes

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled, in United States u. Texus Tech University, 171 F.3d 279 (5th Cir. 1999), that the Eleventh Amendment bars a private citizen from bringing a qui tam action in federal court against a state, absent federal intervention.Intervenor Carol Foulds was a dermatology resident at the Texas Tech Health Services Center. While a resident, Foulds examined patients, made diagnoses, and prescribed treatments for patients. Foulds alleged that she and other residents performed these medical services without the supervision of staff physicians. Foulds further alleged that, after residents performed these services without physician oversight, staff physicians signed charts and Medicare and Medicaid billing forms certifying that they personally performed or supervised the administration of these services. Foulds estimates approximately 500,000 false claims occurred in a span of ten years.In 1995, Foulds filed a qui tam action with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. As regulated by the False Claims Act (FCA), 31 U.S.C. § 3729(b)(2) (West 1998), the complaint remained under seal.


1984 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 783-810 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl M. Meessen

When, on October 24, 1983, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California handed down its decision in Timberlane Lumber Co. v. Bank of America and denied U.S. jurisdiction out of regard for the Honduran “system of justice,” there may have been some surprise that the case was still pending. The Timberlane decision of 1976 of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which remanded the matter to the district court, had already become a classic, even though it was preceded by the 1968 decision in United States v. First National City Bank on the production of documents located abroad. The Timberlane approach outlined by Judge Choy, under which the exercise of antitrust jurisdiction has to be restrained by a case-by-case analysis of various factors, was widely discussed (and usually praised) in legal writing, and was also followed by federal courts of the Second, Third, Fifth, Ninth and Tenth Circuits.


Author(s):  
Donald W. Rogers

This chapter traces Hague’s appeal through the Third Circuit Court of Appeals into the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, showing how the Hughes court’s inner dynamics explain affirmation of the district court injunction. Observing flux in court personnel and law, the chapter shows that both courts embraced the contemporaneous civil liberties revolution by defending worker speech and assembly rights, but it reveals the Supreme Court as divided over constitutional logic. Justice Owen Roberts’s plurality opinion upheld speech and assembly rights under the Fourteenth Amendment privileges and immunities clause, Justice Harlan Fiske Stone’s concurrence incorporated the First Amendment into the Fourteenth Amendment due-process clause, and dissenters rejected federal jurisdiction. The ruling reflected the contentious evolution of civil liberties jurisprudence, not antiboss or labor law politics.


DDT Wars ◽  
2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles F. Wurster

Late in 1970, President Nixon proposed and Congress approved creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in the process transferring the Pesticide Regulation Division from USDA to EPA. For pesticide regulation, this was no minor matter. The transfer was from USDA, an agency that primarily protected pesticide manufacturers and promoted their products, to EPA, an agency that was directly charged with protecting the environment. That was to make a large difference in how the DDT issue would be resolved. The first administrator of EPA was William D. Ruckelshaus, an attorney with a sterling record of public service in government. The other major item was the decision on DDT from the DC Court of Appeals. On January 7, 1971, the court ordered Ruckelshaus to immediately cancel all registrations of DDT and to determine whether DDT was “an imminent hazard to the public” and therefore should be suspended. The court was clearly annoyed by USDA’s failure to give adequate reasons for not suspending, so “it will be necessary to remand the case once more, for a fresh determination” of the matter of suspension. The court had taken away the discretion usually afforded a federal agency and ordered it to take action. This was an unprecedented decision. EPA had only been created on December 2, 1970; Ruckelshaus barely had time to find his telephone before this court order landed on his desk as his first order of business. Perhaps the most important part of this decision was that EDF survived USDA’s motions to throw our case out of court. The standing for citizens to sue the government, previously unavailable, had now been established by this precedent-setting decision. This was the firm beginning of what we now call “environmental law.” But you should not take the legal conclusion of a lowly scientist (me). Instead, here are the words of Joseph L. Sax, a professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School, from his September 30, 1973, letter in support of EDF’s application for the Tyler Ecology Award (we did not get it).


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