Henry Harold Kennedy jr

This case concerns three mentally disabled adult women who sued the District of Columbia under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that District officials improperly consented to non-emergency procedures including abortions and eye surgery without consulting their legal representatives or obtaining court authorization as required by D.C. law. The plaintiffs had previously obtained partial summary judgment on liability, but the D.C. Circuit reversed, holding that the District's consent policies complied with both statutory and constitutional requirements. The court now grants the plaintiffs' motion for leave to file a second amended complaint, concluding that the amendment would not unduly prejudice the defendants because it does not force them to adopt a substantially different litigation strategy after extensive discovery.

civil rightshealthcareabortionprocedure

This case involves three mentally disabled adult women who received habilitation services from the District of Columbia and allege that District officials improperly consented to non-emergency surgical procedures, including abortions and eye surgery, without consulting their legal representatives or obtaining court authorization as required by D.C. law. The plaintiffs brought claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 asserting violations of their liberty interests in bodily integrity and related statutory rights. The court addressed the plaintiffs' motion for leave to file a second amended complaint adding claims for unauthorized consents, battery, and violations of the Mentally Retarded Citizens Constitutional Rights and Dignity Act. The court granted the motion, concluding that the proposed amendments restated or expanded upon existing claims in the litigation without causing undue prejudice to the defendant and could proceed if improper consent is shown. The decision allows the case to continue with the expanded complaint while requiring the parties to submit a joint case management report.

civil rightshealthcareprocedure

Plaintiff Mesafint Beyene, an Ethiopian employee at a Hilton hotel, sued his employer under Title VII for discrimination, retaliation, and harassment, and under D.C. law for intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent hiring and retention, and invasion of privacy, alleging that co-workers threatened him after he reported their comments to authorities and that Hilton failed to address the situation or retaliated against him. The district court granted Hilton's motion for summary judgment on the Title VII claims, the emotional distress claim, negligent hiring, and invasion of privacy. It denied summary judgment only on the negligent retention portion of Count Three. The court reasoned that investigations did not corroborate Beyene's complaints, that Hilton's actions did not meet the legal standards for the dismissed claims, and that a genuine issue remained regarding negligent retention.

civil rightslabor & employmenttorts & liability

This case involved Cherokee Freedmen plaintiffs, descendants of former Cherokee slaves or free Blacks, suing the Secretary of the Interior and the Acting Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation for declaratory and injunctive relief. The Freedmen alleged that their disenfranchisement and loss of citizenship rights violated the Thirteenth Amendment, the Treaty of 1866, and other federal laws, and that federal defendants failed to protect those rights. Following prior rulings on tribal sovereign immunity, the court granted the Chief's motion to dismiss, denied the Freedmen's motion for leave to file a fifth amended complaint adding the Cherokee Nation as a defendant, and denied the remaining motions as moot. The core reasoning was that the Cherokee Nation possesses sovereign immunity that was not waived or abrogated by the cited constitutional or treaty provisions, preventing joinder of the tribe without its consent and rendering further amendment futile under Rule 19. The suit could not proceed in the tribe's absence.

civil rightsfederal powerprocedure

Plaintiff Steven Steinberg, an emergency medical technician, sued the District of Columbia and officials after his 1997 termination, alleging that the District violated his procedural and substantive due process rights by failing to comply with a final 2004 Office of Employee Appeals order requiring his reinstatement and back pay. The District neither appealed the order nor implemented it for years, prompting Steinberg to file this Section 1983 action in 2009. On defendants' motion to dismiss, the court granted the motion in part and denied it in part, holding that Steinberg had stated a claim based on a property interest in the final administrative judgment but could not recover punitive damages against the District under Section 1983. The core reasoning was that a final OEA decision creates an enforceable property right protected by due process, while established precedent bars punitive damages against municipalities in such federal claims absent narrow exceptions not applicable here.

civil rightslabor & employmentprocedure

This case involves a group of over 1,700 former US Airways pilots challenging the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation's (PBGC) interpretation of the 'minimum benefit' provision in their ERISA-governed pension plan, after PBGC became the plan's statutory trustee following the airline's bankruptcy. The pilots argued that PBGC's final benefit determinations and Appeals Board decision improperly limited their benefits compared to what the plan language and ERISA required. The district court denied both parties' cross-motions for summary judgment on this claim without prejudice. The court reasoned that the action seeks judicial review of agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act, limiting review to the administrative record, but the plaintiffs had improperly relied on extra-record exhibits and a statement of material facts not in genuine dispute, making fair adjudication of the merits impossible at that stage.

labor & employmentbusiness & regulatory

The case involved a plaintiff removed from a D.C. Superior Court grand jury after questioning the elements of crimes presented for indictment and perceiving ethnic hostility from fellow jurors. He sued the Juror Officer and an Assistant U.S. Attorney, claiming a due process violation from the summary removal without notice or opportunity to respond. The district court granted the defendants' motions to dismiss based on qualified immunity. The reasoning centered on the absence in 2001 of clearly established law recognizing a constitutional right to continued grand jury service or specific removal procedures, combined with the informal practices then in place delegating such decisions to court staff.

civil rightscriminal lawprocedure

Plaintiff Kharii W. Brodie sued numerous individuals, including his former attorney Brent Jackson, seeking damages for alleged misconduct in Jackson's representation of Brodie after his conviction for wire fraud and conspiracy to make false statements. The court considered Jackson's motion to dismiss the complaint for failure to properly serve process under Rule 12(b)(5), along with related motions to quash service and for sanctions. The court granted the motion to dismiss without prejudice, concluding that Brodie failed to show Jackson had authorized his attorney to accept service, as the attorney's letters and representation did not establish such authority and the attorney explicitly disclaimed it. The motion to quash was denied as moot and the sanctions motion was denied.

procedurecriminal lawtorts & liability

In Brodie v. Worthington, plaintiff Kharii W. Brodie, acting pro se, sued his former private defense attorney Bruce A. Johnson and others, alleging misconduct before, during, and after Brodie's criminal trial and conviction for wire fraud and conspiracy. The district court addressed Johnson's motion to dismiss under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(5) and (6), as well as Brodie's related motion on service of process. The court granted the motion to dismiss, adopting the magistrate judge's recommendation, on the grounds that Johnson was neither a federal officer nor a state actor, precluding any Bivens or section 1983 claims. The court further held it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over any potential legal malpractice claim because the complaint provided no basis for diversity jurisdiction and malpractice does not present a federal question. Brodie's motion on service was denied as moot.

civil rightsproceduretorts & liability

The case involves Fadhel Hussein Saleh Hentif, a Yemeni citizen seized by Pakistani authorities in late 2001 and held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility since early 2002, who filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus claiming unlawful detention. The government argued that Hentif was lawfully detained under the Authorization for Use of Military Force as he was functionally part of Al Qaeda or the Taliban. After considering cross-motions for judgment on the record and evidence from a four-day merits hearing, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia determined that the government had proven by a preponderance of the evidence that Hentif's activities made him part of those organizations. The court rejected Hentif's claim that he qualified as non-detainable medical personnel under the Geneva Conventions. The petition was therefore denied.

criminal lawfederal power

This case concerned a challenge by environmental groups and the Mattaponi Indian Tribe to a permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers allowing construction of the King William Reservoir project, along with the EPA's failure to veto the permit, on grounds that the agencies violated regulatory requirements regarding alternatives analysis, water degradation, and public interest. In earlier proceedings, the court ruled that the Corps and EPA had acted arbitrarily and capriciously and remanded the matter to the agencies. Here, the court considered objections to a magistrate judge's report recommending attorneys' fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act, adopting the conclusion that the federal defendants' positions were not substantially justified and thus granting plaintiffs' entitlement to fees and costs while referring the calculation of the amount back to the magistrate.

environmentcivil rightsfederal powerprocedure

Walter Bernard Morton, Jr., a federal prisoner incarcerated at USP Hazelton, sued Bureau of Prisons employees in their official and individual capacities over the denial of promotions, back pay for his UNICOR job, and good time credits for vocational and educational training, which he characterized as harassment and a biased hate crime. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted the defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint. The court reasoned that sovereign immunity barred the official-capacity claims, that it lacked personal jurisdiction over the defendants in their individual capacities, and that the plaintiff had failed to exhaust available administrative remedies under the Prison Litigation Reform Act before filing suit.

criminal lawprocedurefederal power

In Royer v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, a federal inmate classified by the BOP as a 'terrorist inmate' sued under the Administrative Procedure Act, alleging that the agency imposed Communications Management Unit policies without following required notice-and-comment rulemaking procedures, leading to his transfers to a CMU and later to ADX supermax. The BOP moved to dismiss for lack of standing and mootness, arguing that the plaintiff's release from the CMU ended any injury, while the plaintiff sought to amend his complaint. The court denied the motion to dismiss, finding that the plaintiff's ongoing 'terrorist inmate' classification created a continuing injury from the denied opportunity to comment on the proposed CMU rules, so the claim was neither moot nor lacking in redressability. The court granted the unopposed motion to amend and denied the BOP's motion without prejudice on other grounds.

criminal lawprocedurefederal power

In Gross v. Holder, a federal prisoner convicted in the Eastern District of Michigan of dealing in counterfeit securities sought to challenge his guilty plea and sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, claiming that a Bureau of Prisons policy change regarding community corrections center placements violated the Ex Post Facto Clause and the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, and requesting vacatur of his plea along with immediate release to a CCC. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia held that it lacked jurisdiction over the petition. Collateral attacks on a conviction or sentence must be brought under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 in the sentencing court, while challenges to the execution of a sentence under § 2241 must be filed in the district where the prisoner's custodian is located. Because the petitioner was sentenced in Michigan and is incarcerated in Indiana, the D.C. court dismissed the petition and related motions.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involves plaintiff Michael Sussman bringing claims under the Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act against the United States Marshals Service regarding access to and disclosures of records about him. The court had previously resolved most claims, leaving a FOIA claim and two Privacy Act claims concerning alleged improper disclosures to the FBI and to members of the public. The court granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment on the FOIA claim and one Privacy Act claim but denied it on the claim alleging improper disclosures to the public. The court reasoned that the plaintiff had conceded the FOIA claim, that the FBI disclosures were permissible, and that the Privacy Act prohibits disclosure of personal information even when contained in another individual's records.

procedurecivil rightsfederal power

The case involved five African American officers from the Metropolitan Police Department's First District Focus Mission Unit who alleged that the District of Columbia retaliated against them for complaining about racial discrimination by their supervisor, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Following a jury trial that found in favor of the plaintiffs on their retaliation claims, the plaintiffs sought equitable relief including back pay, transfers to different districts, and an injunction against future retaliation. The court granted the motion in part and denied it in part, determining that certain relief was appropriate based on the jury's findings and the need to prevent future violations, while rejecting other requests.

civil rightslabor & employment

This case involved five African American officers in the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department's Focus Mission Unit who alleged that they faced retaliation after complaining about racial discrimination by their supervisor, including being forced to reapply to remain in the unit and then reassigned to less desirable positions. Following a jury trial that found the MPD had violated Title VII by retaliating against the plaintiffs, the officers moved for equitable relief including back pay, transfers to different districts, and an injunction against future retaliation. The court granted the motion in part and denied it in part, awarding back pay based on expert testimony estimating lost earnings and benefits but denying the requested transfers and injunction. The court reasoned that back pay was warranted to compensate for the proven losses from the retaliatory reassignments, while transfers were not necessary to make the plaintiffs whole given available positions within their districts and there was insufficient evidence of a likelihood of future retaliation to support injunctive relief.

labor & employmentcivil rights

Tarick Ali, a Muslim firefighter for the District of Columbia, sued the District under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, claiming religious discrimination after conflicts with his supervisor over his prayer practices during work hours and retaliation for filing complaints about the treatment. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted the District's motion for summary judgment in part and denied it in part. The court dismissed the religious discrimination claim, concluding that Ali had not shown any adverse employment action, but allowed the retaliation claim to proceed, finding sufficient evidence that a supervisor's threat against a colleague could dissuade a reasonable worker from pursuing a discrimination complaint and was causally linked to Ali's protected activity.

labor & employmentcivil rightsreligious liberty

Kharii W. Brodie, acting pro se, sued multiple federal judges who presided over his criminal trial and appeal in connection with convictions for wire fraud and conspiracy to make false statements to financial institutions regarding mortgage loans. The suit sought injunctive relief along with compensatory and punitive damages. The district court granted the judicial defendants' motion to dismiss under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), (2), (5), and (6). The court adopted the magistrate judge's report and recommendation, concluding that Brodie had not effected proper service and that the defendants were protected by judicial immunity.

criminal lawprocedure

Kharii W. Brodie, acting pro se, sued numerous federal officials including former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Assistant U.S. Attorney Katherine Worthington, and Bureau of Prisons Director Harley Lappin for alleged misconduct before, during, and after his convictions for wire fraud and conspiracy to make false statements to financial institutions. The defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), (2), (5), and (6). The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted the motion, adopting the Magistrate Judge's Report and Recommendation after de novo review. The court determined that Brodie had not properly served the defendants and that each defendant was entitled to qualified immunity, with Gonzales and Worthington additionally protected by prosecutorial immunity.

criminal lawprocedurecivil rights