Justia U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Six small refineries1 (“petitioners”) challenge the EPA’s decision to deny their requested exemptions from their obligations under the Renewable Fuel Standard (“RFS”) program of the Clean Air Act (“CAA”). The EPA denied petitioners’ years-old petitions using a novel CAA interpretation and economic theory that the agency published in December 2021.The Fifth Circuit granted the petitions for review, vacated the challenged adjudications, denied a change of venue, and remanded. The court concluded that the denial was (1) impermissibly retroactive; (2) contrary to law; and (3) counter to the record evidence. The court noted that the agency supports its assertion by dreaming up a hypothetical contract—filled with unsubstantiated speculation about terms such RIN clip sale prices and broker service fees—that TSAR might be able to negotiate. But EPA never explains why it believes small refineries can get contract terms like those. Unsubstantiated agency speculation does not overcome petitioners’ proven inability to purchase market-rate RINs ratably. The court explained that as a general matter, courts cannot compel agencies to act. Petitioners do not allege that the CAA expressly requires EPA to issue such guidance. An agency’s control over its timetables is entitled to considerable deference.That EPA has yet to make good on its promise to provide further guidance does not render the agency’s current (lack of) guidance arbitrary and capricious. View "Placid Refining Company, L.L.C. v. EPA" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, alleging violations of his First and Fourth Amendment rights when he was arrested as a terrorist for a post on Facebook. The district court granted Detective Randall Iles and Sheriff Mark Wood’s motion for summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds and dismissed Bailey’s claims with prejudice.The Fifth Circuit reversed. The court held that the district court erred in concluding that Plaintiff’s Facebook was constitutionally unprotected; erred in granting qualified immunity to Defendant on Plaintiff’s Fourth and First Amendment claims; and erred in granting summary judgment to Defendants on Plaintiff’s state law false arrest claim. Therefore, the court reversed the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Defendants and remanded for further proceedings. The court explained that Plaintiff has shown that Defendant is not entitled to qualified immunity as to the First Amendment claim. Based on decades of Supreme Court precedent, it was clearly established that Plaintiff’s Facebook post did not fit within one of the narrow categories of unprotected speech, like incitement or true threats. Thus, when Defendant arrested Plaintiff he violated Plaintiff’s clearly established First Amendment right to engage in speech even when some listeners consider the speech offensive, upsetting, immature, in poor taste, or even dangerous. View "Bailey v. Iles" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs are Constance Swanston (“Swanston”), Shannon Jones (“Jones”), and Women’s Elevated Sober Living, LLC (“WESL”) (collectively, “Plaintiffs”). Swanston is an individual in recovery from substance use disorders (“SUDs”) and the owner and operator of WESL. In November 2018, WESL opened a sober living home (the “Home”) on Stoney Point Drive in Plano, Texas. Jones is a caretaker and resident of the Home. Defendant-Appellant, the City of Plano (the “City”) appealed the district court’s judgment holding that it violated the Fair Housing Act (“FHA”) due to its failure to accommodate Plaintiffs as to the capacity limits in the applicable zoning ordinance. The district court enjoined the City from (1) restricting the Home’s occupancy to fewer than fifteen residents; (2) enforcing any other property restriction violative of the FHA or ADA; and (3) retaliating against Plaintiffs for pursuing housing discrimination complaints under the FHA and ADA. Following a hearing, awarded Plaintiffs nominal damages of one dollar.   The Fifth Circuit vacated the district court’s injunction and remanded it. The court held that the district court erred in determining that the evidence satisfied the applicable legal standard. The court explained that the Third Circuit concluded that, based on its strict reading of Section 3604(f)(3)(B) and the prior jurisprudence in its court and its sister circuits, the resident failed to prove that her requested accommodation was necessary considering the definition of the term, the purpose of the FHA, and the proffered alternatives. The court wrote that for the same reasons, it holds that Plaintiffs have failed to establish that their requested accommodation was therapeutically necessary. View "Women's Elevated v. City of Plano" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, proceeding pro se, filed suit against multiple private entities and government officials, including, as relevant to the instant appeal, the Social Security Commissioner, a Social Security claims representative, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Secretary of Education (the “Federal Defendants”), asserting a number of claims relating to the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) allegedly improper withholding of his disability benefits.   The Fifth Circuit affirmed. The court concluded that it did not have subject matter jurisdiction over Mr. Chambers’ claims against the Social Security Administration representatives concerning his Social Security benefits and that Plaintiff has failed to state a claim as to its remaining claims against the Federal Defendants. The court explained that while the lack of jurisdiction is a sufficient basis on which to affirm the district court, Plaintiff’s broad challenges to “any of [the court’s] holdings dismissing the federal government defendants” warrant but a brief note. The court found no error in the district court’s dismissal of the Treasury Secretary, given its purely ministerial role in administering the offset for Plaintiff’s outstanding loan, or its dismissal of the Secretary of Education, given Plaintiff’s similar failure to exhaust administrative remedies with that department and failure to advance a colorable constitutional violation. View "Chambers v. Kijakazi" on Justia Law

Appellant sued the Northside Independent School District, arguing that the District failed to properly accommodate her hearing impairment as required by the Americans with Disabilities Act. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the District, holding that Appellant’s ADA claim was barred by 20 U.S.C. Section 1415(l), the “exhaustion requirement” of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.   The Fifth Circuit vacated the summary judgment order; the court held that the district court erred in its interpretation of Section 1415(l). The court explained that the district court erred when it held that Appellant did not have a standalone claim under the ADA because the gravamen of her complaint was the denial of a FAPE. Under the plain text of Section 1415(l), “nothing in [the IDEA]” “restricts or limits” Appellant’s ability to assert her claim “under . . . the Americans with Disabilities Act.” The court noted that as Fry explained, “the IDEA does not prevent a plaintiff from asserting claims under [other federal] laws”—including “the ADA”—“even if . . . those claims allege the denial of an appropriate public education (much as an IDEA claim would). Further, the court wrote that it cannot affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment, as it would return the Circuit to the Smith era—an erroneous decision that would have “consequences . . . for a great many children with disabilities and their parents,” and one which Congress directly abandoned by enacting Section 1415(l). View "Lartigue v. Northside Indep" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs are three Texas residents whose assets escheated to the State under Texas’s Unclaimed Property Act. Plaintiffs brought a class action lawsuit against the Texas Comptroller and a director in the Comptroller’s office, alleging that the State is abusing the Unclaimed Property Act to seize purportedly abandoned property without providing proper notice. The district court dismissed most of Plaintiffs’ claims. Defendants contend that Plaintiffs cannot invoke Ex parte Young because they lack standing to seek prospective relief and have not alleged an ongoing violation of federal law.   The Fifth Circuit agreed with Defendants and reversed the district court’s denial of Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity, and remanded with instructions to dismiss Plaintiffs’ remaining claims for prospective relief without prejudice. The court explained that Plaintiffs have failed to allege facts indicating that Texas’s alleged abuse of the UPA is ongoing or will continue in the future. As there is no ongoing violation of federal law sufficiently pleaded in the complaint, Plaintiffs have failed to satisfy the Ex parte Young requirements, and their claims for prospective relief are barred by sovereign immunity. View "James v. Hegar" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs are people who claim to suffer from chronic Lyme disease. A person contracts Lyme disease from ticks carrying the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi. In 2006, IDSA published The Clinical Assessment, Treatment, and Prevention of Lyme Disease, Human Granulocytic Anaplasmosis, and Babesiosis: Clinical Practice Guidelines by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (“the Guidelines”). The Guidelines extensively discuss how to diagnose and treat Lyme disease. Throughout, they express doubt about the causes, frequency, and even the existence of chronic Lyme disease. Moreover, the Guidelines do not recommend long-term antibiotic therapy for persons with persistent Lyme symptoms who have already received recommended treatments.   The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling dismissing Plaintiffs’ claims. Plaintiffs took issue with IDSA’s positions that (1) “there is no convincing biological evidence for the existence of symptomatic chronic B. burgdorferi infection among patients after receipt of recommended treatment regimens for Lyme disease,” and (2) “antibiotic therapy has not proven to be useful and is not recommended for patients with chronic (>6 months) subjective symptoms after recommended treatment regimens for Lyme disease.” On their face, however, these statements are medical opinions. In this context (a scientific debate over treatment options for persistent Lyme symptoms), to say that evidence is not “convincing” or that some treatment is “not recommended” is plainly to express a medical opinion. Just because Plaintiffs disagree with those opinions does not mean that IDSA is somehow liable because their doctors or insurance providers found the opinions persuasive. View "Torrey v. Infectious Diseases Socty" on Justia Law

The original leaseholder transferred its interest to Martin Marietta Materials, Inc. (“Martin Marietta”), in 2014, and Elmen Holdings, L.L.C. (“Elmen”), acquired title to the underlying land in 2018. Elmen contends that Martin Marietta did not make required royalty payments to it or prior lessors; Elmen sought a declaration that the lease had terminated. Both parties moved for summary judgment, and a magistrate judge recommended that the district court grant Elmen’s motion and deny Martin Marietta’s. The district court adopted that recommendation.   The Fifth Circuit disagreed with the magistrate judge’s and district court’s reasoning, but affirmed the summary judgment for Elmen and affirmed the denial of summary judgment for Martin Marietta. The court explained that a payment or tender—such as Martin Marietta’s April 12 check— made to someone other than the lessor is not made “in the manner provided” by the Gravel Lease. The sentence in paragraph six that Martin Marietta relies on does not apply. Further, the court wrote that the undisputed facts show that Martin Marietta failed to pay royalties in 2017, received adequate notice of this failure, and did not cure within ten days of that notice. Therefore, the Gravel Lease terminated ten days after Martin Marietta received the relevant email, and summary judgment in favor of Elmen is warranted. View "Elmen Holdings v. Martin Marietta" on Justia Law

Defendant contested her convictions for transferring a firearm to a prohibited person and for making false statements while purchasing a firearm, as well as the sentence imposed on her resulting from these convictions. She argued that these convictions run afoul of In New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen,(“Bruen”), and that her upwardly varying sentence was substantively unreasonable.   The Fifth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that Defendant’s arguments concerning her convictions failed plain error review because there was no clear or obvious error, and the District Court did not abuse its discretion in imposing an upwardly varying sentence. The court explained that the district court gave a fulsome explanation of the reasons underpinning its decision to vary on Defendant’s sentence. The court explained that it made clear that it was prepared to upwardly vary even more but for the very factors to which Defendant says it did not give sufficient weight. According to the district court, the “sentence would be much higher” had it not considered these factors. Moreover, the court explained that the sentence imposed was well within a reasonable variance from the guidelines. It was only 36 months above the top of the guidelines range and 15 years below the statutory maximum sentence. View "USA v. Sanches" on Justia Law

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (“TCEQ”) declined to impose certain emissions limits on a new natural gas facility that it had recently imposed on another such facility. In doing so, it contravened its policy of adhering to previously imposed emissions limits, but it did not adequately explain why.   The Fifth Circuit vacated the Commission’s order granting the emissions permit at issue and remanded. The court explained that in this case, the Commission rejected the ALJs’ proposed CO and NOX emissions limits because they were “not demonstrated to be achievable or proven to be operational, obtainable, and capable.” Even though those limits had been approved for Rio Grande LNG, there was no “operational data to prove” they were achievable. Here, the record is clear—the limits imposed on Port Arthur LNG are not “at least equivalent” to those imposed on Rio Grande LNG. Therefore, the Commission’s own policy directed it to consider Rio Grande LNG’s limits, even if Rio Grande LNG was not currently in operation. It therefore acted arbitrarily and capriciously under Texas law. View "Port Arthur Cmty Actn Netwk v. TCEQ" on Justia Law