Justia U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Ramirez was a Customs Officer, required to remain medically qualified to carry a service firearm. His wife reported to the police that he had cocked his service weapon and pointed it at her head. The police concluded that the allegations were unfounded. Ramirez was not charged. The Agency temporarily revoked Ramirez’s authority to carry a firearm and ordered a fitness-for-duty evaluation, with a psychiatric evaluation. His first evaluation was inconclusive. A second psychiatrist was also unable to assess Ramirez’s dangerousness but recommended that Ramirez be restricted from weapons-carrying positions based on his “lack of full cooperativeness.” A third-party psychologist had determined that Ramirez’s Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory results were invalid due to “extreme defensiveness.” Ramirez answered every MMPI question; the finding was based on his answers. The Agency terminated him.In arbitration, the Agency denied Ramirez access to the MMPI assessments and interpretations. Ramirez offered the testimony of his own expert, who administered another MMPI and interpreted his scores as within a range typical among law enforcement personnel. After a fourth fitness-for-duty evaluation and MMPI assessment, the same psychologist again interpreted the results as invalid “because of high defensiveness.” The arbitrator affirmed Ramirez’s removal and denied Ramirez’s request to order the Agency to produce the records of his MMPI assessments.The Federal Circuit vacated. The arbitrator did not exceed his authority by seeking additional evidence after issuing his interim award but Ramirez was entitled to a meaningful opportunity to review and challenge the assessments underlying his adverse psychiatric evaluations. View "Ramirez v. Department of Homeland Security" on Justia Law

John served in the Army in the 1960s. In 1972, John and Roberta married. In 2001, they separated. In 2005, a New York court issued a Separation Judgment, requiring John to pay Roberta $300 per month in spousal maintenance. In 2006, the VA granted John service connection for various disabilities; he began receiving monthly compensation. The New York court held a hearing where both parties appeared with counsel with a proposed settlement. That Stipulation provided that no later than December 2006 John was to pay Roberta $7,000 for past and future maintenance, health insurance, and other obligations. John made the payment. In 2010, following John’s relocation, a Pennsylvania state court issued a Divorce Decree.In 2008, Roberta had filed a VA claim for apportionment, 38 U.S.C. 5307, of John’s disability benefits. John objected, arguing only that the 2006 Stipulation “precluded” the claim. The VA denied Roberta’s claim, despite her demonstrated financial need, concluding she had “voluntarily renounced" maintenance or support. The Board of Veterans’ Appeals granted Roberta special apportionment from the 2008 date of her claim until the date of her 2010 divorce. The Veterans Court and Federal Circuit affirmed. A state court domestic relations separation agreement plays no role in VA’s determination of entitlement to special apportionment. John’s remedy lay in state court where he could sue for breach of contract. Special apportionment turns not on the veteran’s degree of support but on the dependent’s showing of hardship. View "Batcher v. Wilkie" on Justia Law

Taylor's leases for the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), set to expire in 2007, incorporated Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), 43 U.S.C. 1301, regulations. They required Taylor to leave the leased area “in a manner satisfactory to the [Regional] Director.” Taylor drilled 28 wells, each connected to an oil platform. In 2004, Hurricane Ivan toppled Taylor’s platform, rendering the wells inoperable. Taylor discovered leaking oil but took no action. In 2007, Taylor was ordered to decommission the wells within one year. Taylor sought extensions. The government required Taylor to set aside funds for its decommissioning obligations. For Taylor to receive reimbursement, the government must confirm the work was conducted “in material compliance with all applicable federal laws and . . . regulations" and with the Leases. The resulting Trust Agreement states that it “shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of" Louisiana. Taylor attempted to fulfill its obligations. The government approved a departure from certain standards but ultimately refused to relieve Taylor of its responsibilities.Taylor filed claims involving Louisiana state law: breach of the Trust Agreement; request for dissolution of the trust account based on impossibility of performance; request for reformation for mutual error; and breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing. The Federal Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the complaint. OCSLA makes federal law exclusive in its regulation of the OCS. To the extent federal law applies to a particular issue, state law is inapplicable. OCSLA regulations address the arguments underlying Taylor’s contract claims, so Louisiana state law cannot be adopted as surrogate law. View "Taylor Energy Co. LLC v. United States" on Justia Law

Trina challenged the Department of Commerce’s final results in the first administrative review of the antidumping duty order, 19 U.S.C. 1673(1), covering certain crystalline silicon photovoltaic products from China. SolarWorld, a domestic producer of like products, participated as a petitioner and defendant-intervenor.The Trade Court remanded Commerce’s decision not to offset Trina’s export price by a countervailed export subsidy as “contrary to law.” Commerce issued its remand redetermination, recalculating Trina’s export price accordingly, under protest. The Trade Court sustained Commerce’s Remand Redetermination. The Federal Circuit affirmed. Commerce’s decision to not increase Trina’s export price by the amount countervailed for the Ex-Im Bank Buyer’s Credit Program is contrary to law. Ex-Im Bank provides loans at preferential rates for the purchase of exported goods from China. Where merchandise is subject to both anti-dumping and countervailing duties during the period of review, Commerce “shall,” when calculating an antidumping duty rate, increase the respondent’s “export price” or “constructed export price” by “the amount of any countervailing duty imposed . . . to offset an export subsidy.” Substantial evidence supports Commerce’s decision to value Trina’s module glass using Thai imports of tempered glass. View "Changzhou Trina Solar Energy v. United States" on Justia Law

The Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure Cloud procurement is directed to the long-term provision of enterprise-wide cloud computing services to the Defense Department. Its solicitation contemplated a 10-year indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract with a single provider. The JEDI solicitation included “gate” provisions that prospective bidders would be required to satisfy, including that the contractor must have at least three existing physical commercial cloud offering data centers within the U.S., separated by at least 150 miles, providing certain offerings that were “FedRAMP Moderate Authorized” at the time of proposal (a reference to a security level). Oracle did not satisfy the FedRAMP Moderate Authorized requirement and filed a pre-bid protest.The Government Accountability Office, Claims Court, and Federal Circuit rejected the protest. Even if Defense violated 10 U.S.C. 2304a by structuring the procurement on a single-award basis, the FedRAMP requirement would have been included in a multiple-award solicitation, so Oracle was not prejudiced by the single-award decision. The FedRAMP requirement “constituted a specification,” not a qualification requirement; the agency structured the procurement as a full and open competition. Satisfying the gate criteria was merely the first step in ensuring that the Department’s time was not wasted on offerors who could not meet its minimum needs. The contracting officer properly exercised her discretion in finding that the individual and organizational conflicts complained of by Oracle did not affect the integrity of the procurement. View "Oracle America Inc. v. United States" on Justia Law

Graham served in the Marine Corps from 1967-1970 and has been receiving disability compensation benefits since 2001. The VA regional office (RO) informed Graham in 2009 that authorities had identified him as a fugitive felon and the subject of an outstanding warrant issued in 1992. That warrant was withdrawn in February 2009. In May 2009, the RO issued a rating decision that retroactively discontinued Graham’s compensation from December 2001 through February 2009, due to his then-fugitive felon status, and informed Graham that he had been improperly paid $199,158.70 and that his monthly compensation would be partially withheld to pay back the debt.Graham appointed Gumpenberger as his representative on appeal and signed a direct-pay agreement stating that Gumpenberger’s fee would be “20 percent of all past-due benefits awarded … as a result of winning … as provided in 38 C.F.R. 14.636.” In 2013, the Board reversed the RO’s debt ruling, finding that Graham was not a fugitive felon for VA purposes because he had never been aware of the outstanding warrant. The VA had recouped $65,464 from Graham’s monthly benefits. The Veterans Court and Federal Circuit affirmed the RO’s determination that Gumpenberger was entitled to a fee of $13,092.80. Although the total debt invalidated was $199,158.70, the past-due benefit, per 38 U.S.C. 5904(d)(1), being awarded was $65,464. View "Gumpenberger v. Wilkie" on Justia Law

KBR contracted with the government to provide trailers to house coalition personnel at military camps in Iraq. KBR claimed that the government breached the contract by failing to provide “force protection” to the trucks delivering the trailers to the military camps. KBR sought to recover payments made to its subcontractor, Kuwaiti, for costs caused by the government’s alleged breach. The administrative contracting officer in large part denied the claim. The Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals found that KBR was not entitled to any additional recovery. The Federal Circuit affirmed. The Board properly determined that KBR’s costs had not been shown to be reasonable. The court did not reach the question of whether the government breached the “force protection” provision of the contract. The burden is on the contractor to establish the reasonableness of its costs; there is no presumption of reasonableness nor any presumption that a contractor is entitled to reimbursement “simply because it incurred . . . costs.” View "Kellogg Brown and Root Services, Inc. v. Secretary of the Army" on Justia Law

Egenera sued, alleging that Cisco’s enterprise server systems infringed the 430 patent. Before claim construction, and with Cisco’s inter partes review (IPR) petition pending, Egenera separately petitioned the Patent and Trademark Office to remove one of the 11 listed inventors from the patent. Egenera realized that all claim limitations had been conceived before one listed inventor, Schulter, had started working there. The Patent Board declined to institute IPR; Schulter was removed as an inventor. Following the district court’s claim construction of a “logic to modify” limitation and a trial on inventorship, Egenera asked the district court to add Schulter back to the patent. The court determined that judicial estoppel prevented Egenera from relisting Schulter and found the patent invalid for failing to name all inventors.The Federal Circuit affirmed the claim construction but vacated the invalidity judgment based on judicial estoppel. Egenera advanced no “clearly inconsistent” positions. Inventorship can depend on claim construction. Egenera’s inventorship petition was consistent with the underlying presumption was that Egenera’s claim terms, lacking “means,” were not means-plus-function. Schulter likely would not be an inventor under Egenera’s preferred construction but inventorship under that construction was not decided. Once claim construction issues were decided, it was entirely consistent for Egenera to request an accompanying formal correction of inventorship. In addition, Egenera did not succeed in persuading a court or court-like tribunal to accept its first position. View "Egenera, Inc. v. Cisco Systems, Inc." on Justia Law

The Department of Commerce imposed anti-dumping and countervailing duties, 19 U.S.C. 1671, 1673, on imports of certain steel nails from India, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Oman, Taiwan, Turkey, and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, covering certain steel nails. OMG, imports zinc masonry anchors from Vietnam that consist of a zinc alloy body and a zinc-plated steel pin. The anchors are designed to attach termination bars to concrete or masonry walls. The anchor is inserted into q predrilled hole and “tap[ped] lightly” with a hammer “until [the] head of [the] anchor body is set gently against the termination bar.” To complete installation, the hammer is used to drive the head of the steel pin flush with the head of the anchor body, thereby expanding the anchor body in the predrilled hole to fix the anchor in place.Commerce determined that OMG’s anchors were within the scope of the Orders. The Trade Court reasoned that OMG’s anchors are unambiguously outside the scope of the Orders because they are not nails within the plain meaning of the word. On remand, Commerce found that OMG’s zinc anchors fall outside the scope of the Orders, but issued its redetermination under protest The Federal Circuit affirmed, finding OMG’s anchors are unambiguously outside the scope of the Orders View "OMG, Inc. v. United States" on Justia Law

Phytelligence, an agricultural biotechnology company that used tissue culture to grow trees, and Washington State University (WSU) contracted for the propagation of WSU's patented “WA 38” apple trees. Section 4 of the agreement was entitled “option to participate as a provider and/or seller in [WSU] licensing programs.” The parties acknowledged that WSU would need to “grant a separate license for the purpose of selling.” Phytelligence expressed concern about the “wispy forward commitment.” WSU responded that “Phytelligence and others would have a shot at securing commercial licenses.”WSU later requested proposals for commercializing WA 38. Phytelligence did not submit a proposal. WSU accepted PVM’s proposal, granting PVM an exclusive license that required PVM to subcontract exclusively with NNII, a fruit tree nursery association, to propagate and sell WA 38 trees. Phytelligence later notified WSU that it wanted to exercise its option. WSU responded that PVM was WSU’s “agent.” Phytelligence rejected PVM’s requirement to become an NNII member and two non-membership proposals for obtaining commercial rights to WA 38. WSU terminated the Propagation Agreement, alleging that Phytelligence breached the Agreement when it sold WA 38 to a third-party without a license and that such actions infringed its plant patent and its COSMIC CRISP trademark.Phytelligence sued, alleging breach of the Agreement. The Federal Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of WSU. Section 4 is an unenforceable agreement to agree. WSU did not commit to any definite terms of a future license. View "Phytelligence Inc. v. Washington State University" on Justia Law