Azar v. Allina Health Services

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Azar v. Allina Health Services

Opinion analysis: Court gives broad meaning to “confidential” in FOIA exemption for commercial and financial information – Mark Fenster

Opinion analysis: Punitive damages not available under general maritime law in personal-injury unseaworthiness action – Joel Goldstein

Opinion analysis: Long-time prohibition on registration of scandalous and immoral trademarks is struck down – Megan Carpenter

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Docket No.	Op. Below	Argument	Opinion	Vote	Author	Term
17-1484	D.C. Cir.	Jan 15, 2019 Tr.Aud.	Jun 2, 2019	7-1	Gorsuch	OT 2018

Holding: Because the Department of Health and Human Services neglected its statutory notice-and-comment obligations when it revealed a new policy that dramatically – and retroactively – reduced Medicare payments to hospitals serving low-income patients, its policy must be vacated.

Judgment: Affirmed, 7-1, in an opinion by Justice Gorsuch on June 2, 2019. Justice Breyer filed a dissenting opinion. Justice Kavanaugh took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

Opinion analysis: Notice and comment under the Medicare Act, no big moves for the APA (Abbe R. Gluck and Anne Joseph O’Connell)
Argument analysis: Justices grapple with notice-and-comment rulemaking for Medicare and beyond (Abbe R. Gluck and Anne Joseph O’Connell)
Argument preview: Requiring notice and comment under the Medicare statute (Abbe R. Gluck and Anne Joseph O’Connell)
Petition of the day (Aurora Barnes)

Date	Proceedings and Orders (key to color coding)
Feb 16 2018	Application (17A880) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from February 27, 2018 to March 29, 2018, submitted to The Chief Justice.
Feb 21 2018	Application (17A880) granted by The Chief Justice extending the time to file until March 29, 2018.
Mar 19 2018	Application (17A880) to extend further the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from March 29, 2018 to April 27, 2018, submitted to The Chief Justice.
Mar 22 2018	Application (17A880) granted by The Chief Justice extending the time to file until April 27, 2018.
Apr 27 2018	Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due May 30, 2018)
May 23 2018	Motion to extend the time to file a response from May 30, 2018 to June 29, 2018, submitted to The Clerk.
May 24 2018	Motion to extend the time to file a response is granted and the time is extended to and including June 29, 2018.
Jun 19 2018	Brief of respondents Allina Health Services, et al. in opposition filed.
Jul 03 2018	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 9/24/2018.
Jul 05 2018	Reply of petitioner Alex M. Azar II, Secretary of Health and Human Services filed. (Distributed)
Sep 27 2018	Petition GRANTED limited to the following question: Whether 42 U. S. C. §1395hh(a)(2) or §1395hh(a)(4) required the Department of Health and Human Services to conduct notice-and-comment rulemaking before providing the challenged instructions to a Medicare Administrator Contractor making initial determinations of payments due under Medicare.
Oct 19 2018	Justice Kavanaugh is recused in this case.
Nov 13 2018	Joint appendix filed.
Nov 13 2018	Brief of petitioner Alex M. Azar II, Secretary of Health and Human Services filed.
Nov 28 2018	SET FOR ARGUMENT ON Tuesday, January 15, 2019
Nov 30 2018	CIRCULATED
Dec 11 2018	Record requested from the U.S.C.A. District of Columbia Circuit.
Dec 13 2018	Brief of respondents Allina Health Services, et al. filed. (Distributed)
Dec 14 2018	Record received from the U.S.C.A. Dist. of Columbia Circuit is electronic and located on PACER, with the exception of the transcript of the Oral Argument which is electronic.
Dec 20 2018	Brief amici curiae of American Medical Association and Medical Society of the District of Columbia filed. (Distributed)
Dec 20 2018	Brief amici curiae of American Hospital Association, et al. filed. (Distributed)
Dec 20 2018	Brief amici curiae of 77 Hospitals and Southwest Consulting Associates filed. (Distributed)
Dec 20 2018	Brief amici curiae of Catholic Health, et al. filed. (Distributed)
Dec 20 2018	Brief amici curiae of Fourteen State and Regional Hospital Associations filed. (Distributed)
Jan 08 2019	Reply of petitioner Alex M. Azar II, Secretary of Health and Human Services filed. (Distributed)
Jan 15 2019	Argued. For petitioner: Edwin S. Kneedler, Deputy Solicitor General, Department of Justice, Washington, D. C. For respondents: Pratik A. Shah, Washington, D. C.
Jun 03 2019	Adjudged to be AFFIRMED. Gorsuch, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Thomas, Ginsburg, Alito, Sotomayor, and Kagan, JJ., joined. Breyer, J., filed a dissenting opinion. Kavanaugh, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

Featured Posts

Opinion analysis: Court gives broad meaning to “confidential” in FOIA exemption for commercial and financial information – Mark Fenster

Opinion analysis: Punitive damages not available under general maritime law in personal-injury unseaworthiness action – Joel Goldstein

Opinion analysis: Long-time prohibition on registration of scandalous and immoral trademarks is struck down – Megan Carpenter
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This Week at the Court
On Monday, the Supreme Court released orders from the June 20 conference; the justices granted eight new cases, for a total of five hours of oral argument next term: Guerrero-Lasprilla v. Barr, Ovalles v. Barr, Dex Media Inc. v. Click-To-Call Technologies, LP, Maine Community Health Options v. United States, Moda Health Plan Inc. v. United States, Land of Lincoln Mutual Health Insurance Co. v. United States, Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org Inc. and Banister v. Davis.
Also on Monday, the justices released their opinions in four argued cases: United States v. Davis, Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media, Iancu v. Brunetti and The Dutra Group v. Batterton.
The Supreme Court will release opinions in one or more argued cases on Wednesday at 10 a.m.
Major Cases
- Department of Commerce v. New York
  (1) Whether the district court erred in enjoining the secretary of the Department of Commerce from reinstating a question about citizenship to the 2020 decennial census on the ground that the secretary’s decision violated the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 701 et seq; (2) whether, in an action seeking to set aside agency action under the APA, a district court may order discovery outside the administrative record to probe the mental processes of the agency decisionmaker -- including by compelling the testimony of high-ranking executive branch officials -- without a strong showing that the decisionmaker disbelieved the objective reasons in the administrative record, irreversibly prejudged the issue, or acted on a legally forbidden basis; and (3) whether the secretary’s decision to add a citizenship question to the decennial census violated the enumeration clause of the U.S. Constitution.
- Lamone v. Benisek
  In case in which the plaintiffs allege that a Maryland congressional district was gerrymandered to retaliate against them for their political views: (1) whether the various legal claims articulated by the three-judge district court are unmanageable; (2) whether the three-judge district court erred when, in granting plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, it resolved disputes of material fact as to multiple elements of plaintiffs’ claims, failed to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, and treated as “undisputed” evidence that is the subject of still-unresolved hearsay and other evidentiary objections; and (3) whether the three-judge district court abused its discretion in entering an injunction despite the plaintiffs’ years-long delay in seeking injunctive relief, rendering the remedy applicable to at most one election before the next decennial census necessitates another redistricting.
- Kisor v. Wilkie
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule Auer v. Robbins and Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co., which direct courts to defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of its own ambiguous regulation.
- Rucho v. Common Cause
  (1) Whether plaintiffs have standing to press their partisan gerrymandering claims; (2) whether plaintiffs’ partisan gerrymandering claims are justiciable; and (3) whether North Carolina’s 2016 congressional map is, in fact, an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.
- The American Legion v. American Humanist Association
- Gamble v. United States
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Recent Decisions
- Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media Where commercial or financial information is both customarily and actually treated as private by its owner and provided to the government under an assurance of privacy, the information is “confidential” within the meaning of 5 U. S. C. §552(b)(4), the Freedom of Information Act’s Exemption 4.
- Iancu v. Brunetti The Lanham Act prohibition on the registration of “immoral” or “scandalous” trademarks infringes the First Amendment.
- The Dutra Group v. Batterton A plaintiff may not recover punitive damages on a maritime claim of unseaworthiness.
- United States v. Davis Title 18 U. S. C. §924(c)(3)(B), which provides enhanced penalties for using a firearm during a “crime of violence,” is unconstitutionally vague.
see all this term’s cases »
Current Relists
- Atlanta Gas Light Co. v. Bennett Regulator Guards Inc. (1) Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit erred in concluding that it had jurisdiction to review the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s decision to institute inter partes review of respondent’s patent over respondent’s objection that it was time-barred; and (2) whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit erred when it rejected the longstanding principle that a dismissal without prejudice leaves the parties as if a suit had never been brought, splitting the circuits.
- Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California (1) Whether the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to wind down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy is judicially reviewable; and (2) whether DHS’s decision to wind down the DACA policy is lawful.
- Kelly v. United States Whether a public official “defraud[s]” the government of its property by advancing a “public policy reason” for an official decision that is not her subjective “real reason” for making the decision.
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Cases argued 69

Cases decided 61

Summary reversals 5

Merits cases granted to date 74

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Justice Thomas at the Supreme Court Historical Society

On June 3, Justice Clarence Thomas spoke with David Rubenstein for the Supreme Court Historical Society’s annual lecture at the Supreme Court.

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Cases argued	69
Cases decided	61
Summary reversals	5
Merits cases granted to date	74

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6
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10
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13
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17
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20
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