MEMORANDUM OPINION COLLEEN KOLLAR-KOTELLY , District Judge . Defendant John Doe requests leave to proceed pseudonymously in a civil case against him for alleged sexual assault and related claims. Plaintiff Jane Roe opposes this motion. Although the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ("D.C. Circuit") has not expressly adopted a test for evaluating such a request, courts in this Circuit have often applied a five-factor test in cases involving plaintiffs'...
MEMORANDUM OPINION BERYL A. HOWELL , Chief District Judge . The plaintiff, Paul Andrew Leitner-Wise, invents firearm technology. Two of the plaintiff's inventions, however, allegedly have been wrongly identified as the work of a fellow-inventor, defendant Robert Bernard Iredale Clark. According to the plaintiff, Clark conspired with a second defendant, Eugene L. Flanagan III, a patent attorney, to apply for patents that misattributed the plaintiff's inventions to Clark. That...
OPINION PAUL L. FRIEDMAN , District Judge . This matter is before the Court on the government's motion in limine to admit an eyewitness statement as a present-sense impression [Dkt. No. 18]. The defendant filed an opposition to the motion [Dkt. No. 39], the government filed a reply [Dkt. No. 40], and the Court heard oral argument on November 5, 2018. For the reasons that follow, the Court granted the government's motion by separate order dated December 12, 2018 [Dkt. No. 43]. It will...
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER PAUL L. FRIEDMAN , District Judge . This matter is before the Court on defendant Rico Williams' Motion to Vacate, Set Aside, or Correct Sentence Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2255 [Dkt. No. 254], and the government's response to the motion [Dkt. No. 257]. For the reasons that follow, the Court will grant the defendant's motion in part and deny it in part. On June 15, 2017, Mr. Williams pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1112(a) [...
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER BERYL A. HOWELL , Chief Bankruptcy Judge . The two relators, Gopalakrishna Pillai Ajeesh Kumar Kammarayil and Mohammed Azad Shabbir, waited three years, from October 2015 to November 2018, for the government to decide whether to intervene in this qui tam matter brought pursuant to the False Claims Act ("FCA"), 31 U.S.C. 3730(b)(1). Despite the fact that the government's memoranda filed in support of the government's seven motions for extension of time to...
MEMORANDUM OPINION RANDOLPH D. MOSS , United States District Judge . These consolidated cases are before the Court following an earlier decision holding that the Department of Health and Human Services failed to provide a meaningful opportunity for public comment on a rule that imposed a 0.2 percent, across-the-board reduction in inpatient prospective payment system rates used to compensate hospitals for FY 2014 under the Medicare program. See Shands Jacksonville Medical Center v....
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER RANDOLPH D. MOSS , District Judge . Plaintiff Richard Thompson, proceeding pro se, is a federal prisoner in custody of the United States Bureau of Prisons ("BOP"). In December 2017, Thompson filed suit against nine officials employed by the United States Parole Commission ("USPC"), as well as two former directors of the BOP, alleging that they violated his due process rights by "denying [him] mandatory parole" based on "illogical" reasons. Dkt. 1 at 14 (...
MEMORANDUM OPINION DENYING DEFENDANTS' MOTION TO DISMISS; GRANTING PLAINTIFFS' MOTION FOR A PERMANENT INJUNCTION; DENYING AS MOOT PLAINTIFFS' MOTION FOR A PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION RUDOLPH CONTRERAS , United States District Judge . I. INTRODUCTION This action concerns whether the Department of Health and Human Services ("HHS") acted lawfully when it reduced Medicare payments worth billions of dollars to private institutions, to correct what it views as a fundamental misalignment of...
MEMORANDUM OPINION AMY BERMAN JACKSON , District Judge . Pro se plaintiff Alvin Abrams sued defendants, Scribner's Inc. ("Scribner's") and Harold Ober Associates ("HOA"), seeking a judgment that the book The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is no longer under copyright, but rather in the public domain. The Court dismissed the case against defendant Scribner's due to plaintiff's failure to properly serve defendant. The remaining defendant, HOA, has moved for summary judgment, arguing...
MEMORANDUM OPINION AMY BERMAN JACKSON , United States District Judge . Plaintiffs Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and Anne L. Weismann, CREW's former Interim Executive Director and current Chief FOIA Counsel (collectively "CREW"), have sued the Federal Election Commission ("FEC") in connection with the Commission's resolution of an administrative complaint that CREW filed with the agency in 2015. In the administrative complaint it filed with the FEC, CREW alleged that...
MEMORANDUM OPINION BERYL A. HOWELL , Chief Judge . "What the heck did you do to my kid " 1 This is the anguished question voiced by the mother of Otto Warmbier when, after detaining the young man for over 17 months, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea ("North Korea") returned Otto's comatose body to the United States. 2 Before Otto traveled with a tour group on a five-day trip to North Korea, he was a healthy, athletic student of economics and business in his junior year at the...
MEMORANDUM OPINION BERYL A. HOWELL , Chief Judge . The plaintiff, Paul Andrew Leitner-Wise, invents firearm technology. Two of the plaintiff's inventions, however, allegedly have been wrongly identified as the work of a fellow-inventor, defendant Robert Bernard Iredale Clark. According to the plaintiff, Clark conspired with a second defendant, Eugene L. Flanagan III, a patent attorney, to apply for patents that misattributed the plaintiff's inventions to Clark. That misattribution, the...
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER AMIT P. MEHTA , District Judge . I. INTRODUCTION Plaintiff Gwendolyn Mitchell is the Manager of Metadata and Taxonomy Operations at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, a position she has held for the past four years. Plaintiff, an African American woman, alleges discrimination by her employer on the basis of race and gender. First, she asserts that she was subjected to a hostile work environment by three of her co-workers, and that Defendant...
MEMORANDUM OPINION CHRISTOPHER R. COOPER , United States District Judge . TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Background...24 A. Factual Background...24 1. The proposed project...24 2. The Secretary's bond allocation...24 3. The environmental review process...25 B. Procedural Background...26 II. Analysis...27 A. The Bond Allocation...27 1. Section 142(m)...28 2. Section 147(f)...36 B. NEPA Compliance...42 1. Public-safety effects of the project...43 2. Effects of vessel queuing at railroad...
MEMORANDUM OPINION AMY BERMAN JACKSON , District Judge . Plaintiff, appearing pro se, filed a lawsuit in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia against two employees of the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency for the District of Columbia ("CSOSA"). She accuses defendants of "false accusations, false arrest, invasion of privacy, malicious interference, abuse of process, assault and battery and deceit." Complaint [Dkt. 1-1]. Since CSOSA is a federal entity, see D.C....
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER G. MICHAEL HARVEY , Magistrate Judge . Defendant was arrested on July 28, 2018, and a criminal complaint was filed against him charg-ing that he had, among other things, threatened to kill the President of the United States, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 871, and made a bomb threat, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 844(e). He made his initial appear-ance before Judge Deborah A. Robinson on July 30, 2018. At that hearing, the government sought De-fendant's temporary...
MEMORANDUM OPINION Emmet G. Sullivan , United States District Judge . I. Introduction On April 2, 2018 at approximately 11:48 p.m., defendant Mark Gibson was walking home from the bus stop. As he was walking east on Galen Street at the intersection of 16th Street and Galen Street Southeast in the District of Columbia, four Metropolitan Police Department Gun Recovery Unit Officers ("MPD officers" or "officers") were patrolling in the same area, seeking to recover firearms. After a brief...
MEMORANDUM OPINION COLLEEN KOLLAR-KOTELLY , Distrcit Judge . On December 19, 2018, Defendant Tiffany Henry (1), through counsel, filed a [122] Motion for Holiday Release ("Def.'s Mot.") requesting permission to be released from her halfway house placement from December 24, 2018, at 8:00 PM, through December 25, 2018, at 8:00 PM, for the purpose of spending Christmas with her family at her family's home in Vienna, Virginia. The Government filed its [123] Opposition to the Defendant's...
MEMORANDUM OPINION DABNEY L. FRIEDRICH , District Judge . Plaintiff Marvin Arnold alleges that the United States Army violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), 29 U.S.C. 621 et seq., when it refused to promote him. Before the Court are the parties' cross-motions for summary judgment, Dkts. 41, 43. For the reasons that follow, the Court will deny Arnold's Motion for Summary Judgment and grant the Army's Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment. I. BACKGROUND In 2012,...
MEMORANDUM OPINION ON SENTENCING ROSEMARY M. COLLYER , District Judge . On November 1, 2018, David N. Carter came before this Court for sentencing on a charge of Escape from Custody, 18 U.S.C. 751(a), for walking away from Hope Village, a Residential Reentry Center or halfway house located in the District of Columbia, to which Mr. Carter had entered a plea of guilty. This Court imposed a sentence of eleven (11) months' incarceration with no supervision thereafter and writes this...
