Neomi Jehangir Rao
How Judge Rao rules, drawn from 32 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
How Judge Rao decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
She holds agencies to a consistency principle: if an agency approved closely similar products or claims before, it must explain, not merely assert, why this case is different, or its denial is arbitrary and capricious.
“It is a fundamental principle of administrative law that agencies must treat like cases alike.”
Textualist in method: she resolves an undefined statutory term by asking what it meant in the specific legal drafting context Congress used, not by reaching for an expansive plain-English sense that would enlarge or shrink agency authority beyond what the text supports.
“'Model clause' is not defined in EFTA, so we look to the meaning of the term in its statutory context.”
In a False Claims Act case, Rao applied ordinary common-law causation to a fraudulent-inducement theory. The relator had to plead that the alleged misrepresentation actually caused the government to enter the contract, not merely that fraud and later claims occurred in sequence.
“Therefore, he must allege but-for causation as a necessary element of a claim for fraudulent inducement under the FCA.”
In a rate case, Rao required the agency to connect charges to the costs the customer imposed and to account for benefits its facilities provided other users. A departure from cost causation needed a reasoned justification grounded in actual system use.
“The two-tier rates are disconnected from the costs Antero imposes on Tennessee Gas’s pipeline, and they fail to reflect the reality that the expansion facilities for which Antero is responsible often benefit other shippers by reducing system-wide fuel costs.”
Rao set aside the rescission of a longstanding regulatory defense after the agency's stated legal premise was foreclosed and it supplied no independent policy rationale. An agency changing course should preserve alternative reasons in the rulemaking record and tie them to the governing statute.
“Because EPA offered no independent policy rationale, its rescission regulation was unreasonable and not in accordance with law.”
Procedural preferences
Jurisdiction is always the threshold question, and when it is absent it ends the inquiry: she resolves a case on a jurisdictional defect before reaching the merits whenever one is available, rather than assuming jurisdiction to get to an easier substantive question.
“This case begins and ends with jurisdiction, which we lack under the Hobbs Act.”
In enforcing an arbitral award against a foreign sovereign, Rao required the trial court to determine sovereign-immunity facts independently rather than defer to the tribunal's view of its own jurisdiction. Issue preclusion from foreign judgments remained a separate question for first-instance analysis.
“The district court was required to independently determine the jurisdictional facts regarding Russia’s sovereign immunity and whether the FSIA’s arbitration exception applies to allow the Shareholders’ suit.”
She separates administrative exhaustion from the merits of a federal civil-rights claim: the possible adequacy of local procedures may affect whether due process was violated, but it does not close the federal courthouse before a Section 1983 claim is heard.
“Whether the CMPA’s procedures might satisfy due process goes to the merits of Mpoy’s section 1983 claim, not to the question of whether failure to exhaust closes the courthouse doors.”
Cautions
She will not let an agency skip an antecedent legal question, here, whether a contract excused a duty at all, merely because a downstream test (relevance) is easier to apply; deciding things out of the proper order is itself a ground for vacatur.
“The Board … must enforce collective bargaining agreements, which here required determining whether the agreement directly or indirectly excused AMR from providing the information requested by the Union. We therefore hold the Board's failure to consider AMR's contractual defense was contrary to law.”
In separation-of-powers disputes she treats a district court's plan to interrogate high-level Executive Branch deliberations about national-security and foreign-policy decisions as itself an injury warranting the extraordinary remedy of mandamus, regardless of how the underlying merits eventually come out.
“The district court proposes to probe high-level Executive Branch deliberations about matters of national security and diplomacy.”
In a public-records case, Rao treated agency control as a functional inquiry into official use, retention, access, and integration. Automatically generated browsing histories were not agency records where employees could delete them and the agencies neither relied on nor incorporated them into their record systems.
“The browsing histories were generated automatically and were not read or consulted by any agency employee—they were not integrated into the agency’s system of records.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“Because the existing record leaves no doubt this failure to object was not ineffective assistance of counsel, we affirm the conviction.”
“We conclude that the district court did not clearly abuse its discretion in dismissing appellants' lawsuits for forum non conveniens and affirm the decision in full.”
“Applying these standards, we grant Flynn's petition in part.”
“The district court held these browsing histories are not agency records, so they are not subject to disclosure under FOIA. We agree and thus affirm.”
“We hold that Cimino plausibly pleaded causation, as well as materiality, and therefore he may proceed with his fraudulent inducement claims on remand. We affirm, however, the dismissal of Cimino's presentment claims because he failed to plead them with the requisite particularity.”
“Therefore, we deny the petition in part and dismiss it in part for lack of jurisdiction.”
“We reject Davis' ineffective assistance claim as meritless since the enhancement can apply even when the victim is fictitious. We also reject Davis' remaining sentencing challenges as the right to appeal them was knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily waived.”
“Because Orange has not demonstrated prejudice, his ineffective assistance of counsel claim fails.”
“We therefore reverse the district court and remand for further consideration of PayPal's claims.”
“We agree. An agency properly issues a Glomar response when its affidavits plausibly describe the justifications for issuing such a response, and these justifications are not substantially called into question by contrary record evidence. Here, the Agencies have properly invoked Glomar on the grounds that the information Schaerr seeks is protected by FOIA Exemptions One and Three, and nothing in the record suggests the Agencies acted in bad faith in issuing their responses.”
“For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court is affirmed.”
“Finding no constitutional infirmity in the Act's jurisdiction-stripping provision, we affirm.”
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