Justia U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

This appeal involved Continental's pursuit of a breach of contract claim against Thorpe in Thorpe's Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding. The district court affirmed the bankruptcy court's order denying Continental's motion to compel arbitration and disallowing its claim. The court held that the bankruptcy court had discretion not to enforce the arbitration clause at issue and that the bankruptcy court did not abuse its discretion in denying Continental's motion to compel arbitration. The court also held that the bankruptcy court did not abuse its discretion in declining to give Continental further opportunity for discovery and Thorpe could not contract away its right to avail itself of the protections of 524(g) of the Bankruptcy Code. Accordingly, the lower courts correctly disallowed Continental's claim.

Petitioner, a Guatemalan citizen, appealed his conviction and sentence for illegal reentry into the United States after removal. Petitioner challenged the validation of his underlying removal, contending that he automatically derived U.S. citizenship upon his father's naturalization when he was 14 years old. At the time, the controlling statute, 8 U.S.C. 1432(a), granted automatic derivative citizenship to foreign-born children of married parents only when both parents naturalized before the foreign-born child's 18th birthday. Petitioner's mother did not naturalize until he was 21 years old. Therefore, the district court correctly ruled that petitioner was not a citizen. The court also held that, under Barthelemy v. Ashcroft, the distinction between married and legally separated parents had a rational basis in protecting the parental rights of a non-citizen, custodial parent. The court also held that the sentence in this case was neither substantively nor procedurally unreasonable.

Plaintiff, a minor, brought federal civil rights claims under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and state negligence claims against the County and its employee social workers (collectively, defendants). Plaintiff, sexually assaulted by his 17-year-old foster brother while living in a foster family home, contended that defendants failed to intervene prior to his sexual assault, despite their knowledge of the escalating threats and violence against him. The district court dismissed with prejudice all claims against the County. The court concluded that the district court abused its discretion because the district court denied leave to amend where plaintiff was denied the opportunity to allege additional facts supporting the claim that defendant's constitutional violations were carried out pursuant to County policy or custom and where the County's derivative liability was tied directly to the negligence of, or successful assertion of immunity by, its employees. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's decision and vacated the judgment.

Chapter 11 debtor, one of more than 50 subsidiaries of MMPI, filed a motion seeking a determination that it and other subsidiaries were not subject to the single asset real estate provisions of the Bankruptcy Code, 11 U.S.C. 101(51B) and 362(d)(3). Creditor filed a cross motion seeking to apply the single asset real estate provisions to debtor. The district court held that debtor should be treated as a single asset real estate debtor because there was no "whole enterprise exception" to the single asset real estate provisions in the plain language of the statute. The court held that there was no error in the district court's approach and no error in the district court's application of section 101(51B). Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Appellant filed a declaratory judgment action seeking a declaration that AHCCCS had no right to recover from her father's annuity at all or, alternatively, had no right to recover for any costs incurred for the care of her mother received after her father's death. Appellant subsequently appealed the district court's judgment granting summary judgment to AHCCCS. The court held that the 2006 amendment to 42 U.S.C. 1396p(c)(1)(F)(i) created a right in the State to recover as a remainder beneficiary against a community spouses' annuity for an institutionalized spouse's medical costs. The court further held that the State's recovery was not limited to the amount it paid for the institutionalized spouse's medical costs as of the date of the community spouse's death. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment, concluding that AHCCCS could be reimbursed as the primary remainder beneficiary from the father's annuity for the cost of the medical assistance it paid on the mother's behalf after the father's death.

Petitioner, a native of Australia, appealed the BIA's order of removal as an alien convicted of a controlled substance, arguing that the BIA erred when it decided that she was not eligible to seek section 212(c) discretionary relief from removal pursuant to the former Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. 1182(c), which was repealed in 1996 as to aliens with certain criminal convictions. The court concluded that the repeal of section 212(c) imposed an impermissible retroactive effect on aliens like petitioner, who in reliance on the possibility of discretionary relief, agreed to a stipulated facts trial. The record demonstrated that petitioner reasonably relied on the law that existed when she faced criminal proceedings in 1980; therefore, the repeal of section 212(c) could not be applied retroactively to her conviction. The court reversed the BIA's decision and remanded with instructions to consider the merits of her section 212(c) application.

Petitioner, a citizen of Nigeria, petitioned for review of a decision by the BIA affirming the IJ, who made an adverse credibility determination and denied petitioner's requests for withholding of removal and relief pursuant to the CAT. The court held that the BIA sufficiently complied with the court's mandate because it considered the REAL ID Act's, Pub. L. 109-13, 119 Stat. 302, impact on the IJ's finding that petitioner's claims were not sufficiently corroborated. Even assuming that the REAL ID Act mandated notice that corroborating evidence was required, such notice was provided in this case. Therefore, the IJ's adverse credibility determination was supported by substantial evidence and petitioner's due process rights were not violated.

Defendant, a former state prison guard, appealed his conviction and sentence stemming from his assault on two inmates. The court previously reversed the district court's grant of a judgment of acquittal following the jury's verdict. On appeal, defendant contended that the district court erred in failing to conditionally rule that he was entitled to a new trial if the judgment of acquittal were to be reversed, and that he was deprived of the effective assistance of counsel when his trial counsel failed to make a new trial motion. The court held that the district court did not err in failing to make a conditional new trial ruling at the time it granted defendant's motion for acquittal; the court could not determine whether defendant's counsel was constitutionally deficient in failing to request such a ruling; defendant's conviction was therefore affirmed without prejudice to his filing a claim for ineffective assistance of counsel in an 28 U.S.C. 2255 proceeding; defendant's right to due process was violated when the district court relied on unreliable, unsubstantiated allegations in imposing his sentence; and defendant's sentence was vacated and remanded for further proceedings before a district judge who had not previously presided over the case.

In this interlocutory appeal, defendant challenged an order denying his motion to quash a subpoena in a 28 U.S.C. 2255 habeas proceeding brought by his wife. Defendant and his wife were convicted in separate trials for fraud arising from an insurance scam involving the wife's car. The wife subsequently alleged that her counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to call defendant as a witness. Defendant intervened to seek quashal of the subpoenas directed at counsel on the basis of a joint defense privilege. The court remanded to the district court for an in camera evidentiary hearing to determine if and when the joint defense agreement ended, and when the communication at issue here (what defendant would ultimately testify at his wife's trial) was made. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded the judgment.

Three juvenile defendants, each of whom was a member of an Indian Tribe and who pleaded true to a charge of aggravated sexual abuse with children, appealed their conditions of probation or supervision requiring registration under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), 42 U.S.C. 16901, et seq. Defendants argued that SORNA's registration requirement contravened the confidentiality provisions of the Federal Juvenile Delinquency Act (FJDA), 18 U.S.C. 5031 et seq., and also challenged its constitutionality. The court held that because Congress, in enacting SORNA, intentionally carved out a class of juveniles from the FJDA's confidentiality provisions, and that SORNA's registration requirement was constitutionally sound, the district court's imposition of the sex offender registration conditions was constitutionally sound.