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

Articles Posted in Real Estate & Property Law
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New Harvest challenged a Salinas ordinance prohibiting religious and other assemblies from operating on the ground floor of buildings facing Main Street within the downtown area. The ordinance prohibited it from hosting worship services on the ground floor of its newly-purchased building. New Harvest claimed the ordinance substantially burdened its religious exercise and treated New Harvest on less than equal terms with nonreligious assemblies, in violation of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. 2000cc. The district court granted the city summary judgment. New Harvest sold the building; the Ninth Circuit treated claims for declaratory and injunctive relief as moot.Addressing claims for damages, the court reversed in part. The ordinance facially violated RLUIPA's equal terms provision. Other nonreligious assemblies, such as theatres, are permitted to operate on the first floor of the Restricted Area and are similarly situated to religious assemblies with respect to the provision’s stated purpose and criterion. New Harvest failed to demonstrate a substantial burden on its religious exercise; it could have conducted services on the second floor or by reconfiguring the first floor and was not precluded from using other available sites within Salinas. When it purchased the building, New Harvest was on notice that the ordinance prohibited services on the first floor. View "New Harvest Christian Fellowship v. City of Salinas" on Justia Law

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The Ninth Circuit certified to the Supreme Court of Nevada the following question: Under Nevada law, must a series LLC created pursuant to Nev. Rev. Stat. 86.296 be sued in its own name for a court to obtain jurisdiction over it, or may the master LLC under which the series is created be sued instead? View "Federal Housing Finance Agency v. Saticoy Bay, LLC" on Justia Law

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Canyon Mine is located within the Kaibab National Forest, which has been withdrawn from new mining claims; the withdrawal did not extinguish “valid existing rights.” The Trust challenged the Forest Service’s determination that Energy Fuels holds a valid existing right to operate the uranium mine, alleging that in determining that there were “valuable mineral deposits,” 30 U.S.C. 22, the Service ignored sunk costs. The Ninth Circuit previously held that the Trust had Article III standing.The Ninth Circuit subsequently affirmed the summary judgment rejection of the claim. It was not arbitrary for the Service to ignore costs that have already been incurred and cannot be recovered. Applying Chevron analysis, the court held that the critical term in the Mining Act, “valuable mineral deposits,” was ambiguous. The Department of the Interior’s interpretation of the Act, in which sunk costs are not considered when determining whether a mine is profitable, was permissible and not manifestly contrary to the Act; it was consistent with the prudent person and marketability tests. It is a basic principle of economics that sunk costs should be ignored when making a rational decision about whether to make further expenditures. It was not arbitrary for the Forest Service to rely on the Department's interpretation. View "Grand Canyon Trust v. Provencio" on Justia Law

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Plaintiffs challenged, under 42 U.S.C. 1983, Oakland’s Uniform Residential Tenant Relocation Ordinance, which requires landlords re-taking occupancy of their homes upon the expiration of a lease to pay tenants a relocation payment. Plaintiffs alleged that the relocation fee is an unconstitutional physical taking of their money for a private rather than public purpose, without just compensation. Alternatively, they claimed that the fee constitutes an unconstitutional exaction of their Oakland home and an unconstitutional seizure of their money under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.The Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the suit. Although in certain circumstances money can be the subject of a physical (per se) taking, the relocation fee required by the Ordinance was a regulation of the landlord-tenant relationship, not an unconstitutional taking of a specific and identifiable property interest. Because there was no taking, the court did not address whether the relocation fee was required for a public purpose or what just compensation would be. The court rejected an assertion that Oakland placed an unconstitutional condition (an exaction), on their preferred use of their Oakland home. The plaintiffs did not establish a cognizable theory of state action; Oakland did not participate in the monetary exchange between plaintiffs and their tenants. View "Ballinger v. City of Oakland" on Justia Law

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The City of Oakland sued under the Fair Housing Act, claiming that Wells Fargo’s discriminatory lending practices caused higher default rates, which triggered higher foreclosure rates that drove down the assessed value of properties, ultimately resulting in lost property tax revenue and increased municipal expenditures. In 2020, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the denial of Wells Fargo's motion to dismiss claims for lost property-tax revenues and affirmed the dismissal of Oakland's claims for increased municipal expenses.On rehearing, en banc, the Ninth Circuit concluded that all of the claims should be dismissed. Under the Supreme Court’s 2017 holding, Bank of America Corp. v. City of Miami, foreseeability alone is not sufficient to establish proximate cause under the Act; there must be “some direct relation between the injury asserted and the injurious conduct alleged.” The downstream “ripples of harm” from the alleged lending practices were too attenuated and traveled too far beyond the alleged misconduct to establish proximate cause. The Fair Housing Act is not a statute that supports proximate cause for injuries further downstream from the injured borrowers; the extension of proximate cause beyond that first step was not administratively possible and convenient. Oakland also failed sufficiently to plead proximate cause for its increased municipal expenses claim. View "City of Oakland v. Wells Fargo & Co." on Justia Law

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The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal based on lack of subject matter jurisdiction of an action brought under the Quiet Title Act (QTA) against the United States, seeking to confirm that an easement granted to plaintiffs' predecessors-in-interest did not permit public use of the Robbins Gulch Road, and to enforce the government's obligations to patrol and maintain the road against unrestricted public use.The panel reaffirmed that the QTA's statute of limitations is jurisdictional and dispositive in this case. The panel explained that prior Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit precedent are still controlling, even though for other statutes the Supreme Court has more recently set forth a seemingly different framework for assessing whether a statute of limitations is jurisdictional. Furthermore, the jurisdictional question and the merits question are not so intertwined that dismissal was improper because the determination of jurisdiction is not dependent on the merits of plaintiffs' claims. Finally, the panel rejected plaintiffs' remaining contentions, which are addressed in a separate memorandum disposition filed simultaneously with this opinion. View "Wilkins v. United States" on Justia Law

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Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. 12182(a), the Department of Justice (DOJ) promulgated 1991Accessibility Guidelines requiring that in sports stadiums, “[w]heelchair areas shall be an integral part of any fixed seating plan and shall be provided so as to provide people with physical disabilities a choice of admission prices and lines of sight comparable to those for members of the general public.” A 1996 DOJ guidance document (Accessible Stadiums) provides: Wheelchair seating locations must provide lines of sight comparable to those provided to other spectators. In stadiums where spectators can be expected to stand during the show or event (for example, football, baseball, basketball games, or rock concerts), all or substantially all of the wheelchair seating locations must provide a line of sight over standing spectators."Plaintiffs, baseball fans with ADA-qualifying disabilities, use wheelchairs for mobility. The Stadium, designed in 1996 and constructed in 1997-1999, has vertically stacked seating levels sloped toward the field. There is wheelchair-accessible seating on each level. The district court rejected Plaintiffs’ sightline claim and, regarding the Accessible Stadiums standard, concluded: [W]hen the Court reviews the illustrations considering what can be seen over the line representing the standing spectator’s shoulders, i.e., “over the shoulders and between the heads,” more of the field is visible from the accessible seat, making the views comparable." The Ninth Circuit vacated. The district court failed to explain how the Stadium satisfies all the Accessible Stadiums requirements. View "Landis v. WashingtonvState Major League Baseball Stadium Public Facilities District" on Justia Law

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Following the outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020, Los Angeles imposed an eviction moratorium during a “Local Emergency Period” with the stated purposes of ensuring housing security and promoting public health during the pandemic. Related provisions delay applicable tenants’ rent payment obligations and prohibit landlords from charging late fees and interest. A trade association of Los Angeles landlords, sued, alleging violations of the Constitution’s Contracts Clause.The Ninth Circuit affirmed the denial of the plaintiff’s request for preliminary injunctive relief, noting that other courts, including the Supreme Court, have recently considered various constitutional and statutory challenges to COVID-19 eviction moratoria. Under modern Contracts Clause doctrine, even if the eviction moratorium was a substantial impairment of contractual relations, the moratorium’s provisions were likely “reasonable” and “appropriate” given the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic. The city fairly tied the moratorium to its stated goals. The court noted that contemporary Supreme Court case law has severely limited the Contracts Clause’s potency. View "Apartment Association of Los Angeles County, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles." on Justia Law

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The Sacketts purchased a soggy residential lot near Idaho’s Priest Lake in 2004, planning to build a home. Shortly after the Sacketts began placing sand and gravel fill on the lot, they received an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrative compliance order, indicating that the property contained wetlands subject to protection under the Clean Water Act (CWA), 33 U.S.C. 1251(a), and that the Sacketts had to remove the fill and restore the property to its natural state.The Sacketts sued EPA in 2008, challenging the agency’s jurisdiction over their property. During this appeal, EPA withdrew its compliance order. The Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment in EPA’s favor. EPA’s withdrawal of the order did not moot the case. EPA’s stated intention not to enforce the order or issue a similar order in the future did not bind the agency. EPA could potentially change positions under new leadership. The court upheld the district court’s refusal to strike from the record a 2008 Memo by an EPA wetlands ecologist, containing observations and photographs from his visit to the property. The court applied the “significant nexus” analysis for determining when wetlands are regulated under the CWA. The record plainly supported EPA’s conclusion that the wetlands on the property were adjacent to a jurisdictional tributary and that, together with a similarly situated wetlands complex, they had a significant nexus to Priest Lake, a traditional navigable water, such that the property was regulable under the CWA. View "Sackett v. United States Environmental Protection Agency" on Justia Law

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The Mundens own ranching property in Bannock County, Idaho. They purchased 768 acres in 2012 and 660 acres in 2014 and purchased title insurance for the first purchase through Stewart and for the second purchase through Chicago Title. The property contains a gravel road. A 2019 ordinance amended a 2006 ordinance that closed specified snowmobile trails, including that gravel road, to motor vehicles except snowmobiles and snow-trail-grooming equipment during winter months. The 2019 ordinance deleted the December-to-April closure, giving the County Public Works Director the discretion to determine when to close specified snowmobile trails, and increased the maximum fine for violations. The Mundens sought an injunction. The county asserted that the road had been listed as a public road on county maps since 1963 and that the Mundens purchased their property expressly subject to easements and rights of way apparent or of record.The Mundens filed a federal complaint, seeking declaratory relief, indemnification, and damages. The district court granted the insurance companies summary judgment. The Ninth Circuit reversed as to Chicago Title, finding that the county road map is a “public record” within the meaning of its policy so that coverage applied. Stewart has no duty to indemnify or defend; its policy disclaims coverage for damages “aris[ing] by reason of . . . [r]ight, title and interest of the public in and to those portions of the above-described premises falling within the bounds of roads or highways.” View "Munden v. Stewart Title Guaranty Co." on Justia Law