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

Petitioner sought review of a decision of the BIA affirming the IJ's finding of removeability and denial of his application for asylum and withholding of removal. The BIA affirmed the IJ's conclusion that petitioner, who lived for approximately six continuous years with his parents in Iran, abandoned his lawful permanent resident (LPR) status. The BIA also affirmed the IJ's determination that petitioner failed to meet his burden of proof as to eligibility for asylum and withholding of removal. The court held that substantial evidence did not support the BIA's determination that petitioner abandoned his LPR status where the government had not met its burden with respect to petitioner's abandonment by imputation and where there was no evidence that petitioner himself abandoned his LPR status. Therefore, petitioner remained an LPR and was not removable.

Plaintiff and his wife filed a 42 U.S.C. 1983 action against defendants, alleging, among other things, that police officers violated their Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights by securing the search and arrest warrants of plaintiff's home, to search for evidence of child pornography, with an affidavit that deliberately or recklessly contained material omissions and false statements. At issue was whether the district court properly granted the officers' motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity, concluding that the officers' conduct did not violate a clearly established constitutional right of which a reasonable officer would have known. The court held that plaintiff had made a substantial showing of the officers' deliberate falsehood or reckless disregard for the truth and had established that, but for the dishonesty, the searches and arrest would not have occurred. The court also held that the officers were not entitled to qualified immunity because plaintiff's right not to be searched and arrested as a result of judicial deception was clearly established at the time one of the officers prepared and submitted her affidavit. Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment of the district court and remanded for trial.

Defendant entered a conditional guilty plea to one count of attempted entry after deportation in violation of 8 U.S.C. 1326(a) and (b). On appeal, defendant claimed that the Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA) precluded any meaningful judicial review of an expedited removal order, including review of a collateral challenge to such an order in a section 1326 action; under United States v. Mendoza-Lopez, some meaningful review of the order was constitutionally required before the order could be used as a predicate to a criminal proceeding; and therefore, because the statue precluded review, expedited removal orders could not be used as predicates in section 1326 prosecutions. The court held that defendant was entitled to judicial review of the predicate expedited removal orders underlying his section 1326 prosecution but failed to show any prejudice resulting from the alleged procedural flaws in the proceedings that resulted in those orders. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's motion to dismiss his indictment and the subsequent conviction and sentence.

Appellant appealed his conviction on various counts related to transporting and harboring illegal aliens. Appellant challenged the district court's decision to admit into evidence videotaped deposition testimony of detained material witnesses pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 3144. For the first time on appeal, defendant argued that the statute was facially invalid and that the court erred by permitting the government to admit the depositions into evidence at trial without any showing of a witness's unavailability. Appellant also argued that the magistrate judge failed to comply with the statue and that certain procedural requirements of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 15 and General Order 05-34 of the United States District Court for the District of Arizona were unmet. The court held that the bulk of appellant's claims were meritless. The court did agree that the district court plainly erred by permitting the government to introduce the now-contested depositions into evidence without a showing of unavailability. The court, however, declined to accord appellant any relief because the court was not persuaded that "the error seriously affect[ed] the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of [the] proceedings." Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's judgment of conviction.

Plaintiffs, a class of economically vulnerable Arizonians who receive public health care benefits through the state's Medicaid agency, sued the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (Secretary) and the Director of Arizona's medicaid agency (director)(collectively, defendants), alleging that the heightened mandatory co-payments violated Medicaid Act, 42 U.S.C. 1396a, cost sharing restrictions, that the waiver exceeded the Secretary's authority, and that the notices they received about the change in their health coverage was statutorily and constitutionally inadequate. The court affirmed the district court's conclusion that Medicaid cost sharing restrictions did not apply to plaintiffs and that Arizona's cost sharing did not violate the human participants statute. The court reversed the district court insofar as it determined that the Secretary's approval of Arizona's cost sharing satisfied the requirements of 42 U.S.C. 1315. The court remanded this claim with directions to vacate the Secretary's decision and remanded to the Secretary for further consideration. Finally, the court remanded plaintiffs' notice claims for further consideration in light of intervening events.

WPP Luxembourg Gamma Three Sarl (WPP) appealed from the district court's dismissal of the amended complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). Defendant and cross-appellants cross-appealed the district court's decision to dismiss some of WPP's claims without prejudice. WPP generally alleged violations of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U.S.C. 78(a), that amidst large operating losses unknown to investors, Spot Runner executives solicited WPP to buy shares in it at the same time that executives of the company were selling personally owned shares. The court affirmed the dismissal of the Rule 10b-5(a) and (c) fraudulent scheme against all of the defendants, the dismissal of the Rule 10b-5(b) fraudulent omissions claim against the general counsel for Spot Runner and Spot Runner, and the dismissal of the Rule 10b-5 insider trading claim against Spot Runner. The court reversed the dismissal of the Rule 10b-5(b) omission claims against the founders of Spot Runner.

Plaintiff appealed the district court's dismissal of her ERISA, 29 U.S.C. 1001 et seq., action against defendant as not timely filed. Plaintiff was employed by defendant as a stockbroker in 1979 and starting in 1982, plaintiff had been disabled periodically from her employment. Plaintiff applied for long-term disability benefits around January 15, 1987. The court held that plaintiff's claim did not accrue in 1990 with regard to the ERISA statute of limitations, as the district court found, but rather accrued when her claim was finally denied on January 14, 2004. Therefore, plaintiff's action, filed on February 16, 2006, commenced within the four-year statutory limitations period for ERISA claims. The court also held that the limitations provision in the policy here did not apply to disability cases in which the claimant contested the amount of benefits or claims that the benefits have been miscalculated. Accordingly, the court vacated the judgment of the district court and remanded for further proceedings.

This case arose from the IRS's investigation of a type of tax shelter known as a "Son-of-Boss" (a variant of the Bond and Options Sales Strategy (BOSS) shelter). Petitioner appealed the Tax Court's decision in favor of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue. The court held that the IRS properly sent petitioner an affected item notice of deficiency because the deficiency required a partner-level determination. The court also held that the Tax Court had jurisdiction to redetermine affected items based on the partnership item determinations in the Final Partnership Administrative Adjustment (FPAA). Therefore, the court affirmed the judgment of the Tax Court.

Defendants appealed from the district court's grant of a preliminary injunction against them in an action for copyright infringement by plaintiff. The district court found that plaintiff was likely to succeed in its infringement suit and granted the injunction relying on the long-standing precedent of this circuit that presumed irreparable harm in copyright infringement cases upon a showing of likelihood of success on the merits. The court held that, in light of eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C. and Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., this circuit's long-standing practice of presuming irreparable harm upon the showing of a likelihood of success on the merits in a copyright infringement case was no longer good law. Accordingly, the court held that even in a copyright infringement case, the plaintiff must demonstrate a likelihood of irreparable harm as a prerequisite for injunctive relief, whether preliminary or permanent. Accordingly, the court vacated the preliminary injunction and remanded for further proceedings.

While handcuffed in the back seat of a patrol car, Everardo Torres (Everardo) was mortally mounded when a Madera City Police Officer shot him in the chest with her Glock semiautomatic pistol, believing it at the time to be her Taser M26 stun gun. Everardo's family filed this survival action under 42 U.S.C. 1983, asserting excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment and subsequently appealed from an adverse grant of summary judgment. The court held that, while a jury might ultimately find that the officer's mistake of weapon to have been reasonable, it was inappropriate for the district court to reach this conclusion in the face of material facts in dispute. The court held that, at this stage in the proceeding, the officer had not shown an entitlement to qualified immunity and summary judgment was therefore improperly granted.