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

After plaintiff purchased a background check and report from Intelius on the Internet, plaintiff discovered that Adaptive, a separate company from Intelius, had been charging his credit card each month for a Family Safety Report. Plaintiff and others filed suit against Intelius in state court. Intelius then filed a third-party complaint against Adaptive. Adaptive filed a motion to compel arbitration of both Intelius's and plaintiff's claims. The court held that plaintiff did not enter into a contract with Adaptive to purchase the Family Safety Report, and did not enter into a contract with Adaptive to arbitrate. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's denial of the motion to compel. The court remanded for further proceedings. View "Lee v. Intelius Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a class action complaint against JEM, a "back-end" debt-relief company, and others, alleging breach of fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment, aiding and abetting, civil conspiracy, and breach of Washington consumer protection statutes. On appeal, JEM appealed from the district court's denial of its motion to compel arbitration. The court concluded that the district court correctly decided that it, rather than an arbitrator, should decide whether the arbitration clause in the attorney retainer agreement was unconscionable. The court also concluded that the district court properly decided, using non-preempted Washington law, that the arbitration clause was unenforceable. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Smith v. JEM Group, Inc." on Justia Law

The City appealed the district court's determination that the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-104, 110 Stat. 56, preempted its decision to require T-Mobile to obtain voter approval before constructing mobile telephone antennae on city-owned park property. T-Mobile cross-appealed the denial of permanent injunctive relief. The court concluded that section 332(c)(7)(A) of the Act has the following preemptive scope: (1) it preempts local land use authorities' regulations if they violate the requirements of section 332(c)(7)(B)(i) and (iv); and (2) it preempts local land use authorities' adjudicative decisions if the procedures for making such decisions do not meet the minimum requirements of section 332(c)(7)(B)(ii) and (iii). In this case, the voter-approval requirement imposed by Measure C was outside the City's framework for land use decision making because it did not implicate the regulatory and administrative structure established by the City's general plans and zoning and subdivision code. Therefore, the court concluded that it was not preempted and reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Omnipoint v. City of Huntington Beach" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against her employer, the Secretary of the Army, alleging that certain adverse employment actions resulted from discrimination. Plaintiff had filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection but failed to list the action as an asset on her bankruptcy schedule. The district court held that no evidence suggested that plaintiff's original omission had been inadvertent or mistaken and that, weighing factors set forth in New Hampshire v. Maine, judicial estoppel barred the action. Plaintiff appealed. The court affirmed, concluding that this case was distinguishable from the court's holding in Ah Quin v. County of Kauai Department of Transportation, where plaintiff here filed false bankruptcy schedules and did not amend those schedules until defendant filed a motion to dismiss, suggesting that her omission had not been inadvertent. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in its analysis under the New Hampshire factors. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Dzakula v. McHugh" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to one count of receiving child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2252A(a)(2). On appeal, defendant argued that his act of "showing" child pornography did not qualify as "distribution" under the sentencing guidelines. The court declined to address this argument, concluding that defendant's act of permitting the child victim to print copies of child pornography stored on his computer independently qualified as "distribution." The court also concluded that penile plethysmograph testing was not warranted given the lack of requisite findings by the district court. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Roybal" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation seeking to recover a masterpiece French impressionist painting by Camille Pissarro that was allegedly taken from their ancestors by the Nazi regime. On appeal, plaintiffs challenged the district court's grant of the Foundation's motion to dismiss the complaint without leave to amend. Amended California Code of Civil Procedure 338(c)(3) provides for a six-year statute of limitations period for the recovery of fine art against a museum, gallery, auctioneer, or dealer. The court found that the district court erred in concluding that section 338 intruded on foreign affairs and concluded that the district court erred in striking section 338 down as unconstitutional on the basis of field preemption. The court concluded that the district court correctly held that the Foundation's due process challenge could not be resolved on the Foundation's motion to dismiss. The court further concluded that the Foundation failed to demonstrate that section 338(c)(3) burdened its rights to free speech and, therefore, section 338(c)(3) did not violate the Foundation's First Amendment rights. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection" on Justia Law

Defendants appealed their convictions for various criminal tax offenses arising from their use of gold and silver coins to pay wages and thus avoid the reporting of payroll and income taxes. The court affirmed the district court's denial of Defendant Kahre's motion to suppress evidence seized from the properties at issue; the court held that the district court correctly determined that gold and silver coins used to pay wages were properly assessed at their fair market value and that defendants had sufficient notice that their conduct was illegal under the tax laws; the district court properly denied defendants' motion to disqualify the prosecutor because defendants failed to present clear and convincing evidence of an impermissible conflict of interest or of prejudice; the court rejected defendants' evidentiary arguments; defendants were not entitled to a new trial based on the district court's comments or conduct; and Kahre's below-guidelines sentence imposed for the extensive illegal payroll scheme with its associated tax loss, was comparable to sentences for similar crimes, and was reasonable. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Kahre" on Justia Law

UPS appealed the district court's award of attorney fees to plaintiff. At issue was whether the district court abused its discretion in awarding plaintiff $697,971.80 where the jury awarded her only $27,280 after finding that UPS had discriminated against her on the basis of her gender. The court affirmed in part and vacated in part, remanding to the district court to reconsider an award of fees for paralegal work on behalf of plaintiff and to determine, in the first instance, whether any hearsay exception applied to the paralegal's declaration regarding fees for paralegal work in this case, and to determine an award to plaintiff for reasonable attorney fees and costs incurred in defending this appeal. View "Muniz v. UPS" on Justia Law

The Tribes filed suit in Tribal Court against plaintiff and his builders alleging that they violated the Tribes' land use policies by building a residence on Tribal land. Plaintiff filed suit in federal court against the Tribes seeking a declaration that the tribal court lacked jurisdiction and an injunction barring further tribal court proceedings against him. The Tribes moved to dismiss, arguing that plaintiff was required to exhaust tribal remedies before bringing suit in federal court. The district court granted the Tribes' motion to dismiss and denied plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction. Because plaintiff was an owner of non-Indian fee land, the Tribes' efforts to regulate him were "presumptively invalid." The Tribes failed to show that at least one of two limited exceptions described in Montana v. United States applied. Because the Tribes plainly lacked the authority to regulate plaintiff's construction of a single-family house on on-Indian fee land, the district court erred in concluding that exhaustion was required. Therefore, the court reversed the judgment of the district court and remanded for further proceedings. View "Evans v. Shoshone-Bannock LUPC" on Justia Law

Petronas is a major oil and gas company located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and GoDaddy is the world's largest domain name registrar. After a third party registered the domain names "petronastower.net" and "petronastowers.net" and then used GoDaddy's domain name forwarding service to direct the disputed domain names to an adult entertainment web site, Petronas filed suit against GoDaddy alleging contributory cybersquatting under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, 15 U.S.C. 1125(d). The district court granted summary judgment in favor of GoDaddy. The court affirmed, holding that the Act did not include a cause of action for contributory cybersquatting because: (1) the plain text of the Act did not apply to the conduct that would be actionable under such a theory; (2) Congress did not intend to implicitly include common law doctrines applicable to trademark infringement because the Act created a new cause of action that was distinct from traditional trademark remedies; and (3) allowing suits against registrars for contributory cybersquatting would not advance the goals of the statute. View "Petronas v. GoDaddy.com" on Justia Law