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

Plaintiff entered a conditional plea of guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and subsequently appealed his conviction. On appeal, defendant argued that the wiretap application, filed by Assistant District Attorney Dennis Christy (ADA Christy), was invalid. The court disagreed with defendant that the language "the principal prosecuting attorney" found in 18 U.S.C. 2516(2) could not and should not be read to include a state assistant district attorney. The court concluded that compliance with section 2516(2) necessarily required an analysis of the applicable state wire tap statute, here California Penal Code 659.50. The court also held that "the" attorney designated to act in the district attorney's absence specified in section 629.50 must be acting in the district attorney's absence not just as an assistant district attorney designated with the limited authority to apply for a wiretap order, but as an assistant district attorney duly designated to act for all purposes as the district attorney of the political subdivision in question. The court concluded that the record was insufficient for it to determine the precise nature of ADA Christy's authority at the time he applied for the disputed wiretap. Accordingly, the court remanded for further findings of fact. View "United States v. Perez-Valencia" on Justia Law

Plaintiff sought injunctive relief and damages against the Bank after it filed an unlawful detainer action against her in state court without giving 90 days notice to vacate the foreclosed property. At issue on appeal was whether the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act of 2009 (PTFA), Pub. L. No. 111-22, 701-04, 123 Stat. 1632, 1660-62, provided a private right of action. The court concluded that dismissal of the state unlawful detainer proceedings did not moot plaintiff's claim; the court agreed with the Third Circuit that the regulation of eviction proceedings "does not implicate an important state interest" under Younger v. Harris; but plaintiff had no cognizable interest under the PTFA. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the complaint. View "Logan v. U.S. Bank" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs brought a putative class action against Bresnan alleging violations of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. 2520-21, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. 1030, and Montana state law for invasion of privacy and trespass to chattels in connection with targeted advertising they received while using Bresnan's Internet service. The district court declined to enforce a choice-of-law clause in the service subscriber agreement, provided to all Bresnan customers, specifying that New York law should apply, and an arbitration clause. The court held that AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion further limited the savings clause in the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), 9 U.S.C. 1-2 et seq., and therefore, the court held that the FAA preempted Montana's reasonable expectations/fundamental rights rule and that the district court erred in not applying New York law because a state's preempted public policy was an impermissible basis on which to reject the parties' choice-of-law selection. Accordingly, the court vacated the district court's denial of Bresnan's motion to compel arbitration and remanded to the district court with instructions to apply New York law to the arbitration agreement. View "Mortensen, et al. v. Bresnan Communications, LLC" on Justia Law

This case arose from a dispute between the parties over who could claim certain longshore work handling cargo at the Port of Seward, Alaska. At issue on appeal was whether Section 303 of the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA), 29 U.S.C. 187, permitted an action challenging the union's conduct at the arbitration when plaintiff had admittedly failed to challenge the arbitration award itself in court under Section 301 of the LMRA. The court reversed the district court's dismissal for lack of statutory standing because nothing in section 303 precluded plaintiffs to first exhaust a petition to vacate the arbitration award before they could claim section 303's remedy. Nothing in section 303 barred an employer - whether primary or neutral - from seeking compensatory damages for a union's alleged unfair labor practice, even if that practice occurred during arbitration. View "American President Lines, Ltd. v. ILWU" on Justia Law

Defendants appealed the district court's order of restitution under Apprendi v. New Jersey. Defendants, movie industry veterans, were convicted of charges related to their payment to the governor of Thailand's Tourism Authority for various contracts to run the Bangkok International Film Festival. On appeal, defendants claimed that the district court violated Apprendi when it ordered them to pay restitution without a jury's finding that there was "an identifiable victim or victims" who suffered a "pecuniary loss," which was required to trigger restitution under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act (MVRA), 18 U.S.C. 3663A(c)(1)(B). The court concluded that Apprendi did not apply to restitution and that Southern Union Co. v. United States was not "clearly irreconcilable" with the court's holdings that restitution was "unaffected" by Apprendi. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's restitution orders. View "United States v. Green" on Justia Law

Plaintiff challenged the Department of Labor's new regulations providing that a labor certification expired after 180 days unless a visa application was filed or, in this case, 180 days after the regulation became final. Plaintiff alleged that enforcing the 180-day rule without providing actual notice constituted an impermissible retroactive rule. The court agreed with the district court that publication of the proposed and final rules in the Federal Register afforded adequate notice of the revision, and that the regulation was not impermissibly retroactive. Further, the text of the statute did not foreclose the establishment of an expiration date for labor certifications. Because the regulation did not have retroactive effect, plaintiff's labor certifications expired when it did not take timely action after the effective date of the new regulation. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for the government. View "Elim Church of God v. Harris" on Justia Law

Action Recycling moved to quash summonses from the IRS to produce records that Action Recycling had already produced for the IRS to review, arguing that the summonses for those records were issued in violation of the prohibition on summonses for information already in the possession of the IRS. The documents at issue were reviewed by an IRS agent who eventually left the IRS, the IRS then transferred the open investigation to another agent, and the new agent sought to further review the documents. The court held that an IRS Revenue Agent's review of records did not automatically give the IRS permanent possession of all of the information in those records and that a later summons for the same records was permissible under the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Powell. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's denial of the motion to quash. View "Action Recycling, Inc. v. United States" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against the Postal Service for breach of prior settlement agreements, as well as various other claims related to her employment at the Postal Service. The district court dismissed plaintiff's breach of contract claim for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, holding that the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. 1491(a)(1), granted the Court of Federal Claims exclusive jurisdiction to hear breach of contract claims against the Postal Service that put more than $10,000 in controversy. The district court also dismissed seven of plaintiff's claims for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because plaintiff had not complied with the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. 2675(a), and held that plaintiff's three remaining claims were barred by res judicata. The court concluded that, even assuming that the Tucker Act conferred jurisdiction on the Court of Federal Claims to hear claims against the Postal Service, the Postal Reorganization Act (PRA), 39 U.S.C. 401 and 409, also vested the district court with independent jurisdiction over such claims. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's determination that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction to hear plaintiff's breach of contract claim. Although the district court had subject matter jurisdiction to consider plaintiff's breach of contract claim, it did not err in dismissing it because she failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. None of her remaining claims were viable and, therefore, the court affirmed the dismissal of her complaint. View "Tritz v. U.S. Postal Service" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a native and citizen of Guatemala, petitioned for review of the BIA's denial of his application for special rule cancellation of removal under the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act (NACARA), Pub. L. No. 105-100, 111 Stat. 2160. The BIA determined that petitioner did not meet NACARA's definition of a child at the time that his father was granted relief, and that the Child Status Protection Act (CSPA), Pub. L. No. 107-208, 116 Stat. 927, did not apply to him. The court concluded that petitioner had not demonstrated that the CSPA applied to NACARA, or that failure of Congress to apply the CSPA to NACARA violated the equal protection component of due process. Therefore, the court denied the petition for review where petitioner was relegated to and bound by the multitude of other immigration provisions that Congress has adopted. View "Tista v. Holder Jr." on Justia Law

Defendant, the Bureau of Indian Affairs Superintendent at the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, was convicted of charges stemming from her involvement in a scheme to obtain money from a tribal credit program. The court reversed defendant's convictions on Counts I and II (conspiracy, theft and conversion of Indian Tribal Organization property) because the alleged object of the conspiracy - the loan modification - was not itself criminal and, therefore, there could be no conspiracy; affirmed defendant's conviction on Count III (bribery) where a rational jury could easily infer a quid pro quo from the facts; reversed defendant's conviction on Count IV (falsification, concealment, or covering up of a material fact) because the government did not show that defendant violated a specific duty to report Credit Program fraud; reversed defendant's conviction on Count V (public acts affecting a personal financial interest) because defendant's financial interest in this matter was insufficient under 18 U.S.C. 208(a); and affirmed defendant's conviction on Count VI (misprision of a felony) where a jury could conclude that payment of the loans at issue made the discovery of the fraud less likely and, therefore, that defendant took an affirmative step to conceal the felony. The court also concluded that there was no Fifth Amendment violation arising out of defendant's convictions on Count V and VI. Finally, the court remanded for resentencing where the district court erred in adjusting the sentence. View "United States v. White Eagle" on Justia Law