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

Plaintiffs appealed from the district court's summary judgment in favor of defendants in an action alleging wrongful foreclosure and related claims that defendants had removed to federal court. Plaintiffs argued that under the "prior exclusive jurisdiction" doctrine, or under the Colorado River abstention doctrine, the district court should have remanded sua sponte. The court affirmed the district court's remand under the prior exclusive jurisdiction doctrine, explaining that the state court had continuing jurisdiction over the water-rights decree that was the basis of the contempt action at issue, and the action before the district court arose from enforcement of the same water-rights decree. Because plaintiffs have not shown that any state proceeding relating to their house was pending concurrently with federal proceedings, the Colorado River abstention was not implicated any more than the prior exclusive jurisdiction doctrine. View "Sexton v. NDEX West, LLC" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs sued Integrity on behalf of a putative class of workers, claiming violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 201 et seq., and Nevada labor laws. Plaintiffs alleged that Integrity violated federal and state labor laws by requiring them to pass through a security clearance at the end of each shift, for which they were not compensated. Plaintiffs also sought compensation for their entire 30-minute unpaid lunch periods because they spent up to 10 minutes of the meal period walking to and from the cafeteria and/or undergoing security clearances. The court agreed with the other circuits to consider the issue that the fact that Rule 23 class actions use an opt-out mechanism while FLSA collective actions use an opt-in mechanism did not create a conflict warranting dismissal of the state law claims. The court concluded that preliminary and postliminary activities were still compensable under the FLSA if they were integral and indispensable to an employee's principal activities. Because the court held that plaintiffs have stated a valid claim for relief under the FLSA for the time spent passing through security clearances, the court reversed the district court's dismissal of the parallel state law claim. The court agreed that plaintiffs failed to state a claim under the FLSA for their shortened lunch periods. The court remanded to the district court to consider plaintiffs' argument that Nevada defined "work" differently than federal law, such that plaintiffs' lunch periods might be compensable under state law even if they were not compensable under federal law. View "Busk, et al v. Integrity Staffing Solution" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed the district court's grant of KPMG's motion to intervene, and modifying a protective order so that a deposition transcript would be held in escrow rather than destroyed. This case stemmed from plaintiff's suit against Merrill Lynch and Thomas Mazzucco for their advice in connection with an initial public offering of Buy.com (the "federal action"). Plaintiff then sued KPMG (the "state action"), claiming that but for KPMG's advice he would have sold all his shares in Buy.com in 1998 for $400 million. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding KPMG's motion to intervene timely; in granting the motion to intervene where plaintiff failed to establish that KPMG's intervention to modify the protective order with regard to one document would result in prejudice; and in modifying the protective order to hold the transcript in escrow. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Blum v. Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner & Smith" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a Nicaraguan citizen, sought review of two decisions by the BIA: (1) a decision reversing an IJ's grant of withholding of removal pursuant to the Convention Against Torture (CAT), and (2) a decision affirming the IJ's finding that petitioner's conviction for lewd and lascivious acts with a child under the age of 14, in violation of California Penal Code 288(a), was a particularly serious crime, rendering him statutorily ineligible for withholding of removal. As a preliminary matter, the court concluded that petitioner's appeal from the denial of withholding of removal presented a live case or controversy. The court granted the petition for review of the BIA's determination that petitioner committed a particularly serious crime and remanded with instructions that the agency engage in a case-specific analysis in accordance with Matter of Frentescu to determine whether his conviction was a particularly serious crime. The court denied the petition for review of the BIA's denial of petitioner's claim for relief under the CAT because substantial evidence supported the BIA's finding that petitioner failed to establish a clear probability of torture. All pending motions in this case were denied. View "Blandino-Medina v. Holder, Jr." on Justia Law

Petitioner, a native and citizen of Mexico, petitioned for review of the BIA's decision finding him ineligible for cancellation of removal for failure to demonstrate good moral character. Petitioner challenged the constitutionality of 8 U.S.C. 1101(f)(7) on the ground that it violated the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause. Petitioner argued that section 1101(f)(7) presumed an individual to lack good moral character based solely on the length of time served in prison, rather than on the nature of the underlying criminal conduct. Given the wide variation in sentences imposed by different States for the same conduct, petitioner argued that section 1101(f)(7) allowed disparate treatment of similarly situated individuals. The court rejected petitioner's challenge, concluding that there were plausible reasons for Congress' action. Congress could rationally conclude that the expense and other difficulties of individual determinations justified the inherent imprecision of a prophylactic rule. The court also rejected petitioner's contention that section 1101(f)(7) violated equal protection principles because it relied on the period of incarceration generated by state sentencing regimes that were not uniform in operation. Accordingly, the court denied the petition. View "Romero-Ochoa v. Holder Jr." on Justia Law

These cases arose out of the energy crisis of 2000-2002. Plaintiffs, retail buyers of natural gas, alleged that defendants, natural gas traders, manipulated the price of natural gas by reporting false information to price indices published by trade publications and engaging in wash sales. The court held that the Natural Gas Act (NGA), 15 U.S.C. 717 et seq., did not preempt plaintiffs' state antitrust claims, and reversed the district court's order granting summary judgment to defendants. The 2003 enactment of FERC's Code of Conduct did not affect the court's conclusion that the NGA did not grant FERC jurisdiction over claims arising out of false price reporting and other anticompetitive behavior associated with nonjurisdictional sales. The court found that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the Heartland Plaintiffs' motion for leave to amend to add a treble damages state law claim and therefore affirmed the district court's order denying that motion. The court reversed the district court's order dismissing the AEP Defendants from the Wisconsin Arandell case for lack of personal jurisdiction. Because the court agreed with the district court's conclusion that the plain text of Wisconsin Statutes 133.14 allowed recovery only by plaintiffs who were direct purchasers under the voided contract, the court affirmed the district court's order granting partial summary judgment to DETM. View "In re: Western States Antitrust Litig." on Justia Law

Petitioner, a native of China, petitioned for review of the BIA's denial, on adverse credibility grounds, of his application for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). Petitioner claimed that he had been, and will be, persecuted because of his practice of Da Zang Gong, a teaching of Tibetan Buddhism. The court concluded that substantial evidence supported the IJ's adverse credibility determination and that the inconsistencies noted by the BIA were such that the court was not compelled to accept petitioner's story. Petitioner's inconsistent statements, his failure to explain why he did not seek to enter the United States during his two-year stay in Mexico, and his voluntary return to China from Mexico, provided an adequate basis for the adverse credibility finding. Accordingly, the court denied the petition. View "Cui v. Holder Jr." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a 42 U.S.C. 1983 action against defendants alleging that he was unlawfully arrested and searched in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Plaintiff was arrested for trespass under California Penal Code 602.8 because he was standing by himself inside a playground that was surrounded by a fence that had "No Trespassing" signs posted at every entrance. The court rejected defendants' argument that the grounds for custodial arrest specified in California Penal Code 853.6(i) applied not only to misdemeanors but also to infractions. Consistent with precedent, the statute's plain language, the rule against superfluity, and other persuasive authority, the court held that California Penal Code 853.5 provided the exclusive grounds for custodial arrest of a person arrested for an infraction. Therefore, the court vacated the judgment in favor of defendants on plaintiff's state law false arrest claim and remanded for further proceedings. If there are no further issues pertaining to liability on this claim, the district court should enter judgment in favor of plaintiff and proceed to a trial on damages. The court rejected plaintiff's remaining contentions. View "Edgerly v. City and County of San Francisco, et al" on Justia Law

In 2001, petitioner fell from a barge to a dry dock while working as a ship laborer. He then filed a workers' compensation claim under the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C. 901-950, for the injuries from his fall. In 2003, petitioner shot himself in the head, causing severe injuries. Petitioner also sought compensation for these injuries under the Act, alleging that his suicide attempt resulted from his 2001 fall and the litigation over that claim. The Benefits Review Board subsequently affirmed the ALJ's denial of benefits. The court held, however, that evidence that a claimant planned his suicide did not necessarily preclude compensation under the Act because the proper inquiry was whether the claimant's work-related injury caused him to attempt suicide. In this case, the ALJ erroneously applied the irresistible impulse test instead of the chain of causation test. Therefore, the court granted the petition for review and remanded for further proceedings. On remand, the question was whether there was a direct and unbroken chain of causation between petitioner's work-related injury and his suicide attempt. View "Kealoha v. Office of Workers Comp. Programs" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, former employees of brokerage firms, filed four class actions challenging California's forced-patronage statute, section 450(a) of the California Labor Code. At issue was whether federal securities law preempted the enforcement of California's forced-patronage statute against brokerage houses that forbid their employees from opening outside trading accounts. The court affirmed the judgment and concluded that the district court correctly determined that the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U.S.C. 78o(g), and related self-regulatory organizations (SROs) rules preempted plaintiffs' forced-patronage suits. View "McDaniel, et al v. Wells Fargo Investments, LLC, et al" on Justia Law