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

Petitioner, a native and citizen of Armenia, petitioned for review of the BIA's denial of her asylum application as time-barred. Petitioner claimed that her untimely application should be excused because she suffered from a mental illness that constituted an extraordinary circumstance pursuant to 8 U.S.C. 1158(a)(2)(D) and 8 C.F.R. 1208.4(a)(5). To the extent that petitioner challenged the merits of the BIA's extraordinary circumstances determination, the court dismissed the petition for lack of jurisdiction because the underlying facts were disputed. Further, the BIA did not err in its application of the regulations and therefore, the court rejected petitioner's claim to the contrary. Accordingly, the court dismissed in part and denied in part. View "Gasparyan v. Holder Jr." on Justia Law

The CDCR, in an effort to meet the religious exercise needs of prison inmates, maintained paid full-time and part-time chaplain positions of five faiths: Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Native American, and Protestant (the Policy). Plaintiffs claimed, under 42 U.S.C. 1983, that various entities and individuals violated their federal and state constitutional rights by refusing to hire a paid full-time Wiccan chaplain and by failing to apply neutral criteria in determining whether paid chaplaincy positions were necessary to meet the religious exercise needs of inmates adhering to religions outside the five faiths. Because plaintiffs sufficiently pleaded facts supporting a plausible claim under the Establishment Clause and the California State Constitution, the court reversed and remanded both claims to the district court for further proceedings. The court affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiffs' remaining claims. View "Hartmann, et al v. California Dept. of Corrections, et al" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs alleged that they purchased billions of dollars worth of mobile handsets containing defendants' LCD panels and that the prices they paid for those handsets were artificially inflated because defendants had orchestrated a global conspiracy to fix the prices of LCD panels. The district court certified to the court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1292(b) "the question whether the application of California antitrust law to claims against defendants based on purchases that occurred outside California would violate the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution." Because the underlying conduct in this case involved not just the indirect purchase of price-fixed goods, but also the conspiratorial conduct that led to the sale of those goods, the court answered in the negative. To the extent a defendant's conspiratorial conduct was sufficiently connected to California, and was not "slight and casual," the application of California law to that conduct was "neither arbitrary nor fundamentally unfair," and the application of California law did not violate that defendant's rights under the Due Process Clause. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's order dismissing plaintiffs' California law claims and remanded for further proceedings. View "AT&T Mobility LLC, et al v. AU Optronics Corp., et al" on Justia Law

Defendants pled guilty to one count of receipt of stolen mail and one count of mail theft. During the 2010 holiday season, defendants drove through neighborhoods on "Christmas shopping" trips in search of packages on porches, doorways, or in community mailboxes to steal. On appeal, defendants argued that the district court erred by including certain expenses the USPS incurred to avert future mail thefts as loss, for purposes of both sentencing and restitution. The court held that the district court was not clearly erroneous in concluding that the expense the USPS incurred was a reasonably foreseeable pecuniary harm resulting from defendants' actions. The USPS theft prevention measures were directed at defendants' ongoing crime spree that concluded after the USPS changed its delivery procedures. The court held, however, that the district court plainly erred in ordering restitution for the USPS's expenses where mail theft - not unlawful possession - caused the USPS to change its procedure. Accordingly, the court affirmed defendants' sentences but vacated that portion of the restitution order awarding restitution for the USPS's expenses. View "United States v. May" on Justia Law

This case stemmed from plaintiffs' complaint asserting state and federal causes of action against eight defendants. At issue on appeal was the district court's award of attorney's fees and costs to Plaintiff Joseph Padgett. The court vacated the district court's award of costs and attorney's fees because the district court provided no explanation of how it calculated them. The court remanded to the district court for an explanation of how it used the lodestar method to reduce Padgett's fees and how it calculated Padgett's reduced costs. For the same reason, the district court erred in failing to explain why it denied costs to the prevailing defendants. While the district court had discretion to depart from Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(d) in appropriate cases, the court could not review its unexplained order for abuse of discretion. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded. View "Padgett, et al v. Loventhal, et al" on Justia Law

Defendant plead guilty to aggravated identity theft and two other counts in connection with an ATM skimming scheme. On appeal, defendant argued that Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32 extended the district court's fact-finding responsibility to all matters controverted, no matter how they were presented, throughout the entire sentencing phase. The court held that Rule 32(i)(3)(B) required a district court to address only unresolved factual objections to the presentence report, and defendant failed to dispute any fact in the report. Similarly, when explaining a sentence, the district court need not address every assertion made within every argument advanced before the court during sentencing. The district court properly considered the presentence report and the parties' arguments and then adequately explained its reasonable and generous resolution imposing a below Guidelines sentence. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Petri" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the City and two of its police officers, in his 42 U.S.C. 1983 action. Plaintiff alleged, inter alia, that the police officers retaliated against him for exercising his First Amendment right to freedom of speech after he was cited for a noise violation. The court held that plaintiff had put forth facts sufficient to allege a violation of his clearly established First Amendment right to be free from police action motivated by retaliatory animus, even if probable cause existed for that action. Therefore, the officers were not entitled to qualified immunity and plaintiff's claims should proceed to trial. View "Ford v. City of Yakima, et al" on Justia Law

Good News appealed from the district court's determination on remand from the Ninth Circuit that the Town's ordinance restricting the size, duration, and location of temporary directional signs did not discriminate between different forms of noncommercial speech in an unconstitutional manner. In Reed v. Town of Gilbert, the court held that the ordinance was not a content-based regulation and was a reasonable time, place, and manner restriction. Accepting the court's opinion in Reed as law of the case, the court concluded that the Sign Code was constitutional because the different treatment of types of noncommercial temporary signs were not content-based as that term was defined in Reed, and the restrictions were tailored to serve significant government interests. Good News' other challenges did not merit relief. Further, the court determined that the amendments to the Sign Code made by the Town during the pendency of the appeal did not moot this case and that Good News could file a new action in the district court should it wish to challenge the new provisions of the Sign Code. View "Reed, et al v. Town of Gilbert, Arizona, et al" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, Filipino World War II veterans and their widows, contended that their Fifth Amendment rights to due process and equal protection were violated by a statute establishing the Filipino Veterans Equity Compensation Fund (FVEC) and by the VA's administration of it, resulting in their lack of payment. The district court dismissed the claims with prejudice on the pleadings for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and for failure to state a claim. The court held that the Veterans' Judicial Review Act, Pub. L. No. 100-687, div. A, 102 Stat. 4105, barred review of plaintiffs' due-process claim and the district court's dismissal of the claim was appropriate. Because plaintiffs' complaint did not challenge a new classification established by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Pub. L. No. 111-5, 1002(i), 123 Stat. at 202, and did not allege any plausible facts suggesting that the classification in 38 U.S.C. 107 was created for a discriminatory purpose, the court held that the district court did not err when it dismissed the equal-protection claim under Rule 12(b)(6). View "Recinto, et al v. The U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs, et al" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for being a felon in possession of ammunition in violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1). Defendant argued that the Supreme Court's decision in Flores-Figueroa v. United States effectively overruled United States v. Miller, where the court held that the Government did not need to prove that a defendant knew the firearm or ammunition had traveled in interstate commerce to obtain a conviction under section 922(g)(1). The court did not read Flores-Figueroa, which did not announce an "inflexible rule of construction," as affecting the court's interpretation of section 922(g)(1) and affirmed defendant's conviction. View "United States v. Stone" on Justia Law