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

This appeal concerned the maintenance of a suit for rescission under section 10(b) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U.S.C. 78a et seq., by plaintiffs. The district court granted summary judgments to defendants on all claims and awarded defendants attorneys' fees. The court held that a plaintiff suing under section 10(b) seeking rescission must demonstrate economic loss and that the misrepresentation of fraudulent conduct caused the loss. In this case, the court found that the record revealed the rescission was not feasible. Yet employing a rescissionary measure of damages, plaintiffs could be able to convince the finder of fact that plaintiffs were entitled to relief. On that basis, the court reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment on plaintiffs' federal and state securities claims and remanded for consideration under rescissionary measure of damages. With respect to the statute of limitations issue, the court remanded for consideration in light of Merck & Co. The court affirmed the district court's judgment on plaintiffs' state law claims of common law fraud, negligent misrepresentation, mutual mistake, failure of a condition precedent, and unjust enrichment. The court vacated the district court's attorneys' fee award and dismissed the appeal of the award as moot.

Chevron, the franchisor, brought suit for declaratory judgment against one of its franchised dealers, M&M Petroleum Services, Inc. M&M responded with a counterclaim of its own, a counterclaim that was not only found to be frivolous, but the product of perjury and other misconduct. The court held that had M&M merely defended Chevron's suit, it could not have been held liable for attorneys' fees. The court held, however, that in affirmatively bringing a counterclaim that was reasonably found to be frivilous, M&M opened itself up to liability for attorneys' fees under the Petroleum Marketing Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. 2805(d)(3). Therefore, the district court did not err in determining that Chevron was eligible to recover attorneys' fees, nor did the district court abuse its discretion in determining that M&M's counterclaim was frivolous and awarding attorneys' fees to Chevron under section 2805(d)(3).

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.

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.

Plaintiffs filed 26 putative class actions against defendants, alleging that defendants knowingly failed to disclose the potential risk of noise-induced hearing loss associated with extended use of their wireless Bluetooth headsets at high volumes, in violation of state consumer fraud protection and unfair business practice laws. The subsequent settlement agreement provided the class $100,000 in cy pres awards and zero dollars for economic injury, while setting aside up to $800,000 for class counsel and $12,000 for the class representatives. William Brennan and other class members (Objectors) challenged the fairness and reasonableness of the settlement and appealed both the approval and fee orders, arguing that the district court abused its discretion in failing to consider whether the gross disproportion between the class award and the negotiated fee award was reasonable. The court agreed that the disparity between the value of the class recovery and class counsel's compensation raised at least an inference of unfairness, and that the current record did not adequately dispel the possibility that class counsel bargained away a benefit to the class in exchange for their own interests. Therefore, the court vacated both orders and remanded so that the district court could conduct a more searching inquiry into the fairness of the negotiated distribution of funds, as well as consider the substantive reasonableness of the attorneys' fee request in light of the degree of success attained.

This case arose when taxpayer transferred membership units in a family-owned LLC partly as a gift and partly by a sale to two trusts and coupled the transfers with simultaneous gifts of LLC units to two charitable foundations. Subsequent to an IRS audit, which determined that the units had been undervalued, the foundations discovered they would receive additional units. At issue was whether the taxpayer was entitled to a charitable deduction equal to the value of the additional units the foundations would receive. The court held that Treasury Regulation 25.2522(c)-3(b)(1) did not bar a charitable deduction equal to the value of the additional units the foundations would receive. Therefore, the court affirmed the judgment.

Plaintiffs claimed that defendants, owners and managers of a for-profit website called DMV.org, violated federal and state unfair competition and false advertising laws by actively fostering the belief that DMV.org was an official state DMV website, or was affiliated or endorsed by a state DMV. The district court held that defendants violated section 43(a) of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. 1125(a), but rejected plaintiffs' claim under California's unfair competition statute. The district court issued an injunction ordering DMV.org to present every site visitor with a splash screen bearing a disclaimer and denied monetary relief and an award of attorney's fees to plaintiffs. Both sides appealed. The court held that plaintiffs had established sufficient injury for Article III standing and that plaintiffs had met both prongs of the test in Jack Russell Terrier Network of Northern California v. American Kennel Club, Inc. for Lanham Act standing. The court held that the district court committed no error in holding that defendants violated the Lanham Act but remanded for the district court to reconsider the duration of the splash screen in light of any intervening changes in the website's content and marketing practices, as well as the dissipation of the deception resulting from past practices. The court held that the district court did not err in denying damages. The court held that because the district court erred in finding that defendants'c conduct was not exceptional and that plaintiffs had unclean hands, its denial of attorney's fees was an abuse of discretion. Therefore, the court remanded for the district court to consider the award of attorney's fees anew. The court held that the district court's findings that defendants were jointly and severally liable were not clearly erroneous. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by refusing to hold DMV.org in contempt for technical breaches of the injunction. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part and reversed in part, remanding with instructions.

Debtor filed a Chapter 11 Bankruptcy petition in 1998 and submitted a plan of reorganization ("Plan"), continuing to operate as a debtor-in-possession. Article X of the confirmed Plan provided for the discharge of all debts pursuant to which debtor was the "primary obligor." In 2007, the IRS contacted debtor's principal officers regarding potential assessment of a Trust Fund Recovery Penalty ("TFRP") pursuant to 26 U.S.C. 6672. At issue was whether the collection of a TFRP from the principal officers violated the express terms of Article X discharging such claims. The court affirmed the bankruptcy court's dismissal of the action for lack of jurisdiction where the relief sought by debtor would effectively preclude the IRS's collection of a section 6672 assessment and therefore, fell squarely within the reach of the Anti-Injunction Act, 26 U.S.C. 7421(a), and the court's holding in American Bicycle Ass'n v. United States. The court also held that, in light of the well-established principle that section 6672 liability was a separate and distinct liability, the court agreed with the bankruptcy court's alternative holding that, although a corporation could be the primary obligor on its own underlying tax obligation, it was not the primary obligor on the separate and distinct assessment under section 6672. Rather, the corporate officers were the primary obligors on the TFRP liabilities, as these liabilities were assessed independently under section 6672 for the officers' own willful conduct. Accordingly, the judgment of the bankruptcy court was affirmed.

The SEC brought suit against senior officers of Gateway Incorporated ("Gateway") claiming that they unlawfully misrepresented Gateway's financial condition in the third quarter of 2000 in order to meet financial analysts' earnings and revenue expectations. After a three week trial, a jury found former Gateway financial executives, John J. Todd and Robert D. Manza, liable on all claims by the SEC. All parties appealed the district court's order in part. The court reversed the district court's order granting in part Todd's and Manza's motions for judgment as a matter of law on the antifraud claims under the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U.S.C. 78a et seq., because substantial evidence supported the jury's verdict that Todd and Manza at least recklessly misrepresented revenue related to the Lockheed transaction, and that Todd recklessly misrepresented revenue as to the VenServ transaction, in the third quarter of 2000. The court also reversed the district court's order granting Jeffrey Weitzen's, former Gateway President and CEO, motion for summary judgment as to the Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 violations because there were genuine issues of material fact regarding whether Weitzen knowingly misrepresented Gateway's financial growth as "accelerated" given his knowledge of the unusual Lockheed and AOL transactions. There were also issues of material fact as to whether Weitzen was a "control person" under Section 20(a). The court affirmed Weitzen's motion for summary judgment as to the Rule 13b2-2 claim because there was no evidence that Weitzen signed a letter to Gateway's auditors knowing that it misrepresented Gateway's financial position. The court also affirmed the district court's order denying in part Todd's and Manza's motions for judgment as a matter of law on the aiding and abetting claims and their motions for a new trial.

Plaintiffs, working as auditors in The Boeing Company's ("Boeing") IT Sarbanes-Oxley ("SOX") Audit group, filed SOX whistleblower complaints under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, U.S.C. 1514(a)(1), with the Occupation Safety and Health Administration after they were terminated by Boeing when they spoke with a reporter from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ("Post-Intelligencer") about Boeing's compliance with SOX. At issue was whether plaintiffs' disclosures to the Post-Intelligencer were protected under section 1514(a)(1), which protected employees of publicly-traded companies who disclose certain types of information. The court held that section 1514(a)(1) did not protect employees of publicly-held companies from retaliation when they disclosed information regarding designated types of fraud or securities violations to members of the media.