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

This case was brought by the plaintiffs-appellants, David Cassirer, the Estate of Ava Cassirer, and the United Jewish Federation of San Diego County, against the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation, an instrumentality of the Kingdom of Spain. The case centers around a painting by French Impressionist Camille Pissarro, which was stolen by the Nazis in 1939 Germany. The painting eventually came into the possession of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, which has publicly displayed it in Madrid, Spain since 1993. When the plaintiffs learned of the painting's location in 2000, they petitioned for its return, but were denied, leading to the present lawsuit filed in 2005.The case hinged on whether Spanish or California law should govern the determination of ownership of the painting. Under Spanish law, the defendant would retain the painting, having gained prescriptive title through possession for over three years in good faith. Under California law, the plaintiffs would recover the painting, as a thief cannot pass good title to stolen property.The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, on remand from the United States Supreme Court, applied California’s three-step “governmental interest analysis” for choice-of-law disputes. The court found that there was a true conflict between the laws of Spain and California, and that each jurisdiction had a legitimate interest in applying its laws to the case. The court then resolved the conflict by applying the law of the jurisdiction whose governmental interests would be more impaired if its law were not applied. The court concluded that Spain’s governmental interests would be more impaired by the application of California law than would California’s governmental interests be impaired by the application of Spanish law. Thus, Spanish law applied, and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection had gained prescriptive title to the painting. The court affirmed the district court’s judgment in favor of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection. View "CASSIRER V. THYSSEN-BORNEMISZA COLLECTION" on Justia Law

The case concerned a lawsuit brought by Ariana Miles against her former employer, Kirkland's Stores Inc., alleging that two of the company's employee policies violated California law. The first policy required employees to take rest breaks on store property, while the second necessitated employees to undergo bag checks when they finished their shifts. Miles sought class certification for subclasses of employees affected by these two policies from May 2014 to the present. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of class certification for subclasses related to the Rest Break Claim due to the inaccuracy of the district court's finding that the rest break policy was inconsistently applied. The court held that overwhelming record evidence indicated that the company consistently enforced its rest break policy across all employees. However, the court upheld the district court's denial of class certification for the Bag Check Claim, as the evidence suggested that the bag check policy was sporadically enforced, which would require individualized inquiries. The case was thus remanded for further proceedings concerning the Rest Break Claim. View "MILES V. KIRKLAND'S STORES, INC." on Justia Law

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the decision of the District Court, which denied attorneys' fees and nontaxable costs under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) to the defendants-appellants, Brian Bowers, Dexter Kubota, and Bowers + Kubota Consulting, Inc. The Department of Labor had alleged that the defendants sold their company to an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) at an inflated value. The government's case relied on a single valuation expert, whose opinion was ultimately rejected by the District Court, resulting in the government losing the case. Nonetheless, the District Court found that the government's litigation position was "substantially justified." On appeal, the Ninth Circuit held that the District Court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that the government's position at trial was substantially justified, and thus, in denying attorneys' fees and nontaxable costs under EAJA. The Court also held that the District Court abused its discretion in reducing the award of taxable costs, as it was based on a clearly erroneous finding of fact. Therefore, the case was remanded for reconsideration of the award of taxable costs. View "SU V. BOWERS" on Justia Law

The plaintiff, a survivor of childhood sex trafficking, filed a class action suit against a group of foreign and domestic corporations, alleging that they violated federal and California laws by distributing videos of her sexual abuse on the internet. The defendants included the owners and operators of two pornography websites based in the Czech Republic. The plaintiff argued that the court had personal jurisdiction over the foreign defendants under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(k)(2), which allows for jurisdiction over a foreign defendant if the claim arises under federal law, the defendant is not subject to jurisdiction in any state's courts, and exercising jurisdiction is consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws. The district court dismissed the case, ruling that it lacked personal jurisdiction over the foreign defendants.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed in part and vacated in part the district court's dismissal. The court found that the plaintiff had established a prima facie case that the Czech website operators had purposefully directed their websites at the United States. The court also held that the plaintiff's claims arose from the defendants' forum-related activities, and that the defendants failed to show that the exercise of personal jurisdiction would be unreasonable. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's dismissal of the action against the Czech defendants for lack of personal jurisdiction.The court also vacated the district court's dismissal of nine additional foreign defendants. The district court had dismissed these defendants solely on the grounds that there was no personal jurisdiction over the Czech defendants. The appellate court instructed the district court to address on remand whether personal jurisdiction could be asserted against these additional defendants. View "DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S." on Justia Law

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit heard the case of Ashley Rodriguez, a transgender woman who is a native and citizen of Mexico. The court reviewed the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) that denied her motion to remand her removal proceedings to the Immigration Judge (IJ) for the consideration of her application for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT).The court found that the BIA abused its discretion by failing to adequately address Rodriguez’s arguments in support of her motion to remand. Rodriguez had argued that she had good cause for missing the filing deadline for her application for asylum and other relief due to her homelessness and inability to access her personal documents during the relevant period. Her medical conditions and criminal history, which were relevant to her asylum application, were also unavailable for the same reasons.The court held that the BIA should have considered whether Rodriguez’s evidence was material and not reasonably available to her at the time of the final filing deadline. The court also held that the BIA had failed to properly evaluate whether Rodriguez had established good cause for missing the filing deadline.Thus, the court granted Rodriguez’s petition for review and remanded the case to the BIA to properly consider the merits of her motion. View "ALCAREZ-RODRIGUEZ V. GARLAND" on Justia Law

In a class action lawsuit, plaintiffs accused Eden Creamery, LLC of underfilling its pints of Halo Top ice cream. After the discovery period, the plaintiffs attempted to amend their complaint to include a new theory of liability (fraud by omission) and a new defendant (Wells Enterprises). The district court denied this motion, stating that plaintiffs failed to show good cause for amending their complaint. The plaintiffs then moved to voluntarily dismiss their claims without prejudice, which the district court also denied, instead dismissing the individual claims with prejudice and the class claims without prejudice.On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion to amend the complaint, as the plaintiffs failed to show good cause for amending after the deadline to do so had passed. However, the court found that the district court had abused its discretion by denying the plaintiffs' motion for voluntary dismissal without prejudice, as the defendants did not demonstrate that they would suffer legal prejudice if the case were dismissed without prejudice. The court held that a defendant must show legal prejudice to prevent a dismissal without prejudice. Uncertainty from unresolved disputes or inconvenience of defending another lawsuit does not constitute legal prejudice. The case was remanded with instructions to dismiss the action without prejudice, and the district court was instructed to consider whether any conditions should be imposed on the dismissal, such as an appropriate amount of costs and fees. View "KAMAL V. EDEN CREAMERY, LLC" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a district court's approval of a class action settlement between Tinder and Lisa Kim, a user of the dating app, ruling that Kim was not an adequate class representative. This class action lawsuit against Tinder was over its former age-based pricing model. Kim had agreed to arbitration, unlike over 7,000 potential members of the class, creating a fundamental conflict of interest that violated Rule 23(a)(4). The court found that Kim had a strong interest in settling her claim as she had no chance of going to trial, unlike the other members. The court also noted that Kim failed to vigorously litigate the case on behalf of the class, with her approach to opposing Tinder’s motion to compel arbitration not suggesting vigor. The court remanded the case for consideration of Kim's individual action against Tinder. View "KIM V. TINDER, INC." on Justia Law

Petitioner is a native and citizen of Mexico. He was admitted to the United States as a lawful permanent resident in 2002. But in 2019, a jury convicted him of possessing methamphetamine, a controlled substance, with intent to deliver, in violation of Idaho Code section 37-2732(a)(1)(A). The Department of Homeland Security initiated removal proceedings in 2021, charging that Petitioner is removable (1) under 8 U.S.C. Section 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii), for having been convicted of an aggravated felony related to illicit trafficking in a controlled substance, and (2) under 8 U.S.C. Section 1227(a)(2)(B)(i), for having been convicted of violating a state law relating to a controlled substance. Petitioner filed a motion to terminate proceedings, asserting that his conviction is neither for an aggravated felony nor for a crime related to a controlled substance. The immigration judge disagreed and ordered Petitioner’s removal. The Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) dismissed Petitioner’s appeal. Petitioner sought review of the final order of removal.   The Ninth Circuit denied Petitioner’s petition. Applying the modified categorical approach, the panel concluded that Petitioner’s conviction record clearly documents that his conviction involved methamphetamine, a controlled substance under federal and Idaho law. The panel next concluded that the required mental state under federal and Idaho law—knowledge—is the same in all relevant respects: the defendant either must know what the substance is (even if the defendant does not know that it is controlled) or must know that the substance is illegal (even if the defendant does not know what the substance is). View "TELLEZ-RAMIREZ V. GARLAND" on Justia Law

Plaintiff is a resident of California. While present in California, Plaintiff used his iPhone’s Safari browser to navigate to the website of California-based retailer IABMFG to purchase fitness apparel. Although Plaintiff claims he did not know it at the time, IABMFG’s website used software and code from Shopify, Inc. to process customer orders and payments. Shopify, Inc. is a Canadian corporation with its headquarters in Ottawa, Canada. Plaintiff filed a putative class action lawsuit in California alleging that Shopify violated various California privacy and unfair competition laws because it deliberately concealed its involvement in consumer transactions. The district court agreed, dismissing the second amended complaint without leave to amend. Plaintiff timely appealed.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed. For specific jurisdiction to exist over Shopify, Plaintiff’s claim must arise out of or relate to Shopify’s forum-related activities. The panel held that there was no causal relationship between Shopify’s broader business contacts in California and Plaintiff’s claims because these contacts did not cause Plaintiff’s harm. Nor did Plaintiff’s claims “relate to” Shopify’s broader business activities in California outside of its extraction and retention of plaintiff’s data. Because there was an insufficient relationship between plaintiff's claims and Shopify’s broader business contacts in California, the activities relevant to the specific jurisdiction analysis were those that caused Plaintiff’s injuries: Shopify’s collection, retention, and use of consumer data obtained from persons who made online purchases while in California. The panel held that Shopify, which provides nationwide web-based payment processing services to online merchants, did not expressly aim its conduct toward California. View "BRANDON BRISKIN V. SHOPIFY, INC., ET AL" on Justia Law

Plaintiff and other tenants filed suit against the Duringer Law Group, PLC, and Stephen C. Duringer, alleging that Duringer violated the Act by filing a memorandum of costs in state court proceedings concerning an unlawful-detainer judgment. The district court concluded that Tenants’ federal suit constituted an improper appeal of a state-court judgment and thus was barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine.   The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s summary judgment. The court explained that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine provides that, by vesting jurisdiction over state-court appeals in the U.S. Supreme Court, 28 U.S.C. Section 1257 precludes a federal district court from exercising subject-matter jurisdiction in an action asking the court to overturn an injurious state-court judgment. The panel held that the doctrine is limited to cases (1) brought by state-court losers (2) complaining of injuries caused by state-court judgments (3) rendered before the district court proceedings commenced and (4) inviting district court review and rejection of those judgments. The panel concluded that the tenants’ action did not challenge a memorandum of costs on which the state court already had rendered judgment, but rather a later memorandum. Because there was no relevant state-court judgment purporting to adjudicate the validity of the costs in the later memorandum, Rooker-Feldman did not apply. View "JANEY BROWN, ET AL V. DURINGER LAW GROUP PLC, ET AL" on Justia Law