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

Plaintiffs, two governmental organizations that provide legal representation to capital defendants and prisoners, filed suit raising numerous challenges to the Attorney General's regulations implementing the certification procedure for fast-tracking federal habeas cases for capital prisoners. On summary judgment, the district court sustained most of plaintiffs’ challenges, found the regulations arbitrary or capricious in several respects, and enjoined the regulations from going into effect. The court vacated and remanded with instructions to dismiss because plaintiffs did not have standing to bring this action. The court declined plaintiffs’ request for a limited remand to allow their clients an opportunity to intervene. The court stated that the Attorney General has not yet made any certification decisions, and, thus, challenges to the procedures and criteria set forth in the regulations are not yet ripe for review. View "Habeas Corpus Res. Ctr. v. USDOJ" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed a class action against Sheriff Arpaio, Maricopa County, and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO), alleging that defendants violated federal law by racially profiling Latino drivers and passengers and stopping them under the guise of enforcing federal and state immigration laws. The court issued an opinion mostly affirming the district court's decision to enter a permanent injunction enjoining Sheriff Arpaio and MCSO from conducting racially discriminatory traffic stops (Melendres II). The court also concluded that the MCSO had improperly been named as a party in the action and the court ordered that Maricopa County be substituted in place of MCSO. Maricopa County now appeals from four district court orders entered between December 2011 and April 2014, which are the same orders that Sheriff Arpaio and MCSO appealed from previously in Melendres II. The court concluded that the County failed to carry its burden of invoking the court's jurisdiction and the court dismissed the appeal because the County's notice of appeal was untimely filed under 28 U.S.C. 2107(a) and Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(1)(A). The court rejected the County's arguments to the contrary and dismissed the appeal. View "Melendres v. Maricopa Cnty." on Justia Law

This appeal stems from a dispute between Shell and Greenpeace over the search for oil in the Chukchi Sea. The parties now dispute the propriety of a preliminary injunction entered by the district court to protect Shell from certain more vigorous and more intrusive aspects of Greenpeace’s activism. The court did not reach any of Greenpeace's challenges to the injunction because the court concluded that the appeal is moot. Here, the preliminary injunction has expired and will not be renewed. Accordingly, the court dismissed the appeal and remanded for further proceedings. View "Shell Offshore Inc. v. Greenpeace" on Justia Law

Lien Claimants attempted to collect on valid judgments they hold against Iran for their injuries arising out of terrorism sponsored by Iran. Lien Claimants seek to attach a $2.8 million judgment that the Ministry obtained in an underlying arbitration with an American company, Cubic. The district court granted Lien Claimants’ motion to attach the Cubic Judgment. The court held that the United States does not violate its obligations under the Algiers Accords by permitting Lien Claimants to attach the Cubic Judgment. The court also held that the Cubic Judgment is a blocked asset pursuant to President Obama’s 2012 Executive Order No. 13359 subject to attachment and execution under the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA), 28 U.S.C. 1610 note. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "The Ministry of Defense v. Frym" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Jeffrey Sarver filed suit against defendants, contending that Will James, the main character in the Oscar-winning film "The Hurt Locker," is based on his life and experiences and that he did not consent to such use and that several scenes in the film falsely portray him in a way that has harmed his reputation. The district court dismissed all of Sarver’s claims. As a preliminary matter, the court concluded that it had little basis to conclude that New Jersey is Sarver's legal domicile at the time the film was released. Even assuming arguendo that New Jersey was Sarver’s domicile, the court concluded that California contacts predominate, and the Restatement (Second) of Conflicts section 145 factors weigh in favor of the application of California's anti-SLAPP law, Cal. Civ. Proc. Code 425.16. Under section 6 Second Restatement principles, California had the most significant relationship to this litigation, which was sufficient to overcome any presumption of Sarver's domicile. The court also concluded that defendants' anti-SLAPP motions were timely filed under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56. On the merits, the court concluded that the film and the narrative of its central character Will James speak directly to issues of a public nature, and Sarver has failed to state and substantiate a legally sufficient claim. The film is speech that is fully protected by the First Amendment, which safeguards the storytellers and artists who take the raw materials of life - including the stories of real individuals, ordinary or extraordinary - and transform them into art. Therefore, the district court did not err in granting defendants’ anti-SLAPP motions. Finally, the court concluded that Sarver’s false light invasion of privacy, defamation, breach of contract, intentional infliction of emotional distress, fraud, and constructive fraud/negligent misrepresentation claims were properly dismissed. The court affirmed the judgment. View "Sarver v. Chartier" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, front woman of the former band Missing Persons, filed suit as a third-party beneficiary claiming that recording companies improperly treated certain sales of Missing Persons's recordings as record sales rather than revenue from licensing. Plaintiff claimed that this resulted in paying the artists a lower royalty rate than the one provided for in their recording contracts. The district court dismissed the complaint. The court concluded that the district court erred by granting plaintiff’s motion to dismiss on the ground that Missing Persons, Inc. lacked capacity to sue. The court could not affirm the district court's judgment on the ground that plaintiff waived the benefits of the Missing Persons, Inc. contract. The court agreed with plaintiff that whether she forfeited the ability to sue as a third-party beneficiary is a fact-bound inquiry ill-suited to resolution at the motion to dismiss stage. On remand, a record can be developed that will allow consideration of plaintiff’s claim that she was an intended third-party beneficiary of the agreement. Further, because amendment may not have been futile, it was error to dismiss plaintiff's complaint with prejudice. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "Bozzio v. EMI Grp. Ltd." on Justia Law

The FDA opened an investigation and sent warning letters to 1-800-GET-THIN and a few surgery centers in California, stating that the FDA believed 1-800-GET-THIN’s LapBand advertising violated the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA), 21 U.S.C. 301 et seq., by not providing relevant risk information regarding the LapBand procedure. The district court subsequently granted the government’s ex parte motion to compel production of attorney-client documents. The court agreed with the Sixth Circuit and concluded that, while in camera review is not necessary to establish a prima facie case that the client was engaged in or planning a criminal or fraudulent scheme when it sought the advice of counsel to further the scheme, a district court must examine the individual documents themselves to determine that the specific attorney-client communications for which production is sought are sufficiently related to and were made in furtherance of the intended, or present, continuing illegality. Accordingly, the court vacated the order compelling production of all subpoenaed documents so the district court may examine the documents in camera to determine which specific documents contain communications in furtherance of the crime fraud exception to the attorney client privilege. View "United States v. Omidi" on Justia Law

CAS appealed the district court's denial of its motion to intervene and unseal documents filed in a putative class action between Chrysler and certain named plaintiffs. In this case, the district court found that the motion for preliminary injunction here was nondispositive, applied the good cause standard to the documents filed under seal, and concluded that good cause existed to keep them from the public’s view. The court held, however, that a party seeking to seal a judicial record bears the burden of overcoming a strong presumption by meeting the compelling reasons standards where a court may seal records only when it finds compelling reasons and articulates the factual basis for its ruling, without relying on hypothesis or conjecture. The court must then conscientiously balance the competing interests of the public and the party who seeks to keep certain judicial records secret. When deciding what test to apply, the court sometimes deployed the terms "dispositive" and "non-dispositive." Public access to filed motions and their attachments did not depend on whether the motion was technically “dispositive;” but rather, public access turned on whether the motion was more than tangentially related to the merits of the case. Because the preliminary injunction motion here was more than tangentially related to the merits of the case, the court vacated and remanded for the district court to consider the documents under the compelling reasons standard. View "The Center for Auto Safety v. Chrysler Group" on Justia Law

This appeal arose from a dispute over interests in mining claims originally owned by Guy Anderson and bequeathed to his six children upon his death. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing all defendants to be joined in a single partition action. In this case, the district court acted well within its discretion in concluding that a single partition action was the most expeditious way of resolving this dispute, and in allowing all defendants to be joined in that action. The court also concluded that the district court did not err when it granted summary judgment in favor of Cuprite and ordered partition by sale to Freeport; the district court properly concluded that partition by sale was more appropriate than partition in kind; and accepting the current offer or any better terms that could be had was a reasonable way for the district court to structure the partition sale, and does not violate any terms of the operative statute. Finally, the court concluded that, regardless of whether an Arizona state court would have been required to hold a trial, the district court correctly resolved the summary judgment motion according to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Cuprite Mine Partners v. Anderson" on Justia Law

PRO filed suit against QMC, alleging that QMC's adoption of a closed-facility model was a pretext to prevent PRO physicians from competing with QMC. PRO sought injunctive relief against QMC, arguing that QMC's review and use of patient records violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), 42 U.S.C. 1320d, and the Hawaii Constitution. The district court denied the injunction. In light of Devose v. Herrington, the court held that there must be a relationship between the injury claimed in the motion for injunctive relief and the conduct asserted in the underlying complaint. This requires a sufficient nexus between the claims raised in a motion for injunctive relief and the claims set forth in the underlying complaint itself. In this case, PRO’s motion for injunctive relief does not have a relationship or nexus to the underlying complaint. Therefore, the court concluded that the district court properly refused to grant the relief requested. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Pacific Radiation Oncology v. Queen's Med. Ctr." on Justia Law