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

The Ninth Circuit denied petitioner's application for permission to file a second or successive petition as unnecessary and transferred the matter to the district court with instructions to treat petitioner's habeas petition as a first petition. The panel held that the current habeas petition did not attempt to challenge petitioner's underlying conviction. Rather, petitioner sought only to challenge a new and intervening judgment denying him relief with respect to his sentence. The panel also held that cognizability plays no role in the panel's adjudication of such an application, and that it was the province of the district court to consider cognizability of a habeas petition. View "Clayton v. Biter" on Justia Law

Contest Promotions filed suit challenging San Francisco's billboard prohibition, arguing that the distinction between commercial and noncommercial signs violates the First Amendment. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of the complaint, holding that the distinction drawn between commercial and noncommercial signs in Article 6 of the Planning Code survives intermediate scrutiny under Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission, 447 U.S. 557 (1980). In this case, the distinctions directly advanced San Francisco's substantial interests in safety and aesthetics, and Article 6 was not constitutionally underinclusive. View "Contest Promotions, LLC v. City and County of San Francisco" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for Hilton on plaintiff's age discrimination claims. Plaintiff was 60 years old when he was terminated from his position as part of a reduction-in-workforce (RIF) in 2012. Applying the McDonnell Douglass test, the panel held that plaintiff satisfied the elements for establishing a prima facie case of discrimination; Hilton produced evidence showing that it acted for a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason; and plaintiff failed to introduce sufficient evidence to raise a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the reasons Hilton articulated were pretexts for age discrimination. The panel considered the context of this case, including Hilton's lost profits during the economic downturn, a series of layoffs, the overall age of the workforce, the fact that plaintiff survived previous RIFs, and the business reasons for selecting his position for elimination. Consequently, plaintiff's remaining claims also failed. View "Merrick v. Hilton Worldwide, Inc." on Justia Law

A plaintiff may rely on the "deterrent effect doctrine" to establish constitutional standing under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq., where she lacks firsthand knowledge that an establishment is not in ADA compliance. A plaintiff has constitutional standing where her only motivation for visiting a facility is to test it for ADA compliance. The Ninth Circuit held that, although plaintiffs in this case have standing to maintain their ADA suit, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying class certification because plaintiffs failed to meet the commonality requirement in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23. View "Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center v. Hospitality Properties Trust" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the denial of habeas relief to petitioner, who was convicted of two murders and sentenced to death. The panel held, after supplemental briefing regarding the impact of McKinney v. Ryan, 813 F.3d 798 (9th Cir. 2015) (en banc), that neither the Arizona Supreme Court nor the trial court applied an impermissible causal-nexus test to exclude mitigating evidence. In this case, both courts considered all of petitioner's evidence offered in mitigation and found it insufficient to outweigh the serious aggravating factors. Therefore, there was no violation of clearly established federal law. View "Greenway v. Ryan" on Justia Law

The discovery rule applies to a judicial deception claim. If a diligent plaintiff has pursued the underlying affidavit without success, accrual need not begin at the time of the search. Plaintiff filed suit against defendants for investigating him in connection with his wife's death, claiming that the search warrants for his home and computer were obtained through judicial deception. The Ninth Circuit held there was no question that plaintiff diligently pursued the facts underlying his judicial deception claim. Therefore, his claim for judicial deception was timely. Accordingly, the panel affirmed in part and reversed in part. View "Klein v. City of Beverly Hills" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed on different grounds the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's putative class action against Maricopa County defendants. The panel held that plaintiff lacked Article III standing to seek injunctive or declaratory relief on behalf of herself or a putative class, but that she has standing to pursue individual damages; Ariz. Rev. Stat. 13-3010(A), as applied by Maricopa County officials, was preempted by Title III, and that plaintiff's rights under 18 U.S.C. 2516(2) were violated because applications for wiretaps were not made by the "principal prosecuting attorney;" section 13-3010(H) was not preempted by Title III if it was construed to require that recordings of intercepted conversations be submitted to a court for sealing within ten days of the termination of the court's order authorizing a wiretap on each particular target line; plaintiff's rights under 18 U.S.C. 2518(8)(a) were violated because the recordings of her intercepted conversations were submitted for sealing more than a month after the termination of the order authorizing the wiretap on the target line on which her conversations were intercepted; and the law enforcement officials who violated sections 2516(2) and 2518(8)(a) were acting in good faith within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. 2520(d), and they were protected from a damage judgment. View "Villa v. Maricopa County" on Justia Law

In this case, the Ninth Circuit withdrew its previous opinion, denied as moot a petition for rehearing and petition for rehearing en banc; and filed a superseding opinion.Petitioner appealed the district court's denial of all but one of the claims raised in his petition for writ of habeas corpus and the state cross-appealed the district court's grant of relief on petitioner's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel at the penalty phase of his capital murder trial. The panel dismissed as unripe the claim the district court certified for appeal, and denied petitioner's motion to expand the certificate of appealability to include uncertified claims. The panel reversed the district court's grant of relief on the ineffective assistance of counsel claim because, under 28 U.S.C. 2254(d)(1), the California Supreme Court did not unreasonably apply Supreme Court precedent in concluding that petitioner was not prejudiced by any deficient performance by his counsel. View "Andrews v. Davis" on Justia Law

After plaintiff was raped by a co-worker at the Idaho Department of Corrections (IDOC), she filed suit against the IDOC and others. The Ninth Circuit vacated summary judgment in favor of defendants on plaintiff's Title VII hostile work environment claim. The panel held that, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to plaintiff, a reasonable trier of fact could find that the IDOC's actions were sufficiently severe or pervasive to create a hostile work environment. The panel noted that if the jury finds that the IDOC supervisors created a hostile work environment, the IDOC would also be liable. View "Fuller v. Idaho Department of Corrections" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit alleging that Deputy Doug Lieurance's issuance of a misdemeanor citation to plaintiff for obstructing a buffalo herding operation violated plaintiff's constitutional rights. The Ninth Circuit held that defendants were not entitled to summary judgment on the unlawful seizure claim because the panel could not conclude as a matter of law that a reasonably prudent officer in the deputy's situation would have had probable cause to believe plaintiff committed obstruction and the district court improperly weighed evidence favorable to plaintiff against other evidence presented, failing to draw all inferences in plaintiff's favor; the district court did not first provide plaintiff notice and an opportunity to respond before dismissing the failure-to-train claim for failure to satisfy Rule 12(b)(6); the district court abused its discretion by excluding the entirety of plaintiff's police practices expert's testimony; the district court committed reversible procedural error in granting judgment as a matter of law on plaintiff's First Amendment and related state claims without first providing him notice of the grounds for the decision; the district court improperly resolved numerous factual disputes reserved for the jury; and the panel lacked jurisdiction to review the district court's denial without prejudice of defendants' attorney fees motion. Accordingly, the court dismissed in part, reversed in part, and remanded. View "Reed v. Lieurance" on Justia Law