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

Plaintiffs and numerous non-profit organizations filed a class-action suit challenging one aspect of the LASC's consolidation plan: the consolidation of unlawful detainer (tenant eviction) actions into hub courts. The court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the suit on federal abstention grounds under O'Shea v. Littleton. In this case, plaintiffs seek precisely the sort of “heavy federal interference in such sensitive state activities as administration of the judicial system” that Younger v. Harris and O’Shea sought to prevent. View "Miles v. Wesley" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against San Jose police officers and others after the officers took the children into protective custody without a warrant or court order. On appeal, plaintiffs challenged the district court's grant of a new trial on compensatory and punitive damages. The court concluded that the district court did not err by concluding that a new trial was warranted. The jury instructions in the first trial may have permitted the jury to improperly award damages for deprivations for which defendants were not responsible. The court also concluded that the district court permissibly concluded that the jury awarded compensatory damages for emotional distress from the separation that was not caused by the police officers; the district court could likewise infer that the jury improperly punished the officers for that same separation. Because one of the factors used to examine the excessiveness of a punitive damages award is the amount of compensatory damages awarded, the district court did not abuse its discretion by concluding that a flawed compensatory damages award justified a retrial for punitive damages. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Watson v. City of San Jose" on Justia Law

The Park, a mobile home park, filed suit against the City, challenging Ordinance 644, asserting claims for, among other things, violations of the Takings, Due Process, and Equal Protection Clauses of the United States Constitution. Ordinance 644's purpose is to “stabilize mobile home park space rents” to, among other things, “[p]revent exploitation of the shortage of vacant mobile home park spaces,” “[p]revent excessive and unreasonable . . . rent increases,” and “[r]ectify the disparity of bargaining power” between park owners and mobile home owners. The district court granted the City's motion to dismiss. The court held that no regulatory taking occurred here and that the Park’s self-styled “private takings claim” is not a separately cognizable claim. The court concluded that the Park’s “private takings claim” cannot serve as a means to evade Penn Central Transportation Company v. City of New York scrutiny. And in any event, as articulated here, such claim fails because it is a thinly veiled facial challenge, which is both time barred and lacks merit. Further, the court was not persuaded by the related due process and equal protection claims. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the case. View "Rancho de Calistoga v. City of Calistoga" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, three civil rights organizations, filed suit alleging that Nevada violated, and continues to violate, Section 7 of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), 52 U.S.C. 20506(a)(2)(A). Section 7 requires states to distribute voter registration materials and to make assistance available to people who visit, and make certain requests of, public assistance offices. The district court dismissed the complaint with prejudice. The court concluded, however, that plaintiffs have Article III standing by plausibly alleging they have suffered injury in fact fairly traceable to the State’s noncompliance with Section 7 of the NVRA. The court also concluded that plaintiffs have also satisfied the statute’s notice requirement in two ways. First, they notified the State that violations were occurring 120 days before an election, thus authorizing them to file suit after waiting 20 days from the date of their notification. Second, they plausibly alleged that the State was violating Section 7 within 30 days of a federal election, thus permitting them to file suit without first notifying the State (even though plaintiffs in fact had done so). Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. The court denied as moot plaintiffs' motion for judicial notice and instructed the district court to assign the case to a different district judge. View "Nat'l Council of La Raza v. Cegavske" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, police officers, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that two other officers violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments when, pursuant to a state court order, they obtained DNA samples from plaintiffs to exclude them as contributors of DNA at a crime scene. The court concluded that the superior court orders authorizing the collection of plaintiffs’ DNA satisfied the Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment. The court also concluded that no undue intrusion occurred in this case where the Supreme Court has expressly held that buccal swabs are “brief and . . . minimal” physical intrusions “‘involv[ing] virtually no risk, trauma, or pain.’” Further, the reasonableness of a particular search “must be considered in the context of the person’s legitimate expectations of privacy.” In this case, it was reasonable to ask sworn officers to provide saliva samples for the sole purpose of demonstrating that DNA left at a crime scene was not the result of inadvertent contamination by on-duty public safety personnel. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the suit. View "Bill v. Brewer" on Justia Law

Guam taxpayers filed a class action suit against Guam and its officers, alleging that Guam violated the tax provisions of the Organic Act of Guam, 48 U.S.C. 1421i, by failing timely to refund overpayments, and, via a claim brought under 42 U.S.C. 1983, the taxpayers also challenged the arbitrary expedited refund program as a violation of equal protection. The district court granted summary judgment to the taxpayers on both claims, entered a permanent injunction both ending the expedited refund program and requiring Guam to pay approved refunds in a timely manner, and awarded substantial attorney’s fees and costs. The court concluded that Guam's section 1983 arguments did not implicate subject matter jurisdiction, but nonetheless, the court exercised its discretion in considering Guam's section 1983 arguments; the official-capacity defendants in this case are “persons” within the meaning of section 1983 for purposes of prospective relief; even if the territorial officials had been obliged by federal law to institute the arbitrary expedited refund process - which they most certainly were not - they were empowered to act only in their capacities as territorial officers; and the district court did not abuse its discretion in requiring that Guam pay refunds within six months once Guam determines that the requests are valid and not subject to investigation or audit. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Paeste v. Government of Guam" on Justia Law

After Plaintiffs Frank O’Connell and Francisco Carrillo were wrongfully imprisoned for decades, they filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against the police investigators involved in their respective cases, arguing in part that the officers failed to disclose evidence that would have cast serious doubt on the testimony of key prosecution witnesses. The district court denied judgment on the pleadings in O’Connell’s case and summary judgment in Carrillo’s case. The court concluded that the law at the time of the investigations clearly established that police officers had to disclose material, exculpatory evidence under Brady. The court also concluded that any reasonable officer would have understood that Brady required the disclosure of the specific evidence allegedly withheld. Accordingly, the court affirmed the denials of qualified immunity and remanded these cases to the district court for further proceedings. View "Carillo, Jr. v. Los Angeles" on Justia Law

The City of Oakland contests the Government’s filing of a civil in rem forfeiture action against Harborside Health Clinic, a medical marijuana dispensary acting in accordance with local and state laws but in violation of the Controlled Substances Act, 21 U.S.C. 881(a)(7). On appeal, Oakland challenged the district court's order granting dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The court concluded that Oakland has Article III standing to challenge the Government’s forfeiture action because the closing of Harborside will lead to a decrease in property and sales tax revenues; judicial review under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 701-706, is precluded, however, because the Government’s decision to file the forfeiture action is committed to agency discretion by law, and because allowing the suit to proceed would impermissibly disrupt the existing forfeiture framework; and, therefore, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "City of Oakland v. Lynch" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, owner of HSF and the Galleria Motel, filed suit against the City and its police officers under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that the officers violated the Fourth Amendment. The officers entered the public areas of the Galleria Motel and issued citations based on code violations they observed in plain view. The court concluded that the areas of the Galleria Motel open to the public are not within the enumerated items in the Fourth Amendment; therefore, no search occurs when police officers enter those areas. In this case, the complaint alleged only that police officers entered the public areas of the Galleria Motel. Therefore, plaintiff failed to demonstrate a reasonable expectation of privacy pursuant to Katz v. United States. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the complaint. View "Patel v. City of Montclair" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a Los Angeles County public defender, filed suit against the County and a deputy sheriff, alleging that her Fourth Amendment rights were violated when the deputy briefly arrested her pursuant to a judicial command that she appear in court. The district court concluded that the arrest violated plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment rights, but that the deputy was protected by qualified immunity. The court concluded that the deputy could not reasonably have believed that he had one of the usual Fourth Amendment justifications for the arrest where he had no warrant; plaintiff was not suspected of a crime; he was not in hot pursuit or performing a community care-taking function, etc. The referee's order, by its clear terms, did not authorize the deputy to seize plaintiff; no reasonable officer could have understood the referee as ordering that plaintiff be forcibly brought into court; and an unreasonable mistake of fact does not provide the basis for qualified immunity. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part and reversed in part. View "Demuth v. Cnty. of Los Angeles" on Justia Law