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

Plaintiffs, Washington Medicaid beneficiaries with severe mental and physical disabilities, appealed the district court's denial of their motion for a preliminary injunction. Plaintiffs sought to enjoin the operation of a regulation promulgated by Washington's DSHS that reduced the amount of in-home "personal care services" available under the state's Medicaid plan. The court concluded that plaintiffs have demonstrated a likelihood of irreparable injury because they have shown that reduced access to personal care services would place them at serious risk of institutionalization. The court further concluded that plaintiffs have raised serious questions going to the merits of their Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. 12132, and Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. 794(a), claims, that the balance of hardships tipped sharply in their favor, and that a preliminary injunction would serve the public interest. Accordingly, the court remanded for entry of a preliminary injunction.

Defendant and a group of allegedly similarly situated state prisoners brought suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against defendants, alleging that they were overdetained in violation of federal and state law. At issue was whether state prison officials had a clearly established duty to seek out original court records in response to a prisoner's unsupported assertion that he was being overdetained in violation of the United States Constitution. The court held that there was no clearly established duty on a prison official to review a prisoner's original court records beyond those in his institutional file on the facts of this case. Thus, defendants were entitled to qualified immunity.

Three nonresidents of California brought a would-be class action against Oracle seeking damages under California law for failure to pay overtime. Plaintiffs' first two claims were based on work performed in California. The third claim was based on work performed anywhere in the United States. The district court granted summary judgment to Oracle on all three claims, on the ground that the relevant provisions of California law did not, or could not, apply to the work performed by plaintiffs. After certifying several questions of state law to the California Supreme Court and receiving answers from that court, the court reversed summary judgment on the first two claims and affirmed the third claim. In regards to the Labor Code claim, the court rejected Oracle's due process clause and commerce clause arguments; in regards to the California Business and Professions Code 17200 claim, the court held that the California court's holding was conclusive (that section 17200 did not apply to overtime work performed by plaintiffs); and in regards to the Fair Labor Standard Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 213(a)(1), claim, the court held that the California court's holding was conclusive (section 17200 did not apply to overtime work performed outside California for a California-based employer by out-of-state plaintiffs based solely on the employer's failure to comply with the overtime provisions of the FLSA).

Petitioner was convicted in California state court of first degree murder and subsequently appealed the district court's denial of his federal habeas petition. Petitioner challenged the admission at trial of the non-testifying autopsy pathologist's opinion, claiming violations of his Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses against him. Because the chain of causation began as tenuous, continued to be disputed and was described inconsistently by the experts, the erroneous admission of the autopsy pathologist's non-cumulative opinion testimony likely had a substantial and injurious effect on the jury's verdict. Furthermore, it was impossible to say beyond a reasonable doubt of the autopsy pathologist's opinion did not contribute to petitioner's conviction. Accordingly, because the California Court of Appeal unreasonably applied clearly established Supreme Court Confrontation Clause jurisdiction to the facts and the error was prejudicial, the judgment of the district court was reversed and the case remanded with direction to vacate the murder conviction and issue the writ.

Plaintiffs appealed the adverse summary judgment grant in their 42 U.S.C. 1983 action arising out of the nighttime SWAT team search of their home for weapons suspected of being used in a drive-by shooting and stored in their home by their son. Plaintiffs alleged that their Fourth Amendments rights were violated by the issuance and execution of a search warrant whose application failed to disclose that their son was at that time, and for over six months had been, incarcerated and was therefore not present in plaintiffs' home, but moreover could not have been involved in the shooting or the storage of weapons used in it. Because plaintiffs presented sufficient evidence establishing a genuine issue as to whether Santa Maria Police Department Detective Louis Tanore's omission of this material fact was intentional or reckless, as opposed to merely negligent, the court reversed the summary judgment grant in his favor and remanded.

Petitioners challenged the prosecution's use of peremptory strikes to exclude black jurors in their trial. A magistrate judge, after holding an evidentiary hearing at which the prosecutor testified, found that he had purposefully discriminated on the basis of race in exercising a peremptory strike against one of the black jurors. The district judge, without holding a new evidentiary hearing, rejected the magistrate judge's finding as to the prosecutor's lack of credibility in asserting race-neutral reasons for having stricken the juror. In doing so, the district judge denied petitioners the process that they were constitutionally due. The court held that the rule of United States v. Ridgeway extended to determinations by a magistrate judge as to the credibility of a prosecutor's testimony at the second and third steps of the inquiry required by Batson v. Kentucky. Therefore, the district court erred in declining the opportunity to observe the trial prosecutor's demeanor before rejecting the magistrate judge's adverse credibility finding. The court vacated the district court's denial of the writ of habeas corpus and remanded for the district judge either to accept the magistrate judge's credibility finding or to conduct a new evidentiary hearing.

Plaintiff, who had a history of depression and bipolar disorder, filed a complaint against the Board when she was terminated from her position when she failed to complete at least six semester hours of professional development training to renew her certificate. At issue was whether a disabled teacher was a "qualified individual with a disability" under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq. The court held that because plaintiff did not allege that the Board's legal authorization requirement was itself discriminatory, her failure to satisfy such requirement rendered her unqualified and the Board was not required to accommodate her disability. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

In sentencing defendant following her conviction on immigration and bail-jumping charges, the district court made a number of comments suggesting that the length of the sentence imposed was determined at least in part by a desire to ensure that defendant received drug treatment while in prison. The court affirmed defendant's sentence but the Supreme Court reversed, remanding to the court to determine whether defendant was entitled to relief despite her failure to object to her sentence when it was imposed. The court held that the district court's consideration of defendant's rehabilitative needs in determining her sentence constituted plain error. Therefore, the court vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing.

Petitioner was convicted in a California state court of first degree murder, with a finding of the special circumstance of killing a law enforcement officer engaged in the lawful pursuit of his duties, and was sentenced to death. Petitioner appealed from the district court's denial of his petition for habeas corpus. Petitioner's appeal required the court to consider and apply the United States Supreme Court decision in Cullen v. Pinholster. Under the circumstances, the court concluded that Pinholster was applicable and prevented the court from considering the new evidence in reviewing petitioner's Brady claim under 28 U.S.C. 2254(d). In light of Pinholster's emphasis on the primary responsibility of the state court, the court concluded that the new evidence needed to be presented to the state court before it could be considered by the court on habeas review of the state court's decision. The court concluded that petitioner had a colorable or potentially meritorious Brady claim such that a reasonable state court could find a Brady violation. The court affirmed all of the district court's rulings on all of the non-Brady claims.

Petitioner, a lawful permanent resident of the United States, was ordered removed on the ground that he had been convicted of an aggravated felony. Petitioner contended that the evidence was insufficient to establish that the crime of which he was convicted was an aggravated felony. The court concluded that petitioner's conviction of first-degree burglary was a conviction of an aggravated felony, and was sufficiently established by the state court's abstract of judgment. The court also rejected petitioner's ineffective assistance of counsel claim and accordingly denied the petition for review.