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

Plaintiff called 911 seeking emergency mental health assistance for the mother of his children, with whom he lived and had five children. This call set in motion a chain of events that ultimately led to the death of Plaintiff’s ten-month-old twin sons at their mother’s own hand.   Plaintiff brought a Section 1983 involving the application of the “state-created danger” doctrine in the context of a welfare check; the Ninth Circuit reversed in part and vacated in part the district court’s dismissal of Plaintiffs’ action for failure to state a claim, and remanded. The panel first made clear that the only two exceptions to the general rule against failure-to-act liability for Section 1983 claims presently recognized by this court were the special-relationship exception and the state-created danger exception. The panel, therefore, rejected Plaintiffs’ assertion that the failure to comply with a legally required duty can give rise to a substantive due process claim. The panel further held that the district court correctly held that the special-relationship exception did not apply here.   The panel next held that Plaintiffs’ state-created danger claim against deputies failed because Plaintiffs failed to allege facts from which one could plausibly conclude that Defendants created or enhanced any danger to the twins. The panel held that Plaintiffs adequately stated their Section 1983 claims against the City of Tulare Police Sergeant under the state-created danger exception. Finally, because the panel reversed the dismissal of some of Plaintiffs’ Section 1983 claims against the social worker and Sergeant, the panel reversed the district court’s dismissal of Plaintiffs’ Monell claims against the County and City of Tulare. View "JOSE MURGUIA V. HEATHER LANGDON, ET AL" on Justia Law

This is an international child custody dispute between Respondent and Petitioner over their minor children. While the family was residing in Germany, Respondent took the children to the United States and refused to return them. The Hague Convention generally requires children to be returned to the state of habitual residence so that the country’s courts may adjudicate the merits of any custody disputes. The Ninth Circuit previously vacated and remanded the district court’s first order to return the children to Germany. Because the Supreme Court issued its decision in Golan while the court was considering Respondent’s appeal of the second return order, the court also remanded that order for the district court’s reconsideration. The district court then granted the petition a third time.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s order granting, on a second remand, Petitioner’s petition against Respondent for the return, pursuant to the Hague Convention, of the parties’ two children to Germany. Agreeing with other circuits, the panel held that, in cases governed by the Hague Convention, the district court has discretion as to whether to conduct an evidentiary hearing following remand and must exercise that discretion consistent with the Convention. The panel held that, on the second remand, the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to hold a third evidentiary hearing when the factual record was fully developed. The panel held that, in making determinations about German procedural issues, the district court neither abused its discretion nor violated Respondent’s due process rights by communicating with the State Department and, through it, the German Central Authority View "BOGDAN RADU V. PERSEPHONE JOHNSON SHON" on Justia Law

Under private parties to provide technical assistance to law enforcement to aid in the execution of arrest warrants. Here, a journalist and associate editor at Forbes (“Petitioners”) filed petitions in the Northern District of California and the Western District of Washington seeking to unseal past All Writs Act (“AWA”) orders issued to an online travel-booking technology company related to ongoing criminal investigations in which the United States had obtained arrest warrants but had been thus far unable to make the arrests. The district courts in California and Washington denied Petitioners’ motions.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the two district court orders denying petitions to unseal court records, the panel held that neither the First Amendment nor the common law provides a right of public access to third-party AWA technical assistance materials relating to ongoing criminal investigations involving unexecuted arrest warrants. In determining that the First Amendment’s right of access did not attach, the panel applied the “experience and logic” test set forth in PressEnter. Co. v. Superior Court, 478 U.S. 1, 7 (1986), and concluded that it was aware of no historical tradition of public access to proceedings and materials under the AWA to obtain technical assistance from third parties in executing arrest warrants.   Further, the court explained, given the similarities cross-cutting AWA third-party technical assistance proceedings, grand jury proceedings, and preindictment search warrant materials, as a matter of analogical reasoning, the materials Petitioners sought here were not within the common law right of access. View "FORBES MEDIA LLC, ET AL V. USA" on Justia Law

Plaintiff contends that the social media company Twitter Inc. and California’s Secretary of State, Shirley Weber, violated his constitutional rights by acting in concert to censor his speech on Twitter’s platform. He alleged that the Secretary of State’s office entered into a collaborative relationship with Twitter in which state officials regularly flagged tweets with false or misleading information for Twitter’s review and that Twitter responded by almost invariably removing the posts in question. Plaintiff further alleged that Twitter limited other users’ ability to access his tweets and then suspended his account. The district court determined that Twitter’s interactions with state officials did not transform the company’s enforcement of its content-moderation policy into state action.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of Plaintiff’s federal claims against Twitter. The court also affirmed the dismissal of Plaintiff’s claims against Secretary of State Weber because her office did not violate federal law when it notified Twitter of tweets containing false or misleading information that potentially violated the company’s content-moderation policy.   The panel held that Twitter’s content-moderation decisions did not constitute state action because (1) Twitter did not exercise a state-conferred right or enforce a state-imposed rule under the first step of the two-step framework set forth in Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co, and (2) the interactions between Twitter and the Secretary of State’s Office of Elections Cybersecurity did not satisfy either the nexus or the joint action tests under the second step. View "ROGAN O' HANDLEY V. SHIRLEY WEBER, ET AL" on Justia Law

Under California law, certain political advertisements run by a committee must name the committee’s top contributors. The City and County of San Francisco adds a secondary-contributor disclaimer requirement that compels certain committees, in their political advertisements, also to list the major donors to those top contributors. Plaintiffs—a political committee that runs ads, the committee’s treasurer, and a contributor to the committee— seek to enjoin enforcement of San Francisco’s ordinance.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction. The panel first determined that even though the June 2022 election had occurred, this appeal was not moot because the controversy was capable of repetition yet evading review. The panel held that Plaintiffs had not shown a likelihood of success on the merits. Applying exacting scrutiny, the panel held that San Francisco’s requirement was substantially related to the governmental interest in informing voters of the source of funding for election-related communications. The panel next held that the ordinance did not create an excessive burden on Plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights relative to the government interest and was sufficiently tailored. Thus, the panel was not persuaded that the secondary-contributor requirement was an impermissible burden on speech because the size of the disclaimer was excessive with respect to larger ads. The district court was within its discretion to conclude that the secondary-contributor requirement had a scope in proportion to the City’s objective. View "NO ON E, SAN FRANCISCANS OPPOSING THE AFFORDABLE, ET AL V. DAVID CHIU, ET AL" on Justia Law

In support of its classified national security investigations, the United States served administrative subpoenas and orders requiring Twitter to provide the government with certain information about Twitter users. In its Transparency Report, Twitter wished publicly to disclose certain information about the aggregate numbers of these governmental requests that it received between July and December 2013. The FBI determined that the number of subpoenas and orders and related information was classified and that Twitter’s disclosure of this information would harm national security. The FBI allowed Twitter to release its Transparency Report only in a partially redacted form.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s summary judgment for the United States in an action brought by Twitter alleging First Amendment violations arising from the FBI’s restrictions on Twitter’s publication of a self-described “Transparency Report.” The panel held that Twitter’s constitutional challenges failed to persuade. The panel acknowledged that Twitter has a First Amendment interest in commenting on matters of public concern involving national security subpoenas. Nevertheless, based on a careful review of classified and unclassified information, the panel held that the government’s redactions of Twitter’s Transparency Report were narrowly tailored in support of the compelling government interest in national security. The panel concluded that the government’s redactions of Twitter’s Transparency Report did not violate the First Amendment.   The panel next held that the statutory scheme governing the permissible disclosure of aggregate data about the receipt of national security legal process allowed for sufficient procedural protections. Finally, the panel held that due process did not require that Twitter’s outside counsel receive classified information by virtue of Twitter filing this lawsuit. View "TWITTER, INC. V. MERRICK GARLAND, ET AL" on Justia Law

Plaintiff alleged alleges that Defendant, a now-retired officer of the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”), used excessive force while attempting an arrest on June 10, 2018, in Berdoo Canyon, part of public lands managed by BLM near Joshua Tree National Park. Defendant brought an interlocutory appeal from the denial of qualified immunity on summary judgment.   The Ninth Circuit filed (1) an order denying a petition for panel rehearing, denying on behalf of the court a petition for rehearing en banc, and amending the opinion filed on November 14, 2022; and (2) an amended opinion vacating the district court’s denial, on summary judgment, of qualified immunity and remanding with instructions to enter summary judgment dismissing with prejudice Plaintiff’s claim.   The panel held that there was no Bivens cause of action for Plaintiff’s claim, which presented a new context. And given this new context, special factors counseled against implying a cause of action here. For example, Fourth Amendment excessive force claims against Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) officers would have “‘systemwide’ consequences” for BLM’s mandate to maintain order on federal lands, and uncertainty about these consequences provided a reason not to imply such a cause of action. The panel further determined that Plaintiff had alternative administrative remedies. View "DENISE MEJIA V. WESLEY MILLER, ET AL" on Justia Law

Police stopped Defendant for a traffic violation, which led to the discovery of a firearm that Defendant, a convicted felon, could not lawfully possess.   The Ninth Circuit held that the officers did not unreasonably prolong the stop and that Defendant voluntarily consented to the search of his car. The court, therefore, affirmed the district court’s denial of Defendant’s motion to suppress. But, on one aspect of Defendant’s supervised release, the court remanded for the district court to conform its written judgment to the court’s oral pronouncement of Defendant’s sentence.   The court wrote that an officer’s asking Defendant two questions about weapons early in the counter—once before the officer learned that Defendant was on federal supervision for being a felon in possession and once after—was a negligibly burdensome precaution that the officer could reasonably take in the name of safety. Further, the officers’ subjective motivations are irrelevant because the Fourth Amendment’s concern with reasonableness allows certain actions to be taken in certain circumstances, whatever the subjective intent. A criminal history check and the officers’ other actions while Defendant was outside the car were within the lawful scope of the traffic stop.   As to whether the officers violated the Fourth Amendment when they searched Defendant’s car, the panel held that the district court did not err in finding that Defendant unequivocally and specifically consented to a search of the car for firearms. The panel remanded for the district court to conform the written judgment to its oral pronouncement of conditions concerning outpatient substance abuse treatment and vocational services programs. View "USA V. XZAVIONE TAYLOR" on Justia Law

During the George Floyd protests in the summer of 2020, the Seattle Police Department and the Mayor of Seattle took the unprecedented step of surrendering an entire precinct and a large area of the surrounding neighborhood to protestors for a month, who declared it the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (“CHOP”). Top City of Seattle (“City”) officials, including members of the City Council, were in their thrall, supporting and encouraging CHOP, with the mayor calling it a reprise of “the summer of love” despite growing evidence of its lawlessness and danger—and a mounting body count. Plaintiff, the mother of a nineteen-year-old son with special needs who was shot to death within CHOP, brought this action to recover damages for her loss of companionship with her son.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal for failure to state a claim. The panel stated that, unlike almost every other circuit, this circuit recognized Plaintiff’s substantive due process right to the companionship of her adult son. And Plaintiff properly alleged that the City acted with deliberate indifference to the danger it helped create, which caused her son’s death. It was self-evident that the Seattle Police Department’s wholesale abandonment of its East Precinct building, combined with Mayor Durkan’s promotion of CHOP’s supposedly festival-like atmosphere, would create a toxic brew of criminality that would endanger City residents. But the danger to which the City contributed was not particularized to Plaintiff or her son, or differentiated from the generalized dangers posed by crime, as the circuit’s precedent required. View "DONNITTA SINCLAIR V. CITY OF SEATTLE" on Justia Law

Plaintiff brought an action against the TSA, alleging discrimination in violation of the Rehabilitation Act when she was terminated from her limited-duty position. According to the allegations in Plaintiff’s complaint, she suffered two injuries while working for the TSA. She alleged that she was terminated due to her disability, and despite the availability of limited duty positions that she could fill, such as “exit lane monitor,” “secondary ticket checker,” or “bypass door monitor.” Plaintiff appealed the dismissal of her Rehabilitation Act claim for the second time.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s order dismissing, as preempted by the Aviation and Transportation Security Act (“ATSA”), Plaintiff’s claim against the TSA. The panel joined the First, Fifth, Seventh, and Eleventh Circuits in holding that the ATSA, as applicable to security screeners, preempts the Rehabilitation Act. The ATSA authorized the Administrator of the TSA to set aside employment standards for security screeners as necessary to fulfill the TSA’s screening functions under the ATSA. A statutory note to the ATSA provides that the Administrator is authorized to do so notwithstanding any other provision of law. The panel held that use of the phrase “notwithstanding any other provision of law” reflected legislative intent to preempt the provisions of the Rehabilitation Act.   Plaintiff contended that preemption was unnecessary because the two statutes could be harmonized, and preemption was foreclosed by explicit language in the Whistleblower Protection Act (“WPEA”). The panel declined to address the issue of whether the WPEA made the Rehabilitation Act generally applicable to security screeners because this issue was not raised in the district court. View "ANNA GALAZA V. ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS" on Justia Law