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

Plaintiff is an individual provider (“IP”) of in-home care for her disabled son. Under Washington law, IPs are considered public employees for the purpose of collective bargaining, and they are represented by Service Employees International Union 775 (“SEIU”). Plaintiff did not join the union, but on two occasions the State withheld dues from her paycheck.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of all of Plaintiff’s claims against Public Partnerships LLC (“PPL”) and Public Consulting Group, Inc. (“PCG”) (collectively “private defendants”), and the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Washington Governor Inslee and Secretary Strange of the Department of Social and Health Services (collectively “state defendants”), in Plaintiff’s action alleging that Defendants violated her First and Fourteenth Amendment rights and engaged in the willful withholding of her wages in violation of state law.   The panel held that Plaintiff did not have standing to bring any claims for prospective relief. The panel further held that, although the district court erred in holding that PPL and PCG were not state actors, Plaintiff had not alleged facts sufficient to support a Fourteenth Amendment due process claim or a claim for violation of state law. Plaintiff alleged that PPL and PCG violated her Fourteenth Amendment rights because they deprived her of her liberty interest under the First Amendment without adequate procedural safeguards. The panel held that Plaintiff alleged sufficient facts to establish that PPL and PCG can be considered state actors for the purpose of her 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 action. Plaintiff met both parts of the two-prong test for determining whether state action exists. View "CINDY OCHOA V. PUBLIC CONSULTING GROUP, INC., ET AL" on Justia Law

After the district court entered default against Defendant on Plaintiff’s claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Unruh Act, it ordered Vo to show cause why it should not decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the Unruh Act claim. After considering Vo’s response, the district court elected to decline supplemental jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. Section 1367(c)(4). The district court determined that there were exceptional circumstances and compelling reasons justifying this exercise of its discretion.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s order declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s California Unruh Civil Rights Act claim against Defendant. The panel held that under Arroyo v. Rosas, 19 F.4th 1202 (9th Cir. 2021), in order to decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction in a joint ADA and Unruh Act suit, the district court must properly articulate why the circumstances of the case are exceptional.   The panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion. First, there were exceptional circumstances regarding comity and fairness in allowing Plaintiff to evade California’s heightened procedural requirements for Unruh Act claims by bringing her claims in federal court. Second, unlike in Arroyo, the district court declined supplemental jurisdiction well before it ruled on the merits of the ADA claim, meaning that the Gibbs values could be effectuated. The panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in determining that there were compelling reasons to decline jurisdiction over the Unruh Act claim. The panel rejected Plaintiff’s argument that the district court’s order was not sufficiently case-specific. View "THANH VO V. JOHN CHOI" on Justia Law

In an action brought by the Spirit of Aloha Temple (“Plaintiffs”) challenging the County of Maui Planning Commission’s denial of its application for a special use permit to hold religious services and other events on agriculturally zoned property, the panel reversed the district court’s grant of summary judgment against Plaintiffs on their facial prior restraint challenge; held that the district court improperly dismissed the remaining claims on appeal under the doctrine of collateral estoppel; vacated the district court’s summary judgment on costs and the appealed religious liberties claims; and remanded to the district court for further proceedings.   Plaintiffs facially challenged the zoning scheme as a prior restraint on their First Amendment rights. The panel held that Plaintiffs may bring a facial prior restraint challenge. Because the County’s special use permitting scheme was expressly “more onerous” on conduct protected by the First Amendment, the effect on religious expression was not merely “incidental” and thus had a sufficient nexus to expression for Plaintiffs to bring a facial challenge. The panel further held that the County’s permitting scheme granted permitting officials an impermissible degree of discretion, and therefore, failed to qualify as a valid time, place, and manner restriction on speech. Thus, the challenged regulation violated the First Amendment.   The panel held that the district court erred in holding that the Commission’s findings on strict scrutiny collaterally estop Plaintiffs’ substantial-burden and nondiscrimination Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (“RLUIPA”) claims, Free Exercise claims, and Equal Protection claims. View "SPIRIT OF ALOHA TEMPLE, ET AL V. COUNTY OF MAUI, ET AL" on Justia Law

Petitioner was convicted of the murder of an Oregon Department of Corrections Director. However, since trial, another man has confessed to the killing and nearly all the witnesses who directly implicated Petitioner have recanted their testimony. Petitioner sought federal habeas relief making various claims including constitutional violations based on the trial court’s exclusion of the other man's confession. The constitutional claims are procedurally defaulted because Petitoner failed to raise them in state court as required.The Ninth Circuit held that Petitioner's procedural default is excused under the “actual innocence” exception set forth in Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298 (1995). The panel wrote that other man's detailed and compelling confessions, when considered with the recantations of nearly all the State’s key witnesses, are more than sufficient to satisfy Schlup’s standard, as it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror would have convicted Petitioner in light of the new evidence.Reaching the merits of Petitioner's claim, the Ninth Circuit found that the trial court violated his Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights by excluding evidence of the confessor's guilt. View "FRANK GABLE V. MAX WILLIAMS" on Justia Law

After the U.S. Consulate in El Salvador denied the immigrant visa application of Plaintiff, he and his U.S.-citizen spouse (collectively "Plaintiffs") sought judicial review of the government’s visa decision. Relying on the doctrine of consular nonreviewability, the district court granted summary judgment to the government.   Vacating the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the government, and remanding, the panel held that (1) where the adjudication of a non-citizen’s visa application implicates the constitutional rights of a citizen, due process requires that the government provide the citizen with timely and adequate notice of a decision that will deprive the citizen of that interest; and (2) because the government failed to provide timely notice in this case, the government was not entitled to summary judgment based on the doctrine of consular nonreviewability. The panel explained that, as set forth in Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U.S. 753 (1972), and Kerry v. Din, 576 U.S. 86 (2015), the doctrine of consular nonreviewability admits an exception in certain circumstances where the denial of a visa affects the fundamental rights of a U.S. citizen. View "SANDRA MUNOZ, ET AL V. DOS, ET AL" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of possession with intent to distribute ecstasy after Government officers discovered large quantities of illegal drugs in two packages falsely labeled as containing documents from a German law firm. Defendant unsuccessfully challenged the admissibility of the evidence in a pre-trial motion to suppress. The Ninth Circuit held that, even if the evidence was seized in violation of Defendant's constitutional rights, admission was justified under the independent source doctrine. The court also rejected Defendant's challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence. View "USA V. TONY SAELEE" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Mobilize the Message provides political campaigns with doorknockers and signature gatherers, which it purports to hire as independent contractors. Plaintiff Moving Oxnard Forward is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making the government of Oxnard, California, more efficient and transparent and in the past have hired signature gatherers as independent contractors. Plaintiffs claimed that the California law violates the First Amendment because it discriminates against speech based on its content by classifying their doorknockers and signature gatherers as employees or independent contractors under the ABC test while classifying direct sales salespersons, newspaper distributors, and newspaper carriers under Borello.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the denial of plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction which sought to restrain the California Attorney General from applying California’s “ABC test,” codified in California Labor Code Section 2775(b)(1) to classify Plaintiffs’ doorknockers and signature gatherers as either employees or independent contractors. The panel accepted that classification of their doorknockers and signature gatherers as employees might impose greater costs on plaintiffs than if these individuals had been classified as independent contractors, and that as a result they might not retain as many doorknockers and signature gatherers. Such an indirect impact on speech, however, does not violate the First Amendment. Section 2783 does not target certain types of speech. Unless an occupational exemption exists, the ABC test applies across California’s economy. Thus, Plaintiffs were not unfairly burdened by application of the ABC test to their doorknockers and signature gatherers. View "MOBILIZE THE MESSAGE LLC, ET AL V. ROB BONTA" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs appeal the district court’s dismissal of their claims challenging the constitutionality of Oregon’s since repealed system of suspending, without an inquiry into ability to pay, the driver’s licenses of persons who fail to pay the fines imposed on them in connection with traffic violations. The district court dismissed the operative complaint for failure to state a claim.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed. The panel first considered Plaintiffs contention that Defendants’ suspension of her driver’s license based on her failure to pay traffic fines, without first determining that she had the ability to pay and had willfully refused to make a monetary payment, violated the due process and equal protection principles recognized in Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S. 660 (1983), and Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U.S. 12 (1956). The panel concluded that suspension of Plaintiff’s license for failure to pay her traffic fines was rationally related to a legitimate government interest in punishing and deterring traffic violations, even if her failure to pay was a result of indigency. The panel rejected Plaintiff’s contention that the State’s distinction between traffic debt and non-traffic debt violated the equal protection principles set forth in James v. Strange, 407 U.S. 128 (1972). Finally, the panel rejected Plaintiff’s contention that Defendants violated her procedural due process rights by suspending her license without affording either a “presuspension hearing” or a “post-suspension hearing” concerning her ability to pay her traffic debt. View "CINDY MENDOZA, ET AL V. KRIS STRICKLER, ET AL" on Justia Law

Defendants were indicted on many charges related to their participation in the Canta Ranas gang in Whittier, California. Defendants were ultimately convicted on RICO conspiracy. On appeal, Defendants raise multiple challenges to the admissibility of the government's expert witness's testimony.The Ninth Circuit affirmed Defendant's convictions, finding that the district court had broad latitude when determining reliability and that, in this case, the district court did not commit an abuse of discretion in failing to hold a hearing. The district court erred in failing to put its credibility findings on the record; however, any error was harmless. View "USA V. ENRIQUE HOLGUIN" on Justia Law

Appellants are individuals who bought or leased a vehicle with an emissions defeat device, and they filed individual suits that were consolidated before the same judge who presided over the multidistrict litigation and class action settlements. The jury awarded four of Appellants various amounts in compensatory damages and $25,000 each in punitive damages. The district court reduced the punitive damages award to exactly four times the amount of the compensatory damages suffered by each Plaintiff.   The Ninth Circuit vacated punitive damages awards to appellants (who are Plaintiffs who opted out of the class action) and remanded with instructions that the district court recalculate punitive damages. The panel held that the district court erred by holding that a punitive damages ratio calculation of four times the value of the compensatory damages award was the maximum punitive damages award permitted by the Constitution’s Due Process Clause. Because the panel concluded that the district court erred in applying the Gore factors, the panel next considered what award of punitive damages comported with due process for each party. The panel also concluded that it would be arbitrary and incorrect to set a different ratio between punitive damages and actual compensatory damages as to each of the Plaintiffs under the circumstances of this case. The panel, therefore, vacated the punitive damages awards to each appellant and remanded with instructions that the district court recalculate punitive damages in an amount equal to eight times the actual compensatory damages determination. View "TIMOTHY RILEY V. VOLKSWAGEN GROUP OF AMERICA, I" on Justia Law