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

President Biden invoked his authority under the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949 (“Procurement Act”) to direct federal agencies to include in certain contracts a clause requiring covered contractor employees to follow COVID-19 safety protocols, including vaccination requirements, in order for employees to be eligible to work on federal government projects. Plaintiffs sued to enjoin the vaccination mandate. This lawsuit revolved around four documents that comprise the Contractor Mandate: the Executive Order, the Task Force Guidance, the Office of Management and Budget Determination, and the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council Guidance. The district court granted a permanent injunction against the Contractor Mandate, effective in any contract that either involved a party domiciled or headquartered in Arizona and/or was performed “principally” in Arizona.   The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s order granting a permanent injunction and dissolved the injunction. First, the panel held the Major Questions Doctrine—which requires that Congress speak clearly if it wishes to assign to an agency decisions of vast economic and political significance—did not apply. Second, the panel held that even if the Major Questions Doctrine applied, it would not bar the Contractor Mandate because the Mandate is not a transformative expansion of the President’s authority under the Procurement Act. Third, the panel held that the Contractor Mandate fell within the President’s authority under the Procurement Act. Fourth, the panel held that the nondelegation doctrine and state sovereignty concerns did not invalidate the Contractor Mandate. Finally, the panel held that the Contractor Mandate satisfied the Office of Federal Procurement Policy Act’s procedural requirements. View "KRISTIN MAYES, ET AL V. JOSEPH BIDEN, ET AL" on Justia Law

Plaintiff alleged federal and wiretap violations and state common law claims against Defendant, her ex-husband, and co-Defendant, his attorney. She alleged that during a child custody proceeding in Nevada state court, Defendant had secretly recorded conversations between her and their child and that co-Defendant had filed selectively edited transcripts of the illegally recorded conversations on the state court’s public docket. The district court concluded that co-Defendant’s alleged conduct involved First Amendment petitioning activity, which is protected by the Noerr-Pennington doctrine. The district court entered default judgment against Defendant. The district court awarded Plaintiff $10,000 in statutory damages under the Federal Wiretap Act, but it did not award punitive damages or litigation costs, nor did it discuss or award other categories of damages ostensibly available on her Nevada common-law claims.   The Ninth Circuit vacated the district court’s judgment dismissing Plaintiff’s claims against co-Defendant as barred under the Noerr-Pennington doctrine and entering default judgment against Defendant. The panel held that co-Defendant violated the Federal Wiretap Act, and it agreed with the district court that the vicarious consent doctrine did not apply and that co-Defendant’s conduct was not protected under Bartnick v. Vopper, which carves out a narrow First Amendment exception to the Federal Wiretap Act for matters of public importance. The panel held that filing illegally obtained evidence on a public court docket is conduct not immunized under Noerr-Pennington, and the Federal Wiretap Act unambiguously applied to co-Defendant’s conduct. Further, the court held that the district court failed to adequately address other categories of damages to which Plaintiff might be entitled. View "LYUDMYLA PYANKOVSKA, ET AL V. SEAN ABID, ET AL" on Justia Law

Appellant (the “Warden”) conceded that the Ninth Circuit Court could no longer provide meaningful relief to Petitioner after the state court’s complete vacatur of his original conviction. Although the Warden continued to contest mootness, he did so only on the ground that the district court’s alleged legal error was capable of repetition yet evading review.   The Ninth Circuit dismissed as moot an appeal by the Warden and remanded with instructions that the district court vacates its orders granting habeas relief and dismiss Petitioner’s habeas corpus petition. The panel was not persuaded by this argument as the purported error could be presented on appeal following a district court's rejection of a similar argument by another petitioner or after a grant of habeas relief by a district court that was stayed by the district court or by this court, or after a grant of relief that was challenged by the Warden in that case with sufficient promptness to permit the Ninth Circuit’s effective review before release was required under the terms of the district court's order, or under other circumstances. View "MARIO ARCIGA V. SCOTT FRAUENHEIM" on Justia Law

The Energy Policy and Conservation Act (“EPCA”), expressly preempts State and local regulations concerning the energy use of many natural gas appliances, including those used in household and restaurant kitchens. Instead of directly banning those appliances in new buildings, the City of Berkeley took a more circuitous route to the same result. It enacted a building code that prohibits natural gas piping into those buildings, rendering the gas appliances useless. The California Restaurant Association (“CRA”), whose members include restaurateurs and chefs, challenged Berkeley’s regulation, raising an EPCA preemption claim. The district court dismissed the suit.   The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s dismissal. The panel held that the CRA demonstrated that (1) at least one of its members had suffered an injury in fact, that was (a) concrete and particularized and (b) actual or imminent rather than conjectural or hypothetical; (2) the injury was fairly traceable to the challenged action; and (3) it was likely, not merely speculative, that the injury would be redressed by a favorable decision. The panel held that, by its plain text and structure, the Act’s preemption provision encompasses building codes that regulate natural gas use by covered products. By preventing such appliances from using natural gas, the Berkeley building code did exactly that. The panel reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "CRA V. CITY OF BERKELEY" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted in 1997 of felony assault with a deadly weapon committed while he was a juvenile. In 2016 and 2017, he pleaded guilty to two aggravated DUIs, which were felonies committed in 2003 while he was an adult. Relying on the Supreme Court's post-conviction decision in Rehaif v. United States, Defendant argued on appeal that his 2018 convictions should be overturned due to the district court's failure to instruct the jury that the government must prove that he belonged to the relevant category of persons barred from possessing a firearm.   The Ninth Circuit amended a February 15, 2023, opinion affirming Defendant’s 2018 convictions for unlawful possession of a firearm, denied a petition for panel rehearing, and denied on behalf of the court a petition for rehearing en banc. It was undisputed that the district court’s failure to instruct on the Rehaif knowledge element was error and that the error was plain. The panel held, however, that Defendant cannot show that this error affected his substantial rights. In so holding, the panel did not need to reach whether being convicted as a juvenile or having been incarcerated for more than a year as a result of a juvenile conviction satisfies the Rehaif mens rea requirement. The panel held that Defendant’s two DUI convictions unambiguously demonstrate that there is no reasonable probability that a jury would find that Defendant did not know he had been convicted of a crime punishable by a year or more in prison at the time he possessed the firearm. View "USA V. RYAN MICHELL" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed from his jury conviction and sentence for one count of conspiracy to transport, for profit, noncitizens who have entered or remain in the United States unlawfully, four counts of harboring such noncitizens for profit, and three counts of transportation of such noncitizens for profit, all in violation of 8 U.S.C. Section 1324. Defendant argued that his statements were involuntary because, just prior to the interrogation, an agent had shown him a plastic baggie containing drugs and threatened him with drug charges if he did not cooperate. After holding an evidentiary hearing, a magistrate judge issued a report recommending that the district court denied the motion to suppress.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of Defendant’s motion to suppress his post-arrest statements. The panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by wholly adopting the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation. The panel wrote that the district court did what the Federal Magistrates Act requires: it indicated that it reviewed the record de novo, found no merit to Defendant’s objections, and summarily adopted the magistrate judge’s analysis in his report and recommendation.   The panel wrote that, after observing the implausibility of Defendant’s testimony and considering Defendant’s verbal and signed Miranda waiver, age, education level, and fluency in English, the magistrate judge properly recommended finding the statements made during the interrogation voluntary. Moreover, the panel could not hold that the magistrate judge was wrong to reject Defendant’s testimony, as the report and recommendation provided ample reason to find Defendant not credible, and the rest of the record supports the magistrate judge’s analysis. View "USA V. DEMETRIUS RAMOS" on Justia Law

Plaintiff was cited for misuse of a vehicle horn under Section 27001 after she honked in support of protestors gathered outside a government official’s office.  Plaintiff filed suit to block future enforcement of 27001 against any expressive horn use―including honks not only to “support candidates or causes” but also to “greet friends or neighbors, summon children or co-workers, or celebrate weddings or victories.” She asserted that Section 27001 violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments as a content-based regulation that is not narrowly tailored to further a compelling government interest. Alternatively, she argued that even if the law is not content-based, it burdens substantially more speech than necessary to protect legitimate government interests.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s summary judgment in favor of California. The panel determined that, at least in some circumstances, a honk can carry a message that is intended to be communicative and that, in context, would reasonably be understood by the listener to be communicative. The panel next held that because section 27001 applies evenhandedly to all who wish to use a horn when a safety hazard is not present, it draws a line based on the surrounding factual situation, not based on the content of expression. The panel, therefore, evaluated Section 27001 as a content-neutral law and applied intermediate scrutiny. The panel concluded that Section 27001 was narrowly tailored to further California’s substantial interest in traffic safety and, therefore, that it passed intermediate scrutiny. View "SUSAN PORTER V. KELLY MARTINEZ, ET AL" on Justia Law

Petitioner sought resentencing under Section 1172.6 the day after California enacted that statute. While his resentencing proceeding was ongoing, and shortly before the expiration of the deadline for Petitioner to file for relief pursuant to the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), Petitioner filed a federal habeas petition. Among other things, his petition alleged that several forms of prosecutorial misconduct had occurred in his trial. A magistrate judge denied Petitioner’s unopposed motion to stay his federal proceedings and recommended that the district court dismiss Petitioner’s habeas petition without prejudice pursuant to Younger. The district court accepted the magistrate judge’s recommendation that Younger abstention was warranted and required dismissal.   The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s dismissal of Petitioner’s federal habeas corpus petition, reversed the district court’s denial of his motion to stay, and remanded. The panel explained that Younger is not implicated here. Although there is an ongoing state proceeding—the resentencing under Section 1172.6 based on a change in state law—the federal petition, in this case, does not seek an injunction to prevent state officers from moving forward with the Section 1172.6 proceeding. That proceeding is, in substance, a new case based on a new statute, and Petitioner seeks no relief that would interfere with it. The panel held that the denial of Petitioner’s motion for a stay was also error because it was based on the misunderstanding that the district court lacked the authority to stay Petitioner’s habeas petition. View "JONATHAN DUKE V. JOSIE GASTELO" on Justia Law

Plaintiff a devout Jehovah’s Witness, objected to California’s loyalty oath because she believed it would violate her religious beliefs by requiring her to pledge primary allegiance to the federal and state governments and to affirm her willingness to take up arms to defend them. he Controller’s Office rejected this proposal and rescinded the job offer. Plaintiff sued the Controller’s Office and the California State Controller in her official capacity, alleging violations of Title VII under both failure-to-accommodate and disparate-impact theories. She also asserted a failure-to-accommodate claim against the Controller’s Office under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (“FEHA”), and she alleged that the refusal by both defendants to accommodate her religious beliefs violated the Free Exercise Clauses of the federal and state constitutions.   THe Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s dismissal. The panel held that, as currently pleaded, Plaintiff’s alleged injury was redressable only through a claim for damages. The panel held that she lacked the actual and imminent threat of future injury required to have standing to seek prospective relief on any of her claims, but she could attempt to cure this defect by amendment. The panel held that Plaintiff could seek damages from the Controller’s Office on her claims under Title VII. As currently pleaded, she could not obtain damages for her free exercise claim under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983. The panel held, however, that the district court abused its discretion in denying Plaintiff leave to amend to seek damages from the State Controller in her individual capacity. View "BRIANNA BOLDEN-HARDGE V. CALIFORNIA STATE CONTROLLER, ET AL" on Justia Law

The passenger terminal at the Bob Hope “Hollywood Burbank” Airport is more than fifty years old and violates safety standards set by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). So the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority, which owns and operates the Airport, reached an agreement with the City of Burbank to build a new terminal. In 2016, Burbank voters approved that agreement as required by local law. But before FAA could sign off on the project, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. Sections 4321 et seq., required the agency to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). In May 2021, the FAA issued a Final EIS (FEIS) and Record of Decision (ROD) that let the Authority start constructing the replacement terminal, and shortly after, the City of Los Angeles petitioned for review.   The Ninth Circuit granted the petition in part and remanded for FAA to redo the deficient parts of its analysis. The panel held that contrary to Los Angeles’s argument—that the FAA improperly eliminated certain alternatives because they were not approved pursuant to Measure B—the FAA properly eliminated the new airport, remote landside facility, and southeast terminal alternatives based on rational considerations that were independent of Measure B. In addition, the panel held that even if the Measure B criteria foreclosed consideration of alternatives other than the Project, that would not be enough to establish an irreversible commitment to the Project. The panel considered the rest of Los Angeles’s objections to the FAA’s impact analysis and found them meritless. View "CITY OF LOS ANGELES V. FAA, ET AL" on Justia Law