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

Plaintiffs appealed the district court's dismissal pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) of their putative consumer class action against defendants. Plaintiffs also appealed the district court's denial of leave to amend their second amended complaint, alleging that the design of defendants' retail gasoline dispensers was fundamentally flawed due to a residual fuel occurrence: when plaintiffs purchased premium grade fuel, they received between two and three-tenths of a gallon of residual fuel from the previous transaction, and therefore were overcharged when the previous purchaser had selected mid-range or regular grade fuel. The court agreed with the district court that plaintiffs' well-pleaded factual allegations, accepted as true, did not give rise to a reasonable inference that defendants have committed any misconduct for which the court could grant relief. Accordingly, further amendment would be futile and the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying leave to amend.

This case originated with a misunderstanding regarding a $645 charge on the credit card bill of appellant. Chase Bank misidentified the basis for the charge but failed to respond to appellant's requests for information about it. After unsuccessfully attempting to get response from Chase Bank, appellant and his wife filed this action, alleging, inter alia, claims under the Fair Credit Billing Act (FCBA), 15 U.S.C. 1666-1666j and Oregon's Unlawful Debt Collection Practices Act (UDCPA), Or. Rev. Stat. 646.639-643. The court held that the trial court erred in holding that appellant failed to state a claim under the UDCPA. The court declined to certify appellant's proposed question to the Oregon Supreme Court regarding this claim because existing state precedent guided the court's decision. As to the FCBA claims, the trial court erred in requiring evidence of detrimental reliance to support actual damages and in limiting statutory damages for Chase Bank's multiple violations of the FCBA to a single recovery. Finally, the court held that the trial court abused its discretion in denying any award of attorneys' fees related to appellant's successful claim under the FCBA. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings.

Appellants appealed the district court's denial of certification of their putative class action in Mancini v. Ticketmaster; Stearns v. Ticketmaster, and Johnson v. Ticketmaster. Appellants' actions were directed against a number of entities that were said to have participated in a deceptive internet scheme, which induced numerous individuals to unwittingly sign up for a fee-based rewards program where amounts were charged to their credit cards or directly deducted from their bank accounts. The court held that Rule 23 did not give the district court broad discretion over certification of class actions and the district court erred when it based its exercise of that discretion on what turned out to be an inaccurate reading of the California Unfair Competition Law (UCL), Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code 17200-17210. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's denial of the motions for class certification of the UCL claims in Mancini and affirmed its determination that Mancini and Sanders were not proper representatives. The court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the California's Consumers Legal Remedies Act (CLRA), Cal. Civ. Code 1750-1784, claim in Stearns; affirmed the district court's refusal to certify a class regarding the CLRA injunctive relief claims in Mancini; reversed the district court's dismissal of the Johnson action regarding the CLRA claim; and affirmed its refusal to certify a class regarding the Electronic Fund Transfer Act (EFTA), 15 U.S.C. 1693-1693r, claim in Mancini.

Plaintiffs filed 26 putative class actions against defendants, alleging that defendants knowingly failed to disclose the potential risk of noise-induced hearing loss associated with extended use of their wireless Bluetooth headsets at high volumes, in violation of state consumer fraud protection and unfair business practice laws. The subsequent settlement agreement provided the class $100,000 in cy pres awards and zero dollars for economic injury, while setting aside up to $800,000 for class counsel and $12,000 for the class representatives. William Brennan and other class members (Objectors) challenged the fairness and reasonableness of the settlement and appealed both the approval and fee orders, arguing that the district court abused its discretion in failing to consider whether the gross disproportion between the class award and the negotiated fee award was reasonable. The court agreed that the disparity between the value of the class recovery and class counsel's compensation raised at least an inference of unfairness, and that the current record did not adequately dispel the possibility that class counsel bargained away a benefit to the class in exchange for their own interests. Therefore, the court vacated both orders and remanded so that the district court could conduct a more searching inquiry into the fairness of the negotiated distribution of funds, as well as consider the substantive reasonableness of the attorneys' fee request in light of the degree of success attained.

Plaintiff, on behalf of himself and similarly situated individuals, brought an action against Chase, alleging that it increased his interest rates retroactively to the beginning of this payment cycle after his account was closed to new transactions as a result of a late payment to Chase or another creditor. The court had previously issued an opinion reversing the district court's dismissal of most of plaintiff's federal and state claims. However, Chase sought Supreme Court review of the court's decision and the Supreme Court reversed with respect to the federal claim and remanded for further proceedings. Consequently, the court withdrew its prior opinion and, consistent with the Supreme Court's ruling, affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's first cause of action under the Truth in Lending Act (TILA), 15 U.S.C. 1601-1615, for failure to notify of rate increase, as well as plaintiff's sixth cause of action for breach of contract for failure to notify him "of any change if required by applicable law." Although the Supreme Court's decision did not specifically address the court's ruling on plaintiff's state law claims, the court held: as Delaware law permitted the actions taken by Chase, the district court correctly concluded that plaintiff's second, third, and fourth state law causes of action were foreclosed; plaintiff's fifth cause of action failed to state a claim for consumer fraud under 6 Del. C. 2513(a); and plaintiff's seventh cause of action failed to state a claim for breach of an implied duty of good faith. Therefore, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

These appeals involved two essentially identical actions filed in two different states by different groups of plaintiffs, each seeking to represent a class. The actions sought damages on the ground that plaintiffs' personal information was obtained by defendants in violation of the Driver's Privacy Protection Act (DPPA), 18 U.S.C. 2721-2725. Joining other courts which have dealt with similar claims, the court held that defendants' actions were not unlawful under the DPPA and affirmed the dismissal of the actions by the district courts.

Plaintiffs appealed the district court's dismissal of their claims against manufacturers of dry cleaning equipment brought, inter alia, under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA), 42 U.S.C. 6901 et seq. At issue was whether the district court properly held that plaintiffs' allegations that the manufacturers contributed to waste disposal, by the design of machines that generated waste and by the instructions they gave on use of these machines, were insufficient as a matter of law to support a civil action under the RCRA because all of the manufacturers' alleged contributions were passive. The court held that to state a claim predicated on RCRA liability for "contributing to" the disposal of hazardous waste, a plaintiff must allege that defendant had a measure of control over the waste at the time of its disposal or was otherwise actively involved in the waste disposal process. Mere design of equipment that generated waste, which was then improperly discarded by others, was not sufficient. Therefore, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court and held that "contribution" required more active involvement than was alleged as to the manufacturers.

Plaintiff appealed the district court's grant of defendant's motion to dismiss where plaintiff claimed that defendant violated a section of California's Rees-Levering Act (Act), Cal. Civ. Code 2983.2(a), which required a car loan lender to provide certain post-repossession notices to a defaulting borrower prior to selling the repossessed car. At issue was whether the Act's notice requirements were preempted by the National Bank Act (NBA), 12 C.F.R. 7.4008, and its regulations. The court held that because the Act sections at issue were directed toward debt collection and were therefore not preempted by the NBA, the court reversed the judgment of the district court and remanded for further proceedings.

Plaintiffs claimed that defendants, owners and managers of a for-profit website called DMV.org, violated federal and state unfair competition and false advertising laws by actively fostering the belief that DMV.org was an official state DMV website, or was affiliated or endorsed by a state DMV. The district court held that defendants violated section 43(a) of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. 1125(a), but rejected plaintiffs' claim under California's unfair competition statute. The district court issued an injunction ordering DMV.org to present every site visitor with a splash screen bearing a disclaimer and denied monetary relief and an award of attorney's fees to plaintiffs. Both sides appealed. The court held that plaintiffs had established sufficient injury for Article III standing and that plaintiffs had met both prongs of the test in Jack Russell Terrier Network of Northern California v. American Kennel Club, Inc. for Lanham Act standing. The court held that the district court committed no error in holding that defendants violated the Lanham Act but remanded for the district court to reconsider the duration of the splash screen in light of any intervening changes in the website's content and marketing practices, as well as the dissipation of the deception resulting from past practices. The court held that the district court did not err in denying damages. The court held that because the district court erred in finding that defendants'c conduct was not exceptional and that plaintiffs had unclean hands, its denial of attorney's fees was an abuse of discretion. Therefore, the court remanded for the district court to consider the award of attorney's fees anew. The court held that the district court's findings that defendants were jointly and severally liable were not clearly erroneous. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by refusing to hold DMV.org in contempt for technical breaches of the injunction. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part and reversed in part, remanding with instructions.

Plaintiffs, a putative class of retail cable and satellite television subscribers, brought suit against television programmers and distributors alleging that programmers' practice of selling multi-channel cable packages violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. 1. At issue was whether the district court properly granted programmers' and distributors' motion to dismiss plaintiffs' third amended complaint with prejudice because plaintiffs failed to allege any cognizable injury to competition. The court held that the complaint's allegations of reduced choice increased prices addressed only the element of antitrust injury, but not whether plaintiffs have satisfied the pleading standard for an actual violation. Therefore, absent any allegations of an injury to competition, the court held that the district court properly dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim.