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

In 2020, Milos Product Tanker Corporation transported approximately 40,000 tons of jet fuel belonging to Valero Marketing and Supply Company. Milos had a maritime transportation contract (Charter Party) with GP Global PTE Ltd., which arranged the voyage. Valero purchased the fuel from Koch Refining International PTE Ltd. on "cost and freight" terms, meaning Koch paid for the transportation. Upon delivery, Valero refused to pay Milos, arguing it had already paid Koch. GP Global, facing financial difficulties, also did not pay Milos, leading Milos to sue Valero for breach of contract.The United States District Court for the Central District of California granted summary judgment in favor of Milos, concluding that Valero breached an express or implied contract to pay Milos for the transportation. The court reasoned that Valero's conduct showed its consent to be bound by the Charter Party between Milos and GP Global. The court also found that Valero was alternatively liable under an implied promise to pay, based on its acceptance of the fuel.The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's decision. The appellate court held that under maritime law, the shipper (GP Global) is primarily liable for freight charges, even if a bill of lading suggests otherwise. The court found no express contract between Milos and Valero that would rebut this presumption. The Charter Party specifically stated that GP Global would pay the freight. The court also determined that Valero's conduct did not imply an agreement to be bound by the bills of lading or to pay freight. Additionally, the court found no basis for an implied obligation for Valero to pay under the principles established in States Marine International, Inc. v. Seattle-First National Bank. The court concluded that Valero was not unjustly enriched, as it had paid Koch for the freight charges. The case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. View "MILOS PRODUCT TANKER CORPORATION V. VALERO MARKETING AND SUPPLY COMPANY" on Justia Law

C.R. Bard, Inc. (Bard), a medical device company, held patents on a vascular graft and entered into a licensing agreement with Atrium Medical Corporation (Atrium) to settle a patent infringement lawsuit. The agreement required Atrium to pay Bard a 15% per-unit royalty on U.S. sales until the U.S. patent expired in 2019 and on Canadian sales until the Canadian patent expired in 2024. Additionally, Atrium was to pay a minimum royalty of $3.75 million per quarter until the FDA approved the iCast stent for vascular use or rescinded its approval for all uses. Atrium ceased minimum royalty payments after the U.S. patent expired, leading Bard to sue for breach of contract.The United States District Court for the District of Arizona held a bench trial and found that the minimum royalty provision was primarily intended to compensate Bard for U.S. sales, thus constituting patent misuse under Brulotte v. Thys Co. The court concluded that the provision violated Brulotte because it effectively extended royalties beyond the patent's expiration based on the parties' motivations during negotiations.The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's judgment. The appellate court clarified that the Brulotte rule requires examining whether a contract explicitly provides for royalties on the use of a patented invention after the patent's expiration. The court held that the licensing agreement did not violate Brulotte because it provided for U.S. royalties only until the U.S. patent expired and Canadian royalties until the Canadian patent expired. The minimum royalty payments were not tied to post-expiration use of the U.S. patent but were instead based on Canadian sales, which continued to be valid under the Canadian patent. The Ninth Circuit concluded that the district court erred by considering the parties' subjective motivations and reversed the judgment for Atrium on Bard’s breach of contract claim. View "C.R. BARD, INC. V. ATRIUM MEDICAL CORPORATION" on Justia Law

The case involves a challenge to Arizona's voter registration law, specifically A.R.S. § 16-121.01(C), which requires documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC) for voter registration. Plaintiffs, including various advocacy groups and individuals, argued that this law conflicts with a prior consent decree (LULAC Consent Decree) that allows voter registration without DPOC for federal elections. The district court issued an injunction barring the enforcement of the law, leading to an appeal by the Intervenors-Defendants-Appellants, including the Republican National Committee and Arizona state legislators.The United States District Court for the District of Arizona ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, finding that the new law violated the LULAC Consent Decree. The court issued an injunction preventing the enforcement of A.R.S. § 16-121.01(C). The Intervenors-Defendants-Appellants filed an emergency motion to stay the district court's judgment, which was partially granted by a motions panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The motions panel stayed the injunction concerning A.R.S. § 16-121.01(C) but left the rest of the district court's judgment intact.The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reviewed the case. The court granted the plaintiffs' emergency motion for reconsideration of the partial stay. The Ninth Circuit vacated the motions panel's order that had stayed the district court's injunction against enforcing A.R.S. § 16-121.01(C). The court found that the Intervenors-Defendants-Appellants did not demonstrate a strong likelihood of success on the merits or a high degree of irreparable injury. The court emphasized the importance of maintaining the status quo in election cases to avoid voter confusion and potential disenfranchisement, citing the Supreme Court's decision in Purcell v. Gonzalez. The court concluded that the balance of hardships and public interest favored vacating the stay. View "MI FAMILIA VOTA, V. MAYES" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a Bank of America (BOA) accountholder, was charged two separate out-of-network (OON) balance inquiry fees when using a non-BOA ATM. She claimed that only the first fee was permissible under the contract, arguing that a "balance inquiry" should be defined as a customer-initiated request for balance information. BOA contended that it could charge a fee whenever an ATM transmitted a balance inquiry request, regardless of the customer's actions.The United States District Court for the Southern District of California granted summary judgment in favor of BOA on both the breach of contract and breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing claims. The court also denied class certification, reasoning that individual issues predominated over common ones, particularly concerning the subjective intent of each class member and variations in ATM prompts.The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's summary judgment on the breach of contract claim, agreeing with the plaintiff that a "balance inquiry" should be defined as a customer-initiated transaction. The court found that BOA's interpretation, which allowed fees based on ATM transmittals, was unreasonable and not supported by the contract's language. The court affirmed the summary judgment on the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing claim, as it was indistinguishable from the breach of contract claim. The court also affirmed the district court's decision that the plaintiff's failure to follow pre-dispute procedures did not bar her claim.The Ninth Circuit vacated the denial of class certification and remanded the case for reconsideration, noting that the court's interpretation of "balance inquiry" alleviated concerns about the need to probe the subjective intent of individual class members. View "Schertzer v. Bank of America, NA" on Justia Law

AGK Sierra De Montserrat, L.P. (AGK) entered into a Purchase and Sale Agreement (PSA) with Comerica Bank (Comerica) for the purchase of lots in a residential subdivision. The PSA included an indemnity provision requiring Comerica to indemnify AGK against claims arising from Comerica's position as the declarant. After the sale, Westwood Montserrat, Ltd. (Westwood) initiated several lawsuits against AGK, claiming declarant rights. Comerica refused to indemnify AGK, leading AGK to sue Comerica for breach of the indemnity provision.The United States District Court for the Eastern District of California found that Comerica breached the indemnity agreement and awarded AGK attorney fees incurred in the underlying lawsuits with Westwood. Additionally, the district court, relying on the Ninth Circuit's decision in DeWitt v. Western Pacific Railroad Co., awarded AGK attorney fees for the present breach of contract suit against Comerica. Comerica appealed the award of attorney fees for the present litigation.The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reviewed the case and reversed the district court's award of attorney fees for the present litigation. The Ninth Circuit held that DeWitt was only binding in the absence of subsequent indications from California courts that the interpretation was incorrect. Since DeWitt, California appellate courts have uniformly indicated that first-party attorney fees are not recoverable under an indemnity provision unless explicitly stated. The Ninth Circuit remanded the case for the district court to determine whether the attorney fees were otherwise recoverable under the PSA's attorney fees provision. The court emphasized that indemnity provisions generally cover third-party claims, not first-party litigation costs, unless specific language indicates otherwise. View "AGK SIERRA DE MONTSERRAT, L.P. V. COMERICA BANK" on Justia Law

The case involves a putative class action of approximately 2,000 payees who received structured settlement annuities to resolve personal injury claims. The plaintiffs, Renaldo White and Randolph Nadeau, alleged that defendants Symetra Life Insurance Company and Symetra Assigned Benefits Service Company wrongfully induced them to cash out their annuities in individualized “factoring” arrangements, whereby they gave up their rights to periodic payments in return for discounted lump sums.The district court certified two nationwide classes under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23. The first class consisted of all persons who were annuitants of a structured settlement annuity (SSA) issued by Symetra and who subsequently sold to a Symetra affiliate the right to receive payments from that SSA in a factoring transaction. The second class was a subclass of the first, consisting of all members of the class whose contract defining the annuity at issue included language explicitly stating that the annuitants lack the power to transfer their future SSA payments.The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s certification of the two nationwide classes. The court held that individual issues of causation will predominate over common ones when evaluating whether defendants’ acts and omissions caused the plaintiffs to enter factoring transactions and incur their alleged injuries. The court also held that the district court erred in certifying the nationwide subclass of plaintiffs whose original settlement agreements with their personal injury tortfeasors contained structured settlement annuity (SSA) anti-assignment provisions. The record indicates that the annuitants hail from a wide array of different states, and some of the settlement agreements have choice of law provisions denoting the law of a state other than the location where the contract was executed. The apparent variations in state law on the enforceability of anti-assignment provisions in SSAs and the need to apply multiple state laws to the subclass raised a substantial question of whether individual issues predominate and how the matter can be fairly managed as a class action. View "WHITE V. SYMETRA ASSIGNED BENEFITS SERVICE COMPANY" on Justia Law

The Choctaw Nation and several pharmacies it owns and operates entered into agreements with Caremark, LLC, and its affiliates to facilitate insurance reimbursements for the Nation’s costs for pharmacy services for its members. The Nation filed a lawsuit in the Eastern District of Oklahoma, alleging that Caremark unlawfully denied pharmacy reimbursement claims in violation of the Recovery Act. After the matter was stayed in the Eastern District of Oklahoma, Caremark petitioned to compel arbitration of the Nation’s claims in the District of Arizona. The district court granted the petition, concluding that the parties’ agreements included arbitration provisions with delegation clauses and therefore an arbitrator must decide the Nation’s arguments that its claims are not arbitrable.The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s decision. The court held that most of the Nation’s arguments challenging the district court’s arbitration order were foreclosed by a previous case, Caremark, LLC v. Chickasaw Nation, which addressed the enforceability of identical arbitration provisions. The court also held that the Nation’s remaining argument that the District of Arizona lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over the petition to compel arbitration failed because the Nation contractually agreed to arbitrate its claims against Caremark in Arizona, and in those contracts specifically “agree[d] to such jurisdiction.” Thus, the Nation expressly waived its tribal sovereign immunity as a bar to arbitration in the District of Arizona. View "CAREMARK, LLC V. CHOCTAW NATION" on Justia Law

The case involves plaintiffs Christopher Calise and Anastasia Groschen, who alleged that they were harmed by fraudulent third-party advertisements posted on Meta Platforms, Inc.'s (commonly known as Facebook) website, in violation of Meta's terms of service. Meta claimed immunity from liability under § 230(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which applies to a provider or user of an interactive computer service that a plaintiff seeks to treat, under a state law cause of action, as a publisher or speaker of information provided by another information content provider.The district court dismissed the plaintiffs' non-contract claims, ruling that they were barred by § 230(c)(1) of the CDA. The court also dismissed the plaintiffs' contract-related claims, holding that Meta's duty arising from its promise to moderate third-party advertisements was related to Meta's status as a "publisher or speaker" of third-party advertisements, and therefore § 230(c)(1) barred the plaintiffs' contract claims.On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of the plaintiffs' non-contract claims, agreeing that these claims derived from Meta's status as a "publisher or speaker" of third-party advertisements. However, the appellate court vacated the dismissal of the plaintiffs' contract-related claims, holding that Meta's duty arising from its promise to moderate third-party advertisements was unrelated to Meta's status as a "publisher or speaker" of third-party advertisements, and therefore § 230(c)(1) did not bar the plaintiffs' contract claims. The case was remanded for further proceedings. View "Calise v. Meta Platforms, Inc." on Justia Law

The case involves Bristol SL Holdings, Inc., the successor-in-interest to Sure Haven, Inc., a defunct drug rehabilitation and mental health treatment center, and Cigna Health and Life Insurance Company and Cigna Behavioral Health, Inc. Bristol alleged that Sure Haven's calls to Cigna verifying out-of-network coverage and seeking authorization to provide health services created independent contractual obligations. Cigna, however, denied payment based on fee-forgiving, a practice prohibited by the health plans. Bristol brought state law claims for breach of contract and promissory estoppel against Cigna.The district court initially dismissed Bristol’s claims, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal, holding that Bristol had derivative standing to sue for unpaid benefits as Sure Haven’s successor-in-interest. On remand, the district court granted Cigna’s motion for summary judgment, ruling that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) preempted Bristol’s state law claims.On appeal, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's decision. The court held that Bristol’s state law claims were preempted by ERISA because they had both a “reference to” and an “impermissible connection with” the ERISA plans that Cigna administered. The court reasoned that Bristol’s claims were not independent of an ERISA plan because they concerned the denial of reimbursement to patients who were covered under such plans. The court also held that allowing liability on Bristol’s state law claims would interfere with nationally uniform plan administration, a central matter of plan administration. View "Bristol SL Holdings, Inc. v. Cigna Health and Life Insurance Co." on Justia Law

A group of individuals, including a minor, filed a class action lawsuit against Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. for alleged misrepresentations related to the mobile application Game of Thrones: Conquest (GOTC). The plaintiffs claimed that Warner Bros. engaged in false and misleading advertising within the game. In response, Warner Bros. moved to compel arbitration of all claims based on the GOTC Terms of Service, which users agree to by tapping a “Play” button located on the app’s sign-in screen. The district court denied Warner Bros.' motion, finding that the notice of the Terms of Service was insufficiently conspicuous to bind users to them.The case was appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The lower court had found that Warner Bros. failed to provide reasonably conspicuous notice of its Terms of Service, thus denying the motion to compel arbitration. The district court focused on whether the context of the transaction put the plaintiffs on notice that they were agreeing to the Terms of Service, concluding that the app did not involve a continuing relationship that would require some terms and conditions.The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court's decision. The appellate court held that the district court erred in finding that Warner Bros. failed to provide reasonably conspicuous notice. The court found that the context of the transaction and the placement of the notice were both sufficient to provide reasonably conspicuous notice. The court also rejected the plaintiffs' argument that the arbitration agreement was unconscionable due to its ban on public injunctive relief. The court concluded that the unenforceability of the waiver of one’s right to seek public injunctive relief did not make either this provision or the arbitration agreement unconscionable or otherwise unenforceable. The case was remanded for further proceedings. View "KEEBAUGH V. WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT INC." on Justia Law