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

Plaintiffs, cattle ranchers, filed suit in federal district court, claiming that the Service's decision to apply the 1995 Riparian Mitigation Measures to the Dry Cottonwood Allotment, instead of the allowable use levels in the 2009 Forest Plan, violated the National Forest Management Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's grant of partial summary judgment to plaintiffs and remanded with instructions to grant summary judgment to the Service. The panel concluded that the Service lawfully applied a particular set of standards for protecting stream habitats from the effects of cattle grazing, the 1995 Riparian Mitigation Measures, to plaintiffs' grazing permits. The panel also concluded that plaintiffs were not entitled to attorney's fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act for their administrative appeal. View "2-Bar Ranch Limited Partnership v. United States Forest Service" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for HHS in an action brought by plaintiff, challenging HHS's denial of his claim for reimbursement from the Medicare program for services that he provided covered patients. The Supreme Court recently reaffirmed that a reviewing court should defer to an agency's reasonable interpretation of ambiguous regulations in Kisor v. Wilkie, 139 S. Ct. 2400 (2019).The panel agreed with the district court that the governing regulation, 42 C.F.R. 424.520(d), is genuinely ambiguous and that the agency's interpretation is reasonable. In this case, section 424.520(d) does not specify whether a certification submitted to reactivate billing privileges constitutes a "Medicare enrollment application" that triggers a new effective date. The panel concluded that the Board's interpretation of section 424.520(d) merits Auer deference and controls this case. Therefore, plaintiff's reactivation request was "a Medicare enrollment application," and its filing date of August 31, 2015 is the effective date of his billing privileges. The panel also agreed with the district court that its review was appropriately confined to the administrative record the agency produced and that the agency was not required to supplement the record. View "Goffney v. Becerra" on Justia Law

In 2007, PANNA and the NRDC filed a petition asking the EPA to prohibit foods that contain any residue of the insecticide chlorpyrifos. In 2017, the EPA, pursuant to a court-set deadline, finally ruled on the 2007 Petition and denied it. In 2019, the EPA denied all objections to its decision.The Ninth Circuit granted petitions for review of the 2017 and 2019 EPA Orders and remanded with instructions for the EPA within 60 days after the issuance of the mandate either to modify chlorpyrifos tolerances and concomitantly publish a finding that the modified tolerances are safe, including for infants and children – or to revoke all chlorpyrifos tolerances. In this case, the EPA has spent more than a decade assembling a record of chlorpyrifos's ill effects and has repeatedly determined, based on that record, that it cannot conclude, to the statutorily required standard of reasonable certainty, that the present tolerances are causing no harm. Yet, rather than ban the pesticide or reduce the tolerances to levels that the EPA can find are reasonably certain to cause no harm, the EPA has sought to evade, through one delaying tactic after another, its plain statutory duties. Therefore, the panel concluded that the EPA's delay tactic was a total abdication of its statutory duty under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA). The panel also ordered the EPA to correspondingly modify or cancel related Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) registrations for food use in a timely fashion consistent with the requirements of 21 U.S.C. 346a(a)(1). View "League of United Latin American Citizens v. Regan" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit vacated the district court's order granting the motion of 22 sates and the District of Columbia, seeking to enjoin the DOS's Final Rule removing 3D-printed guns and their associated files from the U.S. Munitions List. In 2018, DOS proposed a rule removing 3D-printed-gun files from the Munitions List and regulation under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, and placing them on the Commerce Control List, regulated by Commerce under the Export Administration Regulations instead. On the same day, Commerce proposed its own rule expressly assuming regulatory jurisdiction over these items. DOS and Commerce, respectively, promulgated Final Rules on January 23, 2020. After plaintiffs' actions challenging both Final Rules, the district court preliminarily enjoined only the DOS Final Rule.The panel held that Congress expressly barred judicial review of designations and undesignations of defense articles under the International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act of 1976 (the Control Act) and of any functions exercised under the Export Control Reform Act (the Reform Act). The panel explained that Congress not only barred Administrative Procedure Act (APA) challenges to Commerce's Reform Act functions, it rendered them, in effect, judicially unreviewable. Because the APA's section 702 did not apply to functions exercised under the Reform Act, federal sovereign immunity had not been waived, precluding judicial review of plaintiffs' challenge. In this case, the district court erred by enjoining the DOS Final Rule in part for perceived procedural deficiencies in the Commerce Final Rule. Therefore, because both the DOS and Commerce Final Rules are unreviewable, the States have not demonstrated the requisite likelihood of success on the merits. Accordingly, the panel remanded with instructions to dismiss. View "Washington v. United States Department of State" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a Nevada physician who treats patients covered by Medicare, filed suit seeking an injunction compelling the contractor that administers Medicare in his region to change the method of evaluating his claims. The district court granted the injunction.The Ninth Circuit vacated the preliminary injunction, concluding that the Medicare statute permits a court to review only claims that have been presented to the agency. The panel explained that, because this case does not involve a claim that was presented to the agency, the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. Accordingly, the panel remanded to the district court with instructions to dismiss the complaint for lack of jurisdiction. View "Odell v. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of plaintiff's motion for attorneys' fees in this Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) action against the DOJ. The panel concluded that plaintiff obtained relief through a judicial order that changed the legal relationship between the parties, and thus he is eligible for a fee award under 5 U.S.C. 552(a)(4)(E)(ii)(I). In this case, plaintiff initially submitted a FOIA request for records related to the alleged electronic surveillance of President Trump and his advisors during the 2016 election. The DOJ responded with a Glomar response. After plaintiff filed suit, President Trump declassified a memorandum that divulged the existence of responsive records and the DOJ then agreed to turn over any newly revealed, non-exempt documents by a specific date.The panel explained that Congress passed the OPEN Government Act of 2007, which provided that a plaintiff may establish eligibility for FOIA attorneys' fees in one of two ways: (1) where the relief sought resulted from a judicial order or consent decree and (2) where a voluntary change in position afforded the plaintiff relief. The panel remanded to the district court to determine whether plaintiff is entitled to fees given the unique circumstances underlying the government's change of position. View "Poulsen v. Department of Defense" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit's order denied appellants' emergency motion for injunctive relief, which sought to prohibit the enforcement of California's COVID-19 restrictions on private "gatherings" and various limitations on businesses as applied to appellants' in-home Bible studies, political activities, and business operations. The court concluded that appellants have not demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits for their free exercise, due process, or equal protection claims, nor have they demonstrated that injunctive relief is necessary for their free speech claims.In regard to the free exercise claim, the court concluded that, when compared to analogous secular in-home private gatherings, the State's restrictions on in-home private religious gatherings are neutral and generally applicable and thus subject to rational basis review. The court believed that the best interpretation of Roman Catholic Diocese v. Cuomo, South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom, and Gateway City Church v. Newson is that rational basis review should apply to the State's gatherings restrictions because in-home secular and religious gatherings are treated the same, and because appellants' underinclusivity argument fails as they have not provided any support for the conclusion that private gatherings are comparable to commercial activities in public venues in terms of threats to public health or the safety measures that reasonably may be implemented. Therefore, appellants have not shown that gatherings in private homes and public businesses "similarly threaten the government's interest," and they have not shown that strict scrutiny applies.The court also denied as unnecessary appellants' request for an injunction on their free speech and assembly claims. Based on the district court's ruling, the State's gatherings restrictions do not apply to Appellant Tandon's requested political activities, and given the State's failure to define rallies or distinguish Tandon's political activities from Appellant Gannons' political activities, the court concluded that, on the record before it, the State's restrictions do not apply to the Gannons' political activities.Finally, the court concluded that the business owner appellants have not established a likelihood of success on their claims. The court has never held that the right to pursue work is a fundamental right and the district court did not err by applying rational basis review to the due process claims. Likewise, business owners are not a suspect class, and the district court correctly applied rational basis review to their equal protection claims. View "Tandon v. Newsom" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed the district court's dismissal of his complaint, alleging various causes of action arising from his termination as a police officer with the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, a federally recognized Indian Tribe.The Ninth Circuit agreed with the district court that, to the extent that plaintiff's claims alleged that the Tribe's decision to fire him was retaliatory, those claims are barred by the discretionary function exception of the Federal Tort Claims Act. The panel applied the two-part Gaubert-Berkovitz test and concluded that the discretionary function test bars plaintiff's two retaliation-based wrongful termination claims. In regard to plaintiff's third cause of action alleging that his termination was wrongful, the panel concluded that the first element of the Gaubert-Berkovitz test was not met and the discretionary function exception did not apply. Therefore, the district court erred in concluding that plaintiff's third cause of action was barred. Finally, the panel concluded that the district court erred in determining that the discretionary exception function barred the two additional claims plaintiff sought to raise in the Third Amended Complaint. Accordingly, the panel affirmed in part and reversed in part. View "Miller v. United States" on Justia Law

Plaintiff made a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request after the FAA notified him that he was ineligible for an Air Traffic Control Specialist position based on his performance on a screening test called the Biographical Assessment. At issue is FOIA's Exemption 5, which provides that FOIA's disclosure requirements do not apply to "interagency or intra-agency memorandums or letters that would not be available by law to a party . . . in litigation with the agency."The en banc court joined six of its sister circuits in adopting the consultant corollary to Exemption 5, and held that the term "intra-agency" in 5 U.S.C. 552(b)(5) included, at least in some circumstances, documents prepared by outside consultants hired by the agency to assist in carrying out the agency's functions. The en banc court explained that the relevant inquiry asks whether the consultant acted in a capacity functionally equivalent to that of an agency in creating the document or documents the agency sought to withhold. In this case, the FAA properly withheld two of the three documents at issue under that exemption. However, the en banc court held that the FAA did not establish that the remaining document is protected by the attorney work-product privilege, and the agency failed to show that it conducted a search reasonably calculated to locate all documents responsive to petitioner's FOIA request. Accordingly, the en banc court vacated the district court's entry of summary judgment for the FAA and remanded for further proceedings. The en banc court denied plaintiff's motion for judicial notice. View "Rojas v. Federal Aviation Administration" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's order granting a partial stay under Colorado River Water Conservation District v. United States, 424 U.S. 800 (1976), of three state law claims, in an action brought by the United States alleging that the California State Water Resources Board violated various provisions of the California Environmental Quality Control Act.The panel held that the district court abused its discretion in granting a partial Colorado River stay. The panel explained that partial stays pursuant to Colorado River are permissible only in very limited circumstances, namely when there is strong evidence of forum shopping. In this case, there is little evidence of forum shopping. The panel also concluded that it could not affirm the district court on the basis of Pullman abstention where the Board, which did not cross-appeal, cannot ask the court to affirm on Pullman grounds. The panel reasoned that it would necessarily have to stay the intergovernmental immunity claim, which the district court allowed to proceed. On remand, the panel instructed the district court to allow the United States' claims to proceed, subject to regular issues of justiciability. View "United States v. State Water Resources Control Board" on Justia Law