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

This appeal concerned the requirements of due process when law enforcement officers charged with felonies were suspended without pay. The officers brought claims under 42 U.S.C. 1983 in federal district court, alleging violations of their Fourteenth Amendment due process rights. The district court subsequently granted defendants' motion to dismiss, holding that the officers had failed to state a claim against the County of Los Angeles, and that the individual defendants were entitled to qualified immunity. The court held that the officers have adequately alleged that defendants' policies caused violations of their constitutional rights and therefore, plaintiffs have stated Monell v. Dept. of Soc. Servs. claims against the county. All individual defendants, however, were entitled to qualified immunity from the claims of two of the officers (Debs and O'Donoghue), whose right to a more substantial post-suspension hearing was not clearly established at the time of the violations. The individually named Civil Service Commissioners were also entitled to qualified immunity from two of the officers' (Wilkinson and Sherr) claims because the Commission was stripped of jurisdiction by the California Court of Appeal in Zuniga v. Los Angeles Civil Service Commission. But those claims could go forward against the Sheriff and the County Supervisors, who were constitutionally required to provide post-suspension procedures for suspended deputy sheriffs who later retired. Therefore, the court remanded for further proceedings.

In connection with an assessment of a taxpayer for unpaid taxes, the IRS began searching for the taxpayer's assets and issued a summons to a bank for a related third party's account information. The taxpayer and third party argued that 26 U.S.C 7609 required the IRS to notify them, which would have enabled them to seek a court order quashing the summons. Applying Ip v. United States, the court held that under the circumstances of the case, no notice was necessary. Therefore, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

Plaintiffs, a Christian sorority and fraternity, as well as several of their officers at San Diego State University, brought suit in federal district court challenging the university's nondiscrimination policy under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Plaintiffs subsequently appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment on all counts in favor of defendants. At issue was whether the Supreme Court's holdings in Christian Legal Society Chapter of the University of California, Hastings College of the Law v. Martinez extended to a narrow nondiscrimination policy that, instead of prohibiting all membership restrictions, prohibited membership restrictions only on certain specified bases. The court held that the narrower policy was constitutional. The court held, however, that plaintiffs have raised a triable issue of fact as to whether the narrower policy was selectively enforced in this particular case, thereby violating plaintiffs' rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part and reversed in part, and remanded to the district court for further proceedings.

Plaintiff sued defendants, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the Alaska Department of Transportation (Alaska), and the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company (Alyeska), in federal court, alleging causes of action for inverse condemnation, injunctive relief, nuisance, breach of fiduciary duties, and civil rights violations. At issue was whether the district court properly dismissed the action against the BLM and Alaska on the basis of sovereign immunity. The court held that federal sovereign immunity barred plaintiff's inverse condemnation, injunctive relief, and civil rights violations claims against the United States, but that the Federal Tort Claims Act, 25 U.S.C. 345, could provide a waiver of the government sovereign immunity for plaintiff's nuisance and breach of fiduciary duties claims. Additionally, the court held that the Eleventh Amendment barred plaintiff's action against Alaska in its entirety. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed in part and reversed in part and remanded.

The court agreed to rehear this case en banc to clarify under what circumstances the exhaustion requirement of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 20 U.S.C. 1415(l), barred non-IDEA federal or state law claims. Plaintiff, on behalf of herself and her son, appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants where the district court dismissed her claims for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because plaintiff did not initially seek relief in a due process hearing and therefore, failed to comply with one of the exhaustion-of-remedies requirement of the IDEA. The court held that the IDEA's exhaustion requirement was not jurisdictional and that plaintiff's non-IDEA federal and state-law claims were not subject to the IDEA's exhaustion requirement. Therefore, the court reversed the judgment.

Plaintiff, the mother of Jerry Amaro, filed a 42 U.S.C. 1983 claim against defendants for the use of excessive force, which resulted in injuries that caused Amaro's death. At issue was whether the doctrine of equitable estoppel should apply where a plaintiff believed she had a section 1983 claim but was dissuaded from bringing the claim by affirmative misrepresentations and stonewalling by the police. The court held that equitable estoppel did apply to the circumstances and affirmed the district court's judgment on that issue.

This case stemmed from a so-called bubble ordinance enacted by the Oakland City Council, which made it an offense to knowingly and willfully approach within eight feet of an individual seeking entry to a reproductive health clinic if one's purpose in approaching that person was to engage in conversation, protest, counseling, or various other forms of speech. Plaintiff, a minister who regularly stood outside clinics seeking to engage women in what he called a "friendly conversation" to dissuade them from having an abortion, was convicted on two separate violations of the ordinance and subsequently challenged the ordinance in a 42 U.S.C. 1983 action, contending that the ordinance infringed upon the freedom of speech and violated the federal constitution's Due Process Clause, as well as state and federal guarantees of equal protection of the laws. The court held that the ordinance was facially constitutional. The court also held that Oakland's enforcement policy was a constitutionally invalid, content-based regulation of speech and remanded to the district court in order for that court to craft a remedy that ensured that Oakland would adopt and henceforth apply a policy that enforced the ordinance as written, in an evenhanded, constitutional manner. The court further held that the success of plaintiff's challenge to whether Oakland could apply the ordinance to situations in which doing so would prevent plaintiff from communicating his message depended on Oakland's future enforcement policy and the particular circumstances in which that policy could be applied. Therefore, the court did not reach that challenge but also did not preclude plaintiff from bringing such a challenge in the future. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part and reversed in part, remanding with instructions to grant plaintiff's motion for summary judgment in part and to grant him relief consistent with the opinion.

Plaintiff, an inmate, sought enforcement of his Freedom of Information Act (FOIA or Act), 5 U.S.C. 552, request to the DEA for records pertaining to a certain confidential informant. In response, the DEA submitted a Glomar response, refusing to confirm or deny the existence of any responsive records pertaining to the informant, citing exemptions 6 and 7(C), (D), and (F) of the Act. The court held that because the government officially confirmed the informant's status as an informant in open court in the course of official proceedings, the government could not continue to "neither admit nor deny" his informant status in response to a FOIA request. Therefore, the court held that the government must provide an index of the documents it has and make whatever additional objections to disclosure it deemed appropriate. Accordingly, the district court's grant of summary judgment was reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings.

Three conservation groups (Applicants) appealed from the denial of their motion to intervene on the side of defendants in an action where plaintiff challenged an interim order issued by the Forest Service in response to an adverse decision in prior litigation brought by Applicants. The interim order restricted motorized and mechanized vehicle use in a section of the Gallatin National Forest. The court held that Applicants showed, in a timely-filed motion, that they had a significantly protectable interest in the action; that the disposition could impair their ability to protect that interest; and that the Forest Service could not adequately represent their interest. Therefore, Applicants were entitled to intervene under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24(a). Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded with further instructions to the district court.

Plaintiffs, raisin producers, appealed an administrative decision by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which imposed civil penalties and assessments for their failure to comply with the reserve pool requirements for raisins, among other regulatory infractions. At issue was the interpretation and constitutionality of a food product reserve program authorized by the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937 (AMAA), 7 U.S.C. 601 et seq., and implemented by the Marketing Order Regulating the Handling of Raisins Produced from Grapes Grown in California (Marketing Order), 7 C.F.R. Part 989, first adopted in 1949, which contained the reserve pool requirements. The court held that applying the Marketing Order to plaintiffs in their capacity as handlers was not contrary to the AMAA. The court also held that plaintiffs have suffered no compensable physical taking of any portion of their crops and therefore, the Fifth Amendment posed no obstacle to the enforcement of the Marketing Order under the Takings Clause. The court further held that the district court did not err in finding that the penalties were consistent with the Eighth Amendment and were not excessive fines. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.