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

This case arose from a traffic stop for a seatbelt violation in which a Los Angeles County Sheriff pepper sprayed plaintiff and struck him with a baton after plaintiff exited his vehicle and disobeyed the Sheriff's order to reenter it. Plaintiff filed this action against the Sheriff and the county, claiming that the Sheriff's use of force was excessive under the Fourth Amendment and that the Sheriff's conduct constituted false imprisonment and negligence under California tort law. The court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the Sheriff with respect to plaintiff's false imprisonment claim because the Sheriff had lawful authority to arrest plaintiff on account of his violation of Cal. Penal Code 148(a)(1). The court held, however, that the use of intermediate force was unreasonable and the suspect clearly posed no threat to the officer or the public safety. Therefore, the court reversed as to the dismissal of plaintiff's excessive force and negligence claims.

Plaintiff appealed the district court's dismissal of her ERISA, 29 U.S.C. 1001 et seq., action against defendant as not timely filed. Plaintiff was employed by defendant as a stockbroker in 1979 and starting in 1982, plaintiff had been disabled periodically from her employment. Plaintiff applied for long-term disability benefits around January 15, 1987. The court held that plaintiff's claim did not accrue in 1990 with regard to the ERISA statute of limitations, as the district court found, but rather accrued when her claim was finally denied on January 14, 2004. Therefore, plaintiff's action, filed on February 16, 2006, commenced within the four-year statutory limitations period for ERISA claims. The court also held that the limitations provision in the policy here did not apply to disability cases in which the claimant contested the amount of benefits or claims that the benefits have been miscalculated. Accordingly, the court vacated the judgment of the district court and remanded for further proceedings.

While handcuffed in the back seat of a patrol car, Everardo Torres (Everardo) was mortally mounded when a Madera City Police Officer shot him in the chest with her Glock semiautomatic pistol, believing it at the time to be her Taser M26 stun gun. Everardo's family filed this survival action under 42 U.S.C. 1983, asserting excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment and subsequently appealed from an adverse grant of summary judgment. The court held that, while a jury might ultimately find that the officer's mistake of weapon to have been reasonable, it was inappropriate for the district court to reach this conclusion in the face of material facts in dispute. The court held that, at this stage in the proceeding, the officer had not shown an entitlement to qualified immunity and summary judgment was therefore improperly granted.

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 appealed the dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction of its action against defendant, alleging tort, contract, and state statutory claims and seeking, among other remedies, a constructive trust and declaratory judgment over an oil and gas lease located on allotted land, wherein title to the land was held by the United States in trust for various Indian allottees. At issue was whether the district court had federal jurisdiction. The court held that 28 U.S.C. 1360(b), 28 U.S.C. 1331, and 25 U.S.C. 345 did not grant federal jurisdiction and therefore, plaintiff presented no basis for concluding that the action was within the "limited jurisdiction" of federal courts. Accordingly, the district court properly dismissed the suit based on lack of subject matter jurisdiction and the court did not need to reach any other issues raised by the parties, including exhaustion of tribal remedies. The court noted, however, that its holding did not preclude plaintiff from seeking relief in Blackfeet Tribal Court.

This case arose when plaintiff sued Lucent Technologies for disability benefits based on grounds of mental disability. At issue was whether 42 U.S.C. 1981 retaliation claims were governed by the four-year statute of limitations applicable to claims "arising under an Act of Congress enacted" after December 1, 1990, 28 U.S.C. 1658, or by the personal injury statute of limitations of the forum state. The court held that the district court erred in applying to plaintiff's section 1981 retaliation claim the two-year statute of limitations governing personal injury claims under California law and not the four-year statute of limitations under section 1658. Consequently, under the proper statute of limitations, the claim was timely. The court also held that the district court erred in ruling that, as a matter of law, plaintiff's intentional infliction of emotional distress claim was time-barred. The court held, however, that the district court correctly dismissed Title VII, abuse of process, and fraudulent concealment claims. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed in part and reversed in part and remanded for further proceedings.

This case arose from the tragic February 2007 crash of an Army Special Operations Aviation Regiment helicopter in Afghanistan. Plaintiffs, who include those injured and the heirs of those killed in the crash, appealed from the district court's dismissal of AT Engine Controls (ATEC) for lack of personal jurisdiction and from the court's summary judgment in favor of The Boeing Company (Boeing), Honeywell International, Inc. (Honeywell), and Goodrich Pump and Engine Control (Goodrich) (collectively, contractors). The court considered each of plaintiffs' arguments challenging the district court's dismissal of ATEC for lack of personal jurisdiction and its summary judgment in favor of the contractors, finding none of these arguments persuasive. The court also held that because the government contractor defense barred each of plaintiffs' state-law claims, the court need not consider the contractors' alternative argument, based on the combatant activities exception, for upholding the district court's summary judgment. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court was affirmed.

Plaintiff filed a complaint against defendant, seeking indemnity and/or contribution based on the damage defendant allegedly caused through gross negligence in removing plaintiff's vessel from a coral reef. At issue was whether the district court properly denied defendant's motion to compel arbitration of the dispute under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), 9 U.S.C. 1 et seq., where defendant alleged that the district court erred in refusing to apply English arbitrability law. The court held that based on the Supreme Court's reasoning in First Options of Chicago, Inc. v. Kaplan, courts should apply non-federal arbitrability law only if there was clear and unmistakable evidence that the parties intended to apply such non-federal law. Because there was no clear and unmistakable evidence in this case, federal arbitrability law applied. Under federal arbitrability law, the court's decisions in Mediterranean Enterprises, Inc. v. Ssangyong Construction Co. and Tracer Research Corp. v. National Environmental Services, Co., mandated a narrow interpretation of a clause providing for arbitration of all disputes "arising under" an agreement. Under this narrow interpretation, the present dispute was not arbitrable. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's judgment.

Plaintiff sued Icelandair in federal district court, alleging that it was liable for her injuries under Article 17 of the Convention of the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to International Transportation by Air (Montreal Convention), which established that air carriers were liable for accidents that occurred to passengers while they were boarding, aboard, or disembarking aircraft, S. Treaty Doc. No. 106-45, 33. At issue was whether the district court properly granted summary judgment on behalf of Icelandair. The court held that a plaintiff did not have to prove that an airline violated a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) standard to establish that there was an "accident" under Article 17 of the Montreal Convention. The court also held that because the district court held otherwise, requiring plaintiff to provide evidence that the airline had failed to meet FAA requirements in order to survive summary judgment, the court reversed and remanded.

Plaintiff sought damages from the United States for injuries to a child allegedly caused by exposure to the toxic heavy metal thallium from soil dumped into a landfill adjacent to the child' residence and school. The child, by her guardian ad litem, appealed a decision of the district court finding that the United States acted "reasonably" and did not breach any duty in conducting the soil remediation projects. The district court also found that it did not have subject matter jurisdiction because the "discretionary function" exception to tort liability of the United States applied in this case. The court held that because the district court erred in holding that the "discretionary function" exception barred the Navy's liability on and the court's subject matter jurisdiction over plaintiff's claim, and clearly erred in finding that the Navy acted "reasonably" and not in breach of its duty in conducting the remediation of contaminated soil in the project at issue here, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. The court, nevertheless, held that it was unnecessary to reassign the case to a different judge on remand.