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

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.

CollegeSource, Inc. (CollegeSource), a California corporation with its principal place of business in California, sued AcademyOne, Inc. (AcademyOne), a Pennsylvania corporation with its principal place of business in Pennsylvania, in federal district court for the Southern District of California, alleging that AcademyOne misappropriated material from CollegeSource's websites. AcademyOne moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and the district court granted its motion. The court held that AcademyOne was subject to specific personal jurisdiction, but not general personal jurisdiction, in California with respect to CollegeSource's misappropriation claims. Under the doctrine of pendant personal jurisdiction, AcademyOne was also subject to personal jurisdiction in California with respect to the remainder of CollegeSource's claims. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's dismissal of CollegeSource's complaint and remanded for further proceedings.

Perfect 10 moved for a preliminary injunction against Google, arguing that it was entitled to an injunction because Google's web and image search and related caching feature, its Blogger service, and its practice of forwarding Perfect 10's takedown notices to chillingeffects.org constituted copyright infringement. Perfect 10 also argued that it was entitled to an injunction based upon Google's alleged violation of the rights of publicity assigned to Perfect 10 by some of its models. At issue was whether the district court erred in denying Perfect 10's request for preliminary injunctive relief. The court held that Perfect 10 had not shown a sufficient causal connection between irreparable harm to Perfect 10's business and Google's operation of its search engine. Therefore, the court held that because Perfect 10 had failed to satisfy this necessary requirement for obtaining preliminary injunctive relief, the district court's ruling was not an abuse of discretion.

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.

Petitioner appealed the Board of Immigration Appeals' ("BIA") determination that it did not have jurisdiction to accept an appeal filed one day late due to a post office error. At issue was whether the 30 day deadline for filing a notice of appeal with the BIA was jurisdictional. The court held that the 30 day deadline must be read as a claim-processing rule that was not jurisdictional. The court also held that, since the BIA erred as a matter of law in concluding that it lacked jurisdiction, the court must remand to the BIA to permit it to fully reconsider whether, under the circumstances presented, it would hear the appeal from the immigration judge's decision in this case. The court also concluded that all the BIA needed to do to avoid subjecting aliens to the risk of losing their appeals due to bad weather or delivery service error was to allow people to send notices of appeal over the internet.

Plaintiff purchased travel arrangements through Expedia, Inc.'s ("Expedia") website and Expedia emailed him a receipt, which included the expiration date of his credit card. Plaintiff claimed that this email receipt violated the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act ("FACTA"), Pub. L. No. 108-159, 117 Stat. 1952, an amendment to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. 1681 et seq., in part to combat identity theft. At issue was the meaning of the words "print" and "electronically printed" under FACTA, in connection with an email receipt. The court held that "print" referred to many different technologies, all of which involve the making of tangible impression on paper or other tangible medium. The court also held that a receipt, under FACTA that was transmitted to the consumer via email and then digitally displayed on the consumer's screen was not an "electronically printed" receipt. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's claims under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6).

The court issued an order and amended the opinion replacing [The district court excluded this evidence under its Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Local Rule 6-11, which it read to create a "privilege" for "evidence regarding the details of the parties' negotiations in their mediation."] in lines 20-24, page 4909, with [The district court excluded this evidence under its Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) local rule on "confidential information," which it read to create a "privilege" for "evidence regarding the details of the parties' negotiations in their mediation." A local rule, like any court order, can impose a duty of confidentiality as to any aspect of litigation, including mediation. See N.D. Cal. ADR L.R. 6-12(a); see also 28 U.S.C. 652(d).] The petition for rehearing en banc was denied and no further petitions for rehearing or rehearing en banc may be filed.

The United States appealed from the district court's dismissal of several counts of an indictment charging defendant with, inter alia, numerous violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act ("CFAA"), 18 U.S.C. 1030, when defendant recruited employees of his former employer to obtain trade secrets and other proprietary information by using their user accounts to access the employer's computer system. At issue was whether the employees had exceeded their authorized access by accessing information that they were entitled to access only under limited circumstances. The court reversed the district court's decision and held that an employee, like the employees at issue in this instance, exceeded authorized access under section 1030 when he or she violated the employer's computer access restrictions, including use restrictions.

Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra ("Winklevosses") sought to intervene after a district court entered judgment enforcing the Term Sheet and Settlement Agreement ("Settlement Agreement") signed by Facebook, the Winklevosses, and the Winklevosses' competing social network site, ConnectU, where the Settlement Agreement envisioned that Facebook would acquire all of ConnectU's shares in exchange for cash and a percentage of Facebook's common stock. At issue was whether the Settlement Agreement was enforceable where the Winklevosses claimed that they did not discover the facts that gave rise to their Rule 10b-5 claims under the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 ("Act") until after they signed the Settlement Agreement's release of claims and whether the releases foreclosed their challenge to the Settlement Agreement where section 29(a) of the Act precluded a mutual release of unknown securities fraud claims arising out of negotiations to settle a pending lawsuit. The court held that the district court correctly concluded that the Settlement Agreement was enforceable and intended to release claims arising out of the settlement negotiations where the release was valid under section 29(a) when the Settlement Agreement was meant to end a dispute between sophisticated parties acting in an adversarial setting that was characteristic of litigation and could not be interpreted as leaving open the door to litigation about the settlement process.