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.

Blue Lake Rancheria, an Indian tribe, sought a refund of Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA), 26 U.S.C. 3306(c)(7), taxes paid by Mainstay Business Solutions (Mainstay), an employee leasing company wholly owned by the Tribe. At issue was the scope of section 3306(c)(7)'s exception from "employment" and also at issue was whether Mainstay was the common law employer of its leased employees. The court held that the services performed "in the employ of an Indian tribe" were excepted from FUTA's definition of "employment" by section 3306(c)(7) only where a tribe or its instrumentality was a common law employer of the worker performing the services. The court held that because Mainstay was a common law employer of its leased employees during the years in question, it was not required to pay FUTA taxes with respect to those employees. Therefore, the court reversed and remanded with instructions to enter judgment for the Tribe.

Plaintiff filed a class action complaint in Nevada state court against his employer, alleging that the employer failed to pay him and other similarly situated employees overtime and minimum wages, listing causes of action under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 216(b), under Nevada labor laws, and for breach of contract. At issue was whether a rejected offer of judgment for the full amount of a putative class representative's individual claim mooted a class action complaint where the offer preceded the filing of a motion for class certification. The court held that where a defendant made an unacceptable Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 68 offer of judgment that fully satisfied a named plaintiff's individual claim before the named plaintiff filed a motion for class certification, the offer did not moot the case so long as the named plaintiff could still file a timely motion for class certification. Once filed, a timely motion for class certification related back to the time of the filing of the complaint. The court further held that the district court abused its discretion in finding that plaintiff could no longer file a timely motion of class certification; that it erred in refusing to allow plaintiff to abandon his FLSA claims; and that it erred in holding that Nev. Rev. Stat. 608.100 abrogated plaintiff's breach of contract claims. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded.

This case arose when defendant was charged with one count of embezzlement and theft of labor union assets. At issue was whether the district court's employment of supplemental arguments impermissibly coerced a guilty verdict and whether the district court committed plain error by failing to instruct the jury regarding defendant's defense that her actions were authorized by the union's president. The court held that the district court neither coerced a guilty verdict nor abused its discretion by ordering supplemental closing arguments under the circumstances presented in this case. The district court also did not commit reversible plain error by failing to instruct the jury on an authorization defense, as the evidence presented and relied on by defendant at trial did not support a finding that her actions were authorized by the union. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court was affirmed.

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.

Plaintiff appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of defendant where plaintiff was a former bus driver for defendant and was terminated, subsequently reinstated pursuant to an agreement executed over the course of a grievance process, and then again terminated for an unexcused absence that violated the attendance requirements of the agreement. At issue was whether the district court properly granted summary judgment to defendant on plaintiff's claims that the second termination violated the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), 29 U.S.C. 2612, and plaintiff's due process right to a pretermination hearing under the United States and California Constitutions. The court held that because plaintiff was not an employee of defendant when he made his request for leave, the court affirmed the district court's grant of judgment for defendant on plaintiff's FMLA claim. The court held, however, that because plaintiff received no pretermination hearing, he was denied due process under the United States and California Constitutions. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment for defendant on plaintiff's due process claims and remanded with instructions to grant judgment for plaintiff on these claims.

This case stemmed from petitioners' suit against defendants, alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. 206 et seq., forced labor in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1589, unjust enrichment, and violations of California and New York labor laws. At issue was whether the district court erred by refusing to resolve petitioners' claim of exemption from arbitration under Section 1 of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), 9 U.S.C. 1, and Section 12-1517 of the Arizona Aribration Act (AAA), 12-517 A.R.S., before compelling arbitration pursuant to those acts. The court agreed that petitioners made a strong argument that the district court erred but, nonetheless, held that this case did not warrant the extraordinary remedy of mandamus. Therefore, the court denied the petition for mandamus.

Defendants engaged in discovery misconduct that was sufficiently egregious to cause the district court to enter an order of default against them. Although defendants subsequently challenged the default order as erroneous, defendants did not challenge the order of default by way of a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 55(c) or 60(b). At issue was whether Judge Real, a district court judge, had the power to impose default as a sanction for discovery misconduct and assuming such power, whether Judge Real abused his discretion by imposing default rather than lesser sanctions. The court held that defendants' failures to comply with orders of the court provided Judge Real with the power under Rule 37(b) to impose sanctions sua sponte, up to and including default and that Judge Wilson appropriately revisited previous orders of the court when he replaced Judge Real after Judge Real recused himself. The court also held that the district court possessed the power to impose the sanction of default and that the district court did not abuse its discretion by doing so. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

This case stemmed from the collective bargaining activities of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Local 142 (Union) and the Pacific Beach Hotel (Hotel) where the Union filed numerous unfair labor practice charges with the Regional Director of Region 20 of the Board (Director). At issue was an injunction issued pursuant to section 10(j), 29 U.S.C. 160(j), of the National Labor Relations Act (Act), 29 U.S.C. 151 et seq. The court must determine whether the injunction should be affirmed on its merits and whether the district court had the power to issue the injunction in the first place. As a preliminary matter, the court held that the appeal was not moot because its resolution was crucial to a pending claim for retrospective monetary relief sought by the National Labor Relations Board (Board) against the Hotel in a civil contempt proceeding. The court held that the text of the Act, reinforced by the Board's longstanding practice under section 10(e), allowed the Board to assign the General Counsel final authority in deciding when to petition for injunctive relief under section 10(j) in particular unfair labor practice cases pending before the Board. The three other circuits that have addressed this question agreed that the district court could entertain section 10(j) petitions approved by the General Counsel pursuant to the authority granted him by the Board in December 2007. Although the court's reasoning differed somewhat from that in those cases, the court's conclusion with regard to the validity of the Board's 2007 delegation of litigation authority under section 10(j) was identical. With respect to the Board's power to file petitions under section 10(j), it was sufficient that a quorum of the Board in 2007 decided to assign decisions as to individual petitions to the General Counsel. Under the distinction explained in New Process Steel, L.P. v. NLRB, nothing in the Board's quorum requirement would cause the General Counsel's ability to file section 10(j) petitions to lapse after the Board's membership fell below a quorum. As for the merits of the injunction, the court concurred with the district court's assessment that the Board was likely to determine, and be affirmed by the court in so determining, that the Hotel engaged in violations of section 8(a)(1), (3), and (5) of the Act by refusing to bargain in good faith and excluding five union activists from the workforce. The district court likewise did not abuse its discretion in concluding that the other requisites for section 10(j) relief were met. Accordingly, the court affirmed the injunction.

This case stemmed from a Mutual Strike Assistance Agreement (MSAA) that was entered into by defendants (grocers) where the MSAA included a revenue-sharing provision (RSP), providing that in the event of a strike/lockout, any grocer that earned revenues above its historical share relative to the other chains during the strike period would pay 15% of those excess revenues as reimbursement to the other grocers to restore their pre-strike shares. At issue was whether the MSAA was exempt from the antitrust laws under the non-statutory labor exemption, and if not, whether the MSAA should be condemned as a per se violation of the antitrust laws or on a truncated "quick look," or whether more detailed scrutiny was required. The court held that the MSAA between the grocers to share revenues for the duration of the strike period was not exempt from scrutiny under antitrust laws and that more than a "quick look" was required to ascertain its impact on competition in the Southern California grocery market. Given the limited judicial experience with revenue sharing for several months pending a labor dispute, the court could not say that the restraint's anti-competitive effects were "obvious" under a per se or "quick look" approach. Although the court concluded that summary condemnation was improper, the court expressed no opinion on the legality of the arrangement under the rule of reason. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.