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

Plaintiffs sued Robert Silverman and his law firm on behalf of a class of Filipino teachers recruited to work in several school districts in Louisiana. Plaintiffs alleged that Silverman aided and abetted a human trafficking scheme in violation of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), 18 U.S.C. 1589, 1590, 1592, 1594, and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U.S.C. 1961-1968; breached his fiduciary duties to members of the plaintiff class; and committed legal malpractice through his role in procuring H-1B non-immigrant visas for the teachers. Silverman brought this interlocutory appeal from the district court's denial of his special motion to strike plaintiffs' second amended complaint on the ground that plaintiffs' state law claims violated California's anti-SLAPP statute, Cal. Civ. Proc. Code 425.16, and invoked Noerr-Pennington immunity against all of plaintiffs' claims. The court joined its sister circuits and held that the denial of a motion for Noerr-Pennington immunity from liability was not an immediately appealable collateral order. The court further held that it did not have pendent jurisdiction over the Noerr-Pennington issue and did not reach the merits of this issue. View "Tanedo, et al v. East Baton Rouge Parish Sch., et al" on Justia Law

This case stemmed from plaintiffs' complaint asserting state and federal causes of action against eight defendants. At issue on appeal was the district court's award of attorney's fees and costs to Plaintiff Joseph Padgett. The court vacated the district court's award of costs and attorney's fees because the district court provided no explanation of how it calculated them. The court remanded to the district court for an explanation of how it used the lodestar method to reduce Padgett's fees and how it calculated Padgett's reduced costs. For the same reason, the district court erred in failing to explain why it denied costs to the prevailing defendants. While the district court had discretion to depart from Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(d) in appropriate cases, the court could not review its unexplained order for abuse of discretion. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded. View "Padgett, et al v. Loventhal, et al" on Justia Law

Sideman, the legal representative for a taxpayer who was under criminal investigation by the IRS, appealed from the district court's order enforcing an IRS administrative summons to produce the taxpayer's documents. Sideman argued that producing the documents would be testimonial in violation of the taxpayer's Fifth Amendment rights. The district court's finding that the IRS could independently authenticate the tax records contained in the identified collection of boxes and folders currently held by Sideman was not clearly erroneous. Accordingly, the court held that the district court did not err in applying the foregone conclusion exception when enforcing Sideman's compliance with the summons. View "United States v. Sideman & Bancroft, LLP" on Justia Law

The Church appealed a sanction order granting attorneys' fees and costs to appellees. The court held that appellant did not take reasonable steps to avoid imposing an undue burden on appellees, who were non-parties to the underlying case. In reversing the sanctions order, the court held that Rule 45(c)(1) could not properly support a sanction where the cost of complying with the subpoena was minimal and there was no showing that the subpoena was facially defective or issued in bad faith. View "Mount Hope Church, et al v. Bash Back!" on Justia Law

Tim Wilborn appealed the reduction of attorneys' fees he earned while representing plaintiff in a Social Security benefits claim. At issue was whether Wilborn received fees for the same work under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), 28 U.S.C. 2412, and the Social Security Act (SSA), 42 U.S.C. 406(b)(1). The court held that the $5,000 award under the EAJA was for the "same work" as the work for which Wilborn received the section 406(b)(1) award, and therefore the district court correctly offset the $5,000 from the 25% award. View "Parrish v. Commissioner Social Security" on Justia Law

Plaintiff sought review of the SSA's denial of his application for social security disability benefits. The federal magistrate judge who presided over plaintiff's action determined that the agency's decision improperly disregarded the opinions of an examining psychologist and remanded to the agency. Plaintiff sought reasonable attorney's fees pursuant to the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), 28 U.S.C. 2412(d). The magistrate judge granted the request in part but determined that the 60.5 hours plaintiff's attorneys spent working on the case were excessive and subsequently reduced the number of hours by nearly one-third. The court held that it was improper for district courts to apply a de facto cap on the number of hours for which attorneys could be compensated under the EAJA in a "routine" case challenging the denial of social security benefits. Rather individualized consideration must be given to each case. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "Costa v. Commissioner of Social Security Admin." on Justia Law

Gregory Haynes was the counsel for the plaintiff in the underlying action. The district court (1) determined that Haynes continued pursuit of plaintiff's claims after it was clear the claims were frivolous and in bad faith, and (2) determined that the defendants had incurred excess costs and fees of over $360,000 due to Haynes' misconduct. The court imposed sanctions on Haynes in this amount pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1927, declining to consider Haynes's assertion that he could not possibly pay such an award. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals remanded for further proceedings, holding (1) a district court may reduce a section 1927 sanctions award in light of an attorney's inability to pay; and (2) because the district court appeared to believe it was without discretion to reduce the sanctions award on this ground and accordingly failed to consider whether to exercise that discretion, the case was remanded. View "Haynes v. City of San Francisco" on Justia Law

Petitioner Andrew Mackey was convicted several crimes in California. Retained attorney Le Rue Grim represented Mackey in post-trial and post-conviction proceedings. Grim subsequently filed a timely petition in the United States district court asserting ineffective assistance of counsel. Respondent filed a response to the district court's order to show cause, but Grim did not file a traverse by the due date. Grim then withdrew from the case but failed to notify the court of his intention to withdraw. Consequently, Mackey was unaware that the district court denied his petition and did not have the opportunity to proceed pro se. Mackey then filed a motion to have the district court vacate its judgment and reopen the case. The court denied the motion, determining that it lacked discretion to vacate the judgment pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b). The Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that the district court would possess the discretion to vacate and reenter the judgment in order to allow Mackey the opportunity to appeal if it were to find that Grim effectively abandoned Mackey, causing Mackey to fail to file a timely notice of appeal. Remanded for findings as to whether Grim's action or inaction constituted abandonment. View "Mackey v. Hoffman" on Justia Law

This case involved intellectual property related to the Superman character created by writer Jerome Siegel and illustrator Joe Schuster. In 2010, D.C. Comics filed a lawsuit against Marc Toberoff, owner of a joint venture with the heirs of Shuster and Siegel (Heirs), the Heirs, and three entities in which Toberoff owned a controlling interest (collectively, petitioners), claiming that Toberoff interfered with its contractual relationships with the Heirs. Toberoff had hired lawyer David Michaels to work for one of his companies. Michaels remained in Toberoff's employ for only about three months before absconding with copies of several documents from the Siegel and Shuster files. These documents formed the basis of this lawsuit. About a month after the suit was filed, Toberoff asked the U.S. Attorney to investigate Michaels and, in response, the U.S. Attorney's Office issued a grand jury subpoena for the documents at issue as well as a letter stating that if Toberoff voluntarily complied with the subpoena, the Government would "not provide the...documents...to non-governmental third parties except as may be required by law or court order." At issue was whether a party waived attorney-client privilege forever by voluntarily disclosing privileged documents to the federal government. Given that Congress has declined broadly to adopt a new privilege to protect disclosures of attorney-client privileged materials to the government, the court would not do so here. The court also rejected petitioner's assertion that even if the court rejected selective waiver as a general matter, the court should enforce a purported confidentiality agreement based upon the letter from the U.S. Attorney's Office where petitioners have provided no convincing reason that post hoc contracts regarding how information could be revealed encouraged frank conversation at the time of the advice. The court further rejected petitioners' remaining claims and denied the petition for mandamus.

This case stemmed from a class action that began more than a quarter century ago where Idaho state prisoners at the Idaho State Correctional Institution (ISCI) prevailed on their claims that, inter alia, because of deliberate indifference, without any connection to a legitimate penological purpose, the inmates were subjected to needless pain and suffering on account of inadequate medical and psychiatric care. The district court issued an injunction to remedy the constitutional violations and the injunctions remained in effect in 2008 and 2009 when the facts giving rise to this case occurred. The Portland law firm of Stoel Rives, LLP was appointed to represent the prisoner class. At issue on appeal was whether Stoel Rives was entitled to an attorneys' fee award in the class action under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 42 U.S.C. 1997e. The court held that, in this case, the judge had discretion to consider whether Stoel Rives's work on a motion to compel conformity to the injunction was "directly and reasonably incurred in enforcing the relief." The district court acted within the bounds of its discretion in awarding fees in a reasonable amount for bringing about that conformity with the injunction. Here, Stoel Rives's work was what one would expect of a lawyer working for a client that could afford its efforts but that was not indifferent to the cost. The firm showed no evidence of milking the case, and the fees were "directly and reasonably incurred." Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.