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

Plaintiffs filed a putative class action alleging that Consumerinfo had violated various California consumer protection laws. At issue was whether the court had jurisdiction to hear appeals from district court orders staying judicial proceedings and compelling arbitration of the named plaintiffs' individual claims. The court concluded that the structure of the statute suggested that Congress intended to remove appellate jurisdiction from all orders listed in 9 U.S.C. 16(b)(1)-(4), regardless of whether any such order could otherwise be deemed collateral. The history of section 16 also demonstrated that Congress intended 28 U.S.C. 1292(b) to provide the sole avenue to immediate appeal of an order staying judicial proceedings and compelling arbitration. Therefore, the courts joined its sister circuits in concluding that section 1292(b) provided the sole route for immediate appeal of an order staying proceedings and compelling arbitration. Accordingly, the court dismissed plaintiffs' appeal. Alternatively, the court denied plaintiffs' petition for mandamus where the district court's well-reasoned decision was plainly not a usurpation of judicial power or a clear abuse of discretion. View "Johnson v. ConsumerInfo.com, Inc." on Justia Law

Defendant appealed the district court's order denying the parties' joint request to seal the entire record of bankruptcy proceedings before the district court. The parties sought to seal the record of proceedings on an interlocutory appeal taken from the bankruptcy court, which the district court dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. The district court rejected the parties' argument that the "good cause" standard applied and held that the "compelling reasons" standard governed the decision to seal the record of the proceedings. The court agreed, concluding that the rationale for the "good cause" standard did not apply in this case and that the district court properly invoked the "compelling reasons" standard in considering the sealing request. In this case, the only reasons provided for sealing the records - to avoid embarrassment or annoyance to defendant and to prevent an undue burden on his professional endeavors - were not "compelling," particularly because the proceedings had been a matter of public record since at least 2004. Defendant has not pointed to any compelling reasons that overcome the strong presumption in favor of maintaining public access to court records. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Oliner v. Kontrabecki" on Justia Law

Panansam Narayanan suffered from an advanced-stage lung disease. While he was aboard a British Airways international flight, he was allegedly denied supplemental oxygen. When Narayanan died six months after the plane landed, his heirs and estate filed suit pursuant to Article 17(1) the Montreal Convention, S. Treaty Doc. No 106-45, alleging that the denial of supplemental oxygen on his flight to London hastened Narayanan's death. The action was filed more than two years from the date of the flight's arrival, but within two years of Narayanan's death. The court held that Article 35(1) of the Convention was clear: a claim for damages based on an injury incurred aboard an international flight must be filed within two years of the date upon which the aircraft arrived at its destination. In this case, plaintiffs' wrongful death claim was not timely filed and the court held that the district court correctly dismissed the complaint without leave to amend. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Narayanan v. British Airways" on Justia Law

Family PAC filed suit alleging that three provisions of the Washington election law violated the First Amendment as applied to ballot measure committees. The district court granted summary judgment in part for Family PAC and Family PAC subsequently sought attorneys fees and expenses. The court held that the term "costs" under Rule 39 of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure did not include attorney's fees and recoverable as part of costs under 42 U.S.C. 1988 and similar statutes. Therefore, in this case, the district court properly concluded that the statement in the court's previous opinion that "[e]ach party shall bear its own costs of appeal," did not preclude Family PAC, as prevailing party, from obtaining an award of appellate attorney's fees under section 1988. View "Family Pac v. Ferguson" on Justia Law

Alaska Stock, a stock photography agency, registered large numbers of photographs at a time under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 101 et seq., listing only some of the authors and not listing titles for each photograph. Alaska Stock licensed Houghton Mifflin to use pictures it had registered, for fees based on the number of publications. After Houghton Mifflin greatly exceeded the number of publications it had paid for, Alaska Stock filed suit for injunctive relief, actual and statutory damages, attorneys' fees, and costs. The court concluded that Alaska Stock successfully registered the copyright both to its collections and to the individual images contained therein; the statute required identification of the author and title of the "work," which was the collective work, and extended registration to the component parts if the party registering the collective work owned the copyright to the component parts, as Alaska Stock did; the procedure applied for over three decades by the Register of Copyrights to registration by stock photo agencies complied with the statutory requirements and did not violate any clear requirement to list individual authors and titles of the components within the work; the Register of Copyrights' reading that a collection of stock photos may be registered without individual titles, and without naming more than three of the authors and merely designating the number of authors, pursuant to an assignment in the language Alaska Stock used, was reasonable and persuasive; and therefore, the court reversed the district court's dismissal. View "Alaska Stock v. Houghton Mifflin" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, employed by the City as dispatchers or aeromedical technicians, filed suit alleging that the City violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 207(k), by compensating them as "fire protection" employees under section 207(k). The court affirmed the district court's finding that section 207(k)'s exemption did not apply to dispatchers and aeromedical technicians because plaintiffs did not qualify as "employees engaged in fire protection" as defined by section 203(y); affirmed the district court's findings that a three-year statue of limitations applied and liquidated damages were proper because the City acted in willful violation of the law; and affirmed the district court's decision that previously-paid overtime should be offset using a week-by-week calculation because the statutory language of section 207(h), as well as persuasive authorities, supported this method of calculation. View "Haro v. City of Los Angeles" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of two murders and sentenced to death, appealed the district court's denial of his petition for habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. 2254. The court concluded that the state court's determination that media coverage was not constitutionally prejudicial was not contrary to or an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent; the state court's rejection of petitioner's challenge to the jury venire was not contrary to or an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent where the prosecutor provided race-neutral explanations for the exercise of his peremptory challenges against two Hispanic potential jurors; because the Supreme Court has eschewed claims predicated on the unavailability of immaterial evidence, the state court's denial of petitioner's belated request to inspect a sanitized crime scene was also not contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, Supreme Court precedent; the evidence did not support petitioner's request for jury instructions on voluntary intoxication and second degree murder and the state court's denial of relief was consistent with Supreme Court precedent; the state court meticulously weighed the mitigating circumstances against the aggravating factors before imposing a death sentence and its determination was not contrary to or an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent; the state court's decisions denying relief on the claims of ineffective assistance of counsel were not contrary to or an unreasonable application of Strickland v. Washington; the district court correctly resolved the claims of evidence presented to the state courts; no cognizable Martinez v. Ryan claims were asserted; and the court denied habeas relief as to all claims. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Roger Murray v. Schriro" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of two murders and sentenced to death, appealed the denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2254 habeas corpus petition. The court affirmed the denial of petitioner's Batson v. Kentucky claim where the state court's decision regarding two potential Hispanic jurors was not an unreasonable determination of the facts where the prosecutor proffered race-neutral explanations for his strike of the jurors; affirmed the ineffective assistance of counsel claim where the record did not support a finding that the state court's decision regarding the adequacy of counsel's performance in conducting the mitigation investigation was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts or an unreasonable application of Strickland v. Washington; and denied petitioner's motion to expand the Certificate of Appealability where such claims were futile. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Robert Murray v. Schriro" on Justia Law

Plaintiff and others protested weekly outside the locked fence that surrounds the LA Campus of the VAGLA to draw public attention to the VA's failure to use the lawn for veterans. Plaintiff filed suit challenging the inconsistent enforcement of 38 C.F.R. 1.218, which prohibited the posting of materials on VA property except under certain circumstances. The district court granted summary judgment to plaintiff with regard to declaratory relief, but denied any injunctive relief based on mootness. Plaintiff appealed. The district court concluded that a June 2010 e-mail instructing the VAGLA police to enforce section 1.218(a)(9) precisely and consistently mooted plaintiff's request for a permanent injunction by closing the LA Campus fence as a forum for all speech. The court agreed with the district court that the Government's voluntary cessation of its inconsistent enforcement of section 1.218(a)(9) mooted the request for injunctive relief. The court held that the VA satisfied its heavy burden of demonstrating mootness. The court presumed that the Government acted in good faith, and that presumption was especially strong here, where the Government was merely recommitting to consistent enforcement of one of its own longstanding regulations. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Rosebrock v. Mathis, et al." on Justia Law

Petitioner sought review of the BIA's decision finding him inadmissible and denying his application for cancellation of removal. The court held that the conviction under which petitioner was convicted, California Health & Safety Code 11377(a), was a divisible statute under Descamps v. United States, and therefore, the court applied the modified categorical approach in analyzing his prior convictions. The court concluded that the government satisfied its burden in proving that petitioner was twice convicted of methamphetamine, a controlled substance listed in the Controlled Substances Act, 21 U.S.C. 802. Accordingly, the court concluded that the BIA did not err in finding petitioner inadmissible based on his prior convictions. However, the court remanded because the BIA failed to address petitioner's due process claims regarding the ineffective assistance of counsel and bias by the IJ. Finally, the court dismissed petitioner's unexhausted equal protection claim for lack of jurisdiction. View "Coronado v. Holder" on Justia Law