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

Plaintiffs, four landlords, challenged the constitutionality of the City's Rent Escrow Account Program (REAP). The Housing Department places property into REAP when a landlord fails to repair habitability violations and tenants pay a reduced rent. The court concluded that placing plaintiffs' property into REAP did not violate plaintiffs' substantive due process rights where REAP served legitimate governmental goals and was rationally related to a legitimate governmental purpose; plaintiffs' procedural challenge could not support an as-applied substantive due process claim; and denial of leave to amend the complaint was not an abuse of discretion. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the complaint. View "Sylvia Landfield Trust v. City of Los Angeles" on Justia Law

This appeal concerned a dispute over attorney's fees related to a settlement of numerous civil rights lawsuits against the City and others. The court held that several important principles bear on the district court's determination of a reasonable fee amount: (1) the court must compute the fee award using an hourly rate that is based on the "prevailing market rates in the relevant community;" (2) when a district court reduces either the number of hours or the lodestar by a certain percentage greater than 10%, it must provide a clear and concise explanation for why it chose the specific percentage to apply; and (3) it was not per se unreasonable for the prevailing party in a civil rights case to be awarded an amount of attorney's fees that exceeds the amount of money recovered by his or her client. In this instance, the court vacated and remanded because the district court did not apply these principles when determining the amount of plaintiffs' attorney's fee award. View "Gonzalez v. City of Maywood" on Justia Law

Defendants Bonilla and Calixtro appealed their convictions and sentences stemming from charges related to their involvement in a plan to hold an illegal alien hostage until he paid defendants certain sums of money. The court concluded that the district court did not err in admitting an ICE agent's expert testimony where the fact that the agent's potential bias happened to result from his employment by the Government was not also grounds for categorically barring his testimony; from the record, the court did not know whether the district court found Bonilla managed another participant in the crime under U.S.S.G. 3B1.1(c); and the district court plainly erred in calculating the range of Calixtro's sentence by apply the U.S.S.G. 2A41.(b)(3) enhancement to his sentence. Accordingly, the court affirmed the convictions but vacated defendants' sentences, remanding for resentencing. View "United States v. Bonilla-Guizar" on Justia Law

Petitioner was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of felony murder, one count of robbery, and one count of grand theft. On appeal, petitioner challenged the district court's denial of his successive petition for a writ of habeas corpus based on Atkins v. Virginia. In response to Atkins, Idaho enacted a law prohibiting execution of mentally retarded criminals. The court concluded that the Idaho Supreme Court's application of Atkins was not objectively unreasonable where the Supreme Court left the definition of mentally retarded persons broadly open for consistent state-court decisions. Further, the Idaho Supreme Court's factual findings were not unreasonable in light of the record. Accordingly, the court affirmed the denial of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. 2254. View "Pizzuto v. Blades" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a native of China, petitioned for review of the BIA's decision denying a motion to reopen. Petitioner entered the United States to flee an abusive relationship and claimed that she feared persecution in China because she violated China's family planning policy by giving birth to two children in the United States and by being unmarried. The court granted the petition for review because the BIA abused its discretion when it held petitioner to an incorrect legal standard and failed to properly consider much of her relevant evidence. View "Zhao v. Holder" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of a crack cocaine offense. On appeal, defendant challenged the district court's denial of his motion for a reduced sentence under 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2). The court affirmed the judgment, holding that it had jurisdiction to review section 3582(c)(2) discretionary decisions pursuant to United States v. Colson, which was not "clearly irreconcilable" with Dillon v. United States. The court also held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant's motion for a reduced sentence where it properly considered the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors and relied on facts supported by the record. View "United States v. Dunn" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, former President of the United Steel Workers Local 12-369, filed suit against defendants alleging claims of discrimination on the basis of race and gender, and retaliation for having engaged in protected speech under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA), 29 U.S.C. 401 et seq. The court concluded that, because the alleged retaliatory actions directed toward plaintiff impinged only upon her status as a union officer, she could not seek redress for these actions under section 609. The court held that the district court did not clearly err in finding defendants did not discriminate or retaliate against plaintiff given the district court's analysis of plaintiff's allegations, both as discrete incidents and as part of a broader course of conduct. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "USW Local 12-369 v. USW Int'l" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a native and citizen of Somalia, petitioned for review of the BIA's decision dismissing her asylum claim for lack of timeliness. Petitioner filed petitions for review in this court following the denial of the motion to reconsider and the IJ's last background checks, but did not file a petition after the Board's initial decision denying her asylum application. The court held that petitioners must file their petitions for review within thirty days of the BIA's determination of their applicable claims for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture. In this instance, petitioner had a full and fair hearing of her claims and a reasonable opportunity to present evidence on her behalf; a final order of removal existed regarding the asylum claiming following the BIA's decision on November 25, 2008, triggering the thirty-day rule; and the court lacked jurisdiction to review the Board's denial of asylum because petitioner failed to timely petition for review. Accordingly, the court dismissed the petitions for review. View "Abdisalan v. Holder" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. 1001 et seq., after the Trustees' of their pension plan determined that plaintiffs' respective post-retirement jobs as traffic flagger and snow plow operator fell into the same "job classification" as their former union jobs as skilled mechanics. Therefore, plaintiffs were precluded from working these jobs if they wanted to collect retirement benefits. The court concluded that common sense strongly suggested that a position flagging traffic or plowing snow was not in the same "job classification" as a skilled mechanic repairing heavy equipment utilizing special skills acquired over a long career. The court reversed the district court's judgment because it was unable to see how any sensible application of the skills and duties test to the established facts could support the Trustees' conclusion. Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment. View "Tapley v. Locals 302 and 612" on Justia Law

Donald and Kristi Gravelet-Blondin filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against the City and Sgt. Shelton for excessive force and unlawful arrest, as well as malicious prosecution for the tasing and arrest of Donald. Kristi also filed suit under state law for the harm she suffered watching her husband's tasing and being threatened with tasing herself. The district court granted summary judgment to defendants on all claims. The court concluded, inter alia, that Sgt. Shelton was not entitled to qualified immunity where it was clearly established as of 2008 that the use of a taser in dart mode against a passive bystander such as Donald amounted to unconstitutionally excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Accordingly, the court reversed the grant of qualified immunity to Sgt. Shelton and the grant of summary judgment to the City on plaintiffs' excessive force claim; reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment based on the determination that probable cause existed for Donald's arrest; remanded for further proceedings on the unlawful arrest claim; and reversed the grant of summary judgment on plaintiffs' common law claims. View "Gravelet-Blondin v. Shelton" on Justia Law