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

The City of Costa Mesa (“City”) began amending its zoning code to reduce the number and concentration of sober living homes in its residential neighborhoods. Two of its new ordinances—Ordinances 14-13 and 15-11 (“Ordinances”)—made it unlawful to operate sober living homes without a permit. Appellants SoCal Recovery, LLC (“SoCal”) and RAW Recovery, LLC (“RAW”) (together, “Appellants”) operate sober living homes in Costa Mesa, California, for persons recovering from drug and alcohol addiction. Appellants alleged that two new City ordinances and the City’s enforcement practices discriminated against them on the basis of disability under the Fair Housing Act (FHA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA). Granting the City’s motions for summary judgment, the district court found that Appellants did not establish that residents in their sober living homes were actually disabled, or that the City regarded their residents as disabled.   The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s summary judgment. The panel held that Appellants and other sober living home operators can satisfy the “actual disability” prong of the ADA, FHA, or FEHA on a collective basis by demonstrating that they serve or intend to serve individuals with actual disabilities; they need not provide individualized evidence of the actual disability of their residents. Rather, they can meet their burden by proffering admissible evidence that they have policies and procedures to ensure that they serve or will serve those with actual disabilities and that they adhere or will adhere to such policies and procedures. prong of the disability definition. View "SOCAL RECOVERY, LLC, ET AL V. CITY OF COSTA MESA, ET AL" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit denied a petition for panel rehearing and denied on behalf of the court a petition for rehearing en banc. Judge VanDyke, joined by Judges Callahan, Ikuta, Bennett, R. Nelson, and Bumatay, dissented from the denial rehearing en banc. Judge VanDyke wrote that the term “clearly established Federal law” under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act only refers to the holdings, as opposed to the dicta, of the Supreme Court’s decisions; and that the Supreme Court has emphasized that if this court must extend a rationale before it can apply to the facts at hand, then by definition the rationale was not “clearly established.” View "FREDDIE CRESPIN V. CHARLES RYAN, ET AL" on Justia Law

The City of Seattle/Seattle City Light1 (“Seattle”) owns and operates the Gorge Dam, which is part of the Skagit River Hydroelectric Project (“Project”). Seattle operates the Project pursuant to a thirty-year license that was issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) in 1995. The Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe (“Tribe”) sued Seattle in Washington state court, alleging that Seattle’s operation of the Gorge Dam without fish passage facilities (“fishways”) violates certain federal and state laws. Seattle removed the case to federal court. The district court denied the Tribe’s motion to remand, finding that it had jurisdiction because the Tribe’s complaint raised substantial federal questions. The district court then granted Seattle’s motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under the Federal Power Act (“FPA”) and dismissed the complaint.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of the SaukSuiattle Indian Tribe’s motion to remand to state court and the district court’s dismissal. affirmed the district court’s order denying the Tribe’s motion to remand the action to state court. The panel held that the City properly removed the action to federal court under 28 U.S.C. Section 1441(a) because the Tribe’s right to relief depended on resolution of a substantial question of federal law. Applying a four-part test, the panel concluded that the Tribe’s complaint necessarily raised federal issues because it expressly invoked federal laws, and it was uncontested that the federal issues were disputed. The panel also affirmed the district court’s dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because the Tribe’s complaint was subject to section 313(b) of the Federal Power Act. View "SAUK-SUIATTLE INDIAN TRIBE V. CITY OF SEATTLE, ET AL" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, who represents both a Washington and a national class, was incarcerated three times in the Kitsap County Jail. In each instance, the jail confiscated his cash at booking and returned it to him in the form of a prepaid debit card issued and serviced, respectively, by defendants Cache Valley Bank and Rapid Investments, Inc. (collectively, “Rapid”). Plaintiff was not provided an option to receive his money in any other form. Plaintiff claimed that Rapid’s debit cards carried fees that violated the EFTA and Washington state law. Rapid sought arbitration pursuant to an arbitration provision in a cardholder agreement.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s order denying Defendants’ motion to compel arbitration. The panel wrote that Plaintiff’s retention of the release card, prior to use, cannot constitute assent to the agreement. The panel next considered whether Plaintiff’s subsequent use of the card to withdraw funds, while remaining silent, constituted assent. The panel held that because the money Plaintiff withdrew was his own, because the card he was issued came pre-activated and there was no other way to obtain immediate use of his own funds, and because Rapid structured its fees to begin deducting after three days regardless of use, Plaintiff’s decision to withdraw his own money cannot reasonably be understood to manifest assent to the contract. View "JEFFREY REICHERT, ET AL V. RAPID INVESTMENTS, INC., ET AL" on Justia Law

A police officer (Officer) in Los Angeles, shot and killed a man during a failed arrest in the men’s locker room of a gym. Before the district court, the Officer maintained that he killed the man because the man was pummeling the Officer’s partner, and the Officer feared the man’s next blow would kill her. The Officer also claimed that he yelled “stop” before shooting, but no such warning can be heard on the officers’ body-cam recordings. The man’s mother sued the Officer for his allegedly unreasonable use of deadly force. The district court denied the Officers’ motion for summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds, and the Officer timely appealed.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s order denying, on summary judgment, qualified immunity to the Officer. The court held that the district court properly denied the Officer’s request for qualified immunity for two reasons. First, the district court recognized that a reasonable jury could reject the police officer’s account of the shooting because there were significant discrepancies between their versions of events and other evidence in the record. Second, the court wrote that it has long held that the Fourth Amendment requires officers to warn before using deadly force when practicable. The defense cannot argue that it was not possible for the Officer to give the man a deadly force warning because the Officer’s sworn statements show that he had time to tell Dorsey to “stop.” Therefore, the district court correctly ruled that a jury could decide that the Officer’s use of deadly force violated clearly established law. View "PAULETTE SMITH V. EDWARD AGDEPPA, ET AL" on Justia Law

Petitioner and her daughter were removed in absentia by the Immigration Judge ("IJ"). Petitioner sought relief, citing non-receipt of the hearing notice. The Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed the IJ's decision.The Ninth Circuit reversed the Board of Immigration Appeals' decision to remove Petitioner and her daughter in absentia, finding that the IJ should have determined the credibility of Petitioner's claims of non-receipt of her hearing notice in light of all the circumstantial and corroborating evidence in the record. Under 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1229a(b)(5)(C)(ii), an in absentia order may be rescinded upon a motion to reopen if the alien demonstrates non-receipt of the notice statutorily required for removal hearings. The Ninth Circuit found that there was circumstantial evidence supporting Petitioner's claim that she did not receive the hearing notice. View "IDANIA PEREZ-PORTILLO, ET AL V. MERRICK GARLAND" on Justia Law

Plaintiff was a long-time teacher in the Evergreen School District #114 (District) in Vancouver, Washington. Before the 2019–2020 school year began, he attended two days of teacher training and brought with him a MAGA hat. The question, in this case, is whether the First Amendment was violated when a principal told Plaintiff he could not bring his Make America Great Again (MAGA) hat with him to teacher-only trainings on threat of disciplinary action and when the school board affirmed the denial of the teacher’s harassment complaint filed against the principal.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s summary judgment in favor of Defendants in Plaintiff’s 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 action. The panel first concluded that Plaintiff was engaged in speech protected by the First Amendment because the undisputed facts demonstrated that his MAGA hat conveyed a message of public concern, and he was acting as a private citizen in expressing that message. The record failed to establish, however, that the school district’s Chief Human Resource Officer, took any adverse employment action against Plaintiff, and for this reason, Plaintiff’s First Amendment retaliation claim against that defendant failed as a matter of law.   Further, any violation of Plaintiff’s First Amendment rights by the principal was clearly established where longstanding precedent held that concern over the reaction to controversial or disfavored speech itself does not justify restricting such speech. For these reasons, the panel reversed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the principal. View "ERIC DODGE V. EVERGREEN SCHOOL DISTRICT #114, ET AL" on Justia Law

Defendant was stopped for a license-plate violation, and deputies from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department (SBCSD) discovered that he had an expired driver’s license and a long criminal history. The deputies conducted an inventory search before towing Defendant’s truck, and, after finding a handgun under the driver’s seat of his truck, arrested Defendant for being a felon in possession of a firearm.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s order denying Defendant’s motion to suppress a handgun found during an inventory search of his truck, vacated a condition of supervised release, and remanded.  The panel held that the district court did not err in concluding that the government established that a valid community caretaking purpose existed for impounding and inventorying Defendant’s truck before the search was conducted. The panel wrote that the deputies had an objectively reasonable belief that Anderson’s truck, which he had parked in a private driveway, was parked illegally. The panel disagreed with Defendant’s assertion that the deputies’ inventory search was invalid because they failed to comply with the SBCSD’s standardized inventory search procedures.   The panel wrote that the inventory search was conducted pursuant to a standard policy, and was performed in good faith, not solely for the purpose of obtaining evidence of a crime; therefore, the government’s interest in the protection of property and protection of the police outweighed Defendant’s expectation of privacy in the contents of his car, and the search was reasonable for Fourth Amendment purposes. View "USA V. JONATHAN ANDERSON" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, a class of children, appearing through their guardians ad litem, filed a lawsuit against Google LLC and others, alleging that Google used persistent identifiers to collect data and track their online behavior surreptitiously and without their consent in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”). They pled only state law claims arising under the constitutional, statutory, and common law of California, Colorado, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Tennessee, but also allege Google’s activities violate COPPA. The district court held that the “core allegations” in the third amended complaint were squarely covered, and preempted, by COPPA.   The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s dismissal on preemption grounds. The panel considered the question of whether COPPA preempts state law claims based on underlying conduct that also violates COPPA’s regulations. The Supreme Court has identified three different types of preemption—express, conflict, and field. First, express preemption is a question of statutory construction. The panel concluded that COPPA’s preemption clause does not bar state-law causes of action that are parallel to, or proscribe, the same conduct forbidden by, COPPA. Accordingly, express preemption does not apply to the plaintiff class’s claims. Second, even if express preemption is not applicable, preemptive intent may be inferred through conflict preemption principles. The panel held that although express and conflict preemption are analytically distinct inquiries, they effectively collapse into one when the preemption clause uses the term “inconsistent.” For the same reasons that the panel concluded there was no express preemption, the panel concluded that conflict preemption did not bar Plaintiffs’ claims. View "CARA JONES, ET AL V. GOOGLE LLC, ET AL" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction and sentence for attempted enticement of a child by means of interstate commerce in violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 2422(b). Defendant’s challenges to the conviction principally concern the use of an adult intermediary and the lack of any direct communication with a person believed to be a child.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed Defendant’s conviction for attempted enticement of a child by means of interstate commerce but remanded for the district court to narrow a special condition of supervised release on computer possession and use. Challenging the use of an adult intermediary for his communications, Defendant contended that Section 2422(b) required the government to prove direct communication with someone he believed to be a minor. Noting that no circuit has agreed with Defendant’s position, the panel took the opportunity to stress that so long as the government proves the defendant’s intent was to obtain sex with a minor, it does not matter that the phone or internet communications occurred only between the defendant and the adult intermediary.   The panel rejected Defendant’s contention that the government improperly relied on evidence that Defendant arrived at the anticipated rendezvous with children’s gift bags and sex toys. Regarding Defendant’s claim that the government presented an invalid legal theory to the jury by arguing that Defendant could be convicted of violating Section 2422(b) based only, or primarily, on his in-person activities at the house, the panel wrote that, considering the record as a whole, the government did not convey an improper theory nor claim that Defendant’s online activities were inessential or irrelevant. View "USA V. NOEL MACAPAGAL" on Justia Law