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

Alliance alleged that County and City policies and inaction have created a dangerous environment in the Skid Row area, claiming that the County violated its mandatory duty to provide medically necessary care and that the municipalities have facilitated public nuisance violations by failing to clear encampments, violated disability access laws by failing to clear sidewalks of encampments, and violated constitutional rights by providing disparate services to those within the Skid Row area and by enacting policies resulting in a state-created danger to area residents and businesses. The district court issued a preliminary injunction, ordering the escrow of $1 billion to address homelessness, offers of shelter to all unhoused individuals in Skid Row within 180 days, and numerous reports. The court found that structural racism was behind Los Angeles’s homelessness crisis and its disproportionate impact on the Black community.The Ninth Circuit vacated. The plaintiffs lacked standing on all but their ADA claim; no claims were based on racial discrimination. The district court impermissibly resorted to independent research and extra-record evidence. There was no allegation that any individual plaintiff was Black nor that there was a special relationship between the City and unhoused residents nor that any individual plaintiff was deprived of medically necessary care or general assistance. Two plaintiffs who use wheelchairs and cannot traverse Skid Row sidewalks because of homeless encampments had standing to bring ADA claims but had not shown a likelihood of success on the merits. View "LA Alliance for Human Rights v. County of Los Angeles" on Justia Law

Alfred entered the U.S. from Palau under the Compact of Free Association between the U.S. and several Pacific Island territories. Seven years later, Alfred pled guilty in Washington state court to second-degree robbery and two counts of attempted robbery in the second degree. According to his plea agreement, Alfred alone first tried to obtain cash from a credit union teller before going to a coffee kiosk and taking money from the barista. He then attempted to carjack a vehicle. During Alfred’s incarceration, he was charged as removable under 8 U.S.C. 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii) because he had been convicted of an aggravated felony as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(43)(G)--a theft or burglary offense for which the term of imprisonment is at least one year. According to the IJ, the Ninth Circuit’s Alvarado-Pineda holding controlled; the state statute under which Alfred was convicted was a categorical match to the federal generic offense. Alfred, like Alvarado-Pineda, had been sentenced to a term of imprisonment of more than a year for each conviction. The BIA affirmed.The Ninth Circuit vacated, citing its post-Alvarado-Pinedo holding, Valdivia-Flores, that convictions for robbery in the second degree and attempted robbery in the second degree under Washington law do not qualify as aggravated felonies under 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(43)(G), (U). View "Alfred v. Garland" on Justia Law

Google, as required by 18 U.S.C. 2258A(f), reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) that Wilson had uploaded images of apparent child pornography to his email account as attachments. No one at Google had opened or viewed Wilson’s attachments; its report was based on an automated assessment that the images Wilson uploaded were the same as images other Google employees had earlier viewed and classified as child pornography. Someone at NCMEC then, also without opening or viewing them, sent Wilson’s email attachments to the San Diego Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, where an officer viewed the attachments without a warrant. The officer then applied for warrants to search Wilson’s email account and Wilson’s home, describing the attachments in detail in the application.The Ninth Circuit reversed the denial of Wilson’s motion to suppress. The government’s warrantless search of Wilson’s email attachments was not justified by the private search exception to the Fourth Amendment. The government search exceeded the scope of the antecedent private search because it allowed the government to learn new, critical information that it used first to obtain a warrant and then to prosecute Wilson; the government agent viewed email attachments even though no Google employee had done so. The government has not established that what a Google employee previously viewed were exact duplicates of Wilson’s images. View "United States v. Wilson" on Justia Law

Li, a citizen of the People’s Republic of China, entered the U.S. in 2010 on a nonimmigrant business visa. After Li’s visa expired, DHS charged her with removability. Li sought asylum, withholding of removal, and Convention Against Torture relief, claiming that she was persecuted because of her membership in a house church that is not registered with the Chinese government. In March 2010, when Li and others met for a house church meeting, the police arrested them for an illegal gathering. Li stated that an officer interrogated her, accused her of wanting to overthrow the Chinese government, and slapped and kicked her.At a 2017 hearing, the government informed the IJ that it had discovered Li’s undisclosed 2013 arrest record for prostitution in Washington. The IJ questioned Li about her submission of false information in her asylum application, then denied Li’s application based on an adverse credibility determination, citing the discrepancies relating to Li’s treatment in jail, her husband’s termination, and false information she provided in her visa application and in her asylum application. The Board affirmed, noting that, even if Li were credible, she did not establish her eligibility for asylum because she did not show that the harm she suffered in China rose to the level of past persecution. The Ninth Circuit denied a petition for review, finding the denials of relief supported by substantial evidence. View "Li v. Garland" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under the Clean Water Act (CWA), alleging that Corona Clay illegally discharged pollutants into the navigable waters of the United States, failed to monitor that discharge as required by its permit, and violated the conditions of the permit by failing to report violations. The district court granted partial summary judgment to defendants and a jury returned a defense verdict on the remaining claims.The Ninth Circuit disagreed with the district court's interpretation of Gwaltney of Smithfield, Ltd. v. Chesapeake Bay Foundation, 484 U.S. 49, 67 (1987), which held that the CWA bars citizen suits alleging only "wholly past" violations of permits, and held that if the required jurisdictional discharge into United States waters has occurred, a CWA citizen suit can be premised on ongoing or reasonably expected monitoring or reporting violations. The panel vacated the district court's judgment and remanded for further proceedings in light of the Supreme Court's intervening decision in County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund, 140 S. Ct. 1462, 1468 (2020), which held that an offending discharge must reach the "waters of the United States," either through a direct discharge or a "functional equivalent." View "Inland Empire Waterkeeper v. Corona Clay Co." on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of class certification in an action alleging minimum wage, overtime, and expense reimbursement claims against Grubhub. Plaintiff contends that he was misclassified as an independent contractor rather than an employee when he worked for Grubhub as a food delivery driver.The panel concluded that the district court properly denied certification to plaintiff's proposed class of delivery drivers in California where all members of plaintiff's putative class—except plaintiff and one other—signed agreements waiving their right to participate in a class action. The panel explained that the district court correctly held plaintiff did not satisfy the requirements in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a) because he is neither typical of the class nor an adequate representative, and because the proceedings would be unlikely to generate common answers. The panel rejected Grubhub's claim that California Proposition 22 abated the application of the ABC test to plaintiff's pending class claim. In this case, there is no dispute that plaintiff’s minimum wage and overtime claims are rooted in wage orders. The panel concluded that, because the district court rendered its judgment before the California Supreme Court decided Dynamex Operations W., Inc. v. Superior Court, 416 P.3d 1, 33–40 (Cal. 2018), it had no occasion to apply the ABC test to plaintiff's claims. The panel remanded for the district court to apply the ABC test in the first instance to plaintiff's expense reimbursement claim. View "Lawson v. Grubhub, Inc." on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's order denying in part a motion to dismiss and ruling that plaintiff had standing to sue Slack and individual defendants under Sections 11 and 12(a)(2) of the Securities Act of 1933 based on shares issued under a new rule from the New York Stock Exchange allowing companies to make shares available to the public through a direct listing. Plaintiff alleges that Slack's registration statement was inaccurate and misleading because it did not alert prospective shareholders to the generous terms of Slack's service agreements, which obligated Slack to pay for service disruptions; nor did it disclose that these service disruptions were frequent in part because Slack guaranteed 99.99% uptime; and the statement downplayed the competition Slack was facing from Microsoft Teams at the time of its direct listing.The panel concluded that plaintiff had standing to bring a claim under Sections 11 and 12(a)(2) because his shares could not be purchased without the issuance of Slack's registration statement, thus demarking these shares, whether registered or unregistered, as "such security" under Sections 11 and 12 of the Act. The panel explained that because standing existed for plaintiff's section 11 claim against Slack, standing also existed for a dependent section 15 claim against controlling persons. The panel did not resolve the issue of whether plaintiff has sufficiently alleged the other elements of Section 12 liability. View "Pirani v. Slack Technologies, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs obtained short-term, high-interest loans from lenders owned by the Tribes. The standard loan contracts contained an agreement to arbitrate any dispute arising under the contract and a delegation provision requiring an arbitrator—not a court—to decide “any issue concerning the validity, enforceability, or scope of [the loan] agreement or [arbitration agreement].” The contracts stated that they were governed by tribal law and that an arbitrator must apply tribal law. Plaintiffs filed class-action RICO complaints against the Tribal Lenders. The district court denied the defendants’ motion to compel arbitration, reasoning that the arbitration agreement as a whole in each contract was unenforceable because it prospectively waived plaintiffs’ right to pursue federal statutory claims by requiring arbitrators to apply tribal law.The Ninth Circuit reversed. Rather than asking first whether the arbitration agreement was enforceable as a whole, the court must consider first the enforceability of the delegation provision specifically. The delegation provision was enforceable because it did not preclude plaintiffs from arguing to an arbitrator that the arbitration agreement was unenforceable under the prospective-waiver doctrine. The general enforceability issue must, therefore, be decided by an arbitrator. The choice-of-law provisions were not to the contrary because they did not prevent plaintiffs from pursuing their prospective-waiver enforcement challenge in arbitration. View "Brice v. Plain Green, LLC" on Justia Law

Schaefer, who had a long history of mental illness, ignited a homemade explosive device when officers attempted to arrest him. Charged with assault on a federal officer (18 U.S.C. 111(a)–(b)) and possession of a “destructive device,” (26 U.S.C. 5841, 5861(d), 5871) Schaefer spent 18 months with a rotating cast of counsel. Weeks before trial, he sought to proceed pro se. After holding a “Faretta” hearing, the court ruled that Schaefer unequivocally, knowingly, and intelligently waived his right to counsel. Schaefer changed his mind once the jury was empaneled and attempted to reinvoke his right to counsel. Finding that Schaefer was attempting to manipulate the proceedings, the court denied the request but continued the appointment of advisory counsel.The Ninth Circuit affirmed his convictions. The district court ensured that Schaefer understood the nature of the charges and the dangers and disadvantages of self-representation. Although the court inaccurately identified the minimum sentence, if a defendant knowingly and intelligently waived his right to counsel, he must have substantially understood the approximate range of his penal exposure. The district court was mindful of Schaefer’s conduct throughout and did not abuse its discretion in declining to reappoint counsel nor in denying Schaefer’s motion to compel the government to produce its trial materials. Schaefer sought those materials after learning, post-trial, that the government’s legal assistant previously worked for the state public defender’s office and had participated in a “substantive interview” with Schaefer for a state prosecution months before the explosion. The state prosecution was unrelated to obtaining the explosive materials involved in the federal case. The court rejected Schaefer’s arguments that the statutes were intended to cover only “military-type weapons” and an argument under the Speedy Trial Act. View "United States v. Schaefer" on Justia Law

Environmental organizations challenged a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Permit issued by the EPA for Idaho Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) under the Clean Water Act. On CAFOs, manure is typically stored in lagoons; waste that leaks from lagoons can reach groundwater that can reach navigable waters. Since the 1970s, the EPA has regulated both CAFO production areas (animal confinement, storage, lagoons) and land-application areas (fields where manure and process wastewater are applied as fertilizer).The Ninth Circuit held that the challenge was timely, rejecting the EPA’s contention that the Permit largely relied on a 2003 Rule. The Permit lacked sufficient monitoring provisions to ensure compliance with the Permit’s “zero discharge” requirements for both production and land-application areas. EPA's discretion in crafting appropriate monitoring requirements for each NPDES permit is not unlimited. The Permit had sufficient monitoring requirements for above-ground discharges from production areas; CAFOs were required to perform daily inspections. The Permit had no monitoring provisions for underground discharges from production areas. While the Permit flatly prohibited discharges from land-application areas during dry weather it had no monitoring provisions, although the record showed that such discharges can occur during irrigation of fertilized CAFO fields. View "Food & Water Watch, Inc. v. United States Environmental Protection Agency" on Justia Law