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

The Ninth Circuit dismissed based on lack of appellate jurisdiction plaintiffs' appeal from the district court's order compelling arbitration of a putative class action alleging that LuLaRoe operated an illegal endless-chain pyramid scheme in violation of California and federal law.The panel held that Langere v. Verizon Wireless Services, LLC, 983 F.3d 1115 (9th Cir. 2020), was controlling under these circumstances. In this case, plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed their action with prejudice in an attempt to obtain an appealable final judgment following an order compelling arbitration. Furthermore, as in Langere, this tactic no longer creates appellate jurisdiction. The panel explained that, contrary to plaintiffs' contention, it is of no consequence that plaintiffs moved for a court order dismissing their action under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(2), while Langere unilaterally dismissed his action under Rule 41(a)(1). Finally, plaintiffs' contention that Langere is inapplicable because the panel has jurisdiction under 9 U.S.C. 16(a)(3) is without merit. View "Sperring v. LLR, Inc." on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of petitioner's habeas corpus petition challenging his California state conviction and death sentence for two first-degree murders. The panel granted a certificate of appealability (COA) on the claims related to ineffective assistance of counsel (IAC). In this opinion, the panel addressed the certified claims as well as the previously uncertified claim (Claim 48), namely whether trial counsel failed to present evidence of mental impairments at the penalty phase.The panel applied the deferential standards imposed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) and concluded that the California court's inferred conclusions were not an unreasonable application of clearly established Federal law or based on an unreasonable determination of the facts. The panel held that presenting the jailhouse informant's testimony would not have created a reasonable probability that petitioner would not have been convicted as an aider and abettor in two murders. Therefore, lead counsel at the guilt phase was not ineffective for failing to investigate and present evidence from the informant. Furthermore, counsel did not render deficient performance by failing to raise petitioner's mental impairments as mitigating evidence at the penalty phase; the panel did not review petitioner's argument that the state court made an unreasonable determination of the facts under 28 U.S.C. 2254(d)(2) because this claim rests on an issue of state law; and the panel upheld the district court's denial of habeas relief on petitioner's proportionality claim. View "Sanchez v. Davis" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, one of the largest marijuana dispensaries in the United States, appealed the Tax Court's decision on a petition for redetermination of federal income tax deficiencies. At issue is whether a cannabis dispensary that purchases the marijuana it resells and that values its inventory using the cost method must account for its inventory cost in accordance with section 1.471-3(b) of the Treasury Regulations.The Ninth Circuit affirmed the Tax Court's decision, declining to consider plaintiff's constitutional claim that that I.R.C. 280E violates the Sixteenth Amendment because plaintiff failed to raise the claim in the Tax Court. The panel rejected plaintiff's contention that some of its expenditures, even if they cannot be deducted under section 280E, can be excluded from income as part of its inventory cost under general inventory tax accounting rules. Rather, the panel concluded that the Tax Court did not err in concluding that plaintiff's inventory cost is determined by Treas. Reg. 1.471-3(b), which applies to a purchaser and reseller of the products it sells. Finally, the panel declined to consider plaintiff's contention, which was not raised before the Tax Court, that the Tax Court should have allowed at least some of plaintiff's claimed exclusions as "necessary charges incurred in acquiring possession of the goods" under Treas. Reg. 1.471-3(b). View "Patients Mutual Assistance Collective Corp. v. Commissioner" on Justia Law

Ironhawk filed suit against Dropbox for trademark infringement and unfair competition, alleging that Dropbox's use of the name Smart Sync intentionally infringes on Ironhawk's SmartSync trademark and is likely to cause confusion among consumers as to the affiliation of Ironhawk's product with Dropbox. After the district court concluded that Ironhawk could not prevail because a reasonable trier of fact could not find a likelihood of consumer confusion, Ironhawk appealed based on a theory of reverse confusion.The Ninth Circuit held that there was a genuine dispute of material fact as to the likelihood of consumer confusion under a reverse confusion theory of infringement and thus reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment for Dropbox, vacating the judgment, and remanding for trial. The panel first concluded that a reasonable jury could find that Ironhawk's potential consumers include commercial customers. Applying the Sleekcraft factors, the panel then concluded that a reasonable trier of fact could find a likelihood of confusion. Therefore, Dropbox has not met its high burden of establishing that no genuine disputes of material fact exist as to the likelihood of confusion between Smart Sync and SmartSync. View "Ironhawk Technologies, Inc. v. Dropbox, Inc." on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal based on failure to state a claim of a putative securities class-action alleging violations of section 14(a) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Securities Exchange Commission Rule 14a-9.The panel clarified that the standards for actionability explained in Omnicare, Inc. v. Laborers District Council Construction Industry Pension Fund, 575 U.S. 175 (2015), with respect to falsity under section 11 of the Securities Act of 1933, also govern whether a plaintiff has sufficiently alleged the falsity of a statement of opinion under SEC Rule 14a-9 through either a misrepresentation-of-material-fact theory or an omission-of-material-fact theory. Omnicare identified three ways in which a statement of opinion may nonetheless involve a representation of material fact that, if that representation is false or misleading, could be actionable. First, every statement of opinion explicitly affirms that the speaker actually holds the stated belief. Second, some sentences that begin with opinion words like "I believe" contain embedded statements of fact. Third, a reasonable investor may, depending on the circumstances, understand an opinion statement to convey facts about how the speaker has formed the opinion. In this case, the panel applied the Omnicare standards in an accompanying memorandum disposition. View "Golub v. Gigamon Inc." on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit reversed defendant's conviction for two counts of unlawful use of a weapon (UUW) under Oregon law, Or. Rev. Stat. 166.220(1)(a), which federal prosecutors assimilated into federal law by the Assimilative Crimes Act (ACA), 18 U.S.C. 13(a). Defendant's conviction stemmed from a road rage incident where defendant, who was a passenger in a car driven by his girlfriend, fired six shots in the air after a passenger in the car in front of him threw a plastic soda bottle at his car.The panel concluded that assimilation is permitted only where necessary to fill gaps in federal criminal law on federal enclaves, and there was no such gap here. In this case, defendant's conduct of firing his gun six times while tailgating and subsequently passing the other car is undoubtedly punishable as simple assault under 18 U.S.C. 113(a)(5) and may also be punishable as assault with a dangerous weapon under 18 U.S.C. 113(a)(3) if he possessed the requisite intent to do bodily harm; the federal assault statute and Oregon's UUW statute seek to punish the same wrongful behavior; the federal assault statute occupies the field of assault to the exclusion of Oregon's UUW statute; and assimilating Oregon's UUW statute would rewrite the federal assault statute's offense definitions. View "United States v. Dat Quoc Do" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit granted a petitioner for review of the BRB's decision upholding the ALJ's award of attorney's fees and costs under the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (LHWCA), in an action brought by petitioner for death benefits.The panel held that aspects of the decisions under review constitute legal error and are not supported by substantial evidence. Specifically, the panel held that the ALJ improperly rejected the fee applicant's evidence of prevailing market rates, erroneously established a paralegal's hourly rate by reference to other ALJ decisions rather than evidence of prevailing market rates in the relevant community, and improperly denied fees for hours reasonably expended. Furthermore, the ALJ and the BRB erred in concluding that the LHWCA does not authorize an award of interest on costs. Therefore, the panel remanded to the BRB for further proceedings and ordered the BRB to reassign this matter to a different ALJ on remand. View "Seachris v. Brady-Hamilton Stevedore Co." on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's action against defendants, two Edison Executives, alleging breach of fiduciary duty under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) in managing the plan's assets. Defendants are fiduciaries of Edison's 401(k) employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). Plaintiff claimed that Defendant Fiduciary Boada breached his duty of prudence by allowing employees to continue to invest in Edison stock after he learned that the Edison stock was artificially inflated.The panel concluded that the district court properly determined that plaintiff failed plausibly to plead that a prudent fiduciary in defendants' position could not have concluded that plaintiff's proposed alternative action of issuing a corrective disclosure would do more harm than good. In this case, the second amended complaint relies solely on general economic theories and is devoid of context-specific allegations explaining why an earlier disclosure was so clearly beneficial that a prudent fiduciary could not conclude that disclosure would be more likely to harm the fund than to help it. Accordingly, plaintiff failed to state a claim for breach of the duty of prudence consistent with the standard announced in Fifth Third Bancorp v. Dudenhoeffer, 573 U.S. 409, 428 (2014). Consequently, the derivative monitoring claim alleged against Defendant Craver also fails. View "Wilson v. Craver" on Justia Law

The Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988 (FHAA) does not require landlords to accommodate the disability of an individual who neither entered into a lease nor paid rent in exchange for the right to occupy the premises.The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the City, in an action brought by plaintiff against the City for wrongful eviction based on several theories of state law implied tenancy. The panel held that the FHAA applies to rentals only when the landlord or his designee has received consideration in exchange for granting the right to occupy the premises. As to occupants requesting accommodation, the panel held that the FHAA's disability discrimination provisions apply only to cases involving a "sale" or "rental" for which the landlord accepted consideration in exchange for granting the right to occupy the premises. Applying a federal standard rather than California landlord-tenant law, the panel concluded that because plaintiff never provided consideration in exchange for the right to occupy Spot 57, the FHAA was inapplicable to his claim for relief. Furthermore, the City was not obligated to provide, offer, or discuss an accommodation. View "Salisbury v. City of Santa Monica" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of plaintiff's motion for attorneys' fees in this Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) action against the DOJ. The panel concluded that plaintiff obtained relief through a judicial order that changed the legal relationship between the parties, and thus he is eligible for a fee award under 5 U.S.C. 552(a)(4)(E)(ii)(I). In this case, plaintiff initially submitted a FOIA request for records related to the alleged electronic surveillance of President Trump and his advisors during the 2016 election. The DOJ responded with a Glomar response. After plaintiff filed suit, President Trump declassified a memorandum that divulged the existence of responsive records and the DOJ then agreed to turn over any newly revealed, non-exempt documents by a specific date.The panel explained that Congress passed the OPEN Government Act of 2007, which provided that a plaintiff may establish eligibility for FOIA attorneys' fees in one of two ways: (1) where the relief sought resulted from a judicial order or consent decree and (2) where a voluntary change in position afforded the plaintiff relief. The panel remanded to the district court to determine whether plaintiff is entitled to fees given the unique circumstances underlying the government's change of position. View "Poulsen v. Department of Defense" on Justia Law