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

Plaintiff, an elementary school student who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and severe, disability-related behavioral issues, filed suit under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) alleging that the school district denied him equal access to a public education because of his disability. The district court dismissed the complaint, concluding that plaintiff failed to exhaust his claim through the administrative procedures prescribed by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), as required when a plaintiff seeks relief under other federal statutes for the denial of a free appropriate public education (FAPE).The Ninth Circuit vacated the district court's dismissal and held that a close review of plaintiff's allegations reveals that the gravamen of his ADA claim is discrimination separate from his right to a FAPE. Therefore, the panel concluded that plaintiff's ADA claim is not subject to IDEA exhaustion. Finally, the panel concluded that there is nothing untoward—or inconsistent with Fry v. Napoleon Cmty. Sch., 137 S. Ct. 743 (2017)—in plaintiff's having followed resolution of his IDEA claims with a lawsuit alleging non-FAPE-based violations of another statute. View "D. D. v. Los Angeles Unified School District" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit denied a petition for review of the BIA's decision dismissing petitioner's appeal of the IJ's finding of removability based on his past drug convictions. Under the Special Agricultural Worker program (SAW), agricultural workers meeting certain qualifications could obtain lawful temporary resident status, after which they were automatically adjusted to lawful permanent residency on a set schedule. Petitioner had obtained lawful permanent resident status through SAW, but it turns out that before he applied for SAW temporary resident status, he had been convicted of two drug offenses that would have rendered him ineligible for admission into the United States.The panel held that, under SAW, an alien who was inadmissible at the time of his adjustment to temporary resident status because of disqualifying convictions may be removed after his automatic adjustment to permanent resident status, despite the Attorney General never having initiated termination proceedings while the alien was a temporary resident. The panel rejected petitioner's argument that SAW's limitations on administrative and judicial review prevent the government from seeking his removal. Finally, the panel concluded that Barton v. Barr, 140 S. Ct. 1442 (2020), provided no support for petitioner's assertion that under provisions unique to SAW, he could only be removed for his drug convictions during the period of his temporary residency. View "Hernandez Flores v. Rosen" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for two counts of aggravated identity theft under 18 U.S.C. 1028A. Defendant was the owner and operator of a business that provided therapeutic services, and her convictions stemmed from her fraudulently billing government health care program for speech therapy services provided to children of military families. In this case, defendant's use of the speech pathologist's name and National Provider Identifier number on the claim forms was "during and in relation" to the commission of wire fraud and thus constituted "use" of another's identification under section 1028A. Defendant's other challenges are addressed in a concurrently filed memorandum disposition. View "United States v. Harris" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of the complaint based on lack of subject matter jurisdiction under the Administrative Orders Review Act, frequently referred to as the Hobbs Act. Because the scope of the Hobbs Act must be read broadly, the Hobbs Act thus encompasses not only all final NRC orders in licensing proceedings, but all NRC decisions that are preliminary, ancillary, or incidental to those licensing proceedings.The panel concluded that plaintiff's action fell squarely within the scope of the Hobbs Act because plaintiff's complaint challenges final orders of the NRC related to licensing, NRC enforcement decisions related to NRC licenses and certifications, and conduct licensed or certified by the NRC. Therefore, the district court correctly determined that it did not have subject-matter jurisdiction under the Hobbs Act. View "Public Watchdogs v. Southern California Edison Co." on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit held that plaintiff does not create appellate jurisdiction by voluntarily dismissing his claims with prejudice after being forced to arbitrate them. The panel dismissed plaintiff's appeal of the district court's denial of his motions to compel arbitration and reconsideration, and from his own voluntary dismissal. The panel concluded that it lacked jurisdiction over plaintiff's putative class action. In doing so, the panel held that Omstead v. Dell, Inc., 594 F.3d 1081 (9th Cir. 2010), which held that a plaintiff can avoid arbitration and manufacture appellate jurisdiction simply by voluntarily dismissing his claims with prejudice, has been effectively overruled by the Supreme Court's decision in Microsoft Corp. v. Baker, 137 S. Ct. 1702 (2017). View "Langere v. Verizon Wireless Services, LLC" on Justia Law

This case relates to the consent decree incorporating the Flores Agreement, a 1997 settlement agreement between the United States and a class of all minors subject to immigration detention. The Agreement established nationwide standards for the detention, release, and treatment of minors by U.S. immigration authorities. The Agreement, by its own terms, terminates after the government's publication of final regulations implementing the Agreement. In 2019, the government issued final regulations represented as implementing, and thus terminating, the Agreement. The district court then concluded that the new regulations, on the whole, were inconsistent with the Agreement, enjoining the regulations from taking effect and denying the government's motion to terminate the Agreement.The Ninth Circuit held that the provisions of the new regulations relating to unaccompanied minors are consistent with the Agreement except to the extent that they require ORR to place an unaccompanied minor in a secure facility if the minor is otherwise a danger to self or others and to the extent they require unaccompanied minors held in secure or staff-secure placements to request a hearing, rather than providing a hearing to those minors automatically unless they refuse one.The panel also held that some of the regulations regarding initial detention and custody of both unaccompanied and accompanied minors are consistent with the Agreement and may take effect. However, the remaining new regulations relating to accompanied minors depart from the Agreement in several important ways. Therefore, the panel affirmed the district court's order enjoining those regulations. The panel further held that the district court correctly concluded that the Agreement was not terminated by the adoption of the regulations. Finally, the panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the government's motion to terminate the Agreement, as the government has not demonstrated that changed circumstances, such as an increase in family migration, justify terminating the Agreement's protections. View "Flores v. Rosen" on Justia Law

Angelina Nunes, individually and as Guardian Ad Litem for her minor children, and Emanuel Alves filed a 42 U.S.C. 1983 action against the County and its attorneys for unlawfully viewing the juvenile records of the children in violation of California Welfare & Institutions Code Section 827.The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of defendants' motion to dismiss on qualified immunity grounds, holding that Gonzalez v. Spencer, 336 F.3d 832 (9th Cir. 2003), did not clearly establish a constitutional privacy right in juvenile records. Therefore, the panel could not conclude that every reasonable official acting as defendants did would have known they were violating the constitutional rights of plaintiffs based on Gonzalez, the only authority on which plaintiffs relied. The panel concluded that defendants were entitled to qualified immunity and remanded for further proceedings. View "Nunes v. Stephens" on Justia Law

On remand from the Supreme Court, the Ninth Circuit reaffirmed the district court's order granting CFPB's petition to enforce the law firm's compliance with the Bureau's civil investigative demand (CID) requiring the firm to produce documents and answer interrogatories. The Supreme Court held that the statute establishing the CFPB violated the Constitution's separation of powers by placing leadership of the agency in the hands of a single Director who could be removed only for cause. The Court concluded, however, that the for-cause removal provision could be severed from the rest of the statute and thus did not require invalidation of the agency itself.The panel concluded that the CID was validly ratified, but the panel need not decide whether that occurred through the actions of Acting Director Mulvaney. After the Supreme Court's ruling, the CFPB's current Director expressly ratified the agency's earlier decisions to issue the civil investigative demand to the law firm, to deny the firm's request to modify or set aside the CID, and to file a petition requesting that the district court enforce the CID. The new Director knew that the President could remove her with or without cause, and nonetheless ratified the agency's issuance of the CID. Therefore, this ratification remedies any constitutional injury that the law firm may have suffered due to the manner in which the CFPB was originally structured. The panel explained that the law firm's only cognizable injury arose from the fact that the agency issued the CID and pursued its enforcement while headed by a Director who was improperly insulated from the President's removal authority. The panel concluded that any concerns that the law firm might have had about being subjected to investigation without adequate presidential oversight and control have now been resolved. The panel rejected the law firm's remaining contentions. View "Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Seila Law LLC" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit vacated the district court's judgment dismissing as time-barred plaintiff's challenge to the Appeals Council's decision affirming the denial of social security disability benefits. The district court found that declarations from plaintiff and her attorney were insufficient to rebut the presumption that she received notice five days after the denial, triggering a 60-day deadline to file a challenge in federal court.The panel held that plaintiff has made a sufficient "reasonable showing" to rebut the presumption that notice was received within five days of its issuance. In this case, the combination of circumstances—including unrebutted declarations from both plaintiff and her attorney, an officer of the court, that neither received the notice, where the face of the notice indicates that both were supposed to have been mailed copies—is sufficient to rebut the presumption and shift the burden of proving actual receipt to the government. Because the district court did not perform this burden-shifting analysis, the panel remanded for further proceedings. View "Ashe v. Saul" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit denied a petition for review of the BIA's decision denying petitioner's application for asylum and withholding of removal. The panel held that petitioner waived review of the Board's discretionary denial of asylum relief by failing to contest this aspect of the Board's decision in his opening brief. The panel also held that the Board properly concluded that petitioner's proposed social group of "known drug users" was not legally cognizable based on lack of particularity under the standards set forth in Matter of M-E-V-G-, 26 I. & N. Dec. 227 (BIA 2014) and Matter of W-G-R-, 26 I. & N. Dec. 208 (BIA 2014). Even if the panel were to ignore the ambiguity of the term "known," "drug" and "user" are broad terms that cause the proposed group to lack definable boundaries and to be amorphous, overbroad, diffuse, or subjective. View "Minh P. Nguyen v. Barr" on Justia Law