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

The Ninth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for accessing, possessing, and distributing child pornography. The panel held that defendant arguably waived his Franks claim and that any error was not plain. The panel rejected defendant's claim under Wardius v. Oregon, 412 U.S. 470 (1973), where defendant, not the Government, benefited more from the district court's enforcement of the parties' agreement to disclose the identity of testifying witnesses. The panel rejected defendant's remaining evidentiary challenges and held that the district court did not err in denying his motion for a new trial based on prosecutorial misconduct.The panel also held that the district court did not err, let alone plainly err, in imposing a lifetime term of supervised release. As to the substance of the Special Conditions, the Government concedes that remand is required to conform the written judgment to the oral pronouncement of Special Conditions 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. So conformed, the Government also concedes Special Conditions 5 and 8 must be vacated and remanded for the district court to reconsider. Finally, the district court's imposition of Special Condition 7, requiring defendant to submit to searches of his property and person by his probation officer, was not an abuse of discretion. The panel remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Rusnak" on Justia Law

DaVita filed suit under the private cause of action under the Medicare Secondary Payer provisions (MSP), alleging that defendants reduced the payment amount for Patient 1's dialysis because of Medicare eligibility as soon as Patient 1 became eligible for Medicare, without waiting the mandatory thirty months. But the reduced payment amount remained greater than the Medicare rate, so Medicare never made any secondary payments. The district court dismissed the complaint, holding that the MSP's private cause of action is available only when Medicare has made a payment.Reviewing de novo, the Ninth Circuit held that the district court erroneously dismissed the complaint on that ground. The panel explained that the statutory text, congressional purpose, and regulatory clues make clear that Congress did not intend payment by Medicare to be a prerequisite to bringing a private cause of action under the MSP. The private cause of action encompasses situations in which a primary plan impermissibly takes Medicare eligibility into account too soon, even if Medicare has not made any payments. Accordingly, the panel vacated in large part and remanded for further proceedings. The panel affirmed the district court's dismissal with respect to the 10-month period after Patient 1 dropped coverage under Virginia Mason's Plan. View "DaVita, Inc. v. Virginia Mason Memorial Hospital" on Justia Law

DaVita filed suit alleging that the Amy's Kitchen Employee Benefit Health Plan's dialysis provisions violate the Medicare as Secondary Payer provisions (MSP) of the Social Security Act, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), and state law. The district court dismissed the federal claims and declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state-law claims.Reviewing de novo, the Ninth Circuit affirmed and agreed with the district court's conclusion that the Plan does not violate the MSP because it reimburses at the same rate for all dialysis services, regardless of underlying diagnosis and regardless of Medicare eligibility. The panel also held that DaVita may not bring equitable claims on behalf of Patient 1 under ERISA, because the assignment form the patient signed did not encompass an assignment of equitable claims. View "DaVita Inc. v. Amy's Kitchen, Inc." on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit filed (1) an order stating that the opinion, concurrence, and dissent filed November 19, 2019 are amended by the opinion, concurrence, and dissent filed concurrently with the order, and denying on behalf of the court a petition for rehearing en banc; and (2) an amended majority opinion, concurrence, and dissent.In the amended opinion, the panel granted the petition for review of an ICE order reinstating petitioner's prior order of removal and held that that: (1) 8 U.S.C. 1252(b)(1) establishes a thirty-day deadline for seeking review of reinstatement orders; (2) because petitioner timely challenged his reinstatement order, the court had jurisdiction to consider a collateral attack on his underlying removal order contending that the execution of that order resulted in a gross miscarriage of justice; (3) petitioner established a gross miscarriage of justice because his removal order lacked a valid legal basis when it was executed; and (4) there is no diligence requirement that limits the time during which such a collateral attack may be made. View "Vega-Anguiano v. Barr" on Justia Law

On remand from the Supreme Court, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel's decision reversing the bankruptcy court's finding of civil contempt and vacating its award of civil contempt sanctions against a debtor's former business partners for violation of the discharge injunction.The Supreme Court explained that an objective, rather than subjective, standard is more appropriate in determining whether the Creditors could be held in civil contempt for violating the bankruptcy discharge injunction. Furthermore, "a court may hold a creditor in civil contempt for violating a discharge order if there is no fair ground of doubt as to whether the order barred the creditor's conduct." Applying this standard, the panel held that the Creditors had an objectively reasonable basis to conclude that debtor might have "returned to the fray" in the Oregon state court to obtain some economic benefit from a higher evaluation of the sale of his ownership stake in SPBC and in the amount of interest that had accrued after the date payment was due for the forced sale. View "Lorenzen v. Taggart" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit reversed defendant's sentence for possession of ammunition by a convicted felon. Defendant contends that the district court erred in applying a recidivist sentencing enhancement based on his prior state conviction for attempted transportation of marijuana under Arizona Revised Statutes 13-3405(A)(4).The panel held that the district court's application of the six-level recidivist enhancement was plain error. The Arizona statute under which defendant was convicted included hemp in its definition of marijuana. However, in 2018, before defendant's federal conviction, Congress amended the Controlled Substances Act to exclude hemp from its definition of a controlled substance. Therefore, in 2019, when defendant was sentenced, the Arizona statute under which he had been convicted was overbroad and that conviction no longer qualified as a "controlled substance offense" under the Guidelines. Furthermore, the error affected defendant's substantial rights and allowing the error to go uncorrected would seriously affect the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. Accordingly, the panel remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Bautista" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit certified to the Arizona Supreme Court the following questions: 1. In a garnishment action by a judgment creditor against the judgment debtor's insurer claiming that coverage is owed under an insurance policy, where the judgment creditor is not proceeding on an assignment of rights, can the insurer invoke the doctrine of direct benefits estoppel to bind the judgment creditor to the terms of the insurance contract? 2. If yes, does direct benefits estoppel also bind the judgment creditor to the arbitration clause contained in the insurance policy? View "Benson v. Casa de Capri Enterprises, LLC" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit certified to the Idaho Supreme Court the following question: Whether an Idaho state court order reducing the defendant's judgment of conviction for felony burglary to a judgment of conviction for misdemeanor petit theft under the authority of Idaho Code 19-2604(2) changes the operative conviction for the purposes of Idaho Code 18-310, which prohibits the restoration of firearm rights to those citizens convicted of specific felony offenses. See Idaho Code 18-310(2). View "United States v. Gutierrez" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment in favor of the BPA, in an action brought by plaintiff, alleging that BPA violated the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) by willfully interfering with her rights under the Act. The district court found that plaintiff did not prove that BPA willfully interfered with her FMLA rights and, therefore, that her claims were barred by the relevant statute of limitations.The panel held that the district court did not clearly err in determining that, even if plaintiff had proven a violation of her FMLA rights, BPA's interference was not willful. In this case, the district court applied the McLaughlin standard for willfulness, and properly concluded that there is little evidence in the record that BPA either knew or showed reckless disregard for the matter of whether its conduct was prohibited by the statute. The district court did not clearly err in finding that these facts did not constitute willfulness. Therefore, plaintiff's claim is barred by the two-year statute of limitations in 29 U.S.C. 2617(c)(1), rather than the three-year statute of limitations under section 2617(c)(2). View "Olson v. United States" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of defendant's motion to suppress a firearm found in a search of his car, vacated his conviction for being a felon in possession of a firearm, and remanded for further proceedings.The panel held that police officers who have reasonable suspicion sufficient to justify a traffic stop—but who lack probable cause or any other particularized justification, such as a reasonable belief that the driver poses a danger—may not open the door to a vehicle and lean inside. In this case, the officer conducted an unlawful search in violation of the Fourth Amendment when he opened the car door and leaned into it to ask defendant for his driver's license and vehicle registration. The panel concluded that nothing about this case calls for a remedy other than the typical remedy for Fourth Amendment violation, which is the exclusion of evidence discovered as a result of that violation from criminal proceedings against defendant. Therefore, the firearm must be suppressed under the exclusionary rule. View "United States v. Ngumezi" on Justia Law