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

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction of an action alleging copyright infringement, trademark infringement, and unfair competition. Plaintiff AMA is a Nevada limited liability company that produces and distributes "adult entertainment over the Internet." Defendant is a citizen and resident of Poland, who operated ePorner, an adult video website, through MW Media, a Polish civil law partnership.The panel agreed with the district court that AMA has not met its burden of showing that defendant is subject to personal jurisdiction in the United States under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(k)(2) (the long-arm statute). In this case, defendant lacks the requisite minimum contacts with the United States where the United States was not the focal point of the website and of the harm suffered. The panel also held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying AMA certain jurisdictional discovery and declined to consider arguments about changes in European law for the first time on appeal that bear on AMA's entitlement to additional jurisdictional discovery. View "AMA Multimedia, LLC v. Wanat" on Justia Law

29 U.S.C. 1132(a)(3) does not authorize an award of attorney's fees incurred during the administrative phase of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) claims process. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of an ERISA action brought by plaintiff against MetLife. The district court granted MetLife's motion to dismiss the complaint, agreeing with MetLife that attorney's fees awards are not other appropriate equitable relief under section 1132(a)(3).In Cann v. Carpenters' Pension Trust Fund for Northern California, 989 F.3d 313 (9th Cir. 1993), the panel held that attorney's fees incurred in administrative proceedings are not recoverable under section 1132(g), ERISA's express fee-shifting provision. The panel was obligated to read section 1132(a)(3) in conjunction with section 1132(g). Under the expressio unius canon, section 1132(g)'s silence as to fees incurred in an administrative proceeding gives rise to the inference that section 1132(a)(3) does not authorize such fees. View "Castillo v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co." on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the denial of petitioner's federal habeas petition and his Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) motion to set aside the judgment and amend his habeas petition to add a new claim. Petitioner was convicted of first degree murder, attempted murder, and street terrorism.In regard to the habeas petition, the panel applied the deferential standard in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) and held that the state court's conclusion that petitioner's statements were voluntary was not contrary to or an unreasonable application of federal law. Under the totality of the circumstances, petitioner was advised of his Miranda rights; the state court did not unreasonably conclude that petitioner was sixteen years old and considered his age, experience, and maturity as part of the totality of the circumstances of his confession; and the state court did not unreasonably conclude that the circumstances of the interview were not coercive. Furthermore, the video recording of the interview refutes petitioner's argument that those tactics overbore his will and rendered his confession involuntary. In regard to the Rule 60(b) motion, the panel held that the district court properly denied that motion as an unauthorized second or successive petition under 28 U.S.C. 2244(b)(3)(A). View "Balbuena v. Sullivan" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit granted a petition for review of the BIA's decision affirming the IJ's denial of asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). Petitioner fled her Cameroonian village after she was ordered to marry the village chieftain, called the Fon. In this case, petitioner's credible and unrebutted testimony establishes that, during the period after she left home, she was hiding in fear of her life and of being captured and taken to the palace for a forced marriage. Furthermore, the record does not demonstrate any safe relocation in a place where the Fon's writ did not run.The panel held that substantial evidence does not support the Board's conclusion that petitioner could relocate within Cameroon to avoid future persecution or torture; her proposed social group of "women resistant to forced marriage proposals" lacked social distinction; and she failed to establish a clear probability of torture with government acquiescence. View "Akosung v. Barr" on Justia Law

California Government Code 32310, which bans possession of large capacity magazines (LCMs) that hold more than ten rounds of ammunition, violates the Second Amendment.The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for plaintiffs who brought suit challenging section 32310. The panel applied a two-prong test to determine whether firearm regulations violate the Second Amendment. First, the panel held that section 32310 burdens protected conduct because firearm magazines are protected arms under the Second Amendment; LCMs are not unusual arms; LCM prohibitions are not longstanding regulations and do not enjoy a presumption of lawfulness; and there is no persuasive historical evidence in the record showing LCM possession falls outside the ambit of Second Amendment protection.Second, the panel held that strict scrutiny is the appropriate standard to apply where section 32310 strikes at the core right of law-abiding citizens to self-defend by banning LCM possession within the home; section 32310 substantially burdens core Second Amendment rights; decisions in other circuits are distinguishable; and Fyock v. City of Sunnyvale does not obligate the panel to apply intermediate scrutiny. Although the state has compelling interests in preventing and mitigating gun violence, the panel held that section 32310 was not narrowly tailored to achieve such interests. Finally, even if intermediate scrutiny applied, section 32310 would still fail under the more lenient standard. View "Duncan v. Becerra" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's adverse grant of summary judgment against plaintiff's Title VII lawsuit. The panel held that the undisputed facts clearly show that plaintiff was Castle's independent contractor and thus not entitled to Title VII protections. In this case, plaintiff was paid, taxed, and received benefits like an independent contractor; plaintiff's obligations to Castle were limited, providing him the freedom to run his own private practice; the contracts between Castle and plaintiff described him as an independent contractor. The panel stated that other factors also weighed in favor of plaintiff being an independent contractor. View "Henry v. Adventist Health Castle Medical Center" on Justia Law

Federal law does not facially preempt California law governing universal service contributions from prepaid wireless providers. Federal law requires telecommunications providers, including wireless providers such as MetroPCS, to contribute to the federal Universal Service Fund, which helps provide affordable telecommunications access. California requires its own universal service contributions, adopting the Prepaid Mobile Telephony Services Surcharge Collection Act in 2014, which (prior to its recent expiration) governed the collection of surcharges from prepaid wireless customers. The CPUC issued resolutions implementing the Prepaid Act that required providers of prepaid services to use a method other than the three FCC recognized methods to determine the revenues generated by intrastate traffic that were subject to surcharge. MetroPCS filed suit challenging the CPUC's resolutions.The panel held that the expiration of the Prepaid Act did not cause this case to become moot and that the panel therefore has jurisdiction to reach the merits of MetroPCS's preemption claim. On the merits, the panel held that preemption is disfavored because there was a dual federal-state regulatory scheme and a history of state regulation in the area of intrastate telecommunications. In this case, the CPUC resolutions are not facially preempted by the Telecommunications Act and related FCC decisions. The panel rejected MetroPCS's argument that the resolutions conflict with the requirement of competitive neutrality by depriving prepaid providers (but not postpaid providers) of the "right" to calculate intrastate revenues in a way that avoids assessing the same revenues as federal contribution requirements. Furthermore, the panel rejected MetroPCS's argument that because prepaid providers are deprived of that "right," the resolutions are preempted regardless of the treatment of competing providers. Therefore, the panel reversed the district court's ruling in favor of MetroPCS and remanded for the district court to consider in the first instance MetroPCS's other challenges to the resolution. View "MetroPCS California, LLC v. Picker" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit denied a petition for review of the BIA's decision affirming the IJ's denial of petitioner's request for deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture (CAT).The panel held that the federal generic definition of murder is "the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought" under 18 U.S.C. 1111(a); because federal law defines the term "human being" to exclude an unborn fetus, California Penal Code section 187(a), which criminalizes the unlawful killing of an unborn fetus, is broader than the federal generic definition; section 187(a) is divisible because it creates distinct crimes for the unlawful killing of a human being and the unlawful killing of a fetus; and, under the modified categorical approach, petitioner's section 187(a) second degree murder conviction under section 187(a) for the unlawful killing of a human being is an aggravated felony under the INA. Accordingly, substantial evidence supported the denial of deferral and petitioner is removable as charged. View "Gomez Fernandez v. Barr" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment for plaintiff in an action alleging product-liability claims based on injuries she sustained from a medical device -- the G2 intravascular filter -- designed and manufactured by Bard. The jury found Bard liable for negligent failure to warn, awarding $1.6 million in compensatory damages and $2 million in punitive damages.The panel held that, because Bard's preemption defense presented a purely legal question, it would consider the merits of the district court's denial of its motion for summary judgment. The panel held that the preemption argument fails because Booker's claim rests on an asserted state-law duty to warn of the risks posed by the particular design of Bard's G2 Filter, and the FDA has not imposed any requirements related to the design of that device or how a device of that design should be labeled. In regard to the failure-to-warn claim, the panel held that Georgia courts had not adopted a categorical prohibition on basing a failure-to-warn claim on the absence of a comparative warning, and the district court correctly allowed the jury to decide the adequacy of the warning. Finally, the panel held that the evidence was adequate to support the jury's award of punitive damages. View "Booker v. C.R. Bard, Inc." on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit denied a petition for review of the BIA's decision dismissing petitioner's appeal and affirming the IJ's denial of his application for cancellation of removal.Because the panel is bound by its decision in Medina-Nunez v. Lynch, 788 F.3d 1103 (9th Cir. 2015) (per curiam), the panel held that petitioner was not "admitted" under 8 U.S.C. 1229b(a)(2) when he was approved as a derivative beneficiary of his mother's self-petition under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). The panel held that neither the approval of the Form I-360 listing petitioner as a derivative beneficiary, nor his subsequent receipt of deferred action and work authorization, satisfies the statutory definition of "admission" under the INA. In this case, petitioner was not "admitted in any status" under controlling precedent until 2008; he committed a crime of moral turpitude in 2012, and he is therefore unable to satisfy the requirement of seven years of continuous residence after admission for eligibility for cancellation of removal under section 1229b(a). Accordingly, the BIA properly dismissed petitioner's appeal from the IJ's denial of relief. View "Enriquez v. Barr" on Justia Law