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

Petitioner, convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of his girlfriend and her daughter, appealed the district court's denial of his petition for writ of habeas corpus. The Ninth Circuit reversed in part, holding that petitioner demonstrated cause and prejudice to overcome the procedural default of his ineffective assistance of trial claim. In this case, post conviction counsel, whom Arizona concedes performed deficiently, failed to raise a substantial claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel in petitioner's initial state collateral proceeding. The panel remanded the claim for the district court to allow evidentiary development of petitioner's ineffective assistance of trial counsel claim.The panel affirmed the district court's conclusion that petitioner's right to due process under Ake v. Oklahoma, 470 U.S. 68 (1985), was not violated; agreed that the Arizona state courts did not improperly exclude mitigating evidence that lacked a causal connection to his crime; and declined to expand the certificate of appealability to include the three uncertified issues raised by petitioner. View "Ramirez v. Ryan" on Justia Law

The City filed suit alleging that the Commission's approval of an electrical grid project violated the City's due process rights. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of the City's claims based on lack of standing. In light of City of South Lake Tahoe v. California Tahoe Regional Planning Agency and its progeny, the panel held that the City cannot challenge the Commission's decision on due process grounds in federal court. Furthermore, the City's claims were barred by Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity. In this case, the City never asked for leave to add a commissioner as a party and has waived its right to amend. View "City of San Juan Capistrano v. California Public Utilities Commission" on Justia Law

Montana Code section 45-8-216(1)(e)—which restricts automated telephone calls promoting a political campaign or any use related to a political campaign—violates the First Amendment. The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment for the Attorney General of Montana, holding that regulating robocalls based on the content of their messaging presents a more severe threat to First Amendment freedoms than regulating their time, place, and manner. Furthermore, prohibiting political robocalls strikes at the heart of the First Amendment, as well as disproportionately disadvantages political candidates with fewer resources.After determining that plaintiff had standing to challenge Montana's Robocall Statute, the panel held that Montana's content-based restrictions on robocalls cannot survive strict scrutiny. Although protecting personal privacy was a compelling state interest, the panel held that the statute was not narrowly tailored to further this interest, the statute was both underinclusive and overinclusive, and thus the statute's restriction on political messages did not survive strict scrutiny. View "Victory Processing, LLC v. Fox" on Justia Law

This appeal stemmed from the parties' longstanding dispute over the literary works of John Steinbeck. In this case, a federal jury in Los Angeles unanimously awarded plaintiff, as executrix of Elaine's estate (Elaine was the widow of Steinbeck), compensatory damages for slander of title, breach of contract, and tortious interference with economic advantage, and punitive damages against defendants.Determining that it had jurisdiction, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the orders granting summary judgment and striking defendants' defenses to tortious interference on grounds of collateral estoppel. Furthermore, the panel explained that it follows that the district court's decisions to exclude evidence related to defendants' different understanding of the agreement at issue or the validity of the prior court decisions were not abuses of discretion. The panel affirmed the compensatory damages award, holding that the record contained substantial evidence to support the awards on each cause of action independently. Furthermore, the compensatory damages were not speculative. The panel held that there was more than ample evidence of defendants' malice in the record to support the jury's verdict, thus triggering entitlement to punitive damages. However, the panel vacated and remanded with instructions to dismiss the punitive damages claims against Gail, Steinbeck's daughter-in-law, based on lack of meaningful evidence of Gail's financial condition and her ability to pay. View "Kaffaga v. The Estate of Thomas Steinbeck" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of a preliminary injunction in favor of hiQ, a data analytics company, prohibiting LinkedIn, a professional networking website, from denying hiQ access to publicly available LinkedIn member profiles.The panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that hiQ currently has no viable way to remain in business other than using LinkedIn public profile data for its Keeper and Skill Mapper services, and that HiQ therefore has demonstrated a likelihood of irreparable harm absent a preliminary injunction. The panel also held that the district court's determination that the balance of hardships tips sharply in hiQ's favor was not illogical, implausible, or without support in the record; hiQ raised serious questions regarding the merits of its tortious interference with contract claim and LinkedIn's legitimate business purpose defense; hiQ also raised a serious question regarding whether state law causes of action were preempted by the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act; and the district court's conclusion that the public interest favors granting the preliminary injunction was appropriate. View "hiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corp." on Justia Law

A party moving for substantive consolidation must give notice of the motion to creditors of a putative consolidated non-debtor. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the bankruptcy appellate panel's (BAP) decision affirming the bankruptcy court's denial of a Chapter 7 trustee's motion to substantively consolidate debtor's estate with the estates of various non-debtors. The panel held that there was no notice given in this case and the panel rejected the trustee's argument that he provided notice to the same extent as was provided in In re Bonham. Furthermore, the BAP did not err by concluding that the trustee failed to adequately research and serve non-debtors' creditors. View "Leslie v. Mihranian" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's dismissal of relator's qui tam action under the False Claims Act (FCA) against KCI, alleging that the company submitted false claims to Medicare. The panel held that relator sufficiently alleged that KCI violated the Act by adequately alleging a fraudulent scheme to submit false claims and reliable data that led to a strong inference that false claims were actually submitted. The panel also held that relator sufficiently alleged that KCI acted with the requisite scienter under the Act, and KCI's false claims were material to the government's payment decision. View "United States ex rel Godecke v. Kinetic Concepts, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit alleging that the drainage system managed by defendants discharged pollutants into surrounding waters, in violation of the Clean Water Act (CWA). The Ninth Circuit held that the district court properly interpreted "discharges . . .from irrigated agriculture," as used in 33 U.S.C. 1342(l)(1), to mean discharges from activities related to crop production.However, the panel held that the district court erred by placing the burden of demonstrating eligibility for the permit exception on plaintiffs, rather than on defendants, and by misinterpreting "entirely," as used in section 1342(l)(1). In this case, the district court's interpretation of the word "entirely" to mean "majority"— which both parties now concede was erroneous—was thus the but-for cause of the dismissal of plaintiffs' Vega Claim. The panel also held that the district court erred by placing the burden on plaintiffs to demonstrate that the discharges were not covered under section 1342(l)(1), rather than placing the burden on defendants to demonstrate that the discharges were covered under section 1342(l)(1). Furthermore the district court erred by striking plaintiffs' seepage and sediment theories of liability from plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment because the first amended complaint encompassed those claims. Accordingly, the panel reversed and remanded. View "Pacific Coast Federation of Fisherman's Associations v. Glaser" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction under the Assimilative Crimes Act for felony telephone harassment in violation of Washington Revised Code section 9.61.230(1)(a),(b). Defendant's conviction stemmed from his repeated telephone calls to a Veterans Administration medical center.Washington Revised Code section 9.61.230(1)(a) requires proof that the defendant specifically intended to harm the victim when initiating the call. As applied here, the panel held that the requirement ensures that defendant was convicted for his conduct, not for speech protected by the First Amendment. Therefore, the panel rejected defendant's claim that the statute violated his First Amendment rights because he just wanted to talk about his medical care and the VA's unpaid bills, and did not intend to harass or want to harass the secretary who answered the calls. View "United States v. Waggy" on Justia Law

Only a district judge may rule on a motion to withdraw consent to the jurisdiction of a magistrate judge under 28 U.S.C. 636(c)(4). Plaintiff filed suit pro se in 2008, alleging civil rights violations by prison officials. Plaintiff consented to magistrate jurisdiction shortly after filing his action and defendants declined consent more than seven years later in 2015.The Ninth Circuit vacated the magistrate judge's denial of plaintiff's motion to withdraw consent to the magistrate judge's jurisdiction and remanded with instructions to the district judge to consider that motion de novo. If the district court finds that plaintiff should have been permitted to withdraw consent, the district judge is to vacate the judgment entered by the magistrate judge. The panel also vacated the screening orders entered by various magistrate judges that dismissed certain of plaintiff's claims and remanded for further proceedings on those claims. View "Branch v. Umphenour" on Justia Law