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

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for the state in an action challenging three provisions of California's Unsafe Handgun Act (UHA). The UHA requires that new models of handguns meet certain criteria, and be listed on a handgun roster, before they may be offered for sale in the state.Assuming that the UHA implicated purchasers' rights to bear arms, the panel held that the UHA passed constitutional muster. The panel applied intermediate scrutiny and held that the Act only regulates commercial sales, not possession, and did so in a way that did not impose a substantial burden on purchasers. The panel held that the requirements for a chamber load indicator and a magazine detachment mechanism reasonably fit with California's interest in public safety; California met its burden of showing that the microstamping requirement was reasonably tailored to address the substantial problem of untraceable bullets at crime scenes and the value of a reasonable means of identification; the panel rejected plaintiffs claim that they had a constitutional right to purchase a particular handgun; and the provisions did not violate the Equal Protection Clause. View "Pena v. Lindley" on Justia Law

Retirement status alone, in and of itself, is not dispositive to determining disability under the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act. The Ninth Circuit granted a petition for review of the Benefit Review Board's decision denying claimant disability benefits under the Act. The panel interpreted the language of 33 U.S.C 902(10) defining "disability," and held that claimant's decision to retire early did not prevent him from receiving permanent total disability benefits. In this case, substantial evidence supported the ALJ's findings that claimant was disabled within the meaning of the Act and that he has attained maximum medical improvement, no longer being able to return to work. Therefore, the panel reversed and remanded for a calculation of the permanent total disability benefits to be awarded to claimant. View "Christie v. Georgia-Pacific Co." on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to California and the United States in an action seeking injunctive relief prohibiting the Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel from continuing to operate Desert Rose Casino.The panel held that the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) protects gaming activity conducted on Indian lands. However, a patron's act of placing a bet or wager on a game of Desert Rose Bingo (DRB) while located in California constitutes gaming activity that is not located on Indian lands. Therefore, it violates the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act and was not protected by the IGRA. The panel further held that, even if Iipay was correct that all of the "gaming activity" associated with DRB occurred on Indian lands, the patrons' act of placing bets or wagers over the internet while located in a jurisdiction where those bets or wagers was illegal makes Iipay's decision to accept financial payments associated with those bets or wagers a violation of the UIGEA. View "California v. Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit reversed defendant's conviction for unlawful reentry into the United States in violation of 8 U.S.C. 1326. The panel held that defendant's prior 2008 and 2011 removals were fundamentally unfair and thus could not serve as a predicate removal for purposes of section 1326.The panel held that because the 2008 removal proceeding was in absentia, defendant satisfied the exhaustion and deprivation-of-judicial-review requirements for bringing a collateral attack on the validity of that removal. Furthermore, it was error to remove defendant for a crime of domestic violence under Immigration and Nationality Act 237(a)(2)(E)(i) based on his California battery conviction because circuit precedent established that California battery was not a categorical crime of violence. The panel also held that the due process defects in the 2008 removal proceeding infected the 2011 expedited removal for presenting invalid entry documents. In this case, the 2011 expedited removal order was also fundamentally unfair because it violated the process due to lawful permanent residents. View "United States v. Ochoa-Oregel" on Justia Law

Under the principle of Separation of Powers and in consideration of the Spending Clause, which vests exclusive power to Congress to impose conditions on federal grants, the Executive Branch may not refuse to disperse federal grants to sanctuary cities and counties without congressional authorization. President Trump issued Executive Order 13,768, "Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States," with the purpose of directing executive departments and agencies to employ all lawful means to enforce immigration laws. The Executive Order's primary concern was sanctuary jurisdictions, which the President viewed as willfully violating Federal law in an attempt to shield aliens from removal from the country.As a preliminary matter, the Ninth Circuit held that the Counties had standing and the case was ripe for review. On the merits, the panel affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the Counties because Congress did not authorize withholding of funds in this case and thus the Executive Order violates the constitutional principle of the Separation of Powers. However, given the absence of specific findings underlying the nationwide application of the injunction, the panel vacated the injunction and remanded for reconsideration and further findings. View "City and County of San Francisco v. Trump" on Justia Law

The en banc court held that the Railway Labor Act did not preempt a worker's claim premised on a state law right to reschedule vacation leave for family medical purposes, when the worker's underlying right to vacation leave was covered by a collective bargaining agreement (CBA). The court also held that the Act did not preempt the worker's claim because the claim neither arose entirely from nor required construction of the CBA. Furthermore, that the CBA must be consulted to confirm the existence of accrued vacation days was not sufficient to extinguish the worker's independent state law right to use the accrued time to care for a sick child. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants. View "Alaska Airlines v. Schurke" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's second supplemental injunction and victim compensation order in a class action against the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO). Plaintiffs alleged that MCSO racially profiled Latino drivers and passengers under the guise of enforcing federal and state immigration laws.The panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in formulating the terms of the second supplemental injunction; the panel thrice rejected the County's contention that it was not a proper party to this action because MCSO and its sheriff did not act on behalf of the County; the panel rejected the County's contention that it had no authority under Arizona law to fund compliance with an injunction that arose from willful misconduct; even assuming without deciding that the County's interpretation of the Arizona statute was correct, a state statute prohibiting payment for valid federal court-ordered remedies did not excuse a defendant from complying with those remedies; the statute that the County cited would, at most, prevent payment from insurance or self-insurance funds; and the County failed to explain how this law would preclude it from using other types of funds to comply with the district court’s orders. View "De Jesus Ortega Melendres v. Maricopa County" on Justia Law

Senate Bill 954, an amendment to the California labor code that imposed a wage-credit limitation on employers for payments to third-party industry advancement funds, was neither preempted by the National Labor Relations Act nor infringed plaintiffs' First Amendment rights. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiffs' complaint, holding that SB 954 did not frustrate the objectives of the NLRA and was not preempted under the doctrine in Machinists v. Wis. Emp’t Relations Comm’n, 427 U.S. 132 (1976). The panel explained that, by setting a floor for employee pay while allowing unionized employees to opt-out of a particular provision, California acted well within the ambit of its traditional police powers.The panel also held that plaintiffs have no free-floating First Amendment right to "amass" funds to finance its speech and, to the extent SB 954 implicated plaintiffs' speech interests at all, those interests were not constitutional in nature because SB 954 merely trims a state subsidy of speech, and does so in a viewpoint-neutral way. Under rational basis review, SB 954 was rationally related to the legitimate government purpose of ensuring meaningful employee consent before employers contribute portions of their wages to third-party advocacy groups, and easily withstood scrutiny. View "Interpipe Contracting, Inc. v. Becerra" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of an action under the Federal Tort Claims Act brought by a surviving spouse, alleging wrongful death and malpractice when a medical center operated by the VA caused Randy Tunac's death. The panel held that, to the extent the complaint alleged negligence by VA healthcare employees, it had jurisdiction under the FTCA. However, the negligence claims regarding VA operations must proceed under the congressionally-mandated pathway set forth in the Veterans' Judicial Review Act (VJRA), and any appeal can be heard only by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The panel held that, to the extent the court had jurisdiction, the claims were barred by the FTCA's statute of limitations and those claims were not equitably tolled. In this case, the two year statute of limitations had long run when plaintiff filed her administrative claim and any alleged concealment by the VA of a widespread problem regarding delayed treatment did not result in concealment of the operative facts that would merit equitable tolling. View "Tunac v. United States" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment for defendants in a trademark infringement action over the "Honey Badger" catchphrases under the Lanham Act. The panel applied the test in Rogers v. Grimaldi, 875 F.2d 994 (2d Cir. 1989), to balance the competing interests at stake when a trademark owner claims that an expressive work infringes on its trademark rights. The panel held that the Rogers test was not an automatic safe harbor for any minimally expressive work that copies someone else's mark. In this case, a jury could determine that defendants did not add any value protected by the First Amendment but merely appropriated the goodwill associated with plaintiff's mark. Defendants have not used another’s mark in the creation of a song, photograph, video game, or television show, but have largely just pasted plaintiff's mark into their greeting cards. Therefore, the panel remanded for further proceedings. View "Gordon v. Drape Creative, Inc." on Justia Law