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

The Ninth Circuit affirmed a juvenile defendant's life sentence without parole where the juvenile was convicted of felony murder and other crimes. The panel held that the district court did not err in resentencing defendant by first calculating and using the sentencing guideline range of life imprisonment; under Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012), and Montgomery v. Louisiana, 136 S. Ct. 718 (2016), the district court was required to consider the hallmark features of youth before imposing a sentence of life without parole on a juvenile offender; and the district court took into account evidence of defendant's rehabilitation as part of its inquiry into whether defendant was a member of a class of permanently incorrigible juvenile offenders. View "United States v. Briones, Jr." on Justia Law

18 U.S.C. 2113(e) does not contain a separate requirement that the defendant intend the killing which results from his bank robbery. Congress mandated an enhanced punishment for an individual who kills a person in the course of committing a bank robbery in section 2113(e) and the enhancement applies even when the bank robber accidentally kills someone. The Ninth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for bank robbery resulting in death, in violation of section 2113(e), holding that the means rea required was the mens rea necessary to commit the underlying bank robbery. View "United States v. McDuffy" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit reversed the denial of defendant's motion to suppress evidence found on his person and in the car he was driving. The panel held that defendant failed to show that the officers' decision to pull him over and to impound his car would have occurred in the absence of an impermissible reason. However, the panel held, in light of United States v. Orozco, 858 F.3d 1204 (9th Cir. 2017), that the officers' search and seizure of items from defendant's car could not be justified under the inventory-search doctrine where officers explicitly admitted that they seized items from the car to search for evidence of criminal activity. In this case, the government did not offer any justification for the seizure of the property other than the inventory-search doctrine, and thus the district court erred in denying the motion to suppress. View "United States v. Johnson" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit challenging Ordinance 124968, which permits independent-contractor drivers, represented by an entity denominated an "exclusive driver representative," and driver coordinators to agree on the "nature and amount of payments to be made by, or withheld from, the driver coordinator to or by the drivers." The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's dismissal of the Chamber's federal antitrust claims because the ordinance sanctions price-fixing of ride-referral service fees by private cartels of independent-contractor drivers. The panel held that the State-action immunity doctrine did not exempt the ordinance from preemption by the Sherman Act because the State of Washington had not clearly articulated and affirmatively expressed a state policy authorizing private parties to price-fix the fees that for-hire drivers pay to companies like Uber or Lyft in exchange for ride-referral services. Furthermore, the active-supervision requirement for state-action immunity applied, and was not met. The panel affirmed the district court's dismissal of the Chamber's National Labor Relations Act preemption claims. View "U.S. Chamber of Commerce of the United States v. Seattle" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against SFPD officials under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that defendants fabricated evidence against him during a murder investigation. The district court granted defendants' motions for summary judgment. The Ninth Circuit held that because Caldwell rebutted any presumption of prosecutorial independence, he established a triable issue as to whether plaintiff fabricated evidence against him. Therefore, the panel reversed and remanded as to Crenshaw. The panel held that Gerrans and Crowly's investigation techniques were not so coercive that they rose to the level of fabricated evidence, and thus affirmed as to these two defendants. View "Caldwell v. City and County of San Francisco" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment in favor of BNSF in an action alleging a failure to accommodate plaintiff under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Applying de novo review, the panel held that it was neither appropriate nor necessary to extend the Barnett and Morton burden-shifting framework to trial. The panel reasoned that the consequences of the denial of summary judgment was not a meaningless gesture, and when weighed against the confusion and complexity likely to arise at trial, burden shifting was best confined to summary judgment. The panel held that the district court properly described plaintiff's burden as a burden of proof and properly refused his requested instruction. Finally, the district court did not err in denying plaintiff's motion for judgment as a matter of law. View "Snapp v. BNSF Railway Co." on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed the district court's dismissal of his 42 U.S.C. 1983 action, alleging that the LADWP terminated his employment in a probationary promotional position without due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of defendant's motion to dismiss because plaintiff lacked a constitutionally protected property interest in his probationary position. The panel also denied plaintiff leave to amend his third amended complaint and denied plaintiff's motion for reconsideration. View "Palm v. Los Angeles Department of Water and Power" on Justia Law

Skechers challenged the district court's issuance of a preliminary injunction prohibiting it from selling shoes that allegedly infringe and dilute adidas America, Inc.’s Stan Smith trade dress and Three-Stripe trademark. The panel affirmed in part, holding that the district court did not abuse its discretion in issuing the preliminary injunction as to adidas's claim that Skechers's Onix shoe infringes on adidas's unregistered trade dress of its Stan Smith shoe. However, the panel reversed in part, holding that the district court erred in issuing a preliminary injunction as to adidas's claim that Skechers's Cross Court shoe infringes and dilutes its Three-Stripe mark. View "adidas America, Inc. v. Skechers USA, Inc." on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit certified the following questions of state law to the Supreme Court of California: (1) Do California Labor Code 204 and 226 apply to wage payments and wage statements provided by an out-of-state employer to an employee who, in the relevant pay period, works in California only episodically and for less than a day at a time? (2) Does California minimum wage law apply to all work performed in California for an out-of-state employer by an employee who works in California only episodically and for less than a day at a time? (3) Does the Armenta/Gonzalez bar on averaging wages apply to a pay formula that generally awards credit for all hours on duty, but which, in certain situations resulting in higher pay, does not award credit for all hours on duty? View "Oman v. Delta Airlines, Inc." on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit certified the following questions of state law to the Supreme Court of California: (1) Wage Order 9 exempts from its wage statement requirements an employee who has entered into a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) in accordance with the Railway Labor Act (RLA). Does the RLA exemption in Wage Order 9 bar a wage statement claim brought under California Labor Code 226 by an employee who is covered by a CBA? (2) Does California Labor Code 226 apply to wage statements provided by an out-of-state employer to an employee who resides in California, receives pay in California, and pays California income tax on her wages, but who does not work principally in California or any other state? View "Ward v. United Airlines, Inc." on Justia Law