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

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the Board's determination that CVMC committed serious and widespread unfair labor practices before and after the Union election in violation of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The panel also granted the Union's petition for review of an issue regarding whether CVMC's written policy banning employees from communicating with the media should be rescinded as an unfair labor practice. In this case, CVMC's meritless due process argument did not preclude summary enforcement of the Board's order; CVMC violated Section 8(a)(1) and (3) by firing an employee; CVMC violated Section 8(a)(1) by serving subpoenas seeking information about confidential union activity protected by Section 7; CVMC's unfair labor practices warranted the Board's remedy of a reading order; and remand was appropriate for the Board to address an unfair labor practice that was litigated and closely connected to the complaint. View "United Nurses Associations of California v. NLRB" on Justia Law

Defendants, debtors who have failed to repay loans held by BB&T, appealed the respective judgments of the district court against them. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the judgment, holding that BB&T had standing to bring the action; issue preclusion did not bar BB&T's arguments; Subsection (1)(c) of Nev. Rev. Stat. 40.459(1)(c), which limited the ability of a third party to profit by purchasing real estate debt at a discount and foreclosing at full price, was preempted by federal law as applied to transferees of the FDIC; the district court did not err in granting summary judgment to BB&T in spite of defendants' affirmative defenses of breach of covenant of good faith and fair dealing, estoppel, modifications, laches, and failure to mitigate damages; the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying defendants' late-filed motion to amend pleadings because defendants' did not demonstrate good cause nor excusable neglect; defendants were not entitled to a jury trial on the fair market value of the property; and BB&T did not violate Nev. Rev. Stat. 163.120(2) concerning notice to trust beneficiaries. View "Branch Banking & Trust Co. v. D.M.S.I., LLC" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants in an action under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). Plaintiff alleged that defendants failed to adequately disclose that the lifetime benefit maximum applied to the plan at issue. The panel held that ERISA, as amended by the Affordable Care Act, does not ban lifetime benefit maximums for certain retiree-only plans; defendants violated ERISA's statutory and regulatory disclosure requirements by providing a faulty summary of material modifications describing changes to the lifetime benefit maximum in September 2010; and genuine disputes of material fact preclude summary judgment on the breach of fiduciary duty claims. View "King v. Blue Cross and Blue Shield" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's dismissal of petitioner's habeas petition as time-barred. In this case, the state trial court entered a second Amended Judgment reinstating petitioner's murder and attempted murder convictions after the Nevada Supreme Court reversed the state trial court's amended judgment overturning and vacating the convictions. The panel held that petitioner's habeas petition was timely filed because "the judgment" under 28 U.S.C. 2244(d)(1) can only refer to the state judgment pursuant to which the petitioner was being held because that was the only judgment identified in the statute-of-limitations provision. Therefore, the statute of limitations must run from the judgment pursuant to which the petitioner was being held. In this case, the Second Amended Judgment started a new one-year statute of limitations, and thus the petition was timely. The panel remanded for further proceedings. View "Smith v. Williams" on Justia Law

Wild Wilderness, a group representing non-motorized users, filed suit challenging the Forest Service's approval of the building of Kapka Sno-Park, alleging that the Forest Service had violated both the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The panel held that the case was neither moot nor lacking redressability; the Forest Service did not violate the NFMA because Kapka Sno-Park was not inconsistent with the Deschutes Forest Plan; and the Forest Service did not violate NEPA because the agency complied with the relevant regulations, completed an environmental assessment, and issued a finding of no significant impact. The panel rejected Wild Wilderness's remaining NEPA challenges. View "Wild Wilderness v. Allen" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed Defendant Barragan, Franco, and Fernandez, and Guitierrez's conviction for conspiracy in violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U.S.C. 1962(d), and Barragan's conviction of drug crimes. The panel affirmed Barragan, Franco, and Fernandez's sentences, but vacated Guitierrez's sentence. In this case, the government conceded, and the panel agreed, that the district court erred in classifying Gutierrez as a career offender because his conviction in this case was not for a crime of violence or a controlled substance offense. Accordingly, the court remanded for resentencing of Gutierrez on an open record. View "United States v. Barragan" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's order modifying a preliminary injunction, which enjoins the Government from enforcing Executive Order 13780 against (1) grandparents, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins of persons in the United States; and (2) refugees who have formal assurances from resettlement agencies or are in the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) through the Lautenberg Amendment. The panel held that, in modifying the preliminary injunction to preserve the status quo, the district court carefully and correctly balanced the hardships and the equitable considerations as directed by the Supreme Court in Trump v. International Refugee Assistance Project, 137 S. Ct. 2080, 2088 (2017), and did not abuse its discretion. The district court did not err in rejecting the Government's restricted reading of the Supreme Court's June 26, 2017 stay ruling and in modifying the injunction to prohibit enforcement of the Executive Order against grandparents, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins of persons in the United States. The panel affirmed the district court's holding that formally assured refugees have bona fide relationships with resettlement agencies and are covered by the injunction because the assurance is formal, documented, and formed in the ordinary course rather than to evade the Executive Order. The panel explained that it considered the individualized screening process necessary to obtain a formal assurance and the concrete harms faced by a resettlement agency because of that refugee's exclusion. View "Hawaii v. Trump" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit vacated the district court's order denying defendant's motion for a sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2). Although the Government agreed that defendant was eligible for a sentence reduction, it argued that the appeal was moot because defendant had been released from federal prison. The panel held that the appeal was not moot and that USSG 1.10(b)(2)(B) allows a court to consider a number of departures when calculating a reduction in sentence where the defendant has provided substantial assistance. The panel also held that defendant was entitled to the benefit of the rule of lenity because the Guideline was ambiguous. Accordingly, the court remanded to the district court. View "United States v. D.M." on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's order denying defendant's motion to suppress contraband seized during a warrantless search of defendant's truck. The court held that, under the totality of the circumstances, there was probable cause to believe that contraband would be found in defendant's truck and thus the search was permissible under the automobile exception to the warrant requirement. In this case, defendant was associating with a known drug dealer, defendant had been introduced to the dealer by one of the dealer's drug dealing associates, and law enforcement agents knew that the associate and dealer had previously engaged in three illegal drug transactions and that the associate had assisted the dealer in collecting a drug debt. View "United States v. Del Mundo Faagai" on Justia Law

No provision with the force of law permits the Department of Labor to require employers to engage in time tracking and accounting for minutes spent in diverse tasks before claiming a tip credit. The Ninth Circuit vacated the district court's final orders and judgments in favor of defendants in an action brought by former servers and bartenders under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 206(a)(1)(c). Plaintiffs alleged that their employers improperly claimed their tips as a credit toward the required minimum wage. The panel held that the DOL's interpretation, in its Field Operations Handbook, of 29 C.F.R. 531.56(e), a regulation addressing application of the FLSA's tip credit provision to the situation in which an employee works for an employer in two different jobs, did not merit controlling deference because the DOL's interpretation was inconsistent with the dual jobs regulation and attempted to create de facto a new regulation. In this case, plaintiffs could not state a claim under section 206 by alleging that discrete "related" tasks or duties, which were performed intermittently over the course of the day and were intermingled with their duties directed at generating tips, comprise a dual job when aggregated together over the course of a workweek. The panel remanded to allow plaintiffs opportunities to propose new amended complaints. View "Marsh v. J. Alexander's LLC" on Justia Law