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

The Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act (SLUSA), 15 U.S.C. 77p(b)–(f), 78bb(f)), bars private class actions based on state law in cases where the plaintiff alleges a material falsehood or omission connected to the purchase or sale of most federally-regulated securities. In this case, plaintiff filed suit for breach of contract and various fiduciary duties under Massachusetts law. The district judge held that SLUSA barred his claims, and dismissed them with prejudice. The panel held that dismissals pursuant to SLUSA's class-action bar must be for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction—and therefore without prejudice—rather than on the merits. Therefore, the panel affirmed the district court's judgment to the extent it concluded that plaintiff's claims were barred. View "Hampton v. Pacific Investment Management Co." on Justia Law

DZ Bank filed an adversary action against the Meyers in bankruptcy court, alleging that the Meyers had fraudulently transferred assets in order to place them out of the bank's reach. The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's decision affirming the bankruptcy court's judgment in favor of the bank. The panel held that, although the bankruptcy court correctly found that the Meyers engaged in fraudulent transfers under the Washington Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act and thus committed fraud to the bank's detriment, the bankruptcy court erred by limiting relief to the amount of the collateralized debt. The panel explained that the bankruptcy court should have granted relief for the full $385,000 that the bank would have recovered. View "DZ Bank AG Deutsche Zentral-Genossenschaft Bank v. Meyer" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's order denying a high school coach's motion for a preliminary injunction that would require the District to allow him to kneel and pray on the fifty-yard line in view of students and parents immediately after football games. The panel held that the coach spoke as a public employee, not as a private citizen, and therefore declined to reach whether the district justifiably restricted his speech to avoid violating the Establishment Clause. The coach could not demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits of his First Amendment retaliation claim, and was not entitled to the preliminary injunction he sought. By kneeling and praying on the fifty-yard line immediately after games, the coach was fulfilling his professional responsibility to communicate demonstratively to students and spectators, and he took advantage of his position to press his particular views upon the impressionable and captive minds before him. View "Kennedy v. Bremerton School District" on Justia Law

A liability insurance policy that unequivocally and broadly excludes coverage for invasion of privacy claims also excludes coverage for Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) claims. After Federal denied insurance coverage and declined to defend the Lakers in an underlying suit for invasion of privacy, the Lakers filed suit against Federal for breach of contract and tortious breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of the suit under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). The panel held that a TCPA claim was inherently an invasion of privacy claim and thus Federal correctly concluded that the underlying TCPA claim fell under the insurance policy's broad exclusionary clause. In this case, Federal did not breach the policy, or the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, under any cognizable legal theory, when it declined to defend against or cover the underlying complaint. View "LA Lakers v. Federal Insurance Co." on Justia Law

The City of Los Angeles, which operates Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), can require businesses at the airport to accept certain contractual conditions aimed at preventing service disruptions. The City licenses service providers using a contract that imposes certain conditions. One such condition, section 25, requires service providers to enter a "labor peace agreement" with any employee organization that requests one. The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and vacated in part the dismissal of an action by two air transport trade associations. The panel held that ASPA meet all the requirements for associational standing; the City was acting as a market participant and not a regulator when it adopted section 25; and, because nothing in the National Labor Relations Act, the Railway Labor Act, and the Airline Deregulation Act shows that Congress meant to preempt states or local governments from actions taken while participating in markets in a non-regulatory capacity, section 25 was not preempted by those federal statutes. The court also held that the district court erred by denying leave to amend the complaint for plaintiffs to identify large spillover effects that might substantiate their claim that section 25 acted as a regulation. View "Airline Service Providers Assoc. v. Los Angeles World Airports" on Justia Law

Petitioner sought review of the BIA's decision finding her ineligible for cancellation of removal based on her failure to meet her burden of proof of showing that her conviction for conspiring to sell and transport a controlled substance, in violation of California Penal Code 182(a)(1), was not for a disqualifying controlled substance. The Ninth Circuit held that the conspiracy statute under which petitioner was convicted was overbroad but divisible, petitioner failed to carry her burden of proof to demonstrate that her conviction did not involve a federally controlled substance, and she had failed to exhaust the argument that expungement of her conviction erased its immigration consequences. Accordingly, the panel denied the petition in part and dismissed in part. View "Marinelarena v. Sessions" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging defendant, an off-duty police officer working as security for a private event, violated his rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by failing to intercede and stop an assault. The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment based on qualified immunity and on the merits. The panel held that defendant may not assert qualified immunity because he was not serving a public, governmental function while being paid by the hotel to provide private security. On the merits, the panel held that a reasonable jury could find that defendant exposed plaintiff to harm he would not otherwise have faced, that this harm was foreseeable, and that defendant acted with deliberate indifference in the presence of the known danger created by his conduct. View "Bracken v. Chung" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit filed an amended majority opinion and concurrence, denied a petition for panel rehearing, and denied on behalf of the court a petition for rehearing en banc in petitioner's appeal from the denial of his pre-AEDPA habeas corpus petition.The panel affirmed the district court's denial of the writ with respect to petitioner's conviction; reversed with respect to petitioner's death sentence; and held that admission of Dr. Lynn Gerow's psychiatric testimony during the penalty phase violated petitioner's Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights under Estelle v. Smith, 451 U.S. 454 (1981), and that the violation had a substantial and injurious effect on the jury's decision to impose the death sentence. In this case, Gerow was acting at the request of the prosecutor when he went to visit petitioner in jail to determine petitioner's competency to stand trial, Gerow failed to give petitioner his Miranda warnings, and Gerow did not seek or obtain permission from defense counsel to visit or evaluate petitioner. View "Petrocelli v. Baker" on Justia Law

The "term of imprisonment," as used in 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2) and U.S.S.G. 1B1.10(b)(2)(A), can include time spent in state custody. If the district court at the original sentencing gave credit for time spent in state custody in determining the defendant's sentence, the "term of imprisonment" on the motion for sentence reduction can include the time spent in both federal and state custody. Defendant filed a motion seeking a sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2) for possession of heroin with intent to distribute, based on retroactive Sentencing Guidelines Amendment 782. The Ninth Circuit held that the district court had the discretion to give defendant credit for the four months he served in state custody, thereby reducing his sentence to 66 months in federal custody and resulting in a total "term of imprisonment" of 70 months. Accordingly, the panel vacated the sentence and remanded. View "United States v. Brito" on Justia Law

A claimant must, at a minimum, raise the issue of the accuracy of the vocational expert's estimates at some point during administrative proceedings to preserve the challenge on appeal in federal district court. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the denial of plaintiff's application for disability insurance benefits. In this case, the ALJ's residual functional capacity determination was supported by substantial evidence and there was no inconsistency between the opinions of two physicians regarding his capability for interaction with colleagues. Furthermore, plaintiff waived his challenge to the vocational expert's job numbers where he did not suggest that the vocational expert's job estimates might be unreliable at any point during administrative proceedings. View "Shaibi v. Berryhill" on Justia Law