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

Plaintiff filed suit challenging the constitutionality of Arizona's revocation-on-divorce (ROD) statute after she remained the beneficiary of her ex-husband's IRA account when he died. The Ninth Circuit held that the district court correctly determined that an Arizona state court would disregard the choice-of-law provision in the Plan and instead apply Arizona's ROD statute; the application of the ROD statute was not preempted by federal statutes and regulations governing IRAs; the district courts erred when they denied plaintiff standing; and the California district court did not abuse its discretion in transferring the case to Arizona under 28 U.S.C. 1406(a) on the grounds that it lacked personal jurisdiction over the Estate. Although it disagreed with the district court's holding that plaintiff lacked standing, the panel affirmed the dismissal of the constitutional challenge to the application of Arizona's ROD statute in the allocation of the proceeds of the ex-husband's IRA. View "Lazar v. Kroncke" on Justia Law

11 U.S.C. 363(f), which authorizes a trustee to sell a debtor's assets free and clear of third-party interests, applied to the facts of this case, and did not conflict with section 365(h), which protects the rights of lessees, because the trustee did not "reject" the leases. Therefore, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment affirming the bankruptcy court's decision that a bankruptcy trustee's sale of debtor's property was free and clear of unexpired leases. View "Pinnacle Restaurant at Big Sky, LLC v. CH SP Acquisitions, LLC" on Justia Law

The United States brought a civil action against private forestry operators and other individuals to recover damages for a forest fire that broke out on private property near the Plumas National Forest in northern California (The Moonlight Fire). The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of defendants' motion for relief from judgment under Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(d)(3). The panel held that the district court properly concluded that Sierra Pacific could not demonstrate fraud on the court regarding any of the alleged fraud it discovered before settlement. Nor do the instances of alleged fraud discovered after settlement constitute actionable fraud on the court warranting Rule 60 relief. Furthermore, there was no appearance of bias created by the instances of alleged conduct in this case -- the judge's action in tweeting the link to an allegedly erroneous news article, so retroactive recusal was not warranted. View "United States v. Sierra Pacific Industries, Inc." on Justia Law

In this trademark infringement suit under the Lanham Act, furniture manufacturer Omnia admitted that it blatantly copied and began selling the same goods branded with the mark of its (now ex) business partner, retail furniture company Stone Creek. The district court granted judgment for Omnia. The panel reversed and held that Omnia's use of Stone Creek's mark was likely to cause confusion where placing an identical mark on identical goods creates a strong likelihood of confusion, especially when the mark was fanciful. Furthermore, Stone Creek also sells in overlapping market channels and other factors heighten the likelihood that consumers will be confused as to the origin of the furniture. The panel rejected Omnia's invocation of a common-law defense—known as the Tea Rose–Rectanus doctrine—that protects use of a mark in a remote geographic area when the use is in good faith. In this case, Omnia's knowledge of Stone Creek's prior use defeated any claim of good faith. Finally, the panel confirmed that a 1999 amendment to the trademark statutes did not sweep away the panel's precedent requiring that a plaintiff prove willfulness to justify an award of the defendant's profits. The panel remanded this issue for the district court to make such a determination. View "Stone Creek, Inc. v. Omnia Italian Design, Inc." on Justia Law

Descamps v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 2276 (2013), and Mathis v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 2243 (2016), did not impliedly abrogate the analytical approach and conclusion in United States v. Becerril-Lopez, 541 F.3d 881 (9th Cir. 2008). The Ninth Circuit affirmed defendant's 57 month sentence after the district court applied a 16-level enhancement based on the ground that defendant's prior conviction for robbery under California Penal Code 211 was categorically a crime of violence. The panel held that, even assuming the district court's failure to accept defendant's guilty plea expressly was error, it provided no ground for reversing his conviction or sentence. The panel also held that the district court properly relied on Becerril-Lopez to impose a 16-level sentencing enhancement in this case. View "United States v. Chavez-Cuevas" on Justia Law

The incorporation of the rules of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) into an arbitration agreement constitutes clear and unmistakable evidence of a delegation of gateway issues to the arbitrator. The Ninth Circuit vacated the district court's judgment entering a preliminary injunction prohibiting sureties from pursuing claims against PGE in arbitration and denying a mandatory stay of the judicial proceedings under section 3 of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), 9 U.S.C. 3. The panel held that the district court erred in enjoining the sureties from participating in the ICC arbitration and denying at least a temporary stay of the litigation under the FAA, preventing the arbitral tribunal from addressing the scope of the arbitration. View "Portland General Electric Co. v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Co." on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of Ayco Farm's complaint for breach of an exclusivity agreement under the doctrine of forum non conveniens. The panel held that in performing a forum non conveniens analysis, a district court does not abuse its discretion by comparing the proposed foreign forum with the forum that the plaintiff actually chose, rather than with the United States as a whole. In this case, the district court did not err in affording less deference to Ayco Farm's choice to file a lawsuit in California. Furthermore, the district court properly balanced the private and public interest factors and decided that they strongly favor trial in Mexico. View "Ayco Farms, Inc. v. Rodriguez Ochoa" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, who is paralyzed from the waist down, filed suit alleging that defendant's refusal to install temporary vehicle hand controls violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq. The Ninth Circuit held that plaintiff has stated a claim under section 12182(b)(2)(A)(ii) for failure to make reasonable modifications in policies, practices or procedures. However, plaintiff failed to make a claim that defendant did not remove architectural barriers in existing facilities, because section 2182(b)(2)(A)(iv) did not apply to the circumstances of this case. Finally, additional implementing regulations, 28 C.F.R. 36.307(a) and 36.306, did not preclude plaintiff's statutory claim. Accordingly, the panel reversed the district court's dismissal and remanded. View "Karczewski v. DCH Mission Valley LLC" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit reversed the grant of summary judgment, on remand, in favor of TBC in an action under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act concerning a Camille Pissarro painting. The painting was forcibly taken from plaintiffs' great-grandmother by the Nazi government. The panel held that plaintiffs' claims were timely within the statute of limitations recently enacted by Congress to govern claims involving art expropriated during the Holocaust in the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2016 (HEAR). The panel applied the Second Restatement of the Conflict of Laws to determine which state's substantive law applies in deciding the merits of this case, and held that the Second Restatement directed the panel to apply Spain's substantive law. The district court erred in deciding that, as matter of law, TBC had acquired title to the painting through Article 1955 of the Spanish Civil Code because there was a triable issue of fact whether TBC was an encubridor (an "accessory") within the meaning of Civil Code Article 1956. Finally, TBC was not entitled to summary judgment based on its laches defense; the great-grandmother's acceptance of the 1958 Settlement Agreement did not foreclose plaintiffs' claims; Spain's Historical Heritage Law does not prevent TBC from acquiring prescriptive title to the painting; and the district court correctly found that the application of Article 1955 to vest TBC with title to the painting would not violate the European Convention on Human Rights. View "Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit reversed the denial of disability benefits and held that the ALJ did not follow the appropriate methodology for weighing a treating physician's medical opinion. In this case, the panel explained that the ALJ should have credited the treating physician's opinion and found that plaintiff was disabled, and the district court erred by developing its own reasons to discount the treating physician's opinion, rather than reviewing the ALJ's reasons for substantial evidence. The panel held that substantial evidence did not support the ALJ's finding that plaintiff's symptoms were not as severe as she testified, particularly in light of the extensive medical record objectively verifying her claims. Because each of the "credit-as-true" factors in Garrison v. Colvin, 759 F.3d 995, 1020 (9th Cir. 2014), was satisfied, remand for the calculation and award of benefits was warranted. View "Trevizo v. Berryhill" on Justia Law