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

After plaintiff's long term disability benefits were terminated, plaintiff filed suit under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. 1132(c)(1), against his former employer, ING, seeking statutory penalties against ING for failing to timely produce documents he had requested. The district court granted summary judgment to plaintiff and imposed a penalty of $27,475. The court affirmed the district court's decision to impose a penalty on ING North America for its failure to timely produce the Plan Document; the court reversed the district court’s decision to impose a penalty based on ING North America’s failure to timely produce the emails at issue; the court joined its sister circuits and held that penalties under 29 U.S.C. 1132(c)(1) can only be assessed against “plan administrators” for failing to produce documents that they are required to produce as plan administrators; and 29 C.F.R. 2560.503-1(h)(2)(iii) does not impose any requirements on plan administrators, and so cannot form the basis for a penalty under 29 U.S.C. 1132(c)(1). Accordingly, the court vacated the penalty award and remanded to the district court to assess a penalty based solely on the failure to timely produce the Plan Document. View "Lee v. ING Groep" on Justia Law

The mark “Crazy Horse” has been associated with adult entertainment since the 1950's. In this appeal, at issue is whether Russell Road’s use of the mark “Crazy Horse III” for its Las Vegas strip club infringes defendants Frank Spencer and Crazy Horse Consulting’s rights to the trademark “Crazy Horse.” The district court granted summary judgment to Russell Road. The court agreed with the district court that Russell Road has the right to use the mark because it is the assignee of a valid trademark co-existence agreement entered into with the former owner of the registered Crazy Horse mark. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Russell Road Food & Beverage v. Spencer" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of charges related to his involvement in a gang shooting that left one person dead and two injured. Defendant contends that officers were wrong to continue to interrogate him after he invoked his right to remain silent, and that his incriminating statements should not have been used against him. The court held that any reasonable jurist would have to conclude that when defendant said he did not want to talk “no more,” he meant it; the California Court of Appeal’s decision is both contrary to and an unreasonable application of clearly established Supreme Court law, and it is based on an unreasonable determination of the facts; by allowing the state to use defendant's post-invocation statements against him, even to argue that his initial invocation was ambiguous, is contrary to clearly established Supreme Court case law; and, given the pivotal role defendant’s statements played at trial, the trial court’s error was not harmless. Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment of the district court and remanded with instructions to grant the writ. View "Jones v. Harrington" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, individuals who enrolled in a cosmetology program at Milan Institute, filed a class action against the college and its President, alleging that defendants violated state labor laws and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 201 et seq. On appeal, defendants challenged the district court's denial of their motion to compel arbitration. The court concluded that the district court did not err in deciding the litigation conduct waiver issue itself. If the parties intend that an arbitrator decide that issue under a particular contract, they must place clear and unmistakable language to that effect in the agreement. Defendants failed to do so in this case and thus the district court did not err by deciding the conduct waiver issue. The court also concluded that defendants waived their right to arbitration because they engaged in acts inconsistent with their right to arbitration, and plaintiffs were prejudiced. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Martin v. Yasuda" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of triple homicide and sentenced to death, appealed the district court's denial of his petition for habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. 2254. The court concluded that the procedural bar doctrine does not prevent the court from reaching the merits of petitioner's claims; the state court's conclusion that defense counsel was not constitutionally ineffective by failing to call into question the credibility of key prosecution witnesses was a reasonable application of Strickland v. Washington; the state court's summary denial of petitioner's Brady v. Maryland claims was not unreasonable where petitioner failed to establish that the State suppressed the information that underpins his certified Brady claims; the state court's denial of petitioner's witness intimidation claim was not contrary to or an unreasonable application of Webb v. Texas; the state court did not misapply federal law by rejecting petitioner's Napue v. Illinois claim; and the court rejected petitioner's other claims of error regarding the trial court's refusal to strike a juror for cause, exclusion of deceased witness's statements, prosecutorial misconduct during closing arguments, and penalty phase admission of a prior murder. Finally, the court rejected petitioner's claim of cumulative error and actual innocence. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Ayala v. Chappell" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a putative class action, alleging that WZP violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), 15 U.S.C. 1692(g)(a), by sending a debt collection letter that lacked the disclosures required by section 1692(g)(a) of the FDCPA. Applying well-established tools of statutory interpretation and construing the language in section 1692g(a) in light of the context and purpose of the FDCPA, the court held that the phrase “the initial communication” refers to the first communication sent by any debt collector, including collectors that contact the debtor after another collector already did. The court held that the FDCPA unambiguously requires any debt collector - first or subsequent - to send a section 1692g(a) validation notice within five days of its first communication with a consumer in connection with the collection of any debt. In this case, the district court erred in concluding that, because WZP was not the first debt collector to communicate with plaintiff about her debt, it had no obligation to comply with the statutory validation notice requirement. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "Hernandez v. Williams, Zinman & Parham PC" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, shareholders of Wynn Resorts, challenged two actions the board took on behalf of its subsidiary Wynn Macau: a 2011 decision to donate $135 million to the University of Macau Development Foundation, and a 2012 decision to redeem the shares held by a former director named Kazuo Okada, who was the only director to vote against the donation. Plaintiffs filed a derivative action, alleging that the director defendants breached their fiduciary duties and committed corporate waste by approving the Macau donation because the donation caused the company to incur legal expenses and be exposed to potential liability. Plaintiffs also allege that defendants breached their fiduciary duties by redeeming Okada’s shares because such action had no legitimate purpose and merely encumbered the company with a higher debt load. The district court dismissed the amended complaint. At issue is whether shareholders may pursue a derivative lawsuit against a corporation’s board of directors despite their failure to demand that the board initiate this litigation itself. Plaintiffs argued that demand would be futile. As a preliminary matter, the court concluded that jurisdiction is improper under 28 U.S.C. 1332(a)(2) because both plaintiffs and some defendants are American citizens; one of the defendants is neither a citizen of a State nor a citizen of a foreign state for jurisdiction under section 1332(a)(3); but, the court dismissed that defendant as a dispensable party under Rule 19 in order to make jurisdiction under section 1332(a)(3) proper. On the merits, the court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in determining that the shareholders failed to comply with Rule 23.1 or state law governing demand futility. The court concluded that plaintiffs' broad-based domination theory is simply too speculative and insufficiently particularized to satisfy the heightened pleading requirements of Rule 23.1; the court rejected plaintiffs' theory that demand is excused based on allegations that the directors face a substantial likelihood of liability for approving the Macau donation; and the court rejected plaintiffs' theory that demand is futile because there is a reasonable doubt that the directors will be entitled to the business judgment rule if the Okada redemption is challenged in court. Finally, the court rejected plaintiffs' claim that the district court illicitly considered materials extraneous to the complaint. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "LMPERS v. Wynn" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute and conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute. Principally at issue is whether the district judge was entitled to make a drug quantity finding in excess of that found by the jury in its special verdict. The court concluded that the Apprendi v. New Jersey line of cases is beside the point because defendant is not complaining that the district court raised the maximum statutory sentence. The court concluded that the district court cannot attribute more than that amount to defendant without contradicting the jury on a fact it found as a result of its deliberations. District judges have many powers, but contradicting juries as to findings of facts they have been asked to make is not among them. The court also concluded that, because the hearsay statements of two witnesses does not meet the court's “minimal indicia of reliability” standard, the district court was not justified in relying on them in determining defendant’s sentence. Absent these statements, there is no evidence indicating that defendant exercised some control over others and the application of the organizer enhancement is clearly erroneous. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Pimentel-Lopez" on Justia Law

This appeal concerns the Navy’s peacetime use of Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System Low Frequency Active sonar (LFA sonar). At issue is whether NMFS correctly authorized the incidental take of marine mammals in connection with the Navy’s use of LFA sonar for training, testing, and routine operations. The district court granted summary judgment to defendants on the issue of Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), 16 U.S.C. 1371(a)(5)(A)(i), compliance. The court concluded that NMFS is required to prescribe regulations to achieve the “least practicable adverse impact” before it can authorize incidental take, and NMFS's proposed mitigation measures failed to do so. In this case, NMFS should have considered whether additional mitigation measures were necessary to achieve the least practicable adverse impact on marine mammals, and also whether these mitigation measures would be practicable in light of the Navy’s need for effective military readiness training. While NMFS’s finding that LFA sonar operations will have a “negligible impact” on marine mammal populations is a required element for approval of incidental take, it is not a substitute for an analysis of whether the proposed mitigation measures in the 2012 Final Rule reduce the impact of incidental take on marine mammals to the lowest level practicable. NMFS also did not give adequate protection to areas of the world’s oceans flagged by its own experts as biologically important. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "NRDC v. Pritzker" on Justia Law

Defendant plead guilty to unlawful possession in violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1) and then appealed the denial of his motion to suppress evidence of a handgun that was found during an inventory search in the air filter compartment of a vehicle occupied by defendant. The court concluded that the LVMPD officers’ decision to impound the vehicle was permissible under the Fourth Amendment because it was consistent with LVMPD policy and served legitimate caretaking purposes. The court also concluded that the inventory search of the vehicle did not violate the Fourth Amendment; in fulfilling his duty to search all containers, the officer acted within the parameters of LVMPD policy when he unlatched the air filter compartment; and therefore the district court properly denied defendant's motion to exclude evidence of the firearm. Furthermore, there was no violation of defendant's due process when the district court's order accepted the magistrate judge's recommendation and denied defendant's motion to suppress. Finally, the court assumed without deciding that Johnson v. United States's holding nullifies USSG 4B1.2(a)(2)'s identically worded residual clause. Therefore, the court accepted the government's concession that the district court sentenced defendant to a provision that is unconstitutionally vague. This renders defendant's sentence illegal, and thus the waiver of his plea agreement does not bar this appeal. Because the government agrees that defendant's prior convictions do not justify the imposition of USSG 2K2.1(a)(2)’s crime-of-violence enhancement absent the residual clause, the court vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Torres" on Justia Law