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

Plaintiffs filed a putative class action against defendants, a group of developers and their agents or affiliates, claiming that defendants' business practices violated California's Unfair Competition Law (UCL), Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code 17200 et seq. Plaintiffs specifically alleged that defendants failed to make certain disclosures as required by the Interstate Land Sales Full Disclosure Act (ILSA), 15 U.S.C. 1701 et seq. Although defendants concede that they failed to comply with the disclosure requirements, they raise certain affirmative defenses. The district court rejected defendants' claims and granted partial summary judgment for plaintiffs. In this interlocutory appeal, the court affirmed the judgment. The court concluded that, because the UCL's four-year statute of limitations and its accompanying accrual rules apply, the district court properly concluded that plaintiffs’ UCL claim is not time-barred; defendants failed to overcome the strong presumption against preemption, and ILSA’s three-year statute of limitations does not bar plaintiffs’ UCL claim; plaintiffs' units are "lots" and are therefore subject to ILSA's disclosure requirements; the Improved Lot Exemption does not extinguish plaintiffs’ claims; the text and interpretive history of the statute lead to the conclusion that the agency’s interpretation of “lot” is reasonable and entitled to Chevron deference; and the 2014 Amendment to ILSA does not retroactively apply to the present action where the amendment was a substantive change in the law. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Beaver v. Tarsadia Hotels" on Justia Law

Petitioner, sentenced to death for robbery and murder, seeks habeas corpus relief based on the California Supreme Court’s rejection of his claim of self-representation pursuant to Faretta v. California. The district court granted relief to petitioner and the State appealed. Because petitioner filed his federal habeas corpus petition before the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act's effective date, the court applied the former version of 28 U.S.C. 2254 and pre-AEDPA law. The court concluded that the trial court’s repeated denials of petitioner's Faretta requests and the California Supreme Court’s decision affirming those denials were contrary to the court's decisions in Fritz v. Spalding and Armant v. Marquez. In this case, it was appropriate for the district court to determine the timeliness of petitioner's Faretta motions in the first instance because neither court made any finding that petitioner's requests were a mere delay tactic. The court further concluded that the district court did not have to refer to the California Supreme Court's finding because the California postconviction proceedings did not ask whether petitioner intended to delay, only whether petitioner's attorney thought that was petitioner's intent. The court agreed with petitioner that the district court was not required to presume that his requests were a mere delay tactic because, under section 2254(d)(1), the merits of that factual dispute were not resolved in the state postconviction hearing and, under section 2254(d)(2) and (d)(6), he was denied a full, fair, and adequate state court hearing on the issue. Finally, the court concluded that the district court did not clearly err in finding that petitioner’s Faretta requests were made for legitimate, not purely dilatory, reasons. The court affirmed the judgment. View "Burton v. Davis" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a citizen of El Salvador, pled no contest to a charge under California Penal Code section 118, a general perjury statute. Petitioner was charged with perjury - application for driver's license. The IJ and the BIA concluded that petitioner's conviction was a crime involving moral turpitude (CIMT) and disqualified petitioner from obtaining cancellation of removal. The court held that section 118 is not categorically a CIMT; section 118 is divisible because it criminalizes two distinct offenses: written and oral perjury; and, applying the modified approach, petitioner's offense of conviction for written perjury is not a CIMT. Accordingly, the court granted the petition for review and remanded for further proceedings. The court noted that it took no position on California’s other, context-specific perjury statutes. View "Rivera v. Lynch" on Justia Law

Defendant, a non-Indian, appealed his conviction under the federal murder statute, 18 U.S.C. 111, for the murder of the victim on the Tohono O’odham Indian reservation in Arizona. The court concluded that section 1111 was applicable to defendant under the Indian General Crimes Act, 18 U.S.C. 1152, which makes federal criminal law applicable in federal enclaves when the defendant is a non-Indian and the victim is an Indian, because the government adduced sufficient evidence to establish that the victim in this case was an Indian. The court held that the evidence introduced at trial, taken in the light most favorable to the government, was sufficient to establish that defendant acted with premeditation and, therefore, the court affirmed defendant's conviction for first degree premeditated murder. Because the district court erred in defining the term “burglary” in section 1111 by reference to Arizona’s third-degree burglary statute, and this error was not harmless, the court vacated defendant's conviction for felony murder. View "United States v. Reza-Ramos" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed a class action against Sheriff Arpaio, Maricopa County, and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO), alleging that defendants violated federal law by racially profiling Latino drivers and passengers and stopping them under the guise of enforcing federal and state immigration laws. The court issued an opinion mostly affirming the district court's decision to enter a permanent injunction enjoining Sheriff Arpaio and MCSO from conducting racially discriminatory traffic stops (Melendres II). The court also concluded that the MCSO had improperly been named as a party in the action and the court ordered that Maricopa County be substituted in place of MCSO. Maricopa County now appeals from four district court orders entered between December 2011 and April 2014, which are the same orders that Sheriff Arpaio and MCSO appealed from previously in Melendres II. The court concluded that the County failed to carry its burden of invoking the court's jurisdiction and the court dismissed the appeal because the County's notice of appeal was untimely filed under 28 U.S.C. 2107(a) and Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(1)(A). The court rejected the County's arguments to the contrary and dismissed the appeal. View "Melendres v. Maricopa Cnty." on Justia Law

Defendant emigrated from China in 1985, and applied for naturalization in 1993. In 1994, defendant was found guilty of Robbery of the First Degree and False Imprisonment with Violence or Menace. On March 31, 1994, defendant took his oath of allegiance and became a naturalized U.S. citizen. Nearly 20 years later, the government filed a complaint to revoke defendant's naturalization. The district court granted the government's motion on the pleadings based on 8 U.S.C. 1101(f)(3) (for having committed crimes involving moral turpitude during the statutory period); and (2) the “catch-all” provision of 8 U.S.C. 1101(f), as promulgated in 8 C.F.R. 316.10(b)(3)(iii) (for having committed unlawful acts that adversely reflect on one’s moral character during the statutory period). The court concluded that the district court did not err in holding that defendant could not establish good moral character under section 1101(f) and 8 C.F.R. 316.10(b)(3)(iii). Therefore, the district court was required to enter a judgment of denaturalization. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Teng Jiao Zhou" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a qui tam suit under the False Claims Act (FCA), 31 U.S.C. 3729–3733, alleging fraud in the performance of a Government contract. The district court dismissed the suit. The court agreed with plaintiff that the district court erred in holding that the complaint was based upon prior public disclosures and was thus precluded by the public disclosure bar of the FCA. In this case, the complaint alleges fraud that is different in kind and degree from the previously disclosed information about Raytheon’s problems in performing on the contract at issue. As such, if his allegations prove to be true, plaintiff will undoubtedly have been one of those whistle-blowing insiders with genuinely valuable information, rather than an opportunistic plaintiff who has no significant information to contribute. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "United States ex rel Mateski v. Raytheon" on Justia Law

In this appeal, the parties contest the proper interpretation of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act (FVRA), 5 U.S.C. 3345 et seq., as it relates to the appointment of the former Acting General Counsel of the NLRB. KTSS challenges the authority of Lafe E. Solomon, the former Acting General Counsel of the NLRB, to authorize a petition for injunctive relief against KTSS after the President nominated him to the permanent position. As a preliminary matter, the court rejected KTSS’s argument that because Solomon’s appointment did not comply with section 3(d) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), 29 U.S.C. 153(d), the appointment was necessarily invalid. The court concluded that, to be valid, a petition under section 10(j) of the NLRA, 29 U.S.C. 160(j), must be authorized by the Board through one of two avenues: the first is for a quorum of three Board members to directly authorize the specific 10(j) petition, and the second is for the General Counsel to authorize the petition pursuant to a previous delegation of the Board’s 10(j) authority to the General Counsel. The Board concedes that the first avenue was not satisfied in this case. The court held that the second avenue was not satisfied either because Solomon was not properly serving as Acting General Counsel under the FVRA at the time that the petition was filed. In light of this holding, the court need not reach KTSS’s alternative argument that the Board never validly delegated its 10(j) authority to Solomon. Finally, the Board explicitly waived any arguments based on the FVRA’s exemption clause and it does not otherwise contest the remedy sought by KTSS. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the petition. View "Hooks v. Kitsap Tenant Support Servs." on Justia Law

This appeal stems from a dispute between Shell and Greenpeace over the search for oil in the Chukchi Sea. The parties now dispute the propriety of a preliminary injunction entered by the district court to protect Shell from certain more vigorous and more intrusive aspects of Greenpeace’s activism. The court did not reach any of Greenpeace's challenges to the injunction because the court concluded that the appeal is moot. Here, the preliminary injunction has expired and will not be renewed. Accordingly, the court dismissed the appeal and remanded for further proceedings. View "Shell Offshore Inc. v. Greenpeace" on Justia Law

Petitioners challenged the FAA's decision that no Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is necessary to commence operating commercial passenger service at Paine Field in Snohomish County. The court held that the scope of the FAA's demand-based projections were not arbitrary and capricious. In this case, the FAA determined that there were no connected actions for this project and petitioners have failed to provide anything more than mere speculation that the FAA’s actions now will lead to more aircraft activity at Paine Field in the future than covered in the Environmental Assessment (EA). Therefore, it was not arbitrary for the FAA to have included no connected actions in the final EA. The court also concluded that the FAA’s Finding of No Significant Impact was not predetermined by the creation of an optimistic schedule for completing the environmental review or statements favoring commercial service at Paine Field. Here, the FAA performed its National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. 4321-4370h, obligations in good faith and did not prematurely commit resources to opening the terminal. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review. View "City of Mukilteo v. US DOT" on Justia Law