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

Plaintiff appealed the district court's order granting summary judgment in favor of the County Defendants. Plaintiff claimed, among other things, that the County Defendants conspired to violate, and did violate, her Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights when they unlawfully searched her home pursuant to an invalid search warrant, used excessive force in the execution of that warrant, and arrested her without probable cause. Because there was probable cause to search plaintiff's residence and to arrest her, the court affirmed the district court's entry of judgment with respect to those claims. Because disputed issues of material fact remained regarding plaintiff's excessive force and conspiracy claims, however, the court reversed and remanded those claims to the district court for further proceedings. View "Cameron v. Craig" on Justia Law

Plaintiff sued several police officers and their employer, the City of Los Angeles, for false arrest, false imprisonment, and malicious prosecution. Plaintiff was charged with attempted murder and was eventually acquitted. At issue was whether plaintiff's action was barred by the doctrine of issue preclusion. The court concluded that plaintiff raised a genuine dispute as to whether an officer fabricated evidence at the preliminary hearing by falsely testifying that the victim had identified plaintiff as the shooter. That alleged fabrication plainly met the materiality threshold for defeating summary judgment on the merits. In this case, the state court never purported to find either that the officer's testimony was credible or that the victim's testimony was not. Accordingly, plaintiff was not barred by the doctrine of issue preclusion and, therefore, the court reversed and remanded. View "Wige v. City of Los Angeles" on Justia Law

AGC sought declaratory and injunctive relief against Caltrans and its officers, on the grounds that Caltrans' 2009 Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program unconstitutionally provided race- and sex-based preferences to certain groups. On appeal, AGC challenged the district court's adverse summary judgment rulings. The district court held that Caltrans' substantial statistical and anecdotal evidence provided a strong basis in evidence of discrimination against the four named groups, and that the program was narrowly tailored to benefit only those groups. The court dismissed AGC's appeal because AGC did not identify any of its members who have suffered or will suffer harm as a result of Caltrans' program, and therefore AGC had not established that it had associational standing to bring suit. View "Assoc. Gen. Contractors v. Cal. Dept. of Transp." on Justia Law

Appellees are the named plaintiffs representing a certified class of non-citizens who challenged their prolonged detention, pursuant to certain federal immigration statutes, without individualized bond hearings and determinations to justify their continued detention. The district court entered a preliminary injunction requiring the government to identify all class members detained pursuant to 8 U.S.C. 1226(c) and 1225(b), and to provide each of them with a bond hearing before an IJ with power to grant their release. The government appealed. The court held that appellees were likely to succeed on the merits; appellees have clearly shown a risk of irreparable harm; in light of the major hardship posed by needless prolonged detention, the court concluded that the balance of the equities favored appellees; and the public interest also benefitted from a preliminary injunction that ensured federal statues were construed and implemented in a manner that avoided serious constitutional questions. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Rodriguez v. Robbins" on Justia Law

Defendants' convictions arose out of a series of events that took place while Defendant Robles was Treasurer of the City of South Gate, California. Robles, along with Defendant Garrido, a local businessman and friend, were implicated in two schemes to award city contracts to particular companies while reaping substantial benefits for themselves. On appeal, defendants challenged their convictions. In light of the the Supreme Court's decision in Skilling v. United States, which narrowed the scope of 18 U.S.C. 1346 to include only honest services fraud based on bribery and kickback schemes, the court reversed Robles's and Garrido's honest services fraud convictions and reversed Robles's money laundering convictions. The court affirmed Robles's bribery convictions under 18 U.S.C. 666 because such convictions did not required the defendant to be engaged in an official act. Accordingly, the court remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Garrido" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed the district court's order dismissing her putative class claims against Yahoo!, alleging that Yahoo! violated the Stored Communications Act (SCA), 18 U.S.C. 2701-2712, when it disclosed some of her noncontent subscriber information to the government pursuant to allegedly invalid subpoenas. Plaintiff further argued that even if the subpoenas were valid, Yahoo! failed to comply with their terms when it produced the requested documents prior to the deadline set in the subpoenas. The court held that the good faith defense under 18 U.S.C. 2707(e) was met when the defendant complies with a subpoena that appeared valid on its face, in the absence of any indication of irregularity sufficient to put the defendant on notice that the subpoena may be invalid or contrary to applicable law. In this case, the court concluded that the district court properly dismissed plaintiff's SCA claims because Yahoo! was statutorily immune from suit because it produced the requested documents in good faith reliance on grand jury subpoenas. Yahoo!'s early compliance with the subpoenas did not vitiate Yahoo's immunity. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Sams v. Yahoo! Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs appealed from the district court's summary judgment in favor of defendants in an action alleging wrongful foreclosure and related claims that defendants had removed to federal court. Plaintiffs argued that under the "prior exclusive jurisdiction" doctrine, or under the Colorado River abstention doctrine, the district court should have remanded sua sponte. The court affirmed the district court's remand under the prior exclusive jurisdiction doctrine, explaining that the state court had continuing jurisdiction over the water-rights decree that was the basis of the contempt action at issue, and the action before the district court arose from enforcement of the same water-rights decree. Because plaintiffs have not shown that any state proceeding relating to their house was pending concurrently with federal proceedings, the Colorado River abstention was not implicated any more than the prior exclusive jurisdiction doctrine. View "Sexton v. NDEX West, LLC" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs sued Integrity on behalf of a putative class of workers, claiming violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 201 et seq., and Nevada labor laws. Plaintiffs alleged that Integrity violated federal and state labor laws by requiring them to pass through a security clearance at the end of each shift, for which they were not compensated. Plaintiffs also sought compensation for their entire 30-minute unpaid lunch periods because they spent up to 10 minutes of the meal period walking to and from the cafeteria and/or undergoing security clearances. The court agreed with the other circuits to consider the issue that the fact that Rule 23 class actions use an opt-out mechanism while FLSA collective actions use an opt-in mechanism did not create a conflict warranting dismissal of the state law claims. The court concluded that preliminary and postliminary activities were still compensable under the FLSA if they were integral and indispensable to an employee's principal activities. Because the court held that plaintiffs have stated a valid claim for relief under the FLSA for the time spent passing through security clearances, the court reversed the district court's dismissal of the parallel state law claim. The court agreed that plaintiffs failed to state a claim under the FLSA for their shortened lunch periods. The court remanded to the district court to consider plaintiffs' argument that Nevada defined "work" differently than federal law, such that plaintiffs' lunch periods might be compensable under state law even if they were not compensable under federal law. View "Busk, et al v. Integrity Staffing Solution" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed the district court's grant of KPMG's motion to intervene, and modifying a protective order so that a deposition transcript would be held in escrow rather than destroyed. This case stemmed from plaintiff's suit against Merrill Lynch and Thomas Mazzucco for their advice in connection with an initial public offering of Buy.com (the "federal action"). Plaintiff then sued KPMG (the "state action"), claiming that but for KPMG's advice he would have sold all his shares in Buy.com in 1998 for $400 million. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding KPMG's motion to intervene timely; in granting the motion to intervene where plaintiff failed to establish that KPMG's intervention to modify the protective order with regard to one document would result in prejudice; and in modifying the protective order to hold the transcript in escrow. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Blum v. Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner & Smith" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a Nicaraguan citizen, sought review of two decisions by the BIA: (1) a decision reversing an IJ's grant of withholding of removal pursuant to the Convention Against Torture (CAT), and (2) a decision affirming the IJ's finding that petitioner's conviction for lewd and lascivious acts with a child under the age of 14, in violation of California Penal Code 288(a), was a particularly serious crime, rendering him statutorily ineligible for withholding of removal. As a preliminary matter, the court concluded that petitioner's appeal from the denial of withholding of removal presented a live case or controversy. The court granted the petition for review of the BIA's determination that petitioner committed a particularly serious crime and remanded with instructions that the agency engage in a case-specific analysis in accordance with Matter of Frentescu to determine whether his conviction was a particularly serious crime. The court denied the petition for review of the BIA's denial of petitioner's claim for relief under the CAT because substantial evidence supported the BIA's finding that petitioner failed to establish a clear probability of torture. All pending motions in this case were denied. View "Blandino-Medina v. Holder, Jr." on Justia Law