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

Petitioner petitioned for review of the Board's denial of an application for benefits under the Railroad Retirement Act (RRA), 45 U.S.C. 231 et seq. The court held that short periods of temporary employment, inadequately performed, did not constitute substantial gainful employment that would disqualify a claimant for benefits. The court further held that when considering the RRA's requirement of continuous disability, the court must look to the history of the claimant's disability and the claimant's success or lack thereof in sustaining meaningful employment. Accordingly, the court concluded that petitioner was entitled to benefits. View "Stephens, Jr. v. U.S Railroad Retirement Board" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a state prisoner, asserted that denials by prison officials of his request for a conjugal visit with his wife violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. 2000cc et seq., and the First Amendment, by interfering with his practice of a tenet of his Islamic faith requiring him to marry, consummate his marriage, and father children. The court held that because plaintiff's claim was based on an independently wrongful, discrete act in 2008, which was the denial of his request for conjugal visits with his second wife, his claims were not time-barred, notwithstanding the denial, pursuant to the same regulation, of his prior requests for conjugal visits with his first wife in 2002. View "Pouncil v. Tilton, et al" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed her conviction and sentence for perjury and for making a false statement. Principally she challenged the district court's admission of testimony from a grand juror. She also challenged the district court's rejection of her claim of recantation, the sufficiency of the evidence, and her sentence. Because the court held that the admission of the grand juror's testimony was unduly prejudicial, the court reversed. View "United States v. Wiggan" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his sentence for illegal reentry. The court held that a November 1, 2012 amendment to the Sentencing Guidelines clarified, rather than altered, existing law in providing that a probation revocation sentence served after deportation should not be used to calculate the "sentence imposed" under U.S.S.G. 2L1.2(b)(1). Therefore, the court applied the amendment retroactively and concluded that the district court erred in imposing a 16-level enhancement under U.S.S.G. 2L1.2(b)(1)(A) rather than a 12-level enhancement under U.S.S.G. 2L1.2(b)(1)(B). View "United States v. Catalan" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction and sentence on a conditional guilty plea for being an alien found in the United States following deportation. The court affirmed the conviction and sentence, holding that the BIA did not err in finding defendant removeable based on his conviction for use of drug paraphernalia, which was a conviction "relating to a controlled substance" under 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(2)(A)(i)(II). The court held that the IJ did not violate due process by failing to inform defendant of the possibility of relief through a waiver of inadmissibility under section 1182(h). The court rejected defendant's contention that the district court abused its discretion and imposed a substantively unreasonable sentence. View "United States v. Oseguera-Madrigal" on Justia Law

Defendants appealed the district court's denial of a motion to dismiss a civil rights complaint. The court held that government officials were absolutely immune from civil liability for the decision not to extradite or to request only limited extradition of a criminal defendant. The court held that because the decision whether or not to extradite a criminal defendant was intimately associated with the criminal phase of the judicial process, defendants in this case were entitled to absolute immunity to the extent they participated in making the extradition decision described in plaintiffs' complaint. View "Slater, et al v. Clarke, et al" on Justia Law

Defendants appealed the district court's entry of judgment in favor of plaintiffs following a jury trial resolving plaintiff's claim that his mesothelioma was caused by occupational exposure to asbestos. Defendants contended that the district court abused its discretion by improperly admitting expert evidence. The court held that the district court did abuse its discretion when it failed to conduct a Daubert hearing or otherwise make relevance and reliability determinations regarding the expert testimony. The court held that the court's decision in Mukhtar v. California State University dictated that a new trial be provided in this circumstance. View "Barabin v. AstenJohnson Inc" on Justia Law

Debtors filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 13. At issue was whether debtors could exclude an annuity debtor received under the Railroad Retirement Act of 1974 (RRA), 45 U.S.C. 451m(a), when calculating their "projected disposable income," which determined the amount they must repay creditors to qualify for Chapter 13 relief. The court concluded that the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel's decision was reviewable. Applying a trust law understanding of the statute pursuant to Hisquierdo v. Hisquierdo, the court held that the RRA's anti-anticipation clause, which provided that the payment of an annuity shall not be "anticipated," referred to premature receipt of payment, and thus did not preclude the inclusion of the RRA annuity payments in Chapter 13 debtors' projected disposable income. View "In re: Robert Scholz & Carolyn Scholz" on Justia Law

This appeal presented the question, among others, of what event triggered the running of the statute of limitations for a claim for wrongful disclosure of a tax return pursuant to 26 U.S.C. 7431(d). The court concluded that the statute of limitations began to run when plaintiff knows or reasonably should know of the government's allegedly unauthorized disclosures. The court also concluded, in the circumstances presented in this case, that the statute of limitations did not begin to run when plaintiffs became aware of a pending general investigation that would involve disclosures, but only later when they knew or should have known of the specific disclosures at issue. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part and reversed in part. View "Aloe Vera of America, Inc., et al v. USA" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction and sentence for possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying the defense surrebuttal summation; the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant's motion to excuse one of the prospective jurors for cause; and the district court did not err in denying defendant's proposed jury instruction. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Maloney" on Justia Law