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

Plaintiffs became permanent residents and immigrated to the United States. However, due to visa quotas and a serious backlog, by the time plaintiffs received their family-sponsored visas, their children were no longer eligible to accompany them as recipients of derivative visas. At issue was whether these children were entitled to relief under the Child Status Protection Act (CSPA), 8 U.S.C. 1153(h). The court concluded that the plain language of the CSPA unambiguously granted automatic conversion and priority date retention to aged-out derivative beneficiaries. Accordingly, the BIA's interpretation of the statute conflicted with the plain language of the CSPA and was not entitled to deference. View "De Osorio, et al v. Scharfen, et al" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Merck in their diversity action alleging wrongful death. Plaintiffs' son died after being administered a Measles, Mumps, and Rubella vaccine manufactured by Merck. On appeal, plaintiffs contended that the district court erred in applying the standards of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, 42 U.S.C. 300aa-22, to their individual claims for damages. Having concluded that Section 22 of the Act generally applied to limit tort liability in a parent's claim for individual injuries, the court determined that plaintiffs' suit was a "civil action for damages arising from a vaccine-related injury or death associated with the administration of a vaccine" and thus limited by the Act. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Holmes, et al. v. Merck & Co., Inc." on Justia Law

Defendants appealed from the district court's order granting plaintiffs partial injunctive relief prohibiting defendants from detaining any individual "based on knowledge or reasonable belief, without more, that the person was unlawfully present within the United States." Plaintiffs contended that defendants have a "custom, policy and practice of racial profiling and practice of stopping Latino drivers and passengers pretextually and without individualized suspicion or cause, and of subjecting them to different, burdensome, stigmatizing and injurious treatment once stopped," under the auspices of enforcing immigration laws. While defendants raised a number of issues on appeal, the court only addressed the order granting "partial injunctive relief." Consequently, the court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in granting preliminary injunctive relief. View "De Jesus Ortega Melendres, et al v. Arpaio, et al" on Justia Law

Appellant appealed the district court's order granting summary judgment to appellees in this action brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1983 after appellant spent nineteen years in prison convicted of murders that he did not commit. The court concluded that the district court properly granted summary judgment to appellees on appellant's fabrication-of-evidence claim, and affirmed on that basis. The court reversed, however, the district court's denial of appellant's motion to amend his complaint and remand to the district court with instructions to allow appellant to plead an explicit Fifth Amendment violation. The exceptional circumstances in this case persuaded the court that a remand was necessary to avoid manifest injustice. View "Hall v. City of Los Angeles, et al" on Justia Law

Kivalina appealed the district court's dismissal of their action for damages against Energy Producers. Kivalina alleged that massive greenhouse gas emissions emitted by the Energy Producers have resulted in global warming, which, in turn, has severely eroded the land where the City of Kivalina sits and threatens it with imminent destruction. Kivalina sought damages under a federal common law claim of public nuisance. At issue was whether the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq., and the EPA action that the Act authorized, displaced Kivalina's claims. The court concluded that the Supreme Court has held that federal common law addressing domestic greenhouse gas emissions has been displaced by Congressional action. That determination displaced federal common law public nuisance actions seeking damages, as well as those actions seeking injunctive relief. The civil conspiracy claim fell within the substantive claim. Therefore, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Native Village of Kivalina, et al v. Exxonmobile Corp., et al" on Justia Law

This case arose out of Native Ecosystems Council's appeal of the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the Forest Service in an action regarding the Ettien Ridge Fuels Reduction Project in the Lewis and Clark National Forest. Native Ecosystems Council alleged that the Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. 4321, 4331, and the National Forest Management Act (NFMA), 16 U.S.C. 1600-14, when it issued a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) and Decision Notice approving the Project. The court held that the Forest Service took the requisite "hard look" at the environmental impact of the Project on the elk hiding cover, and goshawk populations, in the manner required by NEPA. The court further held that the district court did not err in granting summary judgment to the Forest Service on the NFMA claims because it reasonably considered the "relevant factors" that could have impacted the elk hiding cover and goshawk populations in its analysis of the Project. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Native Ecosystems Council, et al v. Weldon, et al" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against defendants under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging, among other things, that his constitutional rights were violated by defendants' failure to protect him from other inmates and by defendants' deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs. The court concluded that an inmate's lack of awareness of a correctional institution's grievance procedure did not make the administrative remedy "unavailable" for purposes of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 42 U.S.C. 1997e(a), unless the inmate met his or her burden of proving the grievance procedure to be unknowable. Because plaintiff had not met his burden of proof, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment. View "Albino v. Baca, et al" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction and sentence for multiple counts of mail fraud, wire fraud, and telemarketing fraud against the elderly. The primary issue on appeal was whether the district court committed plain error by admitting certificates of authentication for foreign public and business records by means of affidavit in violation of the Confrontation Clause. Because there was no controlling authority on point, and because the court's cases indicated that the admission of the certificates of authentication did not violate the Confrontation Clause, the court could not conclude that the district court plainly erred. Additionally, the court could not conclude that the district court abused its discretion in conducting voir dire, admitting both a chart summarizing bank records and the underlying records into evidence, or refusing to give defendant's requested informant credibility instruction to the jury. The court also could not conclude that the district court plainly erred in admitting allegedly improper comments by the prosecutor in the closing argument, or re-reading the original jury instructions in response to a question posed by the jury. Because the court did not find any error, there could be no cumulative error. Finally, the district court did not plainly err in referencing defendant's inability to pay restitution to show that it had considered imposing a lesser sentence to facilitate the payment of restitution, or using two Guidelines ranges. View "United States v. Anekwu" on Justia Law

Joseph Tracy appealed the Benefits Review Board's determination that injuries he incurred in part during his employment by Global International Offshore Ltd. from 1998-2002 were not covered under the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C. 901-950. Because the court held that no portion of Tracy's employment during this period satisfied the Act's status and situs test, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Keller Foundation/Case FNDN, et al v. Tracy, et al; Tracy, Jr. v. Director, Workers' Compensation Programs" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed a putative class action against Facebook and others complaining that Facebook's program, Beacon, was causing publication of otherwise private information about their outside web activities to their personal profiles without their knowledge or approval. Beacon operated by updating a member's personal profile to reflect certain actions the member had taken on websites belonging to companies that had contracted with Facebook to participate in the Beacon program. At issue on appeal was whether the district court abused its discretion in approving the parties' $9.5 million settlement agreement as "fair, reasonable, and adequate," either because a Facebook employee sat on the board of the organization distributing cy pres funds (DTF) or because the settlement amount was too low. The court concluded that objectors' contention that the settling parties were prohibited from creating DTF to disburse cy pres funds was without merit, and the district court did not abuse its discretion in so concluding. The court also concluded that the settlement was fundamentally fair; the notice in this case adequately apprised class members of all material elements of the settlement agreement and therefore complied with the requirements of Rule 23(e); and the district court properly limited its substantive review of the agreement as necessary to determine that it was "fair, adequate, and free from collusion." View "Lane, et al v. Facebook, Inc., et al" on Justia Law