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

Four days after Plaintiff, a detective in the City of Burbank Police Department, disclosed the alleged use of abusive interrogation tactics by his colleagues to the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, he was placed on administrative leave by the chief of police. Plaintiff filed a 42 U.S.C. 1983 suit against the chief of police and others in the Burbank Police Department, alleging that his placement on administrative leave was unconstitutional retaliation for the exercise of his First Amendment rights. The district court dismissed the suit, concluding that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' decision in Huppert v. City of Pittsburg controlled Plaintiff's case. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding that the district court correctly found that, under Huppert, Plaintiff's disclosure to the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department was made in the course of his official duties, and thus fell outside the protection offered by the First Amendment. View "Dahlia v. Rodriguez" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed for disability insurance benefits and supplemental security income under Title II and Title XVI of the Social Security Act. The Social Security Administration denied Hill's application. An ALJ also denied Plaintiff's application, and the appeals council denied Plaintiff's request for review. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the Commissioner of Social Security and affirmed the ALJ's decision. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, holding (1) the ALJ failed to consider evidence favorable to Plaintiff and posed an improper hypothetical question to the vocational expert; and (2) therefore, substantial evidence did not support the ALJ's determination that Plaintiff was not disabled under the Social Security Act. View "Hill v. Astrue " on Justia Law

At issue in this appeal were two issues: (1) whether the judicially created "filed rate doctrine," which typically has been utilized in common carrier and public utility litigation, was applicable in a class action lawsuit seeking monetary and injunctive relief under state law arising from the misreporting of pricing data to the USDA, where the data in turn were used to set a minimum price structure for raw milk sales; and (2) if the doctrine was applicable in that situation, whether the district court erred when it dismissed Plaintiffs' state causes of action on the ground that the filed rate doctrine barred such claims, even though the court found that it was not disputed that the USDA determined that the rates calculated were erroneous and that other rates should have applied based on correct pricing inputs. The plaintiffs here were dairy farmers who sold raw milk that was priced according to the erroneous reports. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and remanded, holding that the district court properly determined that the filed rate doctrine applied to the minimum milk pricing program, but erred by concluding that the doctrine applied to bar the plaintiffs' state-law claims in this case. View "Carlin v. DairyAmerica, Inc." on Justia Law

This case, which came before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for a second time, was one of many related to the United States government's Terrorist Surveillance Program. After the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation was investigated by the Treasury Department, Al-Haramain and two of its lawyers (Plaintiffs) filed suit, thinking they had been unlawfully surveilled. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held the suit was not precluded by the state secrets privilege and remanded for consideration of whether FISA preempted the privilege. On remand, the district court (1) concluded that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) preempted the state secrets privilege; (2) held that 50 U.S.C. 1810 waived the United States' sovereign immunity; and (3) awarded the two individual Plaintiffs statutory damages and attorney's fees. At issue on appeal was whether the district court erred in predicating the United States' liability for money damages on an implied waiver of sovereign immunity under section 1810. The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's judgment awarding damages and attorney's fees to Plaintiffs, holding that section 1810 does not include an explicit waiver of immunity, nor was it appropriate to imply such a waiver. View "Al-Haramain Islamic Found., Inc. v. Obama" on Justia Law

At issue here was whether a court should apply the exclusionary rule where law enforcement agents attached mobile tracking devices to the underside of a defendant's car and used those devices to track the car's movements. Defendant pleaded guilty to conspiring to manufacture marijuana but reserved the right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, concluding that the installation and use of the tracking devices was not a Fourth Amendment search. Subsequent to the Ninth Circuit's decision, the U.S. Supreme Court decided United States v. Jones, which holds that the government's installation of a GPS tracking device on a target's vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle's movements, constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment. The Supreme Court then granted Defendant's certiorari petition, vacated the Ninth Circuit's judgment, and remanded for consideration in light of Jones. The Ninth Circuit then affirmed, holding that pursuant to the Supreme Court's holding in Davis v. United States, suppression was not warranted here because the agents objectively relied on then-existing binding precedent when they attached tracking devices to Defendant's vehicle and used those devices to monitor the vehicle's movements. View "United States v. Pineda-Moreno" on Justia Law

Plaintiff played professional football for nineteen years. When he retired in 2002, he was employed by the Tennessee Titans. In 2008, he filed a workers' compensation claim in California, alleging that he suffered pain and disability from injuries incurred during his career. Plaintiff asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to vacate an arbitration award that prohibited him from pursuing workers' compensation benefits under California law, arguing (1) the award violated California public policy and federal labor policy, and (2) the award was in disregard of the Full Faith and Credit Clause. The district court confirmed the arbitration award. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding (1) Plaintiff did not allege sufficient contacts with California to show his workers' compensation claim came within the scope of California's workers' compensation regime, and therefore, he did not establish that the arbitration award violated California public policy; (2) because Plaintiff did not show that the award deprived him of something to which he was entitled under state law, he did not show it violated federal labor policy; and (3) Plaintiff did not establish that the arbitrator manifestly disregarded the Full Faith and Credit Clause. View "Matthews v. Nat'l Football League Mgmt. Council " on Justia Law

Defendant was charged with six counts related to the sexual assault of his girlfriend (Girlfriend). Defendant denied than an assault occurred and claimed that he and Girlfriend had consensual sex. At trial, the court prevented Defendant from (1) presenting testimony from police witnesses to support his defense that Defendant made false claims against him in the past alleging physical or sexual assault, and (2) cross-examining Girlfriend about prior acts of prostitution. Defendant was convicted. Defendant appealed, contending that the trial court's rulings denied him his constitutional right to present a complete defense and to confront the complaining witness under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, holding that Defendant's right to present a defense was unconstitutionally abridged, and the state court's conclusion to the contrary was an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law. Remanded. View "Jackson v. State" on Justia Law

Petitioner, an Arizona state prisoner, appealed the district court's denial of his habeas corpus petition. Petitioner was sentenced to death on each of two counts of felony murder. In this petition, Petitioner challenged his capital sentences, arguing that (1) the Arizona Supreme Court's application of Enmund v. Florida and Tison v. Arizona was unreasonable; (2) the Supreme Court based its decision on an unreasonable determination of the facts; and (3) his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance. The Ninth Circuit (1) affirmed the Arizona Supreme Court's application of Enmund and Tison to the facts of the case, holding it was not objectively unreasonable; (2) held the Supreme Court did not base its decision on an unreasonable determination of the facts; and (3) vacated the district court's judgment on Petitioner's third argument, holding that the district court did not err in finding Petitioner defaulted on his ineffective assistance claim by failing to fairly present the claim to the Arizona courts but remanding to allow the district court reassess whether Petitioner established cause and prejudice for the procedural default under Martinez v. Ryan. View "Dickens v. Ryan" on Justia Law

Plaintiff brought suit under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act (FCA) against Lockheed Martin Corporation, alleging that Lockheed defrauded the United States Air Force under a contract for the Range Standardization and Automation IIA program concerning software and hardware used to support space launch operations at Vandenberg Air Force Base and Cape Kennedy. Hooper filed his suit in the Maryland district court, which transferred the suit to the central district of California on forum non conveniens grounds. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Lockheed on all grounds. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (1) affirmed the district court's evidentiary rulings and conclusion that Hooper failed to establish his claims of fraudulent use of the software and defective testing procedures because there was no genuine issue of material fact as to whether Lockheed "knowingly" submitted a false claim; and (2) reversed the district court's dismissal of (i) Hooper's wrongful discharge claim as barred by California's two-year statute of limitations, holding that Maryland's three-year statute of limitations applied here, and (ii) Hooper's claim that Lockheed violated the FCA by knowingly underbidding the contract. View "Hooper v. Lockheed Martin Corp." on Justia Law

This opinion was a revised version of an earlier opinion issued by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on May 24, 2012. In that opinion, the Ninth Circuit held that, although the police did not have reasonable suspicion to search Defendant's room, they needed no such suspicion because Defendant was subject to suspicionless search as a condition of his probation. The holding in this case was based on United States v. Baker, in which the Ninth Circuit held that such searches did not violate the Fourth Amendment. In this revision, the Ninth Circuit overruled Motley v. Parks and later cases that relied on it, including Baker, to the extent they held that there was no constitutional difference between probation and parole for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. The Court held that these cases conflict with the Supreme Court's holding in Samson v. California that parolees have fewer expectations of privacy than probationers. United States v. King, therefore, was vacated, and the case was referred to the original panel for disposition consistent with this opinion. View "United States v. King" on Justia Law