9th Circuit Court of Appeals (35 summaries)
Albino v. Baca
If a defendant in litigation subject to the Prison Litigation Reform Act believes a plaintiff has not met the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s exhaustion requirements, the issue of “exhaustion should be decided, if feasible, before reaching the merits of a prisoner’s claim [via a motion for summary judgment]”; a courts’ decision regarding disputed factual question(s) relevant to exhaustion at the beginning of litigation does not bind the jury, if considering the same disputed fact(s) is necessary for deciding the merits of the case.
Area(s) of Law:- Administrative Law
HonoluluTraffic.com v. FTA
In considering alternatives to a proposed transportation plan, a party may rely on findings and studies that precede the proposed plan when determining that certain alternative proposals are imprudent.
Area(s) of Law:- Environmental Law
SmithKline Beecham Corp. v. Abbott Laboratories
“Equal protection prohibits peremptory strikes based on sexual orientation.”
Area(s) of Law:- Constitutional Law
United States v. Shorty
Where the waiver to a jury trial is unwritten and there is evidence the defendant has a diminished mental capacity, a court must engage in an in-depth colloquy to ensure the defendant understands the importance and effect of his waiver of a jury trial.
Area(s) of Law:- Criminal Procedure
Hagen v. City of Eugene
Where a public employee reports departmental-safety concerns to his or her supervisors pursuant to a duty to do so, that employee does not speak as a private citizen and is not entitled to First Amendment Protection.
Area(s) of Law:- Constitutional Law
APAC v. BPA
Bonneville Power Administration has the authority to enter into settlement agreements that pay certain funds in lump sums, waive BPA's authority to purchase power through in lieu purchases, modify "rate ceiling" calculations intended to protect preference customers, and set costs; these actions do not require BPA to provide power illegitimately, do not improperly bind non-signatories to a settlement, are not adverse to Ninth Circuit precedent, and were not arbitrarily or capriciously applied in this case.
Area(s) of Law:- Administrative Law
Smith v. Lopez
A defendant initially provided sufficient notice of the charges against them, may have their constitutional right to this notice violated if a prosecutor "affirmatively" leads a defendant to believe the prosecutor won't seek to prove the defendant's guilt by some specific theory and the prosecutor subsequently does so.
Area(s) of Law:- Habeas Corpus
Gravelet-Blondin v. Shelton
The right to be free from the application of non-trivial force, such as the use of tasers, for engaging in mere passive resistance has been clearly established in the Ninth Circuit since at least 2008.
Area(s) of Law:- Civil Rights § 1983
Pickup v. Brown
California’s Senate Bill 1172, which bans mental health providers from using “sexual orientation change efforts” on minors, is not unconstitutional because it is not vague or overbroad, it does not infringe on parents’ fundamental rights, and it does not violate First Amendment free speech rights.
Area(s) of Law:- Constitutional Law
Seltzer v. Green Day, Inc.
Where an allegedly infringing work imbues some “new expressive content” or a new “message is apparent,” this work will usually be found transformative and thus covered under the Fair Use Doctrine; even when few physical changes to the original work have been made and the new work fails to comment on the original.
Area(s) of Law:- Copyright
Johnson v. BART
When resolving qualified immunity questions, the appellate court will not attempt to weigh facts and resolve issues in favor of one party, but will instead construe the facts most favorable to the plaintiffs to allow the defendants to stand trial for their alleged constitutional violations.
Area(s) of Law:- Qualified Immunity
Cal. Ass'n of Rural Health Clinics v. Douglas
A private right of action exists to enforce an individual's rights created under 42 U.S.C. § 1396a(bb).
Area(s) of Law:- Administrative Law
Dubrin v. State of California
When a defendant is faultless in obtaining timely constitutional review of an expired prior conviction, they may challenge a later sentence which is enhanced by a conviction obtained on an unconstitutional basis.
Area(s) of Law:- Habeas Corpus
Managed Pharmacy Care v. Sebelius
The Department of Health and Human Services’ interpretation of 42 U.S.C. § 1396a(a)(30)(A), allowing individualized state procedures for Medicaid rate reimbursement reductions resulting from a State Plan Amendment review, is due deference under Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.
Area(s) of Law:- Administrative Law
United States v. Stanfill El
The Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial is not triggered by any amount of potential restitution; and the Seventh Amendment right to a civil jury trial is not implicated by the potential award of restitution as a result of a criminal prosecution.
Area(s) of Law:- Constitutional Law
Castro v. Terhune
Because the “some evidence” analysis is an “evidentiary standard,” procedural due process guarantees a California inmate’s administrative "validation" as a gang "associate" be reviewed under the “some evidence” standard.
Area(s) of Law:- Evidence
UMG Recordings v. Shelter Capital Partners
For the purposes of the “safe harbor” affirmative defense under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act §512(c) website owners are “service providers” and the defense encompasses certain “access-facilitating automatic functions;” additionally, the “red flag” knowledge test was adopted; and Napster liability does not invalidate a §512(c) defense unless the “service provider” has the “right and ability to control” users infringing activity via an exertion of “substantial influence.”
Area(s) of Law:- Copyright
Sonoma Cnty. Ass'n of Retired Emp. v. Sonoma Cnty.
“[U]nder California law, a vested right to health benefits for retired county employees can be implied under certain circumstances from a county ordinance or resolution.”
Area(s) of Law:- Contract Law
Sonoma Cnty. Ass'n of Retired Emp. v. Sonoma Cnty.
“[U]nder California law, a vested right to health benefits for retired county employees can be implied under certain circumstances from a county ordinance or resolution.”
Area(s) of Law:- Contract Law
Dichter-Mad Family Partners v. United States
“[D]ecisions of whether and how to conduct investigations and enforcement actions are firmly lodged in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s discretion,” and are exempted from judicial review under the "discretionary function exception" (28 U.S.C. § 2680(a)) to the Federal Tort Claims Act.
Area(s) of Law:- Sovereign Immunity
United States v. Phillips
The prohibition on “frequent[ing] places” utilized in the trade or use of illegal drugs prohibits a person from “knowingly going to a specific place where drugs are illegally used or sold,” but not incidental contact with a “neighborhood simply because a person is selling drugs somewhere within that neighborhood.”
Area(s) of Law:- Parole and Post-Prison Supervision
Slater v. Clarke
Government officials are entitled to absolute immunity for their participation in extradition decisions as these decisions are, “intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process.”
Area(s) of Law:- Sovereign Immunity
Meyers v. Portfolio Recovery
Consumers who provide creditors with cellular telephone numbers subsequent to the original transaction that resulted in the debt at issue have not consented to be contacted at those numbers by creditors per the requirements of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. § 227.
Area(s) of Law:- Civil Law
Earth Island Institute v. USFS
The “1982 Rule,” requiring monitoring of species viability, was not incorporated into the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit Forest Plan (“LTBMU”) at the project level; therefore, the Forest Service is not required to conduct a project level analysis of the “quantity and quality of habitat necessary” to support specific species in the LTBMU, as this analysis is habitat monitoring.
Area(s) of Law:- Environmental Law
Lavan v. City of Los Angeles
The Fourth Amendment does not require a party have a "legitimate expectation of privacy" in their property to protect that property from governmental seizure.
Area(s) of Law:- Civil Rights § 1983
Autotel v. Nevada Bell Telephone Company
Interim digital interconnection and symmetrical pricing is only required to be provided during negotiations between telecommunications companies that lack a prior interconnectivity agreement, because 47 C.F.R. § 20.11(e) fully incorporates 47 C.F.R. § 51.715.
Area(s) of Law:- Civil Law
United States v. Duenas
Evidence developed during a police search tainted by media presence need not be excluded so long as the media did not “discover or develop any evidence later used at trial.”
Area(s) of Law:- Criminal Procedure
Nijjar v. Holder
Congress authorized both the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice to grant asylum, but conferred the authority to terminate asylum only upon the Department of Justice.
Area(s) of Law:- Immigration
In re Midland National Life Insurance Co
A Daubert motion filed in connection with a pending summary judgment motion may be dispositive and require continuing compelling reasons be shown to maintain a sealed record. The Ninth Circuit exception for records attached to a non-dispositive motion, requiring only "good cause" to maintain a sealed record, is not automatically applied to Daubert motions.
Area(s) of Law:- Evidence
Gale v. First Franklin Loan Services
The Truth in Lending Act 15 U.S.C. § 1641(f)(2) applies a duty to provide notice only upon a servicer-assignee. Servicers, that are not assignees, have no duty to respond to an obligor's written request for information regarding the obligor's obligation under 15 U.S.C. § 1641(f)(2).
Area(s) of Law:- Civil Law
United States v. Collins
To impose a lifetime term of supervised release, the government must prove that the “condition of supervised release involves no greater deprivation of liberty than is reasonably necessary to serve the goals of supervised release." The heightened burden of clear and convincing evidence does not apply.
Area(s) of Law:- Parole and Post-Prison Supervision
United States v. Jingles
An indictment found to be constructively amended does not require automatic reversal of a defendant's conviction under plain error review. A defendant's conviction only requires reversal if the constructive amendment seriously affects "the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings."
Area(s) of Law:- Criminal Procedure
United States v. Romo-Chavez
The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment does not prohibit the introduction of a defendant's translated admissions to a police officer even if the translator would not qualify as a court interpreter.
Area(s) of Law:- Evidence
Gonzalez v. Arizona
The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 preempts a state law requirement that proof of citizenship be presented for voter registration. Under the U.S. Constitution and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a state law may require voters provide identification at the polls in order to vote.
Area(s) of Law:- Constitutional Law
R & R Sails, Inc. v. Insurance Co. of Pennsylvania
Where a court precludes evidence as a sanction for discovery requirement violations and such preclusion amounts to the dismissal of the party’s claim, a court must consider whether the failure to comply involved willfulness, fault, or bad faith, and also the availability of lesser sanctions.
Area(s) of Law:- Civil Procedure