9th Circuit Court of Appeals (34 summaries)
United States v. Vargem
When a district court misstates Sentencing Guidelines ranges it constitutes plain error because there is probability the district court would have applied a different sentence. It is also plain error to apply an enhancement when other actions by the defendant are not “relevant conduct” in relation to the conviction.
Area(s) of Law:- Criminal Law
ISLAMIC SHURA COUNCIL OF SO. CAL. V. FBI
Motions for sanctions under section 11(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure can't be granted if the district court had already decided the underlying dispute when the motion had been filed.
Area(s) of Law:- Civil Procedure
Wells Fargo v. ABD Ins. & Financial Servs.
A district court abuses its discretion when it does not separately consider a false advertising claim and a trademark infringement claim because the claims have different tests.
Area(s) of Law:- Trademarks
WTFC v. SEC
Petitioners who have violated Section 5(a) and 5(c) of the Securities Act of 1933 cannot claim the brokers’ exemption under Section 4(4) of the Act when they fail to meet their duty of reasonable inquiry.
Area(s) of Law:- Corporations
Dzakula v. McHugh
Judicial estoppel bars an action that was neither inadvertently nor mistakenly omitted from Chapter 7 bankruptcy schedules.
Area(s) of Law:- Civil Procedure
Vega v. Ryan
Counsel's failure to familiarize himself with his client's file which contained information about the victim's recantation of the allegations of sexual abuse was a deficient performance and such failure was prejudicial because presenting testimony on the recantation would not have been cumulative and could have tipped the scales in the defendant's favor.
Area(s) of Law:- Habeas Corpus
United States v. Sheldon
Conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a) does not require proof of a defendant’s knowledge that the materials used to produce depictions of sexually explicit conduct have traveled in interstate commerce.
Area(s) of Law:- Criminal Law
United States v. Earl
Supervised release does not start when a person is placed in home confinement by the Bureau of Prisons as part of a federal sentence.
Area(s) of Law:- Sentencing
United States v. Swor
The panel held that the district court abused its discretion in its restitution orders for defendant Shawn Swor because it included in the amount losses suffered by victims from a scheme too attenuated from the fraud that Swor conducted.
Area(s) of Law:- Sentencing
United States v. Alexander
A victim's true name and banking account numbers on a counterfeit paper check are a "means of identification" for purposes of aggravated identity theft under 18 U.S.C. §§ 1028A and 1028(d)(7).
Area(s) of Law:- Criminal Law
United States v. Ahmadzai
A term of supervised release is "automatically tolled during a period of state custody without a judicial tolling order."
Area(s) of Law:- Criminal Law
Schlegel v. Wells Fargo Bank
A complaint alleging a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act must specifically allege that defendant was a debt collector; and prior to taking an adverse action, which includes a notice of default, a lender must give proper notice.
Area(s) of Law:- Civil Law
Aleman v. Uribe
A defendant’s constitutional rights are not violated when a state court denies a Batson motion based on a prosecutor’s credible explanation that he made an “honest mistake” in exercising a peremptory challenge.
Area(s) of Law:- Civil Procedure
Lawrence v. Holder
The term "admissions" in Immigration and Nationality Act § 212(c) refers to the date of the application for relief; thus an aggravated felon who served over five years in prison and filed a petition for relief after November 29, 1990, is barred from relief, “regardless of the date the alien was initially admitted to the United States.”
Area(s) of Law:- Immigration
Donald Wige v. City of Los Angeles
Where an officer’s testimony presented at a preliminary hearing is “materially different” from the statement used to obtain probable cause and the state court does not make a factual determination as to the “genuine dispute” of the credibility of that testimony, issue preclusion does not attach to bar later litigation.
Area(s) of Law:- Civil Procedure
Ellins v. City of Sierra Madre
Leading a vote of no-confidence against the Chief of Police involved a matter of public concern, and the delay in pay increase constituted an adverse employment action.
Area(s) of Law:- Civil Rights § 1983
Walker v. Martel
Under Strickland v. Washington , it was not “objectively unreasonable” for the California Supreme Court to conclude that a defendant’s conviction or sentence would have been different had counsel objected to the use of limp-causing leg restraints.
Area(s) of Law:- Habeas Corpus
Dyer v. Hornbeck
The Court affirmed the "district court’s denial of a 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas corpus petition challenging the admission of statements Dyer made to police" and "concluded that fairminded jurists could disagree as to whether Dyer was “in custody” when she made certain disputed statements," therefore the "state court’s decision . . . was not an unreasonable application of the Supreme Court’s decision in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), and its progeny."
Area(s) of Law:- Habeas Corpus
Freeman Investments v. Pacific Life
"[C]lass claims for breach of contract and breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing [are] not precluded by SLUSA, even if such claims related to the purchase or sale of a covered security, because these contract claims did not rest on misrepresentation or fraudulent omission."
Area(s) of Law:- Civil Law
United States v. Simard
In granting a motion to strike a claim in a civil forfeiture proceeding, the district court errs when it applies the standard of proof for a possessory interest, rather than an ownership interest; therefore, an “unequivocal assertion of an ownership interest in the property is sufficient to establish standing.”
Area(s) of Law:- Constitutional Law
United States v. Catalan
"The Sentencing Commission recently clarified that a probation revocation sentence served after deportation should not be used to calculate the “sentence imposed” under section 2L1.2(b)(1)" of the US Sentencing Guidelines, so the Court retroactively applied the amendment and vacated Catalan's sentence that had been determined by including the probation revocation sentence served after his deportation.
Area(s) of Law:- Sentencing
OSU Student Alliance v. Ray
Under 42 U.S.C. §1983, a plaintiff adequately alleges First and Fourteenth Amendment violations by claiming that a supervisor knowingly acquiesced to violations of students' free speech rights by an immediate subordinate.
Area(s) of Law:- Civil Rights § 1983
United States v. Anekwu
Under the Confrontation Clause, it is not plain error to allow certificates of authentication for foreign public and business records by affidavit.
Area(s) of Law:- Criminal Procedure
McCormack v. Hiedeman
The Court affirms the district court's decision that McCormack will likely succeed on the merits of her case, in which she argues that that Idaho Code § 18-606 violates various provisions of the United States Constitution, but reverses its decision to limit the scope of the preliminary injuction issued to Hiedeman, preventing his enforcement of Idaho Code §§ 18-606 and 18-608(1), to just McCormack. The Court holds that McCormack did have standing to enjoin enforcement of Idaho Code § 18-608(2) in conjunction with § 18-606 but does not having standing to seek pre-enforcement relief against the enforcement of Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.
Area(s) of Law:- Civil Procedure
Miles v. Ryan
Petitioner's claims that his counsel performed ineffectively in his sentencing trial fail because counsel's reasonable strategy of presenting him as a normal person require deference and he suffered no prejudice as a result.
Area(s) of Law:- Habeas Corpus
United States v. Bustamante
For purposes of admissibility, a transcript of a birth certificate constitutes an “affidavit testifying to the contents of the birth records.” Admission of such evidence without the opportunity for cross-examination violates the Confrontation Clause.
Area(s) of Law:- Evidence
Woods v. Carey
“ Rand and Wyatt notices must be served concurrently with motions to dismiss and motions for summary judgment so that pro se prisoner plaintiffs will have fair, timely and adequate notice of what is required of them in order to oppose those motions."
Area(s) of Law:- Civil Procedure
Snoqualmie Valley Preservation v. USACE
“Although NWP 17 [72 Fed. Reg. at 11,184] is the only general permit specifically referencing hydropower projects, no language contained therein prevents the [U.S. Army Corps of Engineers] from applying other permits to hydropower projects that meet those other permits’ standards.”
Area(s) of Law:- Administrative Law
Haynes v. City and County of San Francisco
A district court may, in its discretion, reduce a sanctions award under 28 U.S.C. § 1927 if an attorney is unable to pay the total costs of excess costs, expenses, and fees.
Area(s) of Law:- Civil Procedure
Avina v. United States
A genuine issue of material fact exists as to whether the conduct of DEA agents against two minors was excessive, given their ages and the threat that they posed, where the agents forced the handcuffed minors to lie face down on the floor and pointed guns at the head of one minor.
Area(s) of Law:- Tort Law
Ordonez v. United States
Sovereign immunity bars a criminal defendant’s equitable claim for monetary damages under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(g).
Area(s) of Law:- Criminal Procedure
Karl v. City of Mountain Terrace
Under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, where a public employee gives subpoenaed deposition testimony in the course of a § 1983 lawsuit, a supervisor whose subsequent retaliatory conduct causes the termination of the employee does not have qualified immunity, even if the supervisor did not have final authority to terminate the employee.
Area(s) of Law:- Civil Law
United States v. Nosal
The Court held that “exceeds authorized access” in the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act 18 U.S.C. § 1030 “is limited to violations of restrictions on access to information, and not restrictions on its use.”
Area(s) of Law:- Civil Law
Skinner v. Northrop Grumman Retirement
There are no equitable remedies of reformation or surcharge available when an administrative committee provides retirement summary plan descriptions that are inconsistent with the plan master documents unless there is evidence of fraud, mistake, unjust enrichment, or actual harm.
Area(s) of Law:- Civil Law