2014 Ninth Circuit US Court of Appeals Case Law

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant appealed the district court's order denying the parties' joint request to seal the entire record of bankruptcy proceedings before the district court. The parties sought to seal the record of proceedings on an…

Justia Opinion Summary: Panansam Narayanan suffered from an advanced-stage lung disease. While he was aboard a British Airways international flight, he was allegedly denied supplemental oxygen. When Narayanan died six months after the plane…

Justia Opinion Summary: Family PAC filed suit alleging that three provisions of the Washington election law violated the First Amendment as applied to ballot measure committees. The district court granted summary judgment in part for Family PAC…

Justia Opinion Summary: Alaska Stock, a stock photography agency, registered large numbers of photographs at a time under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 101 et seq., listing only some of the authors and not listing titles for each photograph.…

Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiffs, employed by the City as dispatchers or aeromedical technicians, filed suit alleging that the City violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 207(k), by compensating them as "fire protection"…

Justia Opinion Summary: Petitioner, convicted of two murders and sentenced to death, appealed the denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2254 habeas corpus petition. The court affirmed the denial of petitioner's Batson v. Kentucky claim where the state…

Justia Opinion Summary: Petitioner, convicted of two murders and sentenced to death, appealed the district court's denial of his petition for habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. 2254. The court concluded that the state court's determination that…

Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiff and others protested weekly outside the locked fence that surrounds the LA Campus of the VAGLA to draw public attention to the VA's failure to use the lawn for veterans. Plaintiff filed suit challenging the…

Justia Opinion Summary: Petitioner sought review of the BIA's decision finding him inadmissible and denying his application for cancellation of removal. The court held that the conviction under which petitioner was convicted, California Health…

Justia Opinion Summary: Petitioner, a state prisoner, appealed the denial of a motion to stay and abey his habeas corpus petition under 28 U.S.C. 2254. The district court denied petitioner's motion for a stay and abeyance on the sole ground…

Justia Opinion Summary: The district court invalidated a biological opinion (BiOp) by the FWS concluding that the Central Valley and State Water Projects jeopardized the continued existence of the delta smelt, a threatened species under the…

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant pleaded guilty to wire fraud and making a false statement on a loan application. On appeal, defendant challenged the district court's imposition of a 16-level increase to defendant's base offense level based on…

Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiff filed suit in California state court under the California Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (PAGA), Cal. Lab. Code 2698-2699.5, and then removed to district court. The issue presented on appeal…

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant challenged the district court's jurisdiction to revoke a term of supervised release after the term had expired. The court concluded that the period from the date defendant's supervised release term ended in May…

Justia Opinion Summary: Petitioner, a native and citizen of China, sought review of the denial of her application for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). The IJ found that petitioner's…

Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiff filed suit against the Counties, alleging violations of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, violation of the Bane Act, Cal. Civ. 52.1; and common law false imprisonment. Plaintiff was erroneously arrested…

Justia Opinion Summary: Petitioners challenged the Commissioner's disallowance of a $30 million deduction on the Estate's tax return for a lawsuit pending at the time of Gertrude Saunders' death (the Stonehill Claim). The court concluded that…

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant, a native of Cambodia and a tax preparer in the United States, was the president of the Cambodian Freedom Fighters (CFF), an organization formed for the purpose of removing Prime Minister Hun Sen from power and…

Justia Opinion Summary: Deutsche Bank appealed the dismissal of its claims against the FDIC. At issue was whether Deutsche Bank's claims were general unsecured claims under 12 U.S.C. 1821(d)(11) and thereby prudentially moot because of the lack…

Justia Opinion Summary: Petitioner sought review of the BIA's decision to vacate the withholding of removal relief granted to him by the IJ. The BIA concluded that petitioner was not eligible for withholding of removal because his conviction…

Justia Opinion Summary: While on the waiting list but after the effective date of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, 8 U.S.C. 1231(a)(5), DHS issued a reinstatement of petitioner's removal order. Petitioner…

Justia Opinion Summary: Petitioner sought review of the BIA's denial of his motion to reopen under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). The court rejected petitioner's principal argument that the regulations governing motions to reopen at 8…

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant pleaded guilty to one count of assault with intent to kidnap. At issue was whether a district court could impose a sexual deviancy evaluation as a condition of supervised release when deviant sexual conduct was…

Justia Opinion Summary: Petitioner, convicted of murder and sentenced to death, appealed the denial of his petition for federal habeas petition relief. The district court certified one issue for appeal, based on petitioner's argument that the…

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant was convicted of five counts of bank fraud and two counts of mail fraud. The court held that mailings designed to avoid detection or responsibility for a fraudulent scheme fell within the mail fraud statute…

Justia Opinion Summary: Airs International, a purported owner of an ANGEL DREAMS trademark, filed suit against Victoria's Secret alleging breach of contract claims and requesting cancellation of Victoria's Secret's registered DREAM ANGELS…

Justia Opinion Summary: Students brought a civil rights suit against the school district and two school officials after the school asked a group of students to remove clothing bearing images of the American flag when school officials learned of…

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendants appealed their convictions for aggravated sexual abuse of a minor. Applying the test set out in Waller v. Georgia, the court concluded that defendants' Sixth Amendment rights to a public trial were not…

Justia Opinion Summary: While petitioner, a native of Iran and citizen of Armenia, was appealing the BIA's removal order, he married a United States citizen. The BIA then affirmed the removal order and petitioner filed a timely motion to…

Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiff was cast in a minor role in an adventure film with the working title "Desert Warrior." The film never materialized and plaintiff's scene was used, instead, in an anti-Islamic film titled "Innocence of Muslims."…

Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiff filed suit against Foster Farms under the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), 29 U.S.C. 2601, and California law. The parties disputed whether plaintiff sought FMLA leave in order to care for her ailing father in…

Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiff filed a putative class action against FreeScore under the Credit Repair Organizations Act (CROA), 15 U.S.C. 1679 et seq. The district court dismissed the claim, concluding that FreeScore was not a "credit…

Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against police officers and the city after the officers entered her home without a warrant and shot her five or six times when she reacted violently to the officers' presence,…

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and was sentenced under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e)(1). On appeal, defendant argued that neither his prior Nevada conspiracy…

Justia Opinion Summary: The government appealed the dismissal of defendant's indictment for unlawful reentry. Defendant had pleaded guilty to "conspiracy to commit the crime of burglary" in violation of Nev. Rev. Stat. 199.480.205.060(1) and…

Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiff filed a putative class action arguing that the sodium content in a "serving" of sunflower seeds must include the sodium contained in the edible coating. The court concluded that, because the coating is edible…

Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiff, former vice president and CFO of National Airlines, filed suit under 26 U.S.C. 7422 against the United States for a refund of taxes erroneously assessed. The United States counterclaimed for the unpaid balance…

Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiff claimed that the judge who presided over the administration of the Yellowstone Mountain Club ski resort's bankruptcy was biased against him and should have recused himself. The bankruptcy judge denied the…