2012 Ninth Circuit US Court of Appeals Case Law

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendants appealed the district court's entry of judgment in favor of plaintiffs following a jury trial resolving plaintiff's claim that his mesothelioma was caused by occupational exposure to asbestos. Defendants…

Justia Opinion Summary: This appeal presented the question, among others, of what event triggered the running of the statute of limitations for a claim for wrongful disclosure of a tax return pursuant to 26 U.S.C. 7431(d). The court concluded…

Justia Opinion Summary: Debtors filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 13. At issue was whether debtors could exclude an annuity debtor received under the Railroad Retirement Act of 1974 (RRA), 45 U.S.C. 451m(a), when calculating their…

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant appealed his conviction and sentence for possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying the defense surrebuttal summation; the…

Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiffs, cigarette vendors, appealed the district court's dismissal of their antitrust action against defendants for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Plaintiffs challenged taxes imposed by the virtue of the…

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant appealed the sentence imposed after he pleaded guilty to illegal reentry after removal. The court affirmed the sentence, holding that a prior conviction for "rape of a child in the third degree," in violation…

Justia Opinion Summary: In this prisoner civil rights action filed pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1983, plaintiff appealed from the dismissal with prejudice of his first amended complaint for deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs in…

Justia Opinion Summary: Tim Wilborn appealed the reduction of attorneys' fees he earned while representing plaintiff in a Social Security benefits claim. At issue was whether Wilborn received fees for the same work under the Equal Access to…

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant pled guilty to knowing and unlawful possession of a firearm and the district court sentenced him to five years of supervised release subject to special conditions. At issue on appeal was whether the district…

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant was arrested and charged with violating 8 U.S.C. 1325, a misdemeanor illegal entry by an alien. The next day, defendant was brought before a magistrate judge in federal court in Arizona for a guilty plea…

Justia Opinion Summary: Petitioners challenged the FWS's Biological Opinion regarding the Ruby Pipeline Project, which involved the construction, operation, and maintenance of a 42-inch-diameter natural gas pipeline extending from Wyoming to…

Justia Opinion Summary: Petitioner appealed the district court's decision to modify the protective order issued in his federal habeas proceeding to permit respondent to turn over materials produced during the federal proceeding to the agency…

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant appealed his conviction for assaulting a federal officer. Defendant argued that his conviction should be reversed because the district court's jury instructions failed to inform the jury adequately that the…

Justia Opinion Summary: RSA appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment dismissal of RSA's claim for copyright infringement, related to pilot escort vehicle manuals, against Evergreen on the ground of laches. The court held that…

Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiff, on behalf of himself and a class of similarly situated plaintiffs, argued that a series of automated telephone calls placed to his home by Best Buy violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991…

Justia Opinion Summary: These consolidated petitions for review challenged a contract between the BPA and one of its long-time customers, Alcoa. BPA's preference customers and others filed this petition for review, requesting that the court…

Justia Opinion Summary: The district court concluded that the State of Montana's contribution limits in Montana Code Annotated 13-37-216 were unconstitutional under the First Amendment and permanently enjoined the State from enforcing its…

Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiffs sought to install a temporary offsite sign advertising the television program "E! News" without obtaining the required City permits. Deeming the sign "strictly commercial in nature," the City notified…

Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiffs, Yellow Page Companies, challenged the validity of Seattle's imposition of substantial conditions and costs on the distribution of yellow page phone directories (Ordinance 123427). The district court rejected…

Justia Opinion Summary: PRA appealed the district court's order granting plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction and provisional class certification. Plaintiff's complaint alleged that PRA's debt collection efforts violated the…

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant appealed from the district court's denial of his motion to dismiss the indictment based on the Speedy Trial Act, 18 U.S.C. 3161, 3162, and the use of a two-level sentencing enhancement for use of a computer.…

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant appealed the district court's denial of his requests to limit the courtroom presence of a law enforcement officer who was the prosecution's main witness. Defendant argued that the district court abused its…

Justia Opinion Summary: WWP originally filed this action in 2004 challenging the BLM's renewal of grazing permits in the Jarbidge Resource Area (JRA), covering a large expanse of Southern Idaho. At issue on appeal, was whether the district…

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant was prosecuted for failing to comply with the sex offender registration requirements set forth in 42 U.S.C. 16913. At issue was the constitutionality of certain key provisions of the Sex Offender Registration…

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant pleaded guilty to a drug-related offense and received a sentence that included supervised release. On appeal, defendant challenged the requirement that he submit to periodic drug testing during his supervised…

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant appealed his jury conviction on two counts of distributing child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography. Defendant contended that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to convict…

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant challenged the district court's decision to increase his sentence by two levels under U.S.S.G. 2K2.1(b)(1)(A). The court held that the district court did not err in enhancing defendant's sentence based on its…

Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiffs challenged a Justice Department regulation, 8 C.F.R. 245.2(a)(2)(i)(B), governing the process by which religious workers could apply for adjustment of status pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 1255(a). The court held that…

Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant appealed the district court's revocation of supervised release. At issue was whether the district court erred in treating a state criminal conviction as a felony rather than a misdemeanor, when the sole…

Justia Opinion Summary: Petitioner, a native and citizen of Haiti, petitioned for review of the BIA's order of removal. The BIA vacated the decision of the IJ granting petitioner protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT) and…

Justia Opinion Summary: After an airplane was damaged in a runway accident, USAU indemnified the owner of the aircraft and brought a subrogation claim against Nabtesco. USAU alleged that the accident resulted from a defective component part, an…

Justia Opinion Summary: In Chambers v. Mississippi, the United States Supreme Court clearly established that the exclusion of trustworthy and necessary exculpatory testimony at trial violated a defendant's due process right to present a…

Justia Opinion Summary: Petitioner claimed that he received ineffective assistance of counsel during the plea-bargaining process. Plaintiff alleged that counsel advised him to reject a plea offer of six years' imprisonment without alerting him…

Justia Opinion Summary: HOS was arrested and indicted for various offenses. He claimed that he was a juvenile when these offenses were committed. HOS subsequently appealed the district court's grant of the U.S. Attorney's request to revoke its…

Justia Opinion Summary: In this interlocutory appeal, Motorola appealed from the district court's preliminary injunction to enjoin Motorola temporarily from enforcing a patent injunction that it obtained against Microsoft in Germany. The…

Justia Opinion Summary: 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…

Justia Opinion Summary: The Forest Service limited the use of motor vehicles to certain roads in the century-old Eldorado National Forest (ENF). Concerned about the impact of the limitation on their activities, a group of miners and prospectors…

Justia Opinion Summary: Plaintiff sued Austrian-owned OBB after sustaining personal injuries as a result of her attempt to board a moving train in Innsbruck. In this case, the court considered what acts could be attributed to a foreign state in…

Justia Opinion Summary: 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…

Justia Opinion Summary: 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…

Justia Opinion Summary: 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…

Justia Opinion Summary: 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…

Justia Opinion Summary: 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'…