John T. Noonan jr

Skydive Arizona sued SKYRIDE, operators of an online and telephone booking service for skydiving, alleging false advertising, trademark infringement, and cybersquatting under federal law. A jury awarded Skydive Arizona $1 million in actual damages for false advertising, $2.5 million in actual damages and over $2.5 million in profits for trademark infringement, and $600,000 in statutory damages for cybersquatting; the district court enhanced the actual damages awards and issued a permanent injunction limited to Arizona. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the jury's damages awards, the profits award, the statutory damages, and the geographic scope of the injunction, but reversed the district court's enhancement of actual damages as unsupported by law. The court reasoned that the injunction was properly tailored to the harm shown and that actual damages must be proven without improper doubling under applicable precedent.

business & regulatory

In Conner v. Heiman, plaintiff William Conner sued two Nevada Gaming Control Board agents under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging they violated his Fourth Amendment rights by arresting him without probable cause for theft after he refused to return an overpayment received while playing baccarat at Harrah’s casino, and that they conspired with the casino. The district court denied the agents’ motion for summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds, leaving the issue for the jury. The Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that the agents were entitled to qualified immunity because the undisputed facts showed they could reasonably conclude there was probable cause to believe Conner knowingly retained the overpayment with intent to deprive the casino of it, and because the qualified immunity determination was a legal question for the court rather than the jury. The court further held that this immunity barred the related conspiracy claim.

criminal lawcivil rightsprocedure

The case involved a lawsuit by the estate of Eric Vogel against Maricopa County and Sheriff Joseph Arpaio, alleging harm from the jail's treatment of Vogel, a man with severe mental illness who was arrested and subjected to a forced 'dress-out' procedure into pink underwear while psychotic. The district court entered judgment for the defendants after excluding certain expert testimony on causation and denying rebuttal closing argument. The Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded for a new trial, holding that the exclusions were erroneous under the Federal Rules of Evidence and that the denial of rebuttal violated the plaintiff's procedural rights under local rules.

civil rightsproceduretorts & liability

The case involved a challenge by Tri-Valley CAREs to the U.S. Department of Energy's revised Environmental Assessment for constructing a biosafety level-3 laboratory at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, focusing on whether the assessment adequately addressed the potential environmental effects of a terrorist attack. After an earlier remand requiring consideration of such attacks, the district court granted summary judgment to the DOE. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding that the DOE had taken the required hard look at the environmental impacts under NEPA and that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying a motion to supplement the record with a later report. The court concluded that no Environmental Impact Statement was needed based on the revised assessment.

environmentfederal powerprocedure

The case involved Robert Reveles, who faced non-judicial punishment (NJP) from the Navy under 10 U.S.C. § 815 for drunk driving on a naval base, receiving penalties including pay forfeiture, reduction in grade, extra duty, and restriction. He was later prosecuted and convicted in federal court for the same conduct under 18 U.S.C. §§ 7 and 13 and Washington state law. Reveles argued that the federal prosecution violated the Double Jeopardy Clause because the NJP was criminal in nature. The Ninth Circuit held that NJP is noncriminal, applying the test from Hudson v. United States: Congress intended NJP to be administrative rather than punitive, and its sanctions are not so severe in purpose or effect as to transform it into a criminal penalty, as confirmed by precedent like Middendorf v. Henry. The court therefore affirmed the conviction, finding the subsequent prosecution permissible.

criminal lawprocedure

Charles Carper, a former U.S. Marine, was convicted after pleading guilty to exporting PVS-14 night-vision devices without a required license, in violation of the Arms Export Control Act and related statutes, by selling the military equipment to residents of Poland and China. The district court sentenced him to three years in prison after applying a base offense level of 26 under the Sentencing Guidelines and granting a downward variance for his military service. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the sentence, ruling that the devices did not qualify for the lower offense level of 14 reserved for non-fully automatic small arms because they are not firearms and the listed examples do not include night-vision equipment. The court also found no plain error in the district court's decision not to vary further on policy grounds under Kimbrough, as there was no indication of disagreement with the Guidelines.

criminal lawfederal power

The case involved Suzlon Energy Ltd. seeking emails from an Indian citizen's Microsoft Hotmail account stored in the US to use in a civil fraud case in Australia, via a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 1782. Microsoft and the account holder objected, arguing that the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) protected the emails from disclosure. The district court quashed the production order, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed. The court held that the plain language of the ECPA applies to all persons, including foreign citizens, thus barring production of the emails.

procedure

In Degelmann v. Advanced Medical Optics, Inc., a putative class of contact lens solution purchasers sued AMO under California's Unfair Competition Law and False Advertising Law, alleging that the company falsely marketed its MoisturePlus product as an effective disinfectant despite its association with increased risk of Acanthamoeba keratitis infections. The plaintiffs, who had not contracted infections or suffered direct financial losses from the product recall, claimed they would not have purchased the solution but for the misleading labeling. The district court granted summary judgment to AMO on standing grounds, but the Ninth Circuit held that the claims were expressly preempted under the Medical Device Amendments to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act because the FDA had approved the product's labeling after it met specific federal performance criteria for disinfectants, and state law would impose additional requirements. The court therefore affirmed the judgment on preemption grounds rather than standing. The decision focused on the interaction between federal medical device regulations and state consumer protection statutes.

business & regulatoryfederal powerhealthcare

The case involved the Yakama Indian Nation's challenge to Washington's cigarette excise tax, claiming that the tax's legal incidence fell on the tribe in violation of federal Indian tax immunity principles when tribal retailers sold cigarettes to non-Indians. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the state officials. The court reasoned that, under longstanding Supreme Court precedent from Washington v. Confederated Tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation, the tax is levied on the first taxable event and person in the state (typically wholesalers), with collection and stamping requirements that do not materially shift the legal burden to the tribes, despite some statutory updates since 1980. The decision emphasized that economic burdens are irrelevant to the legal incidence analysis.

taxesfederal power

The Secretary of Labor sued the Washington Department of Social and Health Services, alleging that certain social worker positions were not exempt from overtime requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The district court granted summary judgment to DSHS, holding that the positions qualified for the 'learned professional' exemption. The Ninth Circuit reversed, concluding that DSHS failed to show the positions plainly and unmistakably require advanced knowledge customarily acquired through a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction, as the educational prerequisites allow a bachelor's degree in any of several diverse fields or sufficient coursework in those fields, supplemented by limited formal training and experience. The court emphasized that exemptions are construed narrowly and that general academic training plus on-the-job learning does not satisfy the regulatory standard.

labor & employment

The case involved a facial challenge by a landlords' association and an individual landlord to a provision in San Francisco's Proposition M, which amended the city's rent-stabilization ordinance to prohibit bad-faith efforts by landlords to coerce tenants into vacating through payment offers accompanied by threats or intimidation. The plaintiffs argued that the provision violated the First Amendment's Free Speech and Petition Clauses and was unconstitutionally vague under the Due Process Clause. The Ninth Circuit held that the plaintiffs lacked standing because they failed to allege a concrete intention to engage in conduct arguably proscribed by the law or a credible threat of enforcement by the City. Accordingly, the court vacated the district court's judgment on the merits and remanded with instructions to dismiss the complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.

free speechpropertybusiness & regulatory

The case involved Au-Tomotive Gold selling marquee license plates featuring genuine Volkswagen badges purchased from dealers, which Volkswagen claimed infringed its trademarks under the Lanham Act. The court had previously ruled that Auto Gold's products created a likelihood of consumer confusion regarding their source and remanded for consideration of the first sale defense. On remand, the district court granted summary judgment and a permanent injunction to Volkswagen. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding that the first sale doctrine does not apply because the plates still created a likelihood of confusion about their origin.

business & regulatory

This case involved six Mexican nationals charged with illegal entry under 8 U.S.C. § 1325, who appeared before a magistrate judge in Arizona as part of Operation Streamline's mass plea proceedings handling dozens of defendants at once. The Ninth Circuit held that the en masse advisements and group responses violated Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11, which requires the court to address each defendant personally to confirm understanding of rights, the charges, and the voluntariness of the plea. The court applied plain error review because defense counsel had not properly preserved objections and found no structural error, but concluded that the defendants failed to show a reasonable probability that they would not have pleaded guilty absent the Rule 11 errors. As a result, the convictions were affirmed for five defendants, while the judgment against Martinez was reversed on separate grounds.

immigrationcriminal lawprocedure

The case involved the City of Oakland suing ten internet travel companies for allegedly failing to remit the full amount of transient occupancy taxes on hotel rooms sold to consumers at retail prices higher than the wholesale rates paid to hotels. The companies had collected taxes based on the full retail price but remitted only on the wholesale portion, retaining the difference. The district court dismissed the suit with prejudice for lack of subject matter jurisdiction due to the city's failure to first assess the taxes through the ordinance's administrative process. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the need for exhaustion under California law, holding that no tax liability could be enforced without a prior assessment, but reversed the with-prejudice dismissal as the defect was curable, ordering dismissal without prejudice. The court reasoned that the city's tort and contract claims were all dependent on establishing tax liability through the required administrative steps.

taxesbusiness & regulatoryprocedure