AI-measured from their own opinions — each lever cites its cases
PurposivismTextualism
In [4], applies plain language of 18 U.S.C. § 2251(d)(1)(A) to cover advertising child pornography without production, evidencing textualist method. United States v. Williams ↗
Deference to government powerSkepticism of government power
In [1], grants asylum relief by recognizing retaliation risk from criminal shielded by corrupt officials, showing skepticism toward government power. Antonyan v. Holder ↗
Sidney Runyan Thomas
Judge, Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit · Born 1953 · Bozeman, MT
The case concerns appeals filed by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the U.S. House of Representatives from a district court ruling in favor of plaintiff Karen Golinski in a dispute over federal employee benefits. The Ninth Circuit addressed a petition for initial hearing of the consolidated appeals by the full court en banc. After the petition was circulated to the active judges pursuant to General Order 5.2, no judge requested a vote within the required time. The court therefore denied the petition for en banc review. The prior April 11, 2012 order remains in effect, and the appeals were ordered calendared for argument before a three-judge panel in September 2012.
Vanessa Simmonds filed multiple Section 16(b) lawsuits against investment banks and underwriters, alleging they engaged in short-swing trading profits in connection with various IPOs and seeking disgorgement on behalf of the issuer corporations. On remand from the Supreme Court’s decision in Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC v. Simmonds, 132 S. Ct. 1414 (2012), the Ninth Circuit addressed two groups of cases. For the “Non-Moving Issuer” cases, it remanded them to the district court for further proceedings consistent with the Supreme Court’s opinion. For the “Moving Issuer” cases, it ordered dismissal with prejudice because Simmonds had not satisfied Delaware’s requirement that a shareholder make a pre-suit demand on the corporation’s board before bringing a derivative action. The order thus distinguished the cases based on whether the issuers had moved to dismiss on demand grounds and applied that procedural rule to bar the latter set of claims.
The case concerned whether John Williams could be convicted under 18 U.S.C. § 2251(d)(1)(A) for advertising the distribution of child pornography when he had not personally produced the images. Williams, who used peer-to-peer software to share thousands of explicit images of minors and was found with related materials during a search, moved to dismiss the advertising charge on the ground that the statute requires the advertiser to have produced the material. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of the motion and upheld his conditional guilty plea. The court held that the statute’s plain language contains no personal-production requirement, as confirmed by its structure, the use of disjunctive subsections, and legislative history aimed at prohibiting advertisements for child pornography regardless of who created the images.
The case involved parens patriae antitrust lawsuits filed in state courts by the Attorneys General of Washington and California (along with various local governments and school districts) against manufacturers of thin-film transistor liquid crystal display panels. The complaints alleged an international price-fixing conspiracy from 1998 to 2006 that violated state laws and injured state agencies and consumers through higher prices for products containing the panels; the states sought declaratory relief, civil penalties, restitution, and damages on behalf of residents. The defendants removed the actions to federal court under the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, arguing that the suits were disguised class actions because consumers were the real parties in interest for the monetary claims. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's remand orders, holding that the suits were not class actions within the meaning of CAFA. Under the plain text of 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d), parens patriae actions brought by state attorneys general do not satisfy the central requirements of class actions.
This case involves multiple class-action lawsuits by homeowners against major homebuilders and affiliated mortgage companies, alleging that defendants' lending and sales practices caused plaintiffs' homes to lose economic value and desirability, supporting claims for overpayment and rescission. The Ninth Circuit held that the district court erred in dismissing the overpayment and rescission claims for lack of Article III standing and that the alleged injuries to home value and desirability were legally cognizable. However, the court agreed that plaintiffs had not yet shown a sufficient causal link between defendants' specific actions and the claimed harms, as opposed to broader market conditions. It reasoned that standing requires a concrete injury fairly traceable to the defendants, and expert evidence could potentially establish that connection. The court therefore reversed the dismissals and remanded to allow plaintiffs to amend their complaints with such evidence.
In Reina-Rodriguez v. United States, Hector Reina-Rodriguez appealed the denial of his 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion challenging a 16-level sentencing enhancement for his federal illegal re-entry conviction, which had been based on a prior Utah conviction for burglary of a dwelling treated as a “crime of violence” under U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2. The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court, holding that its decision in United States v. Grisel applies retroactively as a non-constitutional substantive ruling and that the Utah conviction does not categorically qualify as burglary of a dwelling. The court reasoned that Utah’s broader statutory definition of “dwelling” does not match the generic federal definition, that the district court erred by relying on public property records outside the record of conviction, and that only limited Shepard-approved documents could be considered under the modified categorical approach. The case was remanded for resentencing on an open record.
