In Wilson v. Hewlett-Packard Co., plaintiffs sued HP on behalf of themselves and a putative class, alleging that HP concealed a design defect in its Pavilion Notebook computers that caused power jack failures, rendering the laptops unusable after the warranty expired and violating California's Consumers Legal Remedies Act and Unfair Competition Law. The district court dismissed the second amended complaint for failure to plausibly allege either an unreasonable safety hazard or HP's knowledge of the defect at the time of sale. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, reasoning that the complaint did not sufficiently plead an unreasonable safety defect and that undated or post-sale customer complaints failed to support an inference of HP's pre-sale knowledge.
In this case, Luis Gonzalez appealed the district court's denial of his motion to quash subpoenas directed at his wife's former trial counsel in her 28 U.S.C. § 2255 habeas proceeding alleging ineffective assistance for not calling him as a witness. Gonzalez and his wife had been separately convicted of insurance fraud after their trials were severed, and Gonzalez sought to protect communications under a claimed joint defense agreement or privilege. The district court held that any such privilege must yield to the government's discovery needs in litigating the habeas claim. The Ninth Circuit reversed, concluding that the joint defense privilege could not be unilaterally waived by one codefendant's habeas filing and that a Bittaker-style balancing test does not apply to an unwilling third party like Gonzalez. The court remanded for an in camera hearing to determine whether and when any joint defense arrangement ended.
The case involved Frank Wright, a property owner within the Incline Village General Improvement District but outside its 1968 boundaries, who was denied access to district-owned beaches under Ordinance 7 and Policy 136, which restrict use to those within the original boundaries per a restrictive covenant in the deed. Wright sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming violations of his First Amendment rights to free speech and assembly and his Fourteenth Amendment equal protection rights. The district court granted summary judgment to IVGID, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding that the beaches are not a traditional public forum and that the access restrictions do not infringe Wright's constitutional rights. The court reasoned that the policy is content-neutral, justified by the restrictive covenant and the fact that only 1968 property owners funded the beaches, and survives rational basis review as it serves legitimate government interests without targeting a suspect class or fundamental right.
In United States v. Maddox, the government appealed the district court's order suppressing evidence of methamphetamine and a handgun found inside closed containers in a vehicle after the driver was arrested for reckless driving and driving with a suspended license. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the suppression, concluding that the warrantless search was not a valid search incident to arrest. The court reasoned that once the defendant was handcuffed and secured in the patrol car, he posed no threat to officer safety and there was no risk of evidence destruction, and neither probable cause nor exigent circumstances supported searching the vehicle or its contents. The opinion distinguishes the facts from prior precedent allowing such searches when the arrestee remains unsecured.
The case involved a former police officer, Oscar Brownfield, who sued the City of Yakima after being placed on administrative leave and ultimately terminated following a fitness-for-duty examination that found him unfit due to psychological issues. Brownfield alleged violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act from the required exam, retaliation under the First Amendment for internal complaints about a coworker's performance and use of overtime, and violations of the Family and Medical Leave Act related to return-to-work certifications. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the City. The court reasoned that the fitness exam was justified by Brownfield's repeated displays of emotional volatility on the job, that his complaints concerned personal workplace disputes rather than matters of public concern, and that the FMLA claims lacked merit because no proper medical clearance for psychological fitness had been provided.
This case involved five nonprofit hospitals challenging the methodology used by the Secretary of Health and Human Services to calculate base-year per resident amounts for Medicare direct graduate medical education payments under a 1989 regulation, specifically the Sequential Geographic Methodology applied when there were fewer than three comparable hospitals in a geographic wage area. The district court invalidated the methodology as arbitrary and capricious but upheld the 1989 regulation itself. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit held that the Provider Reimbursement Review Board lacked authority to grant expedited judicial review, depriving the district court of subject matter jurisdiction over the methodology challenge. The court therefore vacated the invalidation of the methodology and remanded the issue to the agency for initial determination, while affirming the validity of the 1989 regulation on both substantive and procedural grounds.
