The case involves a defendant charged with illegal reentry after deportation under 8 U.S.C. § 1326 who moved to dismiss the indictment, claiming her 1994 deportation violated due process. The defendant argued that the government failed to provide written notice terminating her 1989 parole, should have pursued exclusion rather than deportation proceedings upon her return to custody, and that she qualified for derivative citizenship through her father. The court denied the motion, concluding that collateral estoppel barred relitigation of issues already decided in prior habeas and injunction proceedings, that deportation proceedings were properly resumed, and that no evidence supported the derivative citizenship claim.
The case concerned a challenge by gun owner organizations, individuals, and firearm manufacturers to California's Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act, which took effect in 1990 and restricted the possession, sale, and manufacture of certain firearms under the state penal code. Plaintiffs sought declaratory relief and a preliminary injunction against enforcement by the state Attorney General, primarily arguing that the Act violated the Second Amendment. The court denied the motion for preliminary injunction and granted the defendant's motion to dismiss the Second Amendment claims. Its core reasoning was that, under longstanding Supreme Court precedents such as United States v. Cruikshank and Presser v. Illinois, the Second Amendment restricts only the federal government and has no application to state laws.
The case involved the IRS's efforts to enforce an administrative summons against the Universal Life Church to examine records and determine whether the church qualified for tax-exempt status under federal law. After the church partially complied with the summons but then filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, triggering an automatic stay under 11 U.S.C. § 362, the government sought to hold the church in contempt for halting the examination. The court found the question of whether the bankruptcy stay applied to the IRS's church tax inquiry under 26 U.S.C. § 7611 to be a close one that had not been previously addressed by courts, and concluded that the church's position did not demonstrate the willful disregard needed for a contempt finding. The court therefore declined to impose further sanctions but ordered the church to resume compliance with the summons within ten days.
The case involved a South Dakota wine distributor, Premier, suing its California winery supplier, Gallo, after Gallo terminated their long-standing distributorship agreement with 30 days notice. Premier alleged violations of South Dakota and California franchise laws, breach of fiduciary duty, tortious breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, wrongful termination, and sought declaratory relief that the termination clause was unconscionable. The court granted summary judgment to Gallo on all claims, reasoning that the mutual 30-day termination provision was enforceable and not unconscionable under California law, that Premier was not a franchisee protected by the relevant statutes, and that no fiduciary duty existed between the parties in this commercial relationship.
The case involved Tiffany Heath, who was born in 1980 with severe birth defects, and her parents, who were active-duty U.S. Air Force members treated by Air Force medical personnel during the pregnancy. The plaintiffs sued under the Federal Tort Claims Act, alleging that the negligent prescription of bendectin caused the injuries. The court granted the government's motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. It held that the Feres doctrine bars FTCA claims by service members for injuries incident to service and extends to derivative claims by their children, based on Supreme Court precedent in Feres v. United States and Ninth Circuit precedent in Monaco v. United States.
This case involves allegations by cantaloupe purchasers against sellers who allegedly colluded to fix and raise separate cooling and palletizing charges added to invoices, claimed to violate federal antitrust prohibitions on price-fixing. Certain defendants moved for summary judgment, contending that the charges were inseparable from cantaloupe sales, that any overcharge would necessarily be offset by reductions elsewhere in the price, and that only growers rather than direct purchasers were harmed. The court denied the motion, holding that defendants failed to meet their burden of establishing the absence of triable factual issues on these points and that precedent permits claims based on fixed component charges. The reasoning emphasized that summary judgment movants must exclude genuine disputes of material fact, that direct purchasers have standing under the Sherman Act to seek recovery for alleged overcharges, and that economic assumptions about price offsets or inseparability remained unproven.