9th Circuit Court

GM seeks court ruling it is protected from ignition-switch suits under bankruptcy law

Amidst a recall of at least 2.6 million vehicles over ignition-switch issues and a growing number of would-be class actions claiming that company officials knew of defects for years, General Motors is seeking a freeze on the litigation and a court ruling that it is protected from liability by bankruptcy…

Apr 16, 2014 6:15 PM CDT

9th Circuit affirms lawyer’s conviction for attempting to extort rabbi by threat of court testimony

A suspended California lawyer serving a federal three-year sentence for attempted extortion and trying to obstruct a grand jury investigation has lost his bid to overturn his conviction. Although a federal appeals court agreed with Alfred Nash Villalobos that a jury instruction concerning what threats are “wrongful” had been improper,…

Apr 15, 2014 2:55 PM CDT

Attendees’ smartphones cause courtroom chaos at latest Apple-Samsung patent trial

It isn’t just smartphone technology that’s at issue in a high-profile Silicon Valley trial in which two leading manufacturers of the devices are battling over patent rights. Attendees at the much-watched San Jose, Calif., trial between Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. are trying the patience of U.S. District Judge…

Apr 9, 2014 3:45 PM CDT

Utility company is criminally charged in fatal pipeline explosion fire that leveled a neighborhood

A utility company was federally indicted Tuesday on 12 criminal counts related to a fatal 2010 fire caused by a pipeline explosion that leveled much of a California neighborhood. The indictment (PDF provided by Courthouse News) says Pacific Gas & Electric repeatedly violated maintenance and record-keeping requirements of the Natural…

Apr 2, 2014 6:45 PM CDT

Newlywed gets 30 years for pushing her husband off of cliff in national park

A Montana woman convicted of murder for pushing her husband of barely more than a week off of a cliff in Glacier National Park last summer was sentenced Thursday to 30 years and five months in federal prison. The prosecution had sought a sentence of 50 years to life for…

Mar 27, 2014 8:20 PM CDT

Federal judge awards $802K in attorney fees and costs in case over jail mail

A federal judge’s ruling last year that an Oregon county had violated the First Amendment by restricting jail mail to postcards resulted in a $15,000 payment to the plaintiff, Prison Legal News. But the payment by Columbia County to the Human Rights Defense Center monthly magazine is dwarfed by a…

Mar 26, 2014 5:10 PM CDT

Federal judge blasts ATF for ‘outrageous’ fake stash-house stings, axes case over ‘made-up crime’

Calling a federal agency’s practice of conducting sting operations concerning nonexistent drug stash houses “outrageous” and ineffective in combating real crime, a federal judge in Los Angeles this month dismissed one such case and blasted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives over its tactics. “Society does not win…

Mar 21, 2014 3:05 PM CDT

En banc 9th Circuit OKs DNA testing of arrestees, retention of results from those not convicted

An en banc panel of a federal appeals court gave short shrift Thursday to an argument from the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California that a state DNA database should not include test results from felony arrestees who were never convicted. In a four-paragraph unsigned order an 11-judge panel…

Mar 21, 2014 1:50 PM CDT

Federal judge sentences former PI attorney to 63 months for embezzling $1M from clients

A former Oregon personal injury attorney was sentenced Monday in Eugene to 63 months in federal prison for embezzling over $1 million from his clients. Additionally, Bryan Gruetter, 55, must pay $1.14 million in restitution for the client thefts that occurred between 2008 and 2012. He used the stolen money…

Mar 18, 2014 8:10 PM CDT

9th Circuit says habeas case will continue despite petitioner’s death

The apparent suicide of a habeas corpus petitioner four days after an en banc federal appeals court ruling revived part of his claim for relief won’t put a halt to the case. In a brief Tuesday ruling (PDF), the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied a motion…

Mar 12, 2014 5:15 PM CDT

9th Circuit tells Google to take down YouTube clip, calls threats to plaintiff irreparable harm

A woman who says a video clip was used without her permission on an anti-Muslim movie trailer posted on YouTube has won a federal appeals court OK of an injunction requiring Google Inc. to take down the “Innocence of Muslims.” Google unsuccessfully argued that being required to take down the…

Feb 26, 2014 5:55 PM CST

9th Circuit agrees with 7th Circuit: Individuals have right to carry firearms in public

As a decision looms in a much-watched U.S. Supreme Court case over the right of Americans to carry firearms in public for self-defense, a federal appeals court in California has added its weight to an existing circuit split on the issue. In a Thursday decision, a divided panel of the…

Feb 13, 2014 10:31 PM CST

9th Circuit tosses part of lawsuit against CNN demanding closed-captioning on its Web videos

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave CNN a partial victory in a suit demanding it provide closed-captioning on all videos posted on its website, but then stayed the case so the California Supreme Court can decide whether the California Disabled Persons Act requiring equal access to…

Feb 6, 2014 10:24 PM CST

Job hunter who claimed Spokeo published wrong information may sue, 9th Circuit says

An unemployed job hunter who claims data aggregator Spokeo published mistaken information about him may proceed with his lawsuit claiming violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, a federal appeals court has ruled. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said plaintiff Thomas Robins of Virginia did not…

Feb 5, 2014 6:33 PM CST

Judge sanctions Samsung and counsel over release of confidential info in big-bucks Apple patent suit

Saying that a major law firm handled proprietary information covered by a confidentiality order in big-bucks patent litigation over smartphone technology as if it were “a trapeze artist flying high without a net,” a federal magistrate judge in California has imposed sanctions on Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and its…

Jan 31, 2014 5:30 PM CST