Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

AGC sought declaratory and injunctive relief against Caltrans and its officers, on the grounds that Caltrans' 2009 Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program unconstitutionally provided race- and sex-based preferences to certain groups. On appeal, AGC challenged the district court's adverse summary judgment rulings. The district court held that Caltrans' substantial statistical and anecdotal evidence provided a strong basis in evidence of discrimination against the four named groups, and that the program was narrowly tailored to benefit only those groups. The court dismissed AGC's appeal because AGC did not identify any of its members who have suffered or will suffer harm as a result of Caltrans' program, and therefore AGC had not established that it had associational standing to bring suit. View "Assoc. Gen. Contractors v. Cal. Dept. of Transp." on Justia Law

Appellees are the named plaintiffs representing a certified class of non-citizens who challenged their prolonged detention, pursuant to certain federal immigration statutes, without individualized bond hearings and determinations to justify their continued detention. The district court entered a preliminary injunction requiring the government to identify all class members detained pursuant to 8 U.S.C. 1226(c) and 1225(b), and to provide each of them with a bond hearing before an IJ with power to grant their release. The government appealed. The court held that appellees were likely to succeed on the merits; appellees have clearly shown a risk of irreparable harm; in light of the major hardship posed by needless prolonged detention, the court concluded that the balance of the equities favored appellees; and the public interest also benefitted from a preliminary injunction that ensured federal statues were construed and implemented in a manner that avoided serious constitutional questions. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Rodriguez v. Robbins" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs appealed from the district court's summary judgment in favor of defendants in an action alleging wrongful foreclosure and related claims that defendants had removed to federal court. Plaintiffs argued that under the "prior exclusive jurisdiction" doctrine, or under the Colorado River abstention doctrine, the district court should have remanded sua sponte. The court affirmed the district court's remand under the prior exclusive jurisdiction doctrine, explaining that the state court had continuing jurisdiction over the water-rights decree that was the basis of the contempt action at issue, and the action before the district court arose from enforcement of the same water-rights decree. Because plaintiffs have not shown that any state proceeding relating to their house was pending concurrently with federal proceedings, the Colorado River abstention was not implicated any more than the prior exclusive jurisdiction doctrine. View "Sexton v. NDEX West, LLC" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed the district court's grant of KPMG's motion to intervene, and modifying a protective order so that a deposition transcript would be held in escrow rather than destroyed. This case stemmed from plaintiff's suit against Merrill Lynch and Thomas Mazzucco for their advice in connection with an initial public offering of Buy.com (the "federal action"). Plaintiff then sued KPMG (the "state action"), claiming that but for KPMG's advice he would have sold all his shares in Buy.com in 1998 for $400 million. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding KPMG's motion to intervene timely; in granting the motion to intervene where plaintiff failed to establish that KPMG's intervention to modify the protective order with regard to one document would result in prejudice; and in modifying the protective order to hold the transcript in escrow. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Blum v. Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner & Smith" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a Nicaraguan citizen, sought review of two decisions by the BIA: (1) a decision reversing an IJ's grant of withholding of removal pursuant to the Convention Against Torture (CAT), and (2) a decision affirming the IJ's finding that petitioner's conviction for lewd and lascivious acts with a child under the age of 14, in violation of California Penal Code 288(a), was a particularly serious crime, rendering him statutorily ineligible for withholding of removal. As a preliminary matter, the court concluded that petitioner's appeal from the denial of withholding of removal presented a live case or controversy. The court granted the petition for review of the BIA's determination that petitioner committed a particularly serious crime and remanded with instructions that the agency engage in a case-specific analysis in accordance with Matter of Frentescu to determine whether his conviction was a particularly serious crime. The court denied the petition for review of the BIA's denial of petitioner's claim for relief under the CAT because substantial evidence supported the BIA's finding that petitioner failed to establish a clear probability of torture. All pending motions in this case were denied. View "Blandino-Medina v. Holder, Jr." on Justia Law

Petitioner, a native and citizen of Mexico, petitioned for review of the BIA's decision finding him ineligible for cancellation of removal for failure to demonstrate good moral character. Petitioner challenged the constitutionality of 8 U.S.C. 1101(f)(7) on the ground that it violated the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause. Petitioner argued that section 1101(f)(7) presumed an individual to lack good moral character based solely on the length of time served in prison, rather than on the nature of the underlying criminal conduct. Given the wide variation in sentences imposed by different States for the same conduct, petitioner argued that section 1101(f)(7) allowed disparate treatment of similarly situated individuals. The court rejected petitioner's challenge, concluding that there were plausible reasons for Congress' action. Congress could rationally conclude that the expense and other difficulties of individual determinations justified the inherent imprecision of a prophylactic rule. The court also rejected petitioner's contention that section 1101(f)(7) violated equal protection principles because it relied on the period of incarceration generated by state sentencing regimes that were not uniform in operation. Accordingly, the court denied the petition. View "Romero-Ochoa v. Holder Jr." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a 42 U.S.C. 1983 action against defendants alleging that he was unlawfully arrested and searched in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Plaintiff was arrested for trespass under California Penal Code 602.8 because he was standing by himself inside a playground that was surrounded by a fence that had "No Trespassing" signs posted at every entrance. The court rejected defendants' argument that the grounds for custodial arrest specified in California Penal Code 853.6(i) applied not only to misdemeanors but also to infractions. Consistent with precedent, the statute's plain language, the rule against superfluity, and other persuasive authority, the court held that California Penal Code 853.5 provided the exclusive grounds for custodial arrest of a person arrested for an infraction. Therefore, the court vacated the judgment in favor of defendants on plaintiff's state law false arrest claim and remanded for further proceedings. If there are no further issues pertaining to liability on this claim, the district court should enter judgment in favor of plaintiff and proceed to a trial on damages. The court rejected plaintiff's remaining contentions. View "Edgerly v. City and County of San Francisco, et al" on Justia Law

ANI, a risk retention group, filed suit seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against the Commissioner and the Division of Insurance under 42 U.S.C. 1983. ANI claimed that an order of the Commissioner violated the Liability Risk Retention Act (LRRA), 15 U.S.C. 3902(a)(1). The court held that the Commissioner's Order, which barred ANI from writing first dollar liability insurance policies in Nevada, was preempted by the LRRA. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's entry of declaratory and injunctive relief in favor of ANI. However, the LRRA did not confer a right to be free from state law that could be enforced under 42 U.S.C. 1983, making fees under 42 U.S.C. 1988 unavailable. Thus, the court vacated the fee award. Finally, the court remanded so that the district court could enter a new summary judgment order consistent with this opinion. View "Alliance of Nonprofits for Ins. v. Kipper, et al" on Justia Law

Defendant, a prison inmate, filed suit challenging his validation as an "associate" of the Mexican Mafia, a recognized prison gang. The court held that defendant's void-for-vagueness challenge of Cal. Code Regs. tit. 15, 3378(c)(4), an administrative regulation that guides officials in validating inmates as gang affiliates, failed because section 3378(c)(4) clearly indicated to defendant that his conduct could result in validation. Although the district court should have evaluated whether defendant was validated based on "some evidence," remand was not required to correct the error. The evidence in the record showed that prison officials relied on "some evidence" to validate defendant as an associate of the Mexican Mafia gang. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Castro v. Terhune, et al" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs brought suit on behalf of a class of individuals from China who were seeking to acquire permanent resident status in the employment-based third preference category (EB-3). Plaintiffs alleged that during the 2008-2009 fiscal years, defendants did not allocate immigrant visas to eligible applicants in the correct order, thereby delaying their applications, and their eligibility for adjustment of status. The court held that the district court properly dismissed the complaint because there was no live case or controversy about the establishment of visa cut-off dates, and the allocation of visa numbers, in the 2008 and 2009 fiscal years. The district court did not err in dismissing plaintiffs' claims for prospective relief because they did not allege that defendants failed to take discrete actions they were legally required to take. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Li, et al. v. Kerry, et al." on Justia Law