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Welcome to Left Coast Appeals

At Left Coast Appeals, we provide insights into all things Ninth Circuit. Check out our Ninth Circuit Statistics page, which offers an empirical window into the Court’s workings. At our En Banc Tracker, we monitor the Court’s busy en banc proceedings. And at This Week at the Ninth, we highlight key recent decisions.

Follow us on Twitter @LeftCoastAppeal. And check out our sister blog Federal Circuitry, which takes a data-driven look at the Federal Circuit.

February 12, 2021 - This Week at the Ninth
This Week at the Ninth: Per Diems and Wages
By: James R. Sigel
This week, we take a look at the Court’s decision attempting to navigate the fine line between employer payments that reimburse employees for expenses—and thus need not be considered in calculating the employees’ overtime wage rate—and payments that in fact compensate employees for hours
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February 05, 2021 - This Week at the Ninth
This Week at the Ninth: Floral Prints and Janitors
By: James R. Sigel and Adam L. Sorensen
This week, we take a look at one Ninth Circuit decision addressing how to assess damages among multiple copyright infringers, and another examining the implications of changes in California law governing the distinction between independent contractors and employees. DESIRE, LLC v. MANNA TEXTILES, INC.
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January 29, 2021 - This Week at the Ninth
This Week at the Ninth: The FTC (Always) Wins
By: James R. Sigel
This week, a divided Ninth Circuit panel holds (with some apparent reluctance) that constitutional challenges to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) cannot be brought directly in federal court, but must instead wend their way through the FTC’s review process. AXON ENTERPRISE v. FTC The Court
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January 25, 2021 - Ninth Circuit Insights
MoFo Perspectives Podcast: New Solicitor General, New Positions?
By: Deanne E. Maynard and Joseph R. Palmore
In this latest MoFo Perspectives podcast, MoFo appellate co-chairs Deanne Maynard and Joe Palmore speak on why the Biden Administration might change the government’s positions before the Supreme Court—and why it might not. This could matter to Ninth Circuit practitioners, as the government often
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January 22, 2021 - This Week at the Ninth
This Week in the Ninth: Rest Breaks and Workweeks
By: James R. Sigel
This week, we take a look at two Ninth Circuit decisions considering agencies’ interpretations of the federal laws governing the employment relationship. In the first, the Court deferred to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s decision to preempt California’s requirements for commercial drivers’ meal
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January 15, 2021 - This Week at the Ninth
This Week at the Ninth: Habeas and Hair Loss
By: Adam L. Sorensen
This week, the Ninth Circuit declines to extend a recent Supreme Court decision on retaliatory arrest to the immigration bond revocation context, and resolves a particularly hairy preemption question about state-law challenges to dietary supplement labeling. JOSE BELLO-REYES v. PETER GAYNOR The Court holds
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January 08, 2021 - This Week at the Ninth
This Week at the Ninth: Harassment and Acquiescence
By: James R. Sigel
The Ninth Circuit waited until the sixth day of 2021 to issue its first published opinion of the year, and it still has yet to release the sort of business-related civil decision that we here at Left Coast Appeals would ordinarily highlight. But the
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December 31, 2020 - This Week at the Ninth
This Week at The Ninth: Dr. Seuss and Constitutional Cures
By: James R. Sigel
As one might expect, the past two weeks in the Ninth Circuit have been relatively quiet (though emergency litigation concerning California’s shelter-in-place order has kept some panels very busy ). But as always, the Court kept churning out opinions in cases of interest. Here,
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December 17, 2020 - This Week at the Ninth
This Week at the Ninth: Secrets and Specialties
By: James R. Sigel and Adam L. Sorensen
This week, the Ninth Circuit resolves a novel question about continuing violations under the Defend Trade Secrets Act, and invalidates an agency’s conclusion that computer programmers are not entitled to “specialty occupation” visas. ELI ATTIA v. GOOGLE LLC As a matter of first impression,
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December 10, 2020 - This Week at the Ninth
This Week at the Ninth: Trans Fat and Stolen Emails
By: James R. Sigel and Adam L. Sorensen
This week, we take a look at one Ninth Circuit decision addressing the difficult Article III issues that arise in certain types of consumer class actions, and another in which the Ninth Circuit examined the application of the Stored Communications Act to emails backed
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