Left Coast Appeals

August 20, 2020 - This Week at the Ninth
This Week at The Ninth: Employees, Independent Contractors, and ERISA
By: James R. Sigel
This week, this Ninth Circuit once again issued a number of opinions arising from the employment relationship. Here, we focus on two of particular interest. In the first, the Court sought to unravel whether an emergency room physician was an employee of the hospital
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August 13, 2020 - This Week at the Ninth
This Week at the Ninth: Sports, Drugs, and Pensions
By: James R. Sigel
This week, we take a look at two Ninth Circuit decisions concerning the employer-employee relationship. In the first, the Court let the lawsuit against the NFL for its negligent handling of drug distribution to its injured players live to see another day. In the
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August 06, 2020 - This Week at the Ninth
This Week at The Ninth: Appeals Dropping Like Flies
This week, the Ninth Circuit closely guarded its own jurisdiction while putting government litigants on the back foot. Read on to find out why county jailors’ qualified immunity appeal was dismissed, and how the Court handled a district court’s never-before-seen-in-the-Ninth Circuit order denying the
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July 30, 2020 - This Week at the Ninth
This Week at The Ninth: CAFA and Dog Food Deception
By: James R. Sigel
This week, the Ninth Circuit decided cases involving Ashley Judd’s lawsuit against Harvey Weinstein , allegedly deceptive prescription pet food, and the interaction between the Class Action Fairness Act and the Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act. Naturally, here at Left Coast Appeals, we focus on the
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July 23, 2020 - This Week at the Ninth
This Week at The Ninth: Settlement Classes and State Action
By: James R. Sigel
This week, we highlight two decisions revisiting (largely) settled principles of civil procedure and constitutional law. In the first, the Court reaffirmed its recent decision holding that a district court generally need not conduct a choice-of-law analysis before certifying a class for settlement. In
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July 16, 2020 - This Week at the Ninth
This Week at The Ninth: Nationwide Injunctions and CAFA
This week, the Ninth Circuit weighs in on the hot topic of nationwide injunctions and resolves a novel jurisdictional question in a case involving two staples of American life: Harley-Davidson motorcycles and class-action lawsuits. CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO v. BARR The Ninth
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July 09, 2020 - This Week at the Ninth
This Week at The Ninth: Railroad Discrimination and Remand Review
By: James R. Sigel
This week at This Week, we highlight the Ninth Circuit’s decision holding that an Oregon tax unlawfully discriminated against railroads, along with the Court’s opinion examining the strict limits on the appellate jurisdiction over orders remanding to state courts (and further cementing a circuit
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July 02, 2020 - This Week at the Ninth
This Week at The Ninth: The FDCPA and Trade Dress
By: James R. Sigel
The big news at the Ninth Circuit this week was the Court’s pair of decisions holding that the federal government could not use Department of Defense funds to construct the border wall. Here at This Week, we focus on two other decisions that may
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June 25, 2020 - This Week at the Ninth
This Week at The Ninth: IMDB, Article III, and the Mailbox Rule
By: James R. Sigel and Seth W. Lloyd
This week, the first of the decisions on which we focus has garnered the most public attention. That’s little surprise: the Ninth Circuit’s decision striking down a California statute prohibiting the publication of age-related information involves an attention-grabbing trifecta of issues—the First Amendment, a
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June 18, 2020 - This Week at the Ninth
This Week at The Ninth: Erie And Exculpation
By: James R. Sigel
This week, the Ninth Circuit (quite reasonably) relied on the state courts to resolve a number of open legal questions, certifying two questions to state high courts and issuing an en banc opinion based on the Montana Supreme Court’s resolution of a third. Here,
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