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DOE v. TAPANG (2021)

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.2021-01-27No. No. 20-15361

Summary

Holding. The appellate court affirmed the district court's dismissal of claims under Rule 12(b)(6), the denial of the temporary restraining order, the dismissal with prejudice as a discovery sanction, and the award of attorney's fees.

Jane Doe and John Doe appealed the dismissal of several claims, denial of a temporary restraining order request, dismissal of the entire case as a discovery sanction, and an award of attorney's fees. The appellate court reviewed each issue separately. For the Rule 12(b)(6) dismissals, the court found that the plaintiffs had not provided sufficient factual allegations to suggest that the defendants' conduct in the United States had directly caused deaths in Cameroon. The court declined to review four additional claims because the plaintiffs failed to submit key parts of the case record. Regarding the temporary restraining order denial, the court lacked authority to review it because such orders can only be appealed under specific circumstances not present here. As for the discovery sanction dismissal and fee award, the court examined whether the district judge had abused its discretion and concluded that the judge made appropriate findings and committed no error.

Summary generated by law.co from the public-domain opinion. The opinion text itself is public domain.

Key issues

  • Whether plaintiffs alleged sufficient facts to establish proximate causation between defendants' domestic conduct and deaths occurring abroad
  • Whether appellate review is available for denial of a temporary restraining order
  • Whether dismissal as a discovery sanction constituted an abuse of discretion
  • Whether the award of attorney's fees under 28 U.S.C. § 1927 was an abuse of discretion

Procedural posture

Plaintiffs appealed from multiple adverse rulings in the district court, including claim dismissals, denial of interlocutory relief, case dismissal as a sanction, and a fee award.

Authorities cited

No cited authorities resolved to law.co cases yet.

Opinion

MEMORANDUM **

Jane Doe and John Doe appeal from the dismissal of six of their claims under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), the denial of their second motion for a temporary restraining order, the dismissal of the case with prejudice as a discovery sanction, and the award of fees under 28 U.S.C. § 1927. Except as noted below, we have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1).

1

We affirm.

The district courts dismissal for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6) is reviewed de novo. OBrien v. Welty, 818 F.3d 920, 929 (9th Cir. 2016). “[Accepting] all factual allegations in the complaint as true and constru[ing] the pleadings in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party,” Rowe v. Educ. Credit Mgmt. Corp., 559 F.3d 1028, 1029–30 (9th Cir. 2009), plaintiffs failed to allege sufficient facts in support of their first and fourth claims to give rise to a plausible inference that defendants stateside conduct proximately caused the deaths of plaintiffs’ relatives in Cameroon, see Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009). With regards to the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth claims, we decline to address plaintiffs’ challenges to the order of dismissal because they did not file large portions of the record necessary for us to decide the issues raised.

We lack jurisdiction to review the denial of a temporary restraining order because the denial was not tantamount to the denial of a preliminary injunction. Religious Tech. Ctr., Church of Scientology Intl, Inc. v. Scott, 869 F.2d 1306, 1308 (9th Cir. 1989) (recognizing that an appeal does not lie from the denial of an application for a temporary restraining order unless the denial followed a full adversary hearing and effectively foreclosed the pursuit of further interlocutory relief).

Although dismissal as a discovery sanction is a harsh penalty, we review a district courts dismissal under Rule 41(b) for abuse of discretion and will overturn the decision “only if we have a definite and firm conviction that [dismissal] was clearly outside the acceptable range of sanctions.” Dreith v. Nu Image, Inc., 648 F.3d 779, 788 (9th Cir. 2011) (internal quotation marks omitted). We also review a district courts decision regarding an award of attorneys fees under 28 U.S.C. § 1927 for abuse of discretion. Braunstein v. Ariz. Dept of Transp., 683 F.3d 1177, 1184 (9th Cir. 2012). The district court made all necessary findings related to the dismissal and fee award, and plaintiffs have not shown an error, much less an abuse of discretion.

AFFIRMED.

FOOTNOTES

1

.   As a preliminary matter, defendant asserts that the Ninth Circuit lacks jurisdiction to hear an appeal of an unidentified “Doe” litigant. The only case cited for this proposition is Torres v. Oakland Scavenger Co., 487 U.S. 312, 108 S.Ct. 2405, 101 L.Ed.2d 285 (1988), in which only 15 of the 16 intervenors in the district court proceeding were identified as appellants in the notice of appeal. The Supreme Court held that the omission of Torres’ name from the notice was not merely “an excusable ‘informality’; it constitutes a failure of that party to appeal.” Id. at 314, 108 S.Ct. 2405. The circumstances presented here are materially different. In this case, as in many others, the Doe plaintiffs were identified as such in the district court records and were named as the parties taking the appeal. Defendant offers no authority for the proposition that the use of a pseudonym invalidates an appeal or deprives the appellate court of jurisdiction.