Case ID: f-appx_587/html/0428-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Keith CHUNG, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF LOS ANGELES; et al., Defendants, and Brand Security Corporation; Heather Holdridge; Intellectual Property Enforcement Company; and Carlos Fernandez, Defendants-Appellees.
    No. 12-56702.
    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
    
      Submitted Dec. 10, 2014.
    
    Filed Dec. 12, 2014.
    Nicholas Tepper, I, Esquire, Supervisory, Tepper Law Firm, APC, Los Angeles, CA, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
    Michael Claessens, License Advocates Law Group Lip, Pasadena, CA, Cory Michael Brente, Supervising Assistant City Office of the City Attorney, Rockard J. Delgadillo, Esquire, Elizabeth T. Fitzgerald, Esquire, Deputy City Timothy Rex Saito, Esquire, Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office, Los Angeles, CA, for Defendants.
    Brent Herbert Blakely, Esquire, Blakely Law Group, Hollywood, CA, William E. Pallares, Esquire, Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP, Jennifer Corrine Kalves-tran, Esquire, Kenneth G. Katel, Esquire, Musick Peeler & Garrett, LLP, Los Ange-les, CA, for Defendants-Appellees.
    Before: GRABER, GOULD, and CALLAHAN, Circuit Judges.
    
      
       The panel unanimously concludes that this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. Fed. R.App. P. 34(a)(2).
    
   MEMORANDUM

Plaintiff Keith Chung appeals from the district court’s grant of judgment as a matter of law to Defendants Brand Security Corporation, Heather Holdridge, Intellectual Property Enforcement Company, and Carlos Fernandez following a remand. Chung v. City of Los Angeles, 406 Fed.Appx. 207 (9th Cir.2010) (unpublished). Reviewing de novo, Hagen v. City of Eugene, 736 F.3d 1251, 1256 (9th Cir.2013), we affirm.

1. The district court properly granted judgment as a matter of law on the negligence claim. Defendant Fernandez was the sole expert witness to testify as to the requisite professional standard of care. Plaintiff presented no evidence that Defendants failed to apply that level of care. See Chung, 406 Fed.Appx. at 209 (remanding because Plaintiff raised a triable issue of fact “concerning whether the private defendants acted with” the “care expected of professional counterfeit investigators”). Because no reasonable juror could find for Plaintiff on the issue of breach, Plaintiffs claim fails. Hernandez v. KWPH Enters., 116 Cal.App.4th 170, 10 Cal.Rptr.3d 137, 141 (2004).

2. The district court properly granted judgment as a matter of law on the conversion claim. In the initial appeal, we held that Plaintiff could not prevail with respect to items “that had actually come from [Plaintiff’s] store,” but we remanded because a “juror could conclude that [some Defendants] replaced the seized merchandise with other counterfeit goods.” Chung, 406 Fed.Appx. at 211. On remand, Plaintiff expressly disavowed what the parties refer to as the “switch out” theory. Because Plaintiff no longer asserts that the goods were “switched out,” the conversion claim necessarily fails. See, e.g., United States v. Van Alstyne, 584 F.3d 803, 813 (9th Cir.2009) (“The law of the case doctrine provides that one panel of an appellate court will not as a general rule reconsider questions which another panel has decided on a prior appeal in the same case.” (internal quotation marks omitted)).

AFFIRMED. 
      
       This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.