Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-11-17373/USCOURTS-ca9-11-17373-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 190
Nature of Suit: Other Contract Actions
Cause of Action: 

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

SMITHKLINE BEECHAM

CORPORATION, DBA

GlaxoSmithKline,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

ABBOTT LABORATORIES,

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 11-17357

D.C. No.

4:07-cv-05702-CW

SMITHKLINE BEECHAM

CORPORATION, DBA

GlaxoSmithKline,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

ABBOTT LABORATORIES,

Defendant-Appellee.

No. 11-17373

D.C. No.

4:07-cv-05702-CW

ORDER

Filed June 24, 2014

Before: Mary M. Schroeder, Stephen Reinhardt,

and Marsha S. Berzon, Circuit Judges.

Order;

Dissent by Judge O’Scannlain

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2 SMITHKLINE BEECHAM V. ABBOTT LABORATORIES

SUMMARY*

Equal Protection

The panel filed an order rejecting a sua sponte en banc

call.

In its opinion filed January 21, 2014, the panel reversed

the district court’s judgment in an antitrust case concerning

a licensing agreement and the pricing of HIV medications. 

The panel held that classifications based on sexual orientation

are subject to heightened scrutiny, and that in jury selection,

equal protection prohibits peremptory strikes based on sexual

orientation.

Dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc, Judge

O’Scannlain, joined by Judges Bybee and Bea, wrote that the

panel was wrong in holding that courts are required by United

States v. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. 2675 (2013), to apply

heightened scrutiny to classifications based on sexual

orientation for purposes of equal protection. Judge

O’Scannlain wrote that other circuits have held to the

contrary and that the question whether Windsor subjects

traditional marriage laws and others that may give rise to

distinctions based on sexual orientation to heightened

scrutiny is a question of exceptional importance.

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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SMITHKLINE BEECHAM V. ABBOTT LABORATORIES 3

ORDER

A sua sponte call for a vote on rehearing this case en banc

was made by an active judge of this court. The call failed to

receive a majority of the votes of the nonrecused active

judges. Fed. R.App. P. 35. The sua sponte en banc call is

rejected.

Judges Graber, McKeown, Wardlaw, M. Smith, Watford,

Owens and Friedland were recused.

Judge O’Scannlain’s dissent from denial of rehearing en

banc is filed concurrently with this Order.

O’SCANNLAIN, Circuit Judge, joined byBYBEE and BEA,

Circuit Judges, dissenting from the denial of rehearing en

banc:

This case started out as an antitrust dispute between drug

manufacturers and came to our court in the posture of an

appeal from a simple juror selection ruling during trial. 

Sadly, it has morphed into a constitutional essay about equal

protection and sexual orientation sweeping far beyond mere

administration of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986). 

The opinion’s unprecedented application of heightened

scrutiny to a peremptory strike of a juror who was perceived

to be gay bears significant implications for the same-sex

marriage debate and for other laws that may give rise to

distinctions based on sexual orientation.

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4 SMITHKLINE BEECHAM V. ABBOTT LABORATORIES

Indeed, today’s opinion is the only appellate decision

since United States v. Windsor, 133 S.Ct. 2675 (2013), to

hold that lower courts are “required by Windsor to apply

heightened scrutiny to classifications based on sexual

orientation for purposes of equal protection.” 740 F.3d 471,

484 (9th Cir. 2014). Such holding is wrong, egregiously so. 

Because of the danger that district courts will be misled by

the opinion’s sweeping misinterpretation of Windsor, it is

most unfortunate that we denied rehearing en banc. I

respectfully must dissent from our regrettable decision to do

so.

I

The consequences of this opinion reach far beyond the

treatment of Batson challenges. Consider the mischief it has

already wrought. In the view of many, the application of

heightened scrutiny in this case precludes the survival under

the federal Constitution of long-standing laws treating

marriage as the conjugal union between a man and a woman. 

See, e.g., Order at 4, Latta v. Otter, No. 14-35420 (9th Cir.

May 20, 2014) (Hurwitz, J., concurring) (noting the opinion’s

heightened scrutiny determination and concluding that

“[g]iven that high burden, it is difficult to see how the . . . 

appellants can make a ‘strong showing’ that they will prevail

in their defense of [Idaho’s] measure[.]”). As a result of the

decision, state officials charged with defending such laws in

this court have already abdicated their task, invoking this

case. See Mot. for Leave to Withdraw Brief, Sevcik v.

Sandoval, No. 12-17668 (9th Cir. Feb. 10, 2014) (Nevada

Governor and Attorney General); Resp. to Mot. for Summ. J.

at 13–14, 34, Geiger v. Kitzhaber, No. 6:13-cv-01834 (D. Or.

Mar. 18, 2014) (Oregon Governor and Attorney General). As

a result, this is not just a Batson decision. It is perhaps all but

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SMITHKLINE BEECHAM V. ABBOTT LABORATORIES 5

this court’s last word on the question whether the

Constitution will require States to recognize same-sex

marriages as such—a question the Supreme Court in Windsor

consciously decided not to answer.1

Moreover, as the first opinion among our sister circuits to

apply heightened scrutiny to an equal protection claim in light

of Windsor, it is likely a bellwether—or, perhaps, a

premonitory harbinger. Every circuit court but our own

—and the Second Circuit in Windsor, in a maneuver the

Supreme Court declined to follow—has held to the contrary.

2

Once again we are on the short end of a 10–2 split among our

1 States, of course, remain entirely free to legislate changes to the

definition of marriage to include same-sex unions, and eleven states have

done so, including two within our Circuit. See, e.g., Haw. Rev. Stat.

§§ 572-1–572-1.8 (2013); Wash. Rev. Code § 26.04.020 (2012). 

Interestingly, Oregon advocates of same-sex marriage dropped a planned

ballot measure in light of the Oregon district court decision in Geiger

holding Oregon’s law unconstitutional. See Jeff Mapes, Gay Marriage:

Supreme Court declines to halt same-sex marriages in Oregon, The

Oregonian, June 4, 2014, http://www.oregonlive.com/mapes/index.ssf/

2014/06/gay_marriage_supreme_court_dec.html (last visited June 11,

2014).

2

See Massachusetts v. Dep’t of Health and Human Servs., 682 F.3d 1,

9–10 (1st Cir. 2012) (applying rational basis review); Price–Cornelison

v. Brooks, 524 F.3d 1103, 1113 n.9 (10th Cir. 2008) (same); Scarbrough

v. Morgan Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 470 F.3d 250, 261 (6th Cir. 2006) (same);

Citizens for Equal Protection v. Bruning, 455 F.3d 859, 866 (8th Cir.

2006) (same); Johnson v. Johnson, 385 F.3d 503, 532 (5th Cir. 2004)

(same); Lofton v. Sec’y of Dep’t of Children and Family Servs., 358 F.3d

804, 818 (11th Cir. 2004) (en banc) (same); Nabozny v. Podlesny, 92 F.3d

446, 458 (7th Cir. 1996) (same); Thomasson v. Perry, 80 F.3d 915, 928

(4th Cir. 1996) (same); Steffan v. Perry, 41 F.3d 677, 684–85 (D.C. Cir.

1994) (same); Woodward v. United States, 871 F.2d 1068, 1076 (Fed. Cir.

1989) (same).

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sister circuits. We have misled district courts within our

Circuit by forcing them to join us out on this limb and have

offered those around the country an invitation—to many of

them, welcome—to do the same.3See, e.g., Wolf v. Walker,

No. 3:14-cv-00064, 2014 WL 2558444, at *24–29, — F.

Supp. 2d — (W.D. Wis. June 6, 2014) (noting the panel’s

opinion in concluding that heightened scrutiny applies);

Whitewood v. Wolf, No. 1:13-cv-1861, 2014 WL 2058105, at

*11 n.10, — F. Supp. 2d — (M.D. Pa. May 20, 2014) (same);

Latta v. Otter, No. 1:13-cv-00482, 2014 WL 1909999 at

*16–17, — F. Supp. 2d — (D. Idaho May 13, 2014) (same);

Henry v. Himes, No. 1:14-cv-129, 2014 WL 1418395, at *14,

— F. Supp. 2d — (S.D. Ohio Apr. 14, 2014) (same).4 The

motivating question behind the opinion—whether Windsor

subjects traditional marriage laws and others that may give

rise to distinctions based on sexual orientation to heightened

scrutiny—is truly one of exceptional importance, one that

should not have been decided in the guise of a challenge to a

peremptory strike during jury selection in an antitrust suit.

3 Of course some such courts have followed a different line of reasoning

than the panel’s after noting, to their credit, that the opinion was not final. 

See, e.g., Geiger v. Kitzhaber, No. 6:13-cv-01834, 2014 WL 2054264, at

*8–9 (D. Or. May 19, 2014) (McShane, J.).

4

See also De Leon v. Perry, 975 F. Supp. 2d 632, 652 (W.D. Tex. 2014)

(considering that panel’s application of heightened scrutiny increased

likelihood of success on the merits at injunction stage); Bostic v. Rainey,

970 F. Supp. 2d 456, 482 n.16 (E.D. Va. 2014) (concluding law failed

rational basis review but noting inclination to apply heightened scrutiny

based on the panel’s opinion); Bourke v. Beshear, No. 3:13-cv-750, 2014

WL 556729, at *4 (W.D. Ky. Feb. 12, 2014) (noting panel’s opinion in

discussing likely future application of heightened scrutiny).

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SMITHKLINE BEECHAM V. ABBOTT LABORATORIES 7

II

In concluding that heightened scrutiny applies to

distinctions based on sexual orientation, the panel abandoned

our circuit precedents, arrogating to itself, regrettably, the

power of an en banc court. The panel’s reliance on Witt v.

Dep’t of Air Force, 527 F.3d 806 (9th Cir. 2008), reveals the

driving force behind this opinion, the panel’s eagerness to

reach the heightened scrutiny question. Our existing

precedents had already settled that rational basis review, not

heightened scrutiny, applies to this case—the panel had only

to follow them. See Philips v. Perry, 106 F.3d 1420, 1425

(9th Cir. 1997); High Tech Gays v. Defense Indus. Security

Clearance Office, 895 F.2d 563, 574 (9th Cir. 1990). Even

when, in a misreading of Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558

(2003), we applied heightened scrutiny to distinctions based

on sexual orientation in the substantive due process context,

we declined to do so in the equal protection context because

Lawrence is not an equal protection case. See Witt, 527 F.3d

at 821. But today a three-judge panel, dissatisfied with the

existing state of the law, casts off our precedents prescribing

rational basis review of the juror selection claim in this case.

No three-judge panel has the power to overrule existing

Ninth Circuit precedent. In an extremely narrow exception,

our court requires invocation of “clearly irreconcilable”

higher authority for one panel to overrule the prior decision

of another. See Miller v. Gammie, 335 F.3d 889, 893 (9th

Cir. 2003) (en banc).5 Although the panel fails to explain

5 Our three-judge panels frequently reject invitations to overrule binding

circuit precedent. See, e.g., United States v. Albino-Loe, 747 F.3d 1206,

1212–14 (9th Cir. 2014); United States v. Dunn, 728 F.3d 1151, 1156–58

(9th Cir. 2013); Johnson v. Bay Area Rapid Transit Dist., 724 F.3d 1159,

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why Windsor is clearly irreconcilable with our precedents, it

stunningly determines that its sweeping reading of that case

justifies one three-judge panel in overruling two binding

precedential decisions. If our court wished to adopt the “new

perspective” divined in Windsor, 133 S.Ct. at 2689, as its

own, we should have reheard this case en banc to permit

legitimate reconsideration of Philips and High Tech Gays. 

Instead, we have allowed one three-judge panel to cast aside

our circuit precedents on its own in a display of judicial will

that reflects little of the judgment we are charged to exercise.

III

A

And nothing in Windsor compels the application of

heightened scrutiny to this juror selection challenge. Far less

can Windsor be considered “clearly irreconcilable” with our

rational basis precedents in a way that would justify such

disregard for them. The Windsor dissenters considered the

1171 (9thCir. 2013); United States v. Green, 722 F.3d 1146, 1149–51 (9th

Cir. 2013). They often do so even when the panel believes that binding

precedent is clearly wrong. See, e.g., United States v. Chandler, 743 F.3d

648, 661–62 (9thCir. 2014) (Bybee, J., concurring); Al-Ramahi v. Holder,

725 F.3d 1133, 1138 n.2 (9th Cir. 2013); United States v. HernandezEstrada, 704 F.3d 1015, 1025–26 (9th Cir. 2012) (Kozinski, C.J.,

concurring), rev’d en banc, 2014 WL 1687855, — F.3d — (9th Cir.

2014). What is more, sitting en banc, we have chastised a three-judge

panel for presuming to overrule binding circuit precedent when it is not

“clearly irreconcilable” with intervening higher authority. See United

States v. Contreras, 593 F.3d 1135, 1136 (9th Cir. 2010) (en banc). As

explained below, Windsor simply is not “clearly irreconcilable” with

Philips and High Tech Gays. As a result, the panel in this case had only

two legitimate options—to defer to binding circuit precedent or to issue

a sua sponte en banc call. It did neither.

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opinion to be “rootless and shifting,” noting crucially that it

“does not even mention what had been the central question in

this litigation: whether, under the Equal Protection Clause,

laws restricting marriage to a man and a woman are reviewed

for more than mere rationality,” 133 S.Ct. at 2705–06 (Scalia,

J., dissenting). Even the majority in Windsor declined to

adopt the reasoning of the Second Circuit, which had

expressly applied heightened scrutiny to the equal protection

claim in the case. See Windsor v. United States, 699 F.3d

169, 181 (2d Cir. 2012).

The essential aspects of Windsor in fact cut against our

own panel’s view. After the Court declined there to identify

the applicable standard of review, it significantly limited its

holding in a way the panel simply ignored. The Court

explained that “[t]he class to which DOMA directs its

restrictions and restraints are those persons who are joined in

same-sex marriages made lawful by the State,” and that

DOMA’s “purpose and effect [is] to disparage and to injure

those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect

in personhood and dignity.” 133 S.Ct. at 2695–96. The

Windsor Court expressly identified the classification relevant

to its inquiry, but the panel’s opinion simply invented a new

classification, concluding that heightened scrutinyapplies any

time “state action discriminates on the basis of sexual

orientation.” 740 F.3d at 483. And the panel prefers entirely

to disregard Windsor’s closing instruction: “This opinion and

its holding are confined to those lawful marriages” that States

like New York had chosen to recognize. 133 S.Ct. at

2695–96. As the Chief Justice observed, “[Windsor’s]

analysis leads no further.” Id. (Roberts, C.J., dissenting). An

opinion so limited compels “not onlyour usual obedience, but

also our self-conscious restraint.” Witt, 548 F.3d at 1275

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(O’Scannlain, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en

banc).

B

The panel grasps at Witt—a substantive due process

case—as the best straw possible to justify its departure from

our equal protection precedents.6 But even the analysis

expressly prescribed by Witt cannot support today’s

conclusion that heightened scrutiny applies to distinctions

based on sexual orientation in the equal protection context. 

Witt divined from three entrails that Lawrence prescribed

heightened scrutiny in the substantive due process context:

first, Lawrence declined to examine hypothetical

justifications for the law; second, Lawrence required a

“legitimate” justification for the law; and third, Lawrence

cited substantive due process cases applying heightened

scrutiny. 527 F.3d at 817. But Windsor reflects none of the

viscera Witt considered to be indicia of heightened scrutiny.

Indeed, the Witt factors reveal only rational basis review

at work in Windsor. To employ rational basis review in the

equal protection context did not require Windsor to consider

hypothetical justifications for Section 3 of DOMA. See

Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620, 635 (1996). In declaring that

Section to be motivated by no “legitimate” purpose, Windsor

only applies rational basis review in the same way that Romer

6 Six of us argued that Witt was wrong when it was decided. See

548 F.3d 1264, 1265 (9th Cir. 2008) (O’Scannlain, J., joined by Bea, M.

Smith, and N.R. Smith, JJ., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc);

id. at 1276 (Kleinfeld, J. joined by Bea, J., dissenting from denial of

rehearing en banc); id. at 1280 (Kozinski, C.J., joined by Bea and M.

Smith, JJ., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc). Nevertheless, it

is the law of our Circuit and should be followed according to its terms.

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SMITHKLINE BEECHAM V. ABBOTT LABORATORIES 11

reviewed Colorado’s Amendment 2 for rational basis. See

id. And, unlike Lawrence, Windsor relied on rational basis

cases: Romer, a rational basis case by the panel’s own

admission, 740 F.3d at 483; Moreno, a rational basis case

according to Lawrence, see 539 U.S. at 580; and Lawrence

itself, which the panel admits “declined to address equal

protection,” 740 F.3d at 480.

In a final flourish of legerdemain, the panel pleads that

Windsor cites Lawrence and therefore must be applying

something other than rational basis review because Lawrence

“is a heightened scrutiny case.” Id. at 483. But Lawrence is

not a “heightened scrutiny” case, but rather a substantive due

process case, and for that reason cannot govern the equal

protection analysis here. Even Witt acknowledged as much,

see 527 F.3d at 821—but this panel is not so modest. Its

opinion offers no justification for such an extraordinarily

expansive reading of Windsor in light of these contrary

indications. Indeed, there can be none.

IV

Recall that this appeal started out as a Batson case about

striking one juror allegedly based on perceived sexual

orientation. Without even acknowledging the consequences

of its decision, the panel has produced an opinion with farreaching—and mischievous—consequences,forthe same-sex

marriage debate and for the many other laws that may give

rise to distinctions based on sexual orientation, without

waiting for appropriate guidance from the Supreme Court.7

7 Even when the Supreme Court has extended Batson, it has done so

only when the classification at issue had already been subjected to

heightened scrutiny. See J.E.B. v. Alabama, 511 U.S. 127, 135–36 (1994). 

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And in doing so, it plainly misread Windsor, abandoned our

own equal protection precedents, and disregarded our

procedures for departing from settled constitutional doctrine.

Irespectfully dissent from our regrettable failure to rehear

this case en banc. While this case may end here—neither

party is likely to seek certiorari given that neither party urged

en banc reconsideration of the applicable standard of

review—reliance on the panel’s analysis as an example of

anything more than an exercise of raw judicial will would be

most unwise.

It has not extended the Batson analysis, as today’s decision does, to

classifications never previously regarded with constitutional suspicion.

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