Court Opinion

ID: 9927285
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-26 18:01:07.752754+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:24:12.726731
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION                            FILED
                   UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                         JAN 26 2024
                                                                     MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                       U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
                           FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

MGM GRAND HOTEL, DBA MGM Grand No.                    22-16950

                Plaintiff-Appellee,             D.C. No.
                                                2:21-cv-01476-APG-NJK
  v.

KEVIN CHANG SHENG LONG,                         MEMORANDUM*

                Defendant-Appellant.

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                           for the District of Nevada
                  Andrew P. Gordon, District Judge, Presiding

                     Argued and Submitted January 10, 2024
                              Pasadena, California

Before: RAWLINSON, MELLOY, ** and H.A. THOMAS, Circuit Judges.

       Kevin Chang Sheng Long appeals the district court’s grant of summary

judgment to MGM Grand Hotel (“MGM”) on MGM’s claims to collect a gambling

debt against him. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. “We review de

novo a district court’s grant of summary judgment, considering the record in the

       *     This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
       **   The Honorable Michael J. Melloy, United States Circuit Judge for the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, sitting by designation.
light most favorable to the non-moving party.” G & G Closed Cir. Events v. Liu,

45 F.4th 1113, 1115 (9th Cir. 2022). We affirm.

      1. Long disputes the authenticity and validity of certain markers1 that MGM

provided him while he stayed there in late 2018, claiming that he has raised a

material dispute over the amounts owed to MGM. But the district court did not err

in granting summary judgment to MGM on this claim. The only evidence to which

Long points consists of a declaration in which he states that he “dispute[s] the

validity and authenticity” of the markers because he was “not present in Las Vegas

on the days those instruments are dated.” Under Nevada law, however, a casino

may complete a credit instrument after it has been signed. See Nev. Rev. Stat.

§ 463.368(2). And Long’s credit application expressly granted MGM permission to

complete the date information on the markers. Long, moreover, made significant

payments on the markers, amounting to $1,864,675 of his $8,660,400 debt. All

facts on the record are therefore consistent with the existence of a valid agreement

between MGM and Long. And Long’s “conclusory, self-serving” statement in his

affidavit that he disputes the validity of the agreements “is insufficient to raise a

genuine issue of material fact.” Bohmker v. Oregon, 903 F.3d 1029, 1044 (9th Cir.

1 “A marker is a gambling credit instrument that allows a gambler to receive all or

part of the credit line the casino has approved for him . . . . Once the gambler and a
casino representative sign the marker, the gambler may exchange the marker for
gambling tokens, or chips.” Las Vegas Sands, LLC v. Nehme, 632 F.3d 526, 529
(9th Cir. 2011).

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2018) (quoting FTC v. Publ’g Clearing House, Inc., 104 F.3d 1168, 1171 (9th Cir.

1997)).

      2. Long also argues that, even if he initially agreed to pay the amounts on the

disputed markers, he lacked the capacity to consent to such an agreement because

he was intoxicated at the time the markers were presented to him. Under Nevada

law, a “person incurs only voidable contractual duties by entering into a transaction

if the other party has reason to know that by reason of intoxication” he is unable to

“understand . . . the transaction” or to “act in a reasonable manner in relation to the

transaction.” LaBarbera v. Wynn Las Vegas, LLC, 422 P.3d 138, 141 (Nev. 2018)

(quoting Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 16 (Am. L. Inst. 1981)). To void the

contract, Nevada “recognizes a duty on the part of an intoxicated person to

promptly disaffirm the contract.” Id.

      Long points to no evidence that he disaffirmed any agreement with MGM.

On the contrary, the record shows that Long made multiple payments on the

markers between 2018 and 2020. MGM sent Long a letter in March of 2021

providing him with the total amount of his outstanding debt and warning him that

it would seek to enforce the debt unless he disputed its validity within 30 days. The

record contains no evidence that Long ever responded. Accordingly, even if Long

has raised a valid dispute regarding his level of intoxication, the undisputed facts

show that Long ratified the markers after his visit to MGM.

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      3. Long makes several arguments that the district court erred in granting

summary judgment to MGM on its conversion claim. None of these arguments,

however, was raised before the district court. “Absent exceptional circumstances,

we generally will not consider arguments raised for the first time on appeal . . . .”

AMA Multimedia, LLC v. Wanat, 970 F.3d 1201, 1213 (9th Cir. 2020). And Long

points to no “exceptional circumstances” here.

      AFFIRMED.

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