Abrahams v. Hard Drive Productions, Inc.

NOT FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FILED FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT APR 24 2014 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS SETH ABRAHAMS, No. 13-15889 Plaintiff-counter-defendant - D.C. No. 3:12-cv-01006-JCS Appellant, v. MEMORANDUM* HARD DRIVE PRODUCTIONS, INC., Defendant-counter-claimant - Appellee. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California Joseph C. Spero, Magistrate Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted April 9, 2014 San Francisco, California Before: SCHROEDER and CALLAHAN, Circuit Judges, and PRATT, Senior District Judge.** This is an appeal from the district court’s dismissal of the action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. The * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3. ** The Honorable Robert W. Pratt, Senior United States District Judge for the Southern District of Iowa, sitting by designation. complaint seeks declaratory relief regarding claims that had been previously dismissed twice, and hence could not now create any justiciable controversy. Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(B); see Commercial Space Mgmt. Co. v. Boeing Co., 193 F.3d 1074, 1076 (9th Cir. 1999) (explaining the “two dismissal rule”). On appeal, the appellant argues that the action should not have been dismissed because the complaint laid out an additional cause of action of qui tam sufficient to sustain subject matter jurisdiction. A close examination of the complaint reveals no such claim. This is the inevitable conclusion under even the lenient standards of notice pleading, and such lenient standards are no longer applicable. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009); Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007). AFFIRMED. 2