Hennighan v. Insphere Insurance Solutions, Inc. ( 2016 )

FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
MAY 25 2016
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
THOMAS HENNIGHAN, No. 14-15983
Plaintiff - Appellant, D.C. No. 3:13-cv-00638-WHO
v.
MEMORANDUM*
INSPHERE INSURANCE SOLUTIONS,
INC.,
Defendant - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of California
William H. Orrick III, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted May 11, 2016
San Francisco, California
Before: McKEOWN and FRIEDLAND, Circuit Judges and LEFKOW,** Senior
District Judge.
Thomas Hennighan appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment
in favor of Insphere Insurance Solutions, Inc., which found that Hennighan was an
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
**
The Honorable Joan H. Lefkow, Senior District Judge for the U.S.
District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, sitting by designation.
independent contractor, not employee of Insphere. We have jurisdiction under 28
U.S.C. § 1291 and affirm.
The parties are familiar with the facts, so we will not repeat them here. We
review de novo a district court’s grant of summary judgment, viewing the evidence
in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. Albino v. Baca, 747 F.3d
1162, 1168 (9th Cir. 2014) (en banc). We review the district court’s evidentiary
rulings for abuse of discretion. Gen. Elec. Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136, 141 (1997).
Hennighan argues that the district court erred in excluding an Insphere office
manager’s statements before the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals
Board in an unrelated case, and erred in disregarding portions of declarations by
Hennighan and his colleagues. Any errors were harmless because admission of
that evidence would not have changed the result. See, e.g., Orr v. Bank of Am., NT
& SA, 285 F.3d 764, 773 (9th Cir. 2002) (“It follows that we must affirm the
district court unless its evidentiary ruling was manifestly erroneous and
prejudicial.”). We affirm the grant of summary judgment for the reasons set forth
by the district court in its Order dated April 21, 2014.
AFFIRMED.
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