The following excerpt is from Murphy v. Schneider National, Inc., 349 F.3d 1224 (9th Cir. 2003):
Because the district court did not employ the standard we describe, this "technically" constitutes an abuse of discretion, see Koon v. United States, 518 U.S. 81, 100, 116 S.Ct. 2035, 135 L.Ed.2d 392 (1996) ("A district court by definition abuses its discretion when it makes an error of law."), though an understandable one because we have not previously announced the controlling rule.
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