Case ID: f-appx_370/html/0844-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Daniel REYES, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF PICO-RIVERA; Donald Grayson, Defendants-Appellees.
    No. 08-56873.
    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
    Argued and Submitted March 4, 2010.
    Filed March 11, 2010.
    Patricia J. Barry, Esquire, Law Office of Patricia J. Barry, Los Angeles, CA, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
    Jeffrey P. Thompson, Esquire, Gregory Anthony Wille, Declues, Burkett & Thompson, LLP, Huntington Beach, CA, for Defendants-Appellees.
    Before: CANBY, GOULD and IKUTA, Circuit Judges.
   MEMORANDUM

Daniel Reyes appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the City of Pico-Rivera (the “City”) and Donald Gray-son in a stigma-plus procedural due process claim Reyes brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and, reviewing de novo, see, e.g., Vernon v. City of Los Angeles, 27 F.3d 1385, 1391 (9th Cir.1994), we affirm.

Although “[t]he termination of a public employee which includes publication of stigmatizing charges triggers due process protections,” Reyes was not entitled to a name-clearing hearing because “there [was][no] public disclosure of the charge.” Mustafa v. Clark County Sch. Dist., 157 F.3d 1169, 1179 (9th Cir.1998). Grayson’s dissemination of an allegedly stigmatizing report to two City decision-makers did not, on its own, constitute publication, because there was no public disclosure. See Wenger v. Monroe, 282 F.3d 1068, 1074 n. 5 (9th Cir.2002). Similarly, the provision of the allegedly stigmatizing information to opposing counsel during discovery in a related lawsuit did not constitute publication, both because it lacked the “public” element contemplated by our stigma-plus cases, and because adopting such a rule would inhibit “forthright and truthful communication ... between litigants.” Bishop v. Wood, 426 U.S. 341, 348-49, 96 S.Ct. 2074, 48 L.Ed.2d 684 (1976). Accordingly, because no reasonable trier of fact could find that the allegedly stigmatizing report was publicly disclosed, the district court properly granted summary judgment to the City and Grayson.

AFFIRMED. 
      
      
         This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
     
      
      .We do not accept Reyes's suggestion at oral argument that California state law governing the privacy of medical records somehow diminishes the requirement of publication for a violation of § 1983 on a theory of stigma-plus discharge.
     
      
      . We reject Reyes’s attempt to distinguish Bishop on the basis of differences in the nature of the stigmatizing information at issue.
     
      
      . We do not reach the district court's alternative holding that summary judgment was warranted on the ground that Reyes's § 1983 claim was time-barred.