Case Title: Perez-Torres v. State of Cal.

Citation: 

Docket Number: S137346

State: california

Court: California Supreme Court

Date: 2007-08-16T00:00:00Z

Document:
1
Filed 8/16/07 
 
 
 
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 
 
LENIN FREUD PEREZ-TORRES, 
) 
 
 
) 
 
Plaintiff and Appellant, 
) 
 
 
) 
S137346 
 
v. 
) 
 
 
) 
Ct.App. 2/3 B179327 
STATE OF CALIFORNIA et al., 
) 
 
 
) 
Los Angeles County 
 
Defendants and Respondents. ) 
Super. Ct. No. BC267143 
___________________________________ ) 
 
 
 
Mistakenly believing that plaintiff, who was not on parole, had violated his 
parole, state parole agents arrested and jailed him.  After the error was discovered 
and 25 days after his arrest, plaintiff was released.  As relevant here, plaintiff sued 
the State of California and three of its parole agents for, among other things, 
negligence and false imprisonment.  Defendants invoked Government Code 
section 845.8, subdivision (a) (§ 845.8(a)),1 which grants public entities and 
employees immunity from liability for any injury resulting from prisoner release 
or parole decisions.  The trial court granted defense motions for summary 
judgment.  The Court of Appeal affirmed on the ground that defendants were 
immune under section 845.8(a).  We disagree. 
                                              
1  
Unless otherwise indicated, all statutory citations are to the Government 
Code. 
 
2
I 
 
Plaintiff Lenin Freud Perez-Torres also uses the names Lenin Freud Perez, 
Lenin Perez, and Lenin F. Perez.2  In 1995, plaintiff was arrested by the 
Montebello police for spousal abuse.  (Pen. Code, § 273.5, subd. (a).)  At that 
time, plaintiff was fingerprinted and the Department of Justice assigned him 
criminal identification and information (CII) number A11099636 for use in its 
criminal history information system (CHIS).  Plaintiff was released and no charges 
were filed.   
 
On March 10, 1997, another man, Lenin Salgado Torres, also known as 
Lenin Freud Perez, was arrested for spousal abuse.  (Pen. Code, § 273.5, subd. 
(a).)  (To distinguish this man from plaintiff, we will refer to him as Salgado.)  
Salgado was fingerprinted, and his fingerprints were sent to Los Angeles County 
authorities in charge of determining the existence of a criminal history.  No 
criminal record for Salgado was found, and he was assigned CII number 
A11552358.  That identification number and Salgado’s fingerprints were then sent 
to the Department of Justice for entry into CHIS; that entry was made in June 
1997.  
 
Later in March 1997, Salgado pled guilty and was sentenced to prison.  At 
the time of the plea, Los Angeles County law enforcement authorities checked 
Salgado’s criminal history through CHIS, which provided them plaintiff’s name 
and plaintiff’s CII identification number.  The Los Angeles County law 
                                              
2  
This case is before us after the trial court’s granting of defendants’ motion 
for summary judgment.  Our statement of facts is taken from the record before the 
trial court when it granted defendant’s motion.  (Johnson v. City of Loma Linda 
(2000) 24 Cal.4th 61, 65-66.)   
 
3
enforcement authorities then put plaintiff’s CII number on Salgado’s 
documentation, including his judgment of conviction. 
 
In October 1998, Salgado was paroled from state prison and deported to 
Mexico.  A condition of parole was that he not return to the United States.  When 
a person is paroled, the California Department of Corrections enters the parolee’s 
name into the “Supervised Release File” (parole file) database.  If the parolee is 
later arrested, a CHIS check will trigger the parole file database; notification of the 
parolee’s arrest is then sent to the parole office supervising the parolee.  As 
explained earlier, plaintiff’s CII identification number had been erroneously put on 
documents relating to Salgado’s conviction; thus it was plaintiff’s CII number that 
was entered into the parole database. 
 
Also in October 1998, the Department of Corrections notified the 
Department of Justice that the CII identification numbers assigned to plaintiff and 
Salgado should be consolidated because the Department of Corrections thought 
that the numbers were for only one person, not two.  Thereafter, an investigation 
by the Department of Justice revealed that the two numbers involved not one but 
two persons, but the Department of Justice failed to inform the Department of 
Corrections of that discovery. 
 
On April 7, 2000, Montebello police officers arrested plaintiff for driving 
under the influence.  In checking plaintiff’s criminal history, the police learned of 
his 1995 arrest and the CII identification number assigned to him back then.  
When plaintiff’s fingerprints and his CII number were sent to the Department of 
Justice, the parole file database indicated that plaintiff was on parole, and a notice 
of his arrest was then sent to the supervising parole office in Inglewood, where it 
was received by parole agent David Chaney.  Because, as explained earlier, 
plaintiff’s CII number had been mistakenly entered into the parole database, the 
notification to the Inglewood parole office, which was supervising parolee 
 
4
Salgado, erroneously indicated that Salgado, rather than plaintiff, was recently 
arrested for driving under the influence. 
 
On June 22, 2000, state parole agent Chris Kane, accompanied by agents 
from the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service, including agent Michael 
Vaughn, went to plaintiff’s home.  Plaintiff acknowledged his recent arrest for 
driving under the influence as well as his earlier 1995 arrest for spousal abuse.  
Based on Kane’s determination that plaintiff resembled a photograph he had of 
parolee Salgado, plaintiff was arrested.  Plaintiff was taken to the Los Angeles 
County jail, where he was booked and both a parole and an immigration “hold” 
were placed on him.  Upon arrival at the jail, plaintiff repeatedly told Kane that 
they had the wrong man.  Kane then realized there was a disparity between 
plaintiff’s height (5 feet and 3 or 4 inches) and Salgado’s height (5 feet and 8 or 9 
inches) as stated in his criminal records.  Kane took photographs of plaintiff.  Back 
at the parole office, Kane showed the photographs to parole agent Chaney and 
supervisor Elizabeth Soos.  When Chaney telephoned federal Immigration and 
Naturalization Service agent Vaughn to express doubts about plaintiff’s identity, 
Vaughn said that he had a picture of parolee Salgado and that the jailed person 
was indeed Salgado.  The state parole agents then apparently decided that 
fingerprint verification was unnecessary. 
 
On July 12, 2000, state parole agent Chaney, at the request of an attorney 
retained by plaintiff’s wife, asked that a state Department of Justice technician 
visually compare plaintiff’s fingerprints with those of parolee Salgado.  The 
comparison confirmed that plaintiff was not Salgado; that same day, the state 
parole hold on plaintiff was removed.  But the federal Immigration and 
Naturalization Service’s immigration hold was not lifted until July 17, 2000, when 
plaintiff was released from jail. 
 
5
 
Thereafter, but before the lawsuit in this case was filed, plaintiff 
participated in a federal class action against Los Angeles County, the Los Angeles 
County Board of Supervisors, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department 
alleging, among other things, liability for arresting the wrong person and holding 
the person without a timely determination of the person’s true identity.  The 
federal class action was resolved by a December 6, 2002, order of settlement, 
release, and dismissal, under which plaintiff received $8,500. 
 
On January 28, 2002, plaintiff filed this action in the Los Angeles Superior 
Court against the United States and federal immigration agent Vaughn, as well as 
the State of California and its parole agents Kane and Chaney.  The complaint 
alleged causes of action for interference with the exercise of legal rights (Civ. 
Code, § 52.1), false imprisonment, and negligence (id., § 1714).  The United 
States government filed in the federal district court a notice of removal of the 
action, thereby divesting the state court of authority to proceed unless the case was 
remanded.  (28 U.S.C. § 1446(a), (d).)  The federal district court granted motions 
to dismiss the State of California and to dismiss its parole agents Chaney and Kane 
in their official capacities, and it remanded to the state court plaintiff’s claims 
against these defendants.  After that remand, plaintiff added state parole supervisor 
Soos as a defendant.  In the trial court, the State of California and Soos demurred 
to the complaint on the ground of statutory immunity.  The trial court overruled 
the demurrers.  
 
Defendants State of California and parole supervisor Soos then moved for 
summary judgment on the ground that plaintiff’s lawsuit was barred by the 
doctrine of res judicata in light of the settlement of the federal class action in 
which plaintiff had participated before filing this action against the state 
defendants.  Plaintiff moved for summary adjudication of defendants’ affirmative 
defense that they had acted reasonably. 
 
6
 
The trial court granted the state defendants’ motion for summary judgment, 
ordered plaintiff’s motion for summary adjudication off calendar, and entered 
judgment for defendants.  On plaintiff’s appeal, the Court of Appeal held that res 
judicata did not apply in this case, but it nevertheless affirmed the judgment in 
favor of the state defendants based on its conclusion that defendants have 
immunity under section 845.8(a).  It agreed with defendants that “it makes no 
difference that the revocation decision concerned Salgado’s parole rather than 
plaintiff’s parole status (plaintiff apparently has never been on parole).  Plaintiff is 
in the same situation as other innocent third parties who are harmed by a decision 
regarding someone else’s parole.”  (Original italics.)  The Court of Appeal 
concluded that although “the manner in which the plaintiff in the instant case was 
affected by defendants’ decisions regarding Salgado’s parole status is out of the 
ordinary (arrest and incarceration rather than physical harm), this variance does 
not take his case out of the [immunity] provisions of section 845.8.”  We granted 
plaintiff’s petition for review. 
II 
 
Plaintiff challenges the Court of Appeal’s holding that section 845.8(a) 
grants the state defendants immunity from liability on three grounds:  (1) the error 
in assigning to him the wrong identification number was not part of the state’s 
determination whether to revoke parole; (2) the immunity applies only if the 
person whose parole is revoked is the person actually on parole; and (3) under this 
court’s decision in Johnson v. State of California (1968) 69 Cal.2d 782 (Johnson), 
the immunity does not extend to his continued incarceration after the state 
defendants knew or should have known he was the wrong man.  We disagree with 
plaintiff’s first and second arguments; we agree, however, with plaintiff’s third 
argument, which we will address last.   
 
7
 
The immunity provision at issue states:  “Neither a public entity nor a 
public employee is liable for:  [¶]  (a) Any injury resulting from determining 
whether to parole or release a prisoner or from determining the terms and 
conditions of his parole or release or from determining whether to revoke his 
parole or release.”  (§ 845.8(a).)   
 
We reject plaintiff’s first argument, that the state’s administrative error in 
assigning him a CII identification number belonging to parolee Salgado was not 
part of “determining whether to revoke . . . parole” under the statute.  As the 
state’s administrative error was the basis for the parole revocation determination 
and thus was an integral part of that decision, it was part of determining whether to 
revoke parole.  
 
We also reject plaintiff’s second argument, that the statutory immunity for 
state defendants does not apply because state officials arrested and jailed him 
based on the mistaken belief that he was a parole violator.  As plaintiff points out, 
it was Salgado, not plaintiff, who was on parole.  True, plaintiff was the wrong 
man, so to speak, and he was an innocent third party.  But, as the Court of Appeal 
observed, these facts do not render the immunity provision inapplicable, because 
the statutory phrase “any injury” includes injuries to innocent third parties.  (See, 
e.g., Thompson v. County of Alameda (1980) 27 Cal.3d 741, 746-749 [immunity 
for death of five-year-old killed by release of juvenile offender]; Fleming v. State 
of California (1995) 34 Cal.App.4th 1378, 1382-1383 [immunity for murder 
committed by parolee]; Brenneman v. State of California (1989) 208 Cal.App.3d 
812 [same].)  Because the state immunity applies to injuries suffered by innocent 
third parties and plaintiff was an innocent third party, that plaintiff was not 
personally the parolee does not by itself render the statutory immunity 
inapplicable here.   
 
8
 
We do, however, agree with plaintiff’s third argument, that the statutory 
immunity does not extend to plaintiff’s continued incarceration after defendants 
knew or should have known he was the wrong man.  Pertinent here is this court’s 
decision in Johnson, supra, 69 Cal.2d 782.  That case involved the applicability of 
both section 820.2 and section 845.8, which is the statute here in issue, pertaining 
to a claim of immunity by the state for injuries arising out of the Youth 
Authority’s decision to place in a foster home a dangerous youth who was on 
parole.  (Johnson, supra, at pp. 784-785.)  The youth had displayed homicidal 
tendencies as well as violence and cruelty to both animals and people, aspects that 
were not revealed to the foster parents.  (Ibid.)  The youth assaulted one of the 
foster parents.  (Id. at p. 785.)  This court held that the state’s decision whether to 
warn the foster parents of the youth’s dangerous propensities was not within either 
section 820.2’s immunity for discretionary decisions of public employees or 
section 845.8(a)’s immunity for an injury resulting from a determination to parole 
or release a prisoner (Johnson, supra, at p. 786).  Below we discuss the basis for 
that holding.   
 
As just noted, section 820.2 grants immunity to public employees for 
injuries resulting from discretionary decisions.  Johnson, supra, 69 Cal.2d 782, 
distinguished between basic policymaking or “planning” on the one hand and 
ministerial or “operational” levels of decisionmaking on the other hand, holding 
that the first category triggered immunity while the latter category did not.  (Id. at 
pp. 793-796.)  Johnson concluded that although the basic policy decision (such as 
standards for parole) warrants immunity, “subsequent ministerial actions in the 
implementation of that basic decision still must face case-by-case adjudication on 
the question of negligence.”  (Id. at p. 797.)   
 
Johnson, supra, 69 Cal.2d 782, then addressed section 845.8(a), which is at 
issue here and which immunizes the state from a determination “whether to parole 
 
9
or release a prisoner or from determining the terms and conditions of his parole or 
release or from determining whether to revoke his parole or release.”  To resolve 
the issue, Johnson applied the distinction it had drawn earlier between basic or 
discretionary decisions on the one hand and ministerial decisions implementing 
the basic decision on the other hand.  “Once the proper authorities have made the 
basic policy decision—to place a youth with foster parents, for example—the role 
of section 845.8 immunity ends” (Johnson, supra, at p. 799), that is, actions 
implementing that basic policy decision are outside the scope of the immunity.  
Johnson went on to hold that the state’s “subsequent negligent actions, such as the 
failure to give reasonable warnings to the foster parents actually selected, are 
subject to legal redress.”  (Ibid.; see 5 Witkin, Summary of Cal. Law (10th ed. 
2005) Torts, § 357, p. 570.)   
 
In Barner v. Leeds (2000) 24 Cal.4th 676, this court rejected a request by 
59 California cities and towns that we reconsider and overrule our 1968 decision 
in Johnson, supra, 69 Cal.2d 782.  We observed in Barner that the principles set 
forth in Johnson reflected more than three decades of authoritative precedent, and 
that the Legislature during that time had made no changes to the governmental 
immunity provision of section 820.2 addressed in Johnson.  (Barner v. Leeds, 
supra, 24 Cal.4th at p. 685, fn. 2.)  Nor, we now note, has the Legislature made 
any changes to the immunity under section 845.8(a), the other statute addressed in 
Johnson.  We further note that by now the principles we enunciated in Johnson are 
approaching four decades of established precedent.   
 
The state here contends that Johnson, supra, 69 Cal.2d 782, is 
distinguishable from this case because in Johnson, section 845.8(a) did not apply 
to the plaintiff’s claim, while section 845.8(a) does apply here to plaintiff’s claim.  
Not so.  Johnson concluded that the plaintiff’s claim there was within section 
845.8(a) to the extent it was based on the Youth Authority’s decision to place the 
 
10
dangerous youth with the foster parents, but not insofar as it was based on that 
entity’s later negligent acts.  Johnson, as we have pointed out earlier, stated:  
“Once the proper authorities have made the basic policy decision—to place a 
youth with foster parents, for example—the role of section 845.8 immunity ends; 
subsequent negligent actions, such as the failure to give reasonable warnings to the 
foster parents actually selected, are subject to legal redress.”  (69 Cal.2d at p. 799.)  
Thus, contrary to the state’s assertion here, Johnson cannot be distinguished from 
this case on the ground that Johnson did not apply section 845.8(a). 
 
Likewise misplaced is the state’s suggestion that Johnson’s distinction 
between discretionary and ministerial decisions does not apply to section 845.8(a).  
Citing this court’s decision in Kisbey v. State of California (1984) 36 Cal.3d 415 
(Kisbey) and the Court of Appeal’s decision in Swift v. Department of Corrections 
(2004) 116 Cal.App.4th 1365 (Swift), the state defendants assert that the section 
845.8(a) governmental immunity is absolute, rendering inapplicable any 
distinction between discretionary and ministerial decisions.  But Kisbey concerned 
the application of section 845.8, subdivision (b),3 not subdivision (a), which is at 
issue here.  Kisbey did state that section 845.8 “has been interpreted as providing 
for an ‘absolute’ immunity—one which applies to ministerial as well as 
discretionary acts.  (County of Sacramento v. Superior Court (1972) 8 Cal.3d 479, 
481-484.)”  (Kisbey, supra, 36 Cal.3d at p. 419.)  But Kisbey made that 
observation in the context of subdivision (b) rather than subdivision (a) of section 
845.8.  And the supporting authority that Kisbey cited, County of Sacramento v. 
Superior Court, had distinguished this court’s decision in Johnson, supra, 69 
                                              
3  
Section 845.8, subdivision (b), grants immunity for:  “(b) Any injury 
caused by:  [¶] (1) An escaping or escaped prisoner; [¶] (2) An escaping or 
escaped arrested person; or [¶] (3) A person resisting arrest.” 
 
11
Cal.2d 782, with regard to the scope of subdivision (b) of section 845.8, by noting 
that in contrast to subdivision (a) of that statute, subdivision (b) was not limited in 
its scope.  (County of Sacramento v. Superior Court, supra, 8 Cal.3d at p. 484.) 
 
With respect to the Court of Appeal’s decision in Swift, supra, 116 
Cal.App.4th 1365, defendants here rely on this statement on page 1373 from that 
decision:  “California courts have routinely rejected the claim that section 845.8 
does not afford immunity for the ministerial implementation of correctional 
programs.”  That language, defendants contend, supports their argument that the 
distinction this court drew in Johnson, supra, 69 Cal.2d 782, between 
discretionary and ministerial decisions by the state does not apply to the 
governmental immunity under section 845.8(a).  True, that language from Swift 
does lend support to the state’s argument here.  But the observation in Swift was 
overbroad and thus wrong, as discussed below.   
 
As noted on page 9, ante, this court in Johnson, supra, 69 Cal.2d 782, 
applied the distinction between basic or discretionary decisions and ministerial 
decisions when it addressed the governmental immunity provision of section 
845.8(a).  Also, the Court of Appeal in Swift, supra, 116 Cal.App.4th at page 
1374, cited Court of Appeal decisions in Martinez v. State of California (1978) 85 
Cal.App.3d 430 (rape and murder by parolee), Brenneman v. State of California, 
supra, 208 Cal.App.3d 812 (molestation and murder by parolee), and Whitcombe 
v. County of Yolo (1977) 73 Cal.App.3d 698 (assault by probationer released from 
custody on bail), as supporting its statement that section 845.8(a)’s governmental 
immunity applies irrespective of whether the governmental act complained of is 
ministerial or discretionary.  Each of the three cited cases relied on by the Court of 
Appeal in Swift involved claims of liability based on the state’s alleged negligent 
failure to supervise a parolee or a probationer released from custody on bail.  But 
Swift did not involve negligent supervision of either a parolee or a probationer; nor 
 
12
does this case.  Swift’s statement quoted above was overbroad because it had 
nothing to do with the case before it.  What was at issue in Swift was a claim that 
the revocation of the plaintiff’s parole was improper because his term of parole 
had expired.  (116 Cal.App.4th at p. 1371.)4  
 
Here, the state’s decision to revoke Salgado’s parole, based on the mistaken 
belief that plaintiff, a nonparolee, was Salgado, was—like the decision in Johnson 
to place the dangerous youth on parole with the foster parents—a basic policy 
decision and thus within the governmental immunity provision of section 845.8(a).  
After that basic policy decision was made, however, the state defendants’ conduct 
in keeping plaintiff in jail after they knew or should have known that he was the 
wrong man was—like the failure in Johnson to warn the foster parents of the 
youth’s dangerous propensities—an action implementing the basic policy decision 
and thus outside the statutory immunity, making it subject to legal redress on the 
question of negligence by the state.  (Johnson, supra, 69 Cal.2d at pp. 797, 799.)  
Just as section 845.8(a)’s governmental immunity was inapplicable in Johnson to 
the state’s failure to warn the foster parents, so too here it is inapplicable to the 
state defendants’ decision to keep plaintiff in jail after they knew or should have 
known he was not parolee Salgado.5 
                                              
4  
To the extent Swift v. Department of Corrections, supra, 116 Cal.App.4th 
1365, is inconsistent with the views expressed here, it is disapproved. 
5  
This conclusion makes it unnecessary to address plaintiff’s contentions that 
applying the governmental immunity of section 845.8(a) here would violate his 
federal and state constitutional right to equal protection of the laws and his federal 
and state constitutional right to be free from unreasonable seizures. 
 
Plaintiff also asks that we decide his motion for summary adjudication and 
conclude that his arrest was unreasonable.  We decline to do so.  The trial court 
has not ruled on plaintiff’s motion, which was taken off calendar when the trial 
court granted the state defendants’ motion for summary judgment.   
 
 
13
 
The judgment of the Court of Appeal is reversed. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
KENNARD, J. 
WE CONCUR: 
 
GEORGE, C. J. 
BAXTER, J. 
WERDEGAR, J. 
CHIN, J. 
MORENO, J. 
CORRIGAN, J. 
 
 
See next page for addresses and telephone numbers for counsel who argued in Supreme Court. 
 
Name of Opinion Perez-Torres v. State of California 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Unpublished Opinion 
Original Appeal 
Original Proceeding 
Review Granted XXX 132 Cal.App.4th 49 
Rehearing Granted 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Opinion No. S137346 
Date Filed: August 16, 2007 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Court: Superior 
County: Los Angeles 
Judge: David A. Workman 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Attorneys for Appellant: 
 
Robert Mann and Donald W. Cook for Plaintiff and Appellant. 
 
Law Offices of John Burton and John Burton for LA Police Watch as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Plaintiff 
and Appellant. 
 
 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Attorneys for Respondent: 
 
Bill Lockyer and Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorneys General, Manuel M. Medeiros, State Solicitor General, 
James M. Humes, Chief Assistant Attorney General, James M. Schiavenza, Assistant Attorney General, 
Marsha S. Miller and Paul C. Epstein, Deputy Attorneys General, for Defendants and Respondents. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Counsel who argued in Supreme Court (not intended for publication with opinion): 
 
Donald W. Cook 
3425 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 2900 
Los Angeles, CA  90010 
(213) 252-9444 
 
Paul C. Epstein 
Deputy Attorney General 
300 South Spring Street, Suite 1702 
Los Angeles, CA  90013 
(213) 620-2249