your honor so this court in the west versus city of caldwell matter decided on july th two thousand and nineteen looked at the qualified immunity standard and the standard has been refined and that standard was addressed in the u s supreme court cases of the slow versus hughes and district of columbia versus was be it is requiring a high level of specificity for determining whether or not the law is established so a reasonable officer is on notice that their activity is not consistent with federal law and in this case your honour's are you so you're jumping in to qualified immunity i'd be interested in asking you about that i got to be honest with you this whole case has been just who in the world eros an individual for failing to pay cab fare how in the world did this happen this just seems to me seems to me to be strange at a minimum so can i mean it why isn't that one on the unlawful arrest or do you concede that there was work i think we've all had experiences like that credit cards get you know stopped for a variety of reasons and to jump from that when she said hey i'm willing to pay the cab fare too well we're just going to arrest you i just don't understand it the part where there's not the jump here your honor to address the issue is these officers they didn't just show up and responses like one call and just take the plaintiff and well they play it well let's be clear initially they threatened to do that you're right then they escorted her to her apartment they did and she they they taught all of those circumstances actually reduce the probable cause not increase it well i would disagree and out the statements that she makes when she says all you know st of all she doesn't offer any plausible explanation why her credit card's not working you're on to raise the point of this was you or i and we went to a restaurant sometimes i don't know when i was coming here from chicago i took a cab to the airport it oh hair and my credit card on the klein and i don't know why because two transactions later it was accepted and i don't know while never know why well in this case your honor we have the situation where the officers are trying to actually deescalate the situation there is a pretty heated argument going on between the cab was that's that's documented there was and i'm on one call and the officers show up and they say ok let's find a way so this cab driver can get paid and then get back on on duty to their next call which by the way has of it's happened hasn't it hasn't the cab driver been paid the fourteen dollars sixty cents that caused this mess it took it took the d a actually filing the case with and part of the dismissal that money was paid when the case was dismissed so it did actually happen where they finally got there's the thing about the statute though your honor i mean there's not a judge deal for the district judge here's my point of expensive can't write checks and i mean just this just strikes me as a case where they should exercise some discretion and we have jaywalking statutes and i mean i've been to san francisco where i'm from and i don't know when jay walks or if we do there's no laws against i don't know but some are just going to happen all the time and you don't see police officers down there arresting everybody i mean just like in a case like this you just it just seems like there was far too much time spent into this but on the other hand i think you have a decent argument on qualified immunity here and i  guess we'll hear about you know what the strongest case is but could you address that what what is the case law that requires or where the ops was would have known i guess what i'm saying is seems to me there's a situation where the officers knew they were acting outside of the bounds of proper discretion but that doesn't mean that they should be personally liable and is there some wiggle room there there there is your honor in the key case here  you have a situation where somebody actually just got paid too much and in their winnings at a casino and the police brought in to address the situation alternately made an arrest in this court upheld qualified immunity and that's an versus county of santa barbara that case start with the use infamous water balloon fight it's there in santa barbara and the officer ended up getting into a situation where some force had to be used and and this court again in that case of health qualified immunity so in the big case here really your honour's is the people versus hartley which doesn't come out and tell two days after the incident in question that's really the  here if you had an officer today that had the benefit of people versus hartley that says you've got to have quite a bit of of intent a showing of intent to prove up a penal code section forty four violation the heart we you are trying you are trying to argue that they reasonably thought they had probable cause to think she was stealing the cab ride wrecked and she didn't she say that she would want to call the credit card didn't work that was that was it now and then she wanted to call her her boyfriend but she didn't know where he was in then she said i'll go up and in get some money w she she does things that are totally inconsistent where she says to the officers come come with me in there in viking manor come with me need my dogs meet my cats we're going to all take care of this together and  sudden she says no we're not doing that which the officers interested in said i didn't didn't invite you inside i thought they walked into her apartment well that's right before but the officer what they were doing the officers interpreted that differently though they didn't interpret it literally you're not invited and they interpreted that as i am not going to pay you anymore that's how it came across in that context says your argument is that is that what you're the theories well when them are only off simran he said once she just cited she was going to not let us in your apartment i made the determination and i wasn't done trying to help her pay her camp there and just took her into custody she didn't say that made me think she wasn't going to pay she was just tired of her well looking at the totality of it though she was just tired of are so to speak the officers wouldn't have gone through all these efforts to try to use all the everything in this is a running tried personally to use the credit card they tried to defuse the situation that's what they're trying to do is to try to diffuse it and the bought a down so could i mean they didn't they didn't do everything they could have they could have also just said hey ok you know you owe the credit this is a civil dispute you guys go work it out it happens all the time we don't bring officers into every civil dispute but that's where the laws is unsettled though and tell people versus hartley comes out so i i think we're getting a lot of there's a lot of focus on this st part isn't there problem was which was certainly one of my arguments but when you look at it the law just the law being unsettled on the undisputed facts and titles these officers to qualified immunity so what it is what about the illegal entry i mean it says strikes me what what was the probable cause for them to come in that i think i interpreted it just for what it's worth there's a one million different interpretations here but that  she had allowed them to come in but then they started using their flashlights to kind of like search the house which i don't understand why they were doing that but the district court when the district judge looked at the facts a district court determined that did not happen based on the undisputed facts that determine they didn't use the flashlight that it will end it's time to do any type of search well but they pulled out the flashlights they did have their flashlights out ok and to me that's what it's lee hard to kind of reconstruct this but that seems to be where she was like wait a nd i mean i told you to come in but i didn't tell you could come any further and and that was i mean i'm trying to make sense of as you point out there's some inconsistent statements but there's also some inconsistent actions and but but why wasn't that advice elation of her th amendment rights when they came in even if she later didn't case indicates that at the threshold the doorway where in that area you know there's no constitutional protection well i understood that to be the threshold outside of the house not the threshold inside white said she specifically said we we she kept talking referencing almost like there was somebody else in the apartment so there was a concern about that maybe she  noted and i agree that's an unreasonable interpretation of the law here so the say we agree with you which your best case for why this is clearly established at the time ok well and five we hold on back up kennedy says civil disputes can but what about civil disputes that could also be criminal i mean that seems to be the issue here is we need to look at the criminal prong i mean it is tough there's a lot of criminal actions it could also be civil and just because it happens to be civil it can't be that it precludes you from you know taking the criminal action so what is the case that says criminally this was well established that there was no probable cause her be for example an accompanying criminal element that would not be present i started that if it's present accompanying a civil dispute that could possibly give probable cause to arrest but if it's a purely civil dispute and there's no indication otherwise trainer on the california supreme court noted that ordinary commercial defaults cannot it can by definition cannot amount to probable cause now a lot of cases which stretch all the way to the the day after the incident in this the athlon mentioned hartley case that principle that ordinary commercial defaults can amount to probable cause is constantly reaffirming and as the district court noted it's nothing new now the fact that it happened to be  could be you know a restaurant bill in fact that was that was actually the case in the alan case bottom line it was civil disputes if it's a purely civil dispute it can amount to probably cause that is clearly established in the fact the stevens version rows case that that credit card with the klein then she said she'd get her boyfriend in common pay and he didn't come then she offered to let the police escort her into the apartment to get the cash but then revoked her consent once she crossed the threshold after every promise to pay fell through couldn't a reasonable lots of police she never intended to pay no because st of all she never refused to pay she never said that she was never going to pay or have it or didn't have the means to pay the only indication there was no indication that she did never intended to pay she simply refused to consent to their entry and the officers and her proconsul representation interpreted that as her refusing to pay which would be an on reasonable interpretation of her words but just just to be clear here the law being clearly established about civil disputes not in months probably cause and specifically ordinary commercial default that can be quickly established but under the facts of the case the specific facts of this case it also must be clear to the officer and it's so plying that principle it could not be rd to the officer here he could not have probable cause of intent and by the to pay the bill she offered to do so going to treat cash from her apartment initially the officers denied her that and then they later agreed they accompanied her as she was on her way to go and get the cash she know interestingly it was not it was it was an argument that by my reading was waived and it's also been it was away from the district court and on appeal but i did address it in the briefs nonetheless it's she had secured a cab ride home which is the safe option relative to driving drunk or something like that she made it all the way home and the officers one of the officers remarked that given the six inch stiletto heels she was wearing that she was walking remarkably well she's i believe the term she was that she was impressed so there's no indication here that she was in violation of section six for yes california penal code which is the drunken the intent to defraud so theft by false pretense can ask about a couple of your other issues here excessive force those are pretty tough claims to state and here i mean other than handcuffin her what evidence do you have what evidence is on the record to support an excessive force claim well we have the evidence that she was not not violent that she didn't present any apparent threat example by being armed that she was compliant with the officers we also have that seems to be the argument that she should have been handcuffed in the st place but what what evidence is there of excessive force handcuffing can con and takedowns with a nonviolent suspect who is not apparently presenting any danger to the officers and it involves the circumstance of where the officers crossed the threshold of the home and attempted to arrest the the  the subject in the home and out of the point of interest it also happened during the weekend after midnight so it's pretty factually congruity with this case such that it would be clear to reasonable officer that you could not use one court was memory to say you can't come any further than that that the officers then responded to that and that was what prompted the arrest is that right yes that's correct we have a case here sharpers orange county which just distal point interest i actually  clearly established so that a reasonable officer would all reasonable officers would know that their action was a violation of that person's rights and the latest round of cases of west be west i believe  there were there were some other that counseled mention they don't fundamentally change the law the requirement is still the same the law must be clearly established it doesn't need to be one hundred percent on all fours and every single aspect because of course that's  somebody for having a declined credit card the district court pointed out that if you arrest somebody for having a declined credit card that means anybody who has a declined credit card can be arrested for theft it's just it's one of those propositions that's so patiently absurd and unreasonable that you it almost like it explains itself and there are cases that i like that you know that there was a case that went up to the supreme court where the court noted that there's never been a case of social services selling kids into slavery to clearly establish that that's illegal and there never will need to be one because any reasonable person is going to know that that's unlawful so arresting somebody who for theft just because their credit card isn't in decline when it's pretty much common knowledge and in specially under the established cases that that's the that's just not that doesn't approach point here is the unlawful search claim like the st amendment claim depended upon probable cause so the this line of cases talking about the the doorway exception if the person is standing in the threshold first of all client was not standing in the doorway or the threshold when she was seized but even if she were you would you would need officers would need probable cause in order to cross the threshold so the search is on officers were standing outside and let's say arguing that my client is standing in the threshold she would actually have to retreat and run back into the house that's there's no evidence that that happened my client specifically denies that that would be she did invite him into it across the threshold as i understand it she had made some my time was up but she had made some statements earlier on satan would come in and meet my dog from the statements but before before they crossed the threshold so she answered i was fully within her rights ok thank you counsel thank honor starting with the people vs hartley case an argument was made by counsel that cases nothing new but yet the california rules for published cases require that in order for a case to be published in the california courts of appeal it has to set some new issue of law some t issue in most cases aren't even published and the district court cited cases they cited tases but they weren't specific enough under the requirements and the other thing they respectfully that the district court didn't do is the district court looked at this with a very general lannes of analysis that didn't get into all of the specific details in the factual scenario here and when you look at the totality of the situation and the demeanor of the plaintiff and the discussions that were involved it's very different than an ordinary situation where somebody is credit card doesn't work this there were stephanie indication based on that's a tally of the circumstances the demeanor of there was more going on here and the officers therefore acted reasonably and we respectfully request that the a district court ruling be reversed with we have engaged in settlement efforts they have not been fruitful unfortunately that seems clear all right thank you counsel thank you