Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-5_14-cv-01126/USCOURTS-cand-5_14-cv-01126-2/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 42:1983 Civil Rights Act

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United States District Court

Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

SAN JOSE DIVISION

JESUS GARCIA, et al.,

Plaintiffs,

v.

CITY OF KING CITY, et al.,

Defendants.

Case No. 14-cv-01126-BLF 

ORDER DENYING DEFENDANT 

DOMINIC BALDIVIEZ'S MOTION TO 

DISMISS FOR QUALIFIED IMMUNITY

[Re: ECF 63]

Defendant Dominic Baldiviez moves to dismiss this action against him on the grounds of 

qualified immunity. Having reviewed the briefing and oral argument of the parties, as well as the 

governing law, the Court DENIES Defendant’s motion, without prejudice to Defendant again 

raising qualified immunity as a defense at a later stage of the litigation. 

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs’ factual allegations in the SAC are presumed true for purposes of the motion to 

dismiss. See Manzarek v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 519 F.3d 1025 (9th Cir. 2008).

This suit alleges the existence of a conspiracy to target Hispanic and Latino drivers in King 

City, California, and wrongfully tow and impound their automobiles. The SAC alleges that several 

King City police officers conspired with the owner of a local towing company, Miller’s Towing,

to create a towing scheme: an officer would pull over an automobile driven by a Hispanic or 

Latino individual, would order the vehicle be towed or impounded without legal justification, and 

then a tow truck from Miller’s Towing would arrive within minutes to tow away the car. See SAC 

¶¶ 21-25, 27-28. A group of officers (referred to throughout the SAC as “the Crew”) would then 

sell the victim’s vehicles and retain the proceeds from the sale, misappropriate the vehicles for 

their personal use, or require the victim’s to pay exorbitant fees in order to recover their vehicles. 

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See SAC ¶¶ 29-31.

Mr. Baldiviez was a police officer and, for some time, the Chief of Police of King City. 

SAC ¶ 16. The suit does not allege that he was a member of the Crew that concocted the towing 

scheme, but does allege that he was part of the larger conspiracy. See SAC ¶ 32. Specifically, the 

suit alleges that Mr. Baldiviez “knew about, acquiesced in, ratified, approved, and/or condoned 

operation of said scheme,” and that he “knowingly profited from implementation of said scheme”

by receiving a portion of the proceeds from the sale of vehicles, receiving one or more of the 

vehicles for his own personal use, or receiving a portion of the money paid by the scheme’s 

victims before their vehicles were returned. Id.

II. LEGAL STANDARD

A complaint must include “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the 

pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a). A plaintiff must therefore “plead enough facts to 

state a claim for relief that is plausible on its face,” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 

(2007), which requires a plaintiff to plead “factual content that allows the court to draw the 

reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 

U.S. 662, 678 (2009). Any complaint that fails to meet these requirements may be dismissed 

pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6).

 III. DISCUSSION

The Supreme Court has implored that qualified immunity should be resolved “at the 

earliest possible stage of the litigation.” Wood v. Moss, 134 S. Ct. 2056, 2065 n.4 (2014). The 

Court may grant a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) on qualified immunity grounds if the 

facts pled in the complaint, taken as true, would nonetheless result in a defendant being entitled to 

qualified immunity. See, e.g., Iqbal at 685-86 (“The basis thrust of the qualified immunity doctrine 

is to free officials from the concerns of litigation.”). A government official sued under Section 

1983 is entitled to qualified immunity at the motion to dismiss stage unless the Plaintiff pleads

sufficient facts to allege that (1) the official violated a statutory or constitutional right, and (2) the 

right was “clearly established” at the time of the challenged conduct. See, e.g., Plumhoff v. 

Rickard, 134 S. Ct. 2012, 2023 (2014). A supervisor sued under Section 1983 cannot be held 

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United States District Court

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liable under a theory of vicarious liability for the actions of his subordinates. See Hansen v. Black, 

885 F.2d 642, 645-46 (9th Cir. 1989). 

For the first prong of the qualified immunity analysis – whether the official violated a 

constitutional right – the plaintiff must plead that the supervisor was either personally involved in 

the constitutional deprivation, or that there was a sufficient causal connection between the 

supervisor’s wrongful conduct and the constitutional violation. See, e.g., id. at 646. For the second 

prong – the “clearly established” inquiry – the right must be sufficiently clear such that “every 

reasonable official would have understood that what he is doing violates the right.” Ashcroft v. alKidd, 131 S. Ct. 2074, 2078 (2011). This means that “existing precedent must have placed the 

statutory or constitutional question beyond debate.” Id. at 2083. When determining whether a right 

was clearly established, the Court may not define the constitutional right at a high level of 

generality, because doing so “avoids the crucial question whether the official acted reasonably in 

the particular circumstances that he or she faced.” Plumhoff at 2023. “The relevant inquiry is 

whether, at the time of the officers’ action, the state of the law gave the officers fair warning that 

their conduct was unconstitutional.” Ford v. City of Yakima, 706 F.3d 1188, 1195 (9th Cir. 2013). 

Mr. Baldiviez argues that he would be entitled to qualified immunity even if the allegations 

contained in Plaintiffs’ SAC were proven true. See Mot. at 4. He claims that Plaintiffs fail to plead 

the existence of a constitutional violation against him because “supervisory officers are not liable 

for actions of subordinates on any theory of vicarious liability.” Id. at 5. He contends that since 

Plaintiffs do not allege that he personally “seized, impounded, and/or sold or otherwise disposed 

of” the targeted Plaintiffs’ vehicles, and because Plaintiffs make only conclusory allegations that 

he was involved in the towing conspiracy, that Plaintiffs’ pleadings against him are insufficient to 

overcome qualified immunity. See id. at 6-7. Mr. Baldiviez’s arguments focus on his contention 

that Plaintiffs have not pled that he was personally involved in the conspiracy and that “any other 

reasonable [police] Chief would have handled its (sic) officers in the same manner.” Mot. at 8. 

Mr. Baldiviez’s arguments regarding personal involvement are wholly unpersuasive and 

completely ignore the factual pleadings in the SAC. First, Plaintiffs plead that Mr. Baldiviez

ratified and approved the towing scheme, which amounted to an unconstitutional deprivation of 

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the Plaintiffs’ property rights and which enriched his fellow conspirators. See SAC ¶ 71. Second, 

Plaintiffs allege that Mr. Baldiviez personally profited from the conspiracy. See SAC ¶¶ 30, 32. 

These two factual pleadings are sufficient to show Mr. Baldiviez’s personal involvement in the 

scheme. See Hansen at 645-46; see also Spitzer v. Aljoe, 2014 WL 1154165, at *3 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 

20, 2014) (“[This circuit’s ruling in Blankenhorn v. City of Orange] does not limit liability to the 

officer that actually seizes the vehicle.”).

Mr. Baldiviez does not have the temerity in his motion to argue that personally profiting

from a subordinate officer’s unlawful conduct was not a clearly established constitutional 

violation, but the Court briefly addresses this point here. 

The first prong of the qualified immunity analysis asks whether the official violated a 

constitutional right. The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits state actors from depriving individuals 

of their property without due process of law. See, e.g., Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517 (1984);

Samson v. City of Bainbridge Island, 683 F.3d 1051 (9th Cir. 2012); see also Daniels v. Williams, 

474 U.S. 327, 331 (1986) (stating that the due process clause was “intended to secure the 

individual from the arbitrary exercise of the powers of government.”). This circuit has held, in the

context of towing automobiles, that absent an emergency or exigent circumstances, individuals 

must be given due process before a car is towed. See Clement v. City of Glendale, 518 F.3d 1090, 

1093 (9th Cir. 2008) (“[T]he government may not take property like a thief in the night. . . . 

[H]aving one’s car towed [] imposes significant costs and burdens on the car’s owner.”). Plaintiffs 

allege Mr. Baldiviez’s personal involvement in the deprivation of individuals’ property without 

due process. See, e.g., SAC ¶ 32. 

The second prong of the qualified immunity analysis asks whether the constitutional right 

in question is clearly established, and considers whether “every reasonable official would have 

understood that what he is doing violates the right.” al-Kidd at 2078. Plainly, it is clearly 

established that a police officer, like any public official, cannot personally profit from his 

participation in the unconstitutional deprivation of an individual’s rights. Courts have addressed 

this question in the context of police searches and seizures, see Soldal v. Cook Cnty., Ill., 506 U.S. 

56, 67-73, as well as public officials receiving bribes and kickbacks, see, e.g., United States v. 

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deVegter, 198 F.3d 1324, 1328 (11th Cir. 1999) (“When official action is corrupted by secret 

bribes or kickbacks, the essence of the political contract is violated.”), and “bullying a suspect or

getting even.” A.D. v. Calif. Hwy. Patrol, 712 F.3d 446, 453 (9th Cir. 2013) (calling such actions 

“illegitimate law enforcement objectives”). This circuit has further held, in Clement, that a police 

officer may not simply take an individual’s car without due process. Clement at 1093.

Though the Court is unaware of a case in which a court expressly holds that a police chief 

cannot receive personal financial gain from the unconstitutional actions of his subordinates –

unconstitutional actions he allegedly ratified and approved – “[c]ertain actions so obviously run 

afoul of the law that an assertion of qualified immunity may be overcome even though court 

decisions have yet to address ‘materially similar’ conduct.” Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 753

(2002) (emphasis added); see also Devereaux v. Abbey, 263 F.3d 1070, 1076 (2001) (holding that 

there is a clearly established right not to be “subjected to criminal charges on the basis of evidence 

that was deliberately fabricated by the government,” and that “[p]erhaps because the proposition is 

virtually self-evident, we are not aware of any prior cases that have expressly recognized this 

specific right”). The acts pled by Plaintiffs in the SAC so obviously run afoul of the law that 

Defendant Baldiviez would not be entitled to qualified immunity were they proven true. Any

reasonable police officer, let alone the police chief, would have known that such conduct violates

the Constitution. See al-Kidd at 2078.

IV. ORDER

For the foregoing reasons, Defendant Baldiviez’s motion to dismiss on grounds of 

qualified immunity is DENIED, without prejudice. Defendant may re-assert qualified immunity 

through a motion for summary judgment following the further development of the factual record 

in this case. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: April 8, 2015

______________________________________

BETH LABSON FREEMAN

United States District Judge

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