Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-12-57197/USCOURTS-ca9-12-57197-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

FLORENTINA DEMUTH,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, a public

entity; LOS ANGELES COUNTY

SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT, a public

entity; WAI CHIU R. LI, an

individual,

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 12-57197

D.C. No.

2:10-cv-06783-

MWF-CW

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

Michael W. Fitzgerald, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

February 10, 2015—Pasadena, California

Filed August 14, 2015

Before: Alex Kozinski, Morgan Christen

and Andrew D. Hurwitz, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Kozinski

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2 DEMUTH V. CTY. OF LOS ANGELES

SUMMARY*

Civil Rights

The panel affirmed in part and reversed in part the district

court’s bench trial judgment in an action brought under 42

U.S.C. § 1983 by a Los Angeles County public defender who

alleged that her Fourth Amendment rights were violated

when a deputy sheriff briefly arrested her pursuant to a

judicial command that she appear in court.

The panel held that the deputy sheriff was not entitled to

qualified immunity because he could not reasonably have

believed that he had one of the usual Fourth Amendment

justifications for the arrest. The panel held that the presiding

referee’s order, by its clear terms, did not authorize the

deputy sheriff to seize plaintiff, and that no reasonable officer

could have understood the referee as ordering that plaintiff be

forcibly brought into court. 

The panel affirmed in part and reversed in part, in a

memorandum disposition, the district court’s denial of quasijudicial immunity, and its adverse verdict on plaintiff’s state

law and excessive force claims.

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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DEMUTH V. CTY. OF LOS ANGELES 3

COUNSEL

Daniel A. Crawford (argued), Henry G. Weinstein, Crawford

Weinstein LLP, Sherman Oaks, California, for PlaintiffAppellant.

Steven Jeff Renick (argued), Manning & Kass, Ellrod,

Ramirez, Trester LLP, Los Angeles, California; Maureen

Thomas, Michael Thomas, Thomas and Thomas, Agoura

Hills, California, for Defendants-Appellees.

OPINION

KOZINSKI, Circuit Judge:

A deputy sheriff briefly arrested counsel Florentina

Demuth pursuant to a judicial command that she appear in

court. We decide whether the deputy is protected by

qualified immunity.

FACTS

This story begins in Los Angeles’s Los Padrinos Juvenile

Courthouse. Florentina Demuth, a public defender, arrived

shortly after 8:30 a.m. She had a hearing for one of her

clients that day, though it wasn’t set for a specific time. 

Around 9:00 a.m., she had a brief conversation with Heidi

Shirley, who was the presiding referee1in Demuth’s case. 

Demuth also had a conversation with opposing counsel in

which Demuth indicated that she didn’t intend to return to

1 A referee is a person who serves as a subordinate judicial officer on a

part- or full-time basis. Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code § 255.

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4 DEMUTH V. CTY. OF LOS ANGELES

court until approximately 1:30 p.m. Demuth then left to work

in her office, which was located in a different part of the

building. A short while later, Referee Shirley asked Li, the

sheriff’s deputy on duty in her courtroom, to page Demuth

over the court’s intercom. Deputy Li paged Demuth several

times. Demuth heard at least one page, but she didn’t

respond. Deputy Li also telephoned Demuth’s direct line. 

Demuth heard her direct line ringing, but she didn’t answer.

This was not unusual. Lawyers, especially public

defenders, were often absent from the courtroom when their

case was called, and it typically took some time—and a few

pages—to get them there. While she was being paged,

Demuth was with her supervisor, Patricia De La Guerra

Jones, who had instructed Demuth to finish an assignment

before returning to court.

Referee Shirley was eager to hear the case of Demuth’s

client. She had approximately 53 cases on her calendar to

hear before 2:00 p.m., and the deadline to hear the case of

Demuth’s client was that day. Around 9:45 a.m., Referee

Shirley made the following statement: “Alright, I order Ms.

Demuth to come to this courtroom. If she refuses, then Ms.

De La Guerra Jones will have to come in and explain to me

why this is happening.” Li found Demuth in her office suite

talking to De La Guerra Jones. Li told Demuth several times

that she had been called byReferee Shirley, to which Demuth

responded “just a minute,” or something to that effect. After

some back and forth, Li raised his voice and demanded that

Demuth come immediately. Demuth responded that “[i]f you

want me to come right now, you’ll have to arrest me.” Li

then did just that: He put Demuth in handcuffs and escorted

her to Referee Shirley’s courtroom, where he removed the

handcuffs. The arrest lasted some 11 minutes.

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DEMUTH V. CTY. OF LOS ANGELES 5

Demuth sued Li and the County of Los Angeles under

42 U.S.C. § 1983 and a variety of state law theories. After a

bench trial, defendants prevailed on all counts. The district

court concluded that the arrest violated Demuth’s Fourth

Amendment rights, but that Li was protected by qualified

immunity. Demuth appeals. We review the district court’s

factual findings for clear error and its grant of qualified

immunity de novo.

DISCUSSION

Li concedes that he violated Demuth’s Fourth

Amendment rights but stands on the district court’s

determination that he’s entitled to qualified immunity. This

doctrine protects government officials from suits for damages

unless their actions violated “clearly established statutory or

constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have

known.” Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). Li

can only be liable if “every reasonable official would have

understood that” arresting Demuth violated her Fourth

Amendment rights. Mattos v. Agarano, 661 F.3d 433, 442

(9th Cir. 2011) (en banc) (internal quotation marks omitted).

While the law must be unambiguous to overcome

qualified immunity, that doesn’t mean that every “official

action is protected . . . unless the very action in question has

previously been held unlawful.” C.B. v. City of Sonora,

769 F.3d 1005, 1026 (9th Cir. 2014). “[O]fficials can still be

on notice that their conduct violates established law even in

novel factual circumstances.” Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730,

741 (2002). This is especially true in the Fourth Amendment

context, where “the constitutional standard—

reasonableness—is always a very fact-specific inquiry.” 

C.B., 769 F.3d at 1026.

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6 DEMUTH V. CTY. OF LOS ANGELES

Li could not reasonably have believed that he had one of

the usual Fourth Amendment justifications for the arrest: He

had no warrant; Demuth was not suspected of a crime; he was

not in hot pursuit or performing a community care-taking

function, etc. Referee Shirley’s order, by its clear terms, did

not authorize Li to seize Demuth. As Li testified at trial,

Referee Shirley’s command was “go . . . get Ms. Demuth;

and, if she refused to come to court, then . . . get Ms. De La

Guerra Jones.” The referee contemplated the possibility that

Demuth might not come when summoned, and gave clear

instructions as to what Li was to do in that case: bring her

supervisor, presumably to explain why her subordinate was

not coming to court when summoned. No reasonable officer

could have understood the referee as ordering that Demuth be

forcibly brought into court. An unreasonable mistake of fact

does not provide the basis for qualified immunity. See

Liberal v. Estrada, 632 F.3d 1064, 1078 (9th Cir. 2011).

Li also relies on Demuth’s statement that he would have

to arrest her to bring her into court immediately. While

challenging someone equipped with a badge, handcuffs and

a gun to “arrest me” was unwise on Demuth’s part, we fail to

see what legal difference her statement makes. Demuth

certainly could not authorize her own arrest and, in any event,

Li could not reasonably have believed that Demuth was

volunteering for handcuffs. Demuth was obviously

employing “a literary device known as sarcasm.” MCI

Telecomms. Corp. v. Am. Tel. & Tel. Co., 512 U.S. 218, 228

(1994). Her statement was a snide way of refusing; no

reasonable officer could have thought otherwise. Having no

reasonable basis for believing he was authorized to arrest

Demuth, Li is not entitled to qualified immunity.

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DEMUTH V. CTY. OF LOS ANGELES 7

Demuth also appeals the adverse verdict on her state law

and excessive force claims, and Li appeals the denial of

quasi-judicial immunity. On these issues, we affirm in part

and reverse in part, as explained in the memorandum

disposition we file concurrently with this opinion.

* * *

No one in this case has covered himself with glory: not

the lawyer whose lackadaisical response to a judicial

summons and disrespectful retort to a fellow court officer set

off this unfortunate chain of events; not the supervisor who

did not urge the lawyer to comply promptly with the deputy’s

repeated requests that she come to court or admonish her for

her tart response to the deputy; not the deputy who took the

bait and abused his power; not the judges of the Los Padrinos

Juvenile Court, who, doubtless aware of the incident, failed

to mediate a minor dispute among court officers and allowed

it to metastasize into a federal case. What seems to be at

stake here is little more than wounded pride, as any damages

suffered by the plaintiff seem hardly more than nominal. The

dispute should have been resolved by an admission that the

deputy violated Demuth’s constitutional rights, followed by

mutual apologies and a handshake, saving the taxpayers of

Los Angeles County the considerable costs of litigating this

tiff.

AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART.

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