Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-5_15-cv-03383/USCOURTS-cand-5_15-cv-03383-0/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

MAUREEN QUINN,

Plaintiff,

v.

COUNTY OF MONTEREY,

Defendant.

Case No. 15-cv-03383-BLF 

ORDER GRANTING MOTION TO 

DISMISS

[Re: ECF 11]

Before the Court is Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss this pro se action for failure to state a 

cause of action or cognizable legal claim. ECF 11. Defendant argues that Plaintiff’s claims are 

barred by the applicable statute of limitations, fail to set forth the official policy or practice that 

would give rise to liability under § 1983, and fail to identify the source of Defendant’s alleged 

statutory duties. Id. For the reasons stated below, the Court GRANTS Defendant’s Motion to 

Dismiss with leave to amend, as requested by Plaintiff at the hearing.

I. BACKGROUND

This pro se action arises from Defendant’s allegedly biased response to long-running 

hostility between Plaintiff, an individual residing in Monterey County, and her neighbor, Steve 

Tankersley, who owns non-adjoining property separated by a 40-acre parcel from Plaintiff’s land. 

Compl., ECF 1-1 ¶ 6. Plaintiff alleges that she purchased her property in 1996. Id. Plaintiff alleges 

that the Tankersleys have engaged in “unlawful harassment, trespass, vandalism, and lifethreatening acts” against Plaintiff in an attempt to force her to sell her property. Id. Plaintiff states 

that when she contacted the Monterey Sherriff’s Department regarding these allegedly unlawful 

acts the deputies reacted with “unbridled hostility,” treating her with bias, intentionally harming 

her, and attempting to criminalize her. Id. As a result, Plaintiff alleges that Defendant’s 

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employees, while acting in the scope of their employment, violated her rights.

1

Id. Plaintiff alleges 

that the Department treated her this way because certain deputies are friends with the Tankersleys. 

Id.

Plaintiff details ten incidents, beginning in 2004 and continuing through 2015, that she

alleges exhibit Defendant’s bias against her and give rise to her claims. Plaintiff alleges that on 

numerous occasions, deputies responded to her reports that she suspected her neighbor of 

harassment by refusing to properly investigate, often failing to come to Plaintiff’s property or to 

contact her neighbor. Id. ¶¶ 7, 11, 13. These include Plaintiff’s reports of her neighbor engaging 

in: trespass and vandalism as evidenced by bullet casings on June 21, 2004; battery by using his 

motorcycle to hit Plaintiff with dirt and rocks on June 20, 2009; and firing a high-powered rifle at 

a target he had placed in front of Plaintiff’s property on November 17, 2013. Id. Similarly, 

Plaintiff alleges that, on March 8, 2008, after she called 911 upon seeing a bullet strike 50 feet 

from her vehicle, deputies confirmed that Mr. Tankersley had fired the shot but simply advised 

him to fire away from the road and filed a report stating that Plaintiff’s claim was unsubstantiated. 

Id. ¶ 9.

In addition, Plaintiff alleges that, on January 14, 2008, deputies falsely arrested her on the 

basis of a report by her neighbor that he had been “shot at.” Id. ¶ 8. Plaintiff alleges the deputies 

then fabricated their arrest reports. Id. That same month, Plaintiff alleges, a sergeant provided Mr. 

Tankersley with an internal document of Plaintiff’s prior arrest, including her social security and 

driver’s license numbers. Id. ¶ 10.

Plaintiff alleges that the deputies again violated her rights in responding to another false 

 

1

Plaintiff includes “Does 1-20” in the caption of her Complaint, refers to “named defendant 

employees,” id. ¶ 6, and alleges that “each of the defendants named herein was an agent . . . of the 

Monterey County Sheriff and . . . was acting within the scope of such agency and employment,” 

id. ¶ 3. However, the Complaint names only one defendant—the County of Monterey—and does 

not name any individual defendants, Doe or otherwise. See id. ¶¶ 2-4. The Court notes that 

“[g]enerally, ‘Doe’ pleading is improper in federal court. The Federal Rules do not provide for the 

use of fictitious defendants.” Buckheit v. Dennis, 713 F. Supp. 2d 910, 918 (N.D. Cal. 2010) 

(citing Bogan v. Keene Corp., 852 F.2d 1238, 1239 (9th Cir.1988); Fifty Associates v. Prudential 

Ins. Co., 446 F.2d 1187, 1191 (9th Cir.1970); and McMillan v. Department of the Interior, 907 

F.Supp. 322 (D.Nev.1995)). Thus, if Plaintiff chooses to amend her complaint, she may wish to 

name individual defendants.

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police report, this time by Mr. Tankersley’s step-sister, on April 12, 2011. Plaintiff alleges that a 

deputy screamed at her, stating, “I’m going to find what ever I can to get you arrested.” Id. ¶ 12. 

Following this interaction, Plaintiff filed a complaint with the department’s internal affairs and the 

deputy is no longer employed by the department. Id. 

Plaintiff alleges that, on April 13, 2014, another employee admitted to advising Mr. 

Tankersley that he could videotape Plaintiff while she was on her property, threatened to arrest 

Plaintiff for stating that the situation was so serious that someone could get killed, and told 

Plaintiff that she “need[s] to stop calling dispatch because no deputy wants to respond to [her] 

calls.” Id. ¶ 15. Plaintiff initiated an internal investigation the next day, which allegedly concluded 

that Mr. Tankersley’s gunfire toward the target was illegal and unsafe and constituted reckless 

endangerment. Id. ¶¶ 15, 16. Plaintiff alleges that, on February 16, 2015, no deputy would take 

her call to report harassment by Mr. Tankersley.2Id. ¶ 17. 

Finally, Plaintiff alleges that in 1961 Monterey County Bureau of Land Management took 

land that belongs on Plaintiff’s property by arbitrarily moving “line monuments” without 

recording the change or compensating the property owners. Id. ¶ 19. Plaintiff alleges that this 

precludes her from recording a survey of her property. Id. According to Plaintiff, her record shows 

her property as being 37.81 acres, whereas a survey she had done indicates it is 34.4 acres. Id.

Based on these allegations, Plaintiff claims that 1) “the named Monterey County 

employees” have violated her Fourteenth Amendment rights, 2) Defendant is liable for these 

actions under California Government Code § 815.2, 3) Defendant breached its duty under 

California Government Code § 815.6, and 4) Defendant took Plaintiff’s land without just 

compensation, thereby inversely condemning it and violating 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

Plaintiff filed her Complaint in Monterey County Superior Court on June 26, 2015. 

Defendant removed the case to this Court on July 22, 2015. See Notice of Removal, ECF 1. On 

August 11, 2015, Defendant moved to dismiss the Complaint. Plaintiff opposed on August 25, 

 

2

The Complaint lists “February 16, 1015.” For the purposes of this motion, the Court reads the 

date as “February 16, 2015” and directs Plaintiff to correct this date in any amended pleading.

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2015, ECF 13, and Defendant replied on September 1, 2015, ECF 16.

3

The Court heard argument 

on the Motion to Dismiss on November 19, 2015.

II. LEGAL STANDARD

“A motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a 

claim upon which relief can be granted ‘tests the legal sufficiency of a claim.’” Conservation 

Force v. Salazar, 646 F.3d 1240, 1241-42 (9th Cir. 2011) (quoting Navarro v. Block, 250 F.3d 

729, 732 (9th Cir. 2001)). When determining whether a claim has been stated, the Court accepts as 

true all well-pled factual allegations and construes them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. 

Reese v. BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc., 643 F.3d 681, 690 (9th Cir. 2011). However, the Court 

need not “accept as true allegations that contradict matters properly subject to judicial notice” or 

“allegations that are merely conclusory, unwarranted deductions of fact, or unreasonable 

inferences.” In re Gilead Scis. Sec. Litig., 536 F.3d 1049, 1055 (9th Cir. 2008) (internal quotation 

marks and citations omitted). While a complaint need not contain detailed factual allegations, it 

“must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible 

on its face.’” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 

U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). A claim is facially plausible when it “allows the court to draw the 

reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id.

A court should freely grant leave to amend a complaint “when justice so requires.” Fed. R. 

Civ. P. 15(a); see also Lopez v. Smith, 203 F.3d 1122, 1127 (9th Cir. 2000) (en banc) (“[T]he 

purpose of Rule 15 . . . [is] to facilitate decision on the merits, rather than on the pleadings or 

technicalities.”).

III. DISCUSSION

A. Section 1983 Claims – Statute of Limitations

Defendant argues that many of the events comprising Plaintiff’s § 1983 claims fall outside

 

3 Defendant requests judicial notice of Exhibits A-D filed in support of its Motion, ECF 11, and 

Plaintiff requests judicial notice of Exhibits A-D filed in support of her Opposition, ECF 13, 14. 

Defendant objects to judicial notice of several of Plaintiff’s exhibits. ECF 17. Because none of the 

exhibits provided by either party is relevant to the Court’s decision, both requests for judicial 

notice are DENIED without prejudice as moot.

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the statute of limitations.4 Defendant correctly notes that the law of the state in which an action 

arises determines the statute of limitations for a section 1983 claim.5See Mot. at 14. Section 1983 

“looks to the law of the State in which the cause of action arose . . . for the length of the statute of 

limitations: It is that which the State provides for personal-injury torts.” Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 

384, 387. In California, that statute of limitations is two years. See Maldonado v. Harris (9th Cir. 

2004) 370 F.3d 945, 954-55; see also Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 335.1.

As a result, Defendant argues, any claim arising from an event that occurred more than two 

years before June 26, 2015, when Plaintiff filed this Complaint, is time-barred. Mot. at 6. This 

includes all but the incidents on November 13, 2013, April 13-14, 2014, and February 16, 2015, 

see Compl. ¶¶ 13-17, and would entirely dispose of the inverse condemnation claim, which 

allegedly arose in 1961—35 years before Plaintiff purchased her property and 54 years before she 

filed the Complaint. See Mot. at 4, 6, 7. Defendants additionally argue that even if the Court were 

to construe Plaintiff’s inverse condemnation claim, which she casts under § 1983, as an inverse 

condemnation claim under the Fifth Amendment, it would still be barred by the statute of 

limitations because California provides at most a five-year statute of limitations for inverse 

condemnation claims. See Cal. Code Civ. Pro. §§ 318, 319 (five years if based on the taking of 

private property); id. § 338 (three years if based on trespass or injury to property).

Plaintiff argues that, even if the statute of limitation applies, her injuries are “of a 

continuing nature” and the Court should therefore “compute the time to present a claim from the 

last event in the series,” presumably the date of the last incident she alleges. Opp. at 4. Plaintiff 

relies on two California cases: Natural Soda Products Co. v. City of Los Angeles, 23 Cal. 2d 193 

 

4

In addition to Plaintiff’s fourth cause of action (inverse condemnation), which she pleads as a § 

1983 claim, the Court also construes Plaintiff’s first cause of action (violation of the Fourteenth 

Amendment) as a § 1983 claim. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983; see also Monell v. Dep't of Soc. Servs. of 

City of New York, 436 U.S. 658, 689-90 (1978).

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Plaintiff opposes this argument by citing Supreme Court cases that consider various aspects of 

the interplay between state law and federal civil rights actions, such as exhaustion of state 

remedies before the filing of a federal case and the timing of the accrual of a cause of action. See 

Opp. at 4-5. These citations do not challenge Defendant’s argument about statute of limitations. 

To the contrary, the cases Plaintiff cites consistently articulate that the statute of limitations for a 

section 1983 claim is determined by the state statute of limitations for personal injury claims. See, 

e.g., Felder v. Casey, 487 U.S. 131, 140, (1988).

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(1943) and Amador Valley Investors v. City of Livermore, 43 Cal. App. 3d 483 (1974). Defendant 

responds that a comparison of the facts of those cases to those here shows that no continuing 

violation is at issue in this case. Reply at 3-4.6The Court agrees with Defendant.

In Natural Soda, a business sued the City of Los Angeles for flooding a dried salt-water 

lake where the business had two soda plants. 23 Cal. 2d at 197. The flooding began on February 6

and continued until the last day of June, 1937; the water did not entirely disappear until September

of that year. Id. at 202-03. The Supreme Court of California held that the statute of limitations for 

the claim began to run at the completion of the injury—that is, when the flooding concluded. The 

court explained that, while “the initial flooding established the inevitability of damages . . . the last 

flooding contributed to the injury.” Id. at 203. Thus, requiring the plaintiff to file suit earlier would 

have had the unacceptable effect of “denying plaintiff the right to recover for much of the injury to 

his property.” Id. at 204. 

No such concerns are present here because each incident—and related injury—is discrete.

Unlike the injury in Natural Soda, Plaintiff’s alleged injuries can be reasonably divided into 

separate occurrences that caused her distinct damage, each giving rise to a separate claim.

The facts of Amador Valley, decided three decades later, are quite similar to those in 

Natural Soda but its statute of limitations holding actually hurts Plaintiff’s argument. In Amador 

Valley, a business sued the City of Livermore for discharging treated sewage water into a creek,

making the business’ construction considerably more expensive. 43 Cal. App. 3d at 488. The 

discharge resulted in claims of damage on three separate dates. The court relied on Bellman v. 

County of Contra Costa, 54 Cal. 2d 363, which, in considering a series of earth slippages, held 

that “a new and separate cause of action arises with each new subsidence, with any applicable 

limitations statute running separately for each separate subsidence.” Id. at 489 (quoting Bellman, 

54 Cal. 2d at 369). In other words, “plaintiff may recover on those items of damage which accrued 

within the applicable time period.” Id. Applying that rule, Amador Valley found that the business

 

6

In addition, Defendant argues that Plaintiff has failed to establish how a California doctrine can 

apply to federal causes of action. Mot. at 4. Because the Court agrees that no continuing violation 

is at issue here, it need not reach this argument. 

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timely filed to “cover damages accruing within one year prior to the filing of the claim.” If the 

Court were to apply that rule here, the result would be no different than simply applying the 

statute of limitations: Plaintiff could not recover for any injury that accrued more than two years 

before she filed the Complaint on a § 1983 claim, or more than five years on a Fifth Amendment 

takings claim.

Plaintiff next argues that the delayed discovery rule should bar the application of the 

statute of limitations to her inverse condemnation claim. Opp. at 6. Under the delayed discovery 

rule, “accrual is postponed until the plaintiff either discovers or has reason to discover the 

existence of a claim, i.e., at least has reason to suspect a factual basis for its elements.” Id; see also

Nodine v. Shiley Inc., 240 F.3d 1149, 1153 (9th Cir. 2001). The “plaintiff must plead and prove 

the facts showing: (a) Lack of knowledge. (b) Lack of means of obtaining knowledge (in the 

exercise of reasonable diligence the facts could not have been discovered at an earlier date). (c) 

How and when he did actually discover the fraud or mistake.” General Bedding Corp. v. 

Echevarria, 947 F.2d 1395, 1397 (9th Cir. 1991). Plaintiff fails to allege facts establishing any of 

these elements in her Complaint: while she alleges that she discovered the 1961 act “[d]uring the 

concurrent lawsuit against the Tankersleys,” she does not even list the date of that discovery, 

much less any facts suggesting that she could not reasonably have discovered the facts at an earlier 

date. While Plaintiff asserts in her Opposition that the discovery occurred in 2014, see Opp. at 6, 

this does not suffice for the delayed discovery rule because it is not alleged in her Complaint and, 

furthermore, still does not explain why Plaintiff could not have obtained the knowledge earlier. 

Thus, Plaintiff’s inverse condemnation falls outside of the statute of limitations, regardless of 

whether that limit is two years or five.

B. Inverse Condemnation – Standing 

In addition to the statute of limitations problem, Defendant argues that Plaintiff lacks 

standing to assert the inverse condemnation claim because it is based on a taking that allegedly 

occurred before Plaintiff owned the property. Mot. at 17. Because Plaintiff’s claim is based on a 

direct condemnation, rather than a regulatory taking, the Court agrees with Defendant. 

“In a direct condemnation action, or when a State has physically invaded the property 

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without filing suit . . . it is a general rule of the law of eminent domain that any award goes to the 

owner at the time of the taking, and that the right to compensation is not passed to a subsequent 

purchaser.” Palazzolo v. Rhode Island, 533 U.S. 606, 628 (2001) (citing Danforth v. United States, 

308 U.S. 271, 284 (1939)). Were Plaintiff’s claim based on a regulatory restriction on her landuse, Defendant’s argument would fail. Id. at 626-27 (“So, the argument goes, by prospective 

legislation the State can . . . define property rights . . . and subsequent owners cannot claim any 

injury . . . The State may not put so potent a Hobbesian stick into the Lockean bundle.”). 

Plaintiff’s claim is of direct condemnation. She alleges that “[i]n 1961, Monterey County 

BLM arbitrarily moved the Rancho Pleyto Line monuments whereby taking private land” and that 

her “property has been taken by Monterey County BLM for public use.” Compl., ¶¶ 19, 27. 

Because she purchased her property after this alleged taking, Plaintiff lacks standing for this claim.

In her Opposition, Plaintiff appears to assert an additional incident on which to base her 

inverse condemnation claim. See Opp. at 6 (“County of Monterey violated plaintiff’s property 

rights when [the county surveyor] aided [Tankersley] by allowing [him] to take .91 acres of 

plaintiff’s land by including it in their subdivision survey”). In the Complaint, Plaintiff mentions 

this same incident but characterizes it as a conversion by the Tankersleys. Compl. ¶ 19 (“they took 

.91 acres of plaintiff’s land by including it in their subdivision survey”). Even if the incident 

occurred after 1996, when Plaintiff purchased the property, the Court finds that amending to allege 

involvement by a County employee would be futile because shifting private land to another 

private property owner does not constitute a government taking of land.

7 Accordingly, the Court 

GRANTS Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff’s fourth claim without leave to amend.

C. Section 1983 Claims – Official Policy, Custom, or Practice

 

7

Plaintiff additionally appears to argue that this claim is not ripe because Plaintiff has proposed 

the recording of a lot-line adjustment, Defendant has not yet considered the proposal, and “the 

state’s action is not complete until it provides or refuses to provide suitable postdeprivation 

remedy.” Opp. at 7. However, the case Plaintiff relies on for this proposition, Parratt v. Taylor, 

415 U.S. 527 (1981), considers facts so distinguishable from those here (i.e., a prisoner’s 

deprivation of his property as a result of the unauthorized failure of state agents to follow 

established state procedure where there was no contention that it was practicable for the state to 

provide a predeprivation hearing) that the Court does not reach this issue. Plaintiff has not made 

the relevant allegation, nor has Defendant provided briefing on this question.

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Defendant argues that, in addition to the statute of limitations issue, Plaintiff’s § 1983 

claims fail in their entirety because they do not set forth an official policy, custom, or practice that 

resulted in the alleged deprivation of Plaintiff’s constitutional rights. Mot. at 9-10.

A municipality cannot be held liable “unless action pursuant to official municipal policy of 

some nature caused a constitutional tort.” Monell v. Dept. of Social Services of the City of New 

York, 436 U.S. 658, 691(1978); see also Huskey v. City of San Jose 204 F.3d 893, 904 (9th Cir. 

2000) (“A municipality may be liable under § 1983 only if (1) the plaintiff suffered a deprivation 

of rights secured to him by the constitution and laws of the United States and (2) the violation 

occurred pursuant to an official policy or custom.”). 

Defendant argues that Plaintiff alleges no such official policy or custom. Mot. at 9-10. 

Plaintiff essentially concedes this and responds that Defendant should nevertheless be held liable 

under § 1983 because its employees were acting under color of state law when they engaged in an 

indisputable pattern of bias and gross injustice against her. This does nothing to save Plaintiff’s §

1983 claims, which must set forth an official policy, custom, or practice pursuant to which 

Defendant deprived Plaintiff of her constitutional rights. See Monell, 436 U.S. at 691. 

Accordingly, the Court GRANTS Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss the first claim with leave to 

amend.

D. Deprivation of Rights

Because the Court grants Plaintiff leave to amend her first claim, the Court also considers 

Defendant’s last challenge in order to offer Plaintiff maximal guidance in amending. Defendant 

argues that Plaintiff has failed to allege any deprivation of rights secured by the Constitution or 

other federal law. Mot. at 10-11. Defendant is correct that, “[a]s a matter of pleading a § 1983 

action, [a] plaintiff must allege facts establishing a deprivation of rights secured by the 

Constitution or laws of the United States.” Havas v. Thornton, 609 F.2d 372, 374 (9th Cir. 1979).

Defendant argues that Plaintiff’s allegations of unfair treatment or negligent conduct by public 

officials do not suffice. “[M]erely because the acts are performed by public officials, a state-law 

tort claim is not thereby transmuted into one for the deprivation of rights secured under the 

Fourteenth Amendment.” Id. 

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In her Opposition, Plaintiff appears to respond to this argument in two ways: first, by 

providing a list of statutes that she asserts Defendant violated. Plaintiff does not specify whether 

any of these statutes are federal. Opp. at 3. More importantly, Plaintiff failed to allege any 

violation of these statutes in the Complaint. Accordingly, this response does not overcome 

Defendant’s challenge.

Second, Plaintiff appears to argue that her Fourteenth Amendment equal protection claim

is premised on the theory that she is a “class of one.” Opp. at 9. Plaintiff directs the Court to 

Willowbrook v. Olech, 528 U.S. 562 (2000), in which the plaintiff successfully alleged a “class of 

one” claim against her village after it required her to grant it a 33-foot easement before connecting 

her property to the municipal water supply, as compared to the 15 feet required of all other 

property owners seeking the same access to water. Id. at 563. The plaintiff sued the village for 

violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by making an “irrational and 

wholly arbitrary” demand. Id. The Supreme Court, reviewing the district court’s dismissal for 

failure to state a claim, held that the plaintiff had sufficiently stated an equal protection claim even 

though she had not alleged membership in a class or group. Id. at 565. Instead, she had pled that 

she was a “class of one” by alleging that “she has been intentionally treated differently from others 

similarly situated and that there is no rational basis for the difference in treatment.” Id. at 564.

Defendant replies that the “class of one” theory does not apply where the state has engaged 

in discretionary decision-making. Defendant relies on Enquist v. Oregon Department of 

Agriculture, which considered a former state employee’s “class of one” claim against her former 

employer for firing her for “arbitrary, vindictive and malicious reasons.” 553 U.S. 591, 595 

(2008). The Supreme Court held that the “class of one” theory “has no place in the public 

employment context.” Id. at 594.

In reaching this holding, the Supreme Court explained that “[w]hat seems to have been 

significant in Olech and the cases on which it relied was the existence of a clear standard against 

which departures, even for a single plaintiff could be readily assessed.” Id. at 602; see also 

Allegheny Pittsburgh Coal Co. v. Commission of Webster Cty., 488 U.S. 336, 341 (1989) (using 

dated purchase prices to assess property parcels departed from clear standard of using market 

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value); Sioux City Bridge Co. v. Dakota County, 260 U.S. 441, 445-447 (1923) (assessing one 

taxpayer’s property at 100 percent of its value departed from 55 percent used for all other 

property). 

Enquist distinguished such clear-standard cases from those that involve state actions that

“by their nature involve discretionary decisionmaking based on a vast array of subjective, 

individualized assessments.” 553 U.S. at 603. “In such cases the rule that people should be ‘treated 

alike, under like circumstances and conditions’ is not violated when one person is treated 

differently from others, because treating like individuals differently is an accepted consequence of 

the discretion granted.” Id.

While Enquist holds only that the “class-of-one theory of equal protection has no 

application in the public employment context,” 553 U.S. at 607, numerous courts have extended 

its rationale to other discretionary state actions. In dicta, Enquist itself explained that allowing “an 

equal protection claim [against a traffic officer] on the ground that a ticket was given to one 

person and not others, even if for no discernible or articulable reason, would be incompatible with 

the discretion inherent in the challenged action.” Id. at 604. The Eighth Circuit applied Enquist's

rationale to police investigative decisions, finding that “[a] police officer's decisions regarding 

whom to investigate and how to investigate are matters that necessarily involve discretion.” 

Flowers v. City of Minneapolis, 558 F.3d 794, 799 (8th Cir.2009). Defendant asks the Court to 

reach the same conclusion on the basis of the facts alleged here. While Defendant’s argument may 

ultimately be persuasive, the Court is granting Plaintiff leave to amend her first cause of action 

and therefore declines to rule on this ground until the Complaint is further developed.

In the alternative, Defendant argues that Plaintiff has failed to plead a “class of one” claim 

because she has not plausibly asserted that she was treated differently from similarly situated 

individuals without a rational basis. Mot. at 6. Plaintiff’s strongest allegations in this regard appear 

in paragraph 12, where she alleges that a deputy responded to a call by Mr. Tankersley’s stepsister by rushing over to their property to get a report and then immediately coming to Plaintiff to 

scream at and threaten her. This allegation does not suffice, however, because Plaintiff has not 

alleged that she and the Tankersleys are similarly situated. Furthermore, one incident where one 

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individual was treated differently than Plaintiff might have been treated had she made the same 

call and report does not suffice to allege that “she has been intentionally treated differently from 

others similarly situated and that there is no rational basis for the difference in treatment.” Olech, 

528 U.S. at 564. Accordingly, Plaintiff’s first claim also fails for this reason and Plaintiff must 

address this deficiency in any amended pleading.

E. State Law Claims

Defendant argues that Plaintiff’s second and third causes of action—violations of 

California Government Code §§ 815.2 and 815.6, respectively—should be dismissed because 

Plaintiff has not pled that these sections establish any statutory duty, nor do they. Mot. at 13-15. 

“Since the duty of a governmental agency can only be created by statute or ‘enactment,’ 

the statute or ‘enactment’ claimed to establish the duty must at the very least be identified.” Searcy 

v. Hemet Unified School Dist., 177 Cal. App. 3d 792, 802 (1986). Though Plaintiff identifies §§ 

815.2 and 815.6, Defendant argues that this fails the pleading standard because neither statute 

establishes any duty on the part of Defendant. Mot. at 13-15. The Court turns to the statutory 

language of §§ 815.2 and 815.6 to evaluate Defendant’s argument. 

Section 815.2 provides,

(a) A public entity is liable for injury proximately caused by an act or omission of 

an employee of the public entity within the scope of his employment if the act or 

omission would, apart from this section, have given rise to a cause of action 

against that employee or his personal representative.

(b) Except as otherwise provided by statute, a public entity is not liable for an 

injury resulting from an act or omission of an employee of the public entity where 

the employee is immune from liability.

Cal. Gov. Code § 815.2.

Similarly, § 815.6 provides

Where a public entity is under a mandatory duty imposed by an enactment that is 

designed to protect against the risk of a particular kind of injury, the public entity 

is liable for an injury of that kind proximately caused by its failure to discharge 

the duty unless the public entity establishes that it exercised reasonable diligence 

to discharge the duty.

Cal. Gov. Code § 815.6.

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Defendant is correct that, though Plaintiff identifies these statutes, she has nevertheless failed to 

identify the source of any duty on Defendant’s part. Neither section creates a duty; instead, both 

rely on the existence of a duty arising from a separate source. See § 815.2 (“apart from this 

section”); § 815.6 (“a mandatory duty imposed by an enactment”). Accordingly, the Court 

GRANTS Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff’s second and third causes of action with leave 

to amend.

IV. ORDER

For the foregoing reasons, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendant’s Motion to 

Dismiss is GRANTED, with leave to amend. Any amended complaint shall be filed on or before 

February 29, 2016.

Dated: January 28, 2016

 ______________________________________

BETH LABSON FREEMAN

United States District Judge

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