Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_15-cv-01556/USCOURTS-cand-3_15-cv-01556-21/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 442
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Employment
Cause of Action: 42:1983 Civil Rights (Employment Discrimination)

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

THOMAS HAUSCHILD,

Plaintiff,

 v.

CITY OF RICHMOND and CHRISTOPHER

MAGNUS, and DOES 1 through 10,

inclusive,

Defendants. /

No. C 15-01556 WHA

ORDER DENYING MOTION

FOR RECONSIDERATION

OF SUMMARY JUDGMENT

ORDER

INTRODUCTION

In this wrongful termination action, plaintiff moves on the eve of trial for reconsideration

of a much earlier order granting partial summary judgment for defendants. For the reasons

stated below, the motion is DENIED.

STATEMENT

Plaintiff Thomas Hauschild lost his job as a police officer for battering his estranged

wife, a fellow officer; hanging a condom on the front door of her residence; possessing eight

unregistered firearms; and lying about it all. His first amended complaint (the operative

complaint), however, posed a different theory, namely that defendants City of Richmond and

Police Chief Christopher Magnus “retaliated” against him for making complaints of public

concern.

To go back to Square One, Hauschild filed his operative complaint in May 2015, alleging

six separate claims related to the termination of his employment: (1) violation of the First, Fifth,

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and Fourteenth Amendments under Section 1983; (2) discrimination in violation of California’s

Fair Employment and Housing Act; (3) retaliation in violation of FEHA; (4) harassment in

violation of FEHA; (5) violation of the California Constitution; and (6) violation of the Public

Safety Officers Procedural Bill of Rights. Plaintiff later dropped claim four (harassment) and

claim five (violation of the California Constitution). 

The remaining claims, except for claim six (violation of the POBR), were dismissed

on summary judgment in June 2016 (Dkt. No. 78). Now, on the eve of trial in February 2017,

Hauschild moves for reconsideration of the summary judgment order with regard to the First

Amendment retaliation claim under Section 1983. Hauschild argues the June 2016 summary

judgment order gave short shrift to his theory that his alleged refusal to lie in connection with

someone else’s racial discrimination complaint led to retaliation and thus violated the First

Amendment. In support, he submits portions of his operative complaint, interrogatory responses,

and deposition testimony.

Although at least two other retaliation theories were presented on summary judgment,

the only theory which is now in dispute is Hauschild’s alleged refusal to lie when Magnus

supposedly demanded Hauschild make a false statement during a racial discrimination

investigation involving some other officer (Dkt. No. 65 at 5–6). 

In their reply on the earlier summary judgment motion, defendants argued that this theory

had no anchor in Hauschild’s operative complaint or even in interrogatory answers (Dkt. No. 74

at 3–5). Hauschild’s operative complaint made no reference to any race discrimination case

(Dkt. No. 8 at 9):

Defendants violated Plaintiff’s First Amendment rights, in that

Defendants retaliated against Plaintiff for making complaints of

public concern to Defendants, and terminated Plaintiff as a result

of his complaints of sexual harassment. 

The operative complaint elaborated as follows but again made no reference to any race

discrimination proceeding (id. at 5–6):

After Plaintiff made complaints about Defendant Magnus’s sexual

advances, Defendants subjected Plaintiff to repeated adverse

actions in the workplace, including but not limited to (1) denying

overtime for Plaintiff, (2) denying training for Plaintiff,

(3) removing Plaintiff from his position on the SWAT team,

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* In the supplemental briefing to the instant motion, Hauschild argues these extra pages were

permissible because defendants brought a new argument in their earlier reply. Defendants’ new argument,

according to Hauschild, was that Hauschild adopted new theories of retaliation for the first time in Hauschild’s

opposition.

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(4) refusing to allow Plaintiff to serve as Acting Sergeant,

(5) refusing to select Plaintiff for a homicide position, even though

Plaintiff had superior qualifications, (6) unilaterally audited

Plaintiff’s pay records, and demanding that he return part of his

pay, (7) Defendant Magnus demanded that Plaintiff lie about an

incident involving the senior leadership of the department, and,

when Plaintiff refused to lie, Defendants attempted to transfer

Plaintiff out of the Cease Fire program, and (8) subjecting

Plaintiff to internal affairs investigations.

The italicized item, it is now said by plaintiff, purportedly notified defendants that his retaliation

theory involved by his refusal to lie during a racial discrimination complaint.

In response to an interrogatory demanding all facts supporting a finding of malice as to

Magnus’ actions, Hauschild included the same wording italicized above — along with the entire

factual background in his complaint (but for three short paragraphs) (Dkt. No. 62-6 at 105–109;

Dkt. No. 8 at 3–8). Again, race discrimination went unsaid.

The reader may wonder why it would matter if the refusal to lie involved a race

discrimination case, as opposed to some other type of case. This will eventually be addressed

herein. For now, it is enough to note both sides have heatedly contested the point.

To continue, testimony from Hauschild’s deposition allegedly put defendants on notice of

his refusal-to-lie theory. This order pauses to note Hauschild added three pages of his deposition

testimony to the instant motion that were not in the record on summary judgment, namely pages

92, 128, and 129 (see Dkt. No. 125-3 at 4–5, 9).*

The first time it came up in Hauschild’s deposition, he testified about Magnus’ attempts

to transfer Hauschild out of the special investigations unit, which contained the Cease Fire

program (Dkt. No. 125-3 at 6–7): 

Q: But you told me you were removed?

A: What happened was, one, they made Arnold first, so they

moved Lieutenant Threets out. Then they were forcing me

out — in September 2012, Magnus said, “You’re going to

leave, one way or the other.” So he ended up giving me a

transfer notice in December of 2012, I was being

transferred out of investigations as of January 2013.

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* * *

Q: You say one of — another one of your other complaints is,

you were removed from the Cease Fire program. What

was that all about? 

A: That was the same thing. In 2011, I actually was not —

never removed. He tried to remove me, and then there

was community backlash. 

The next line of questioning related to Magnus’ role in Hauschild receiving inferior work

assignments in Cease Fire (Dkt. No. 125-3 at 8–9): 

Q: So what’s your basis that Chief Magnus had — had some

input into the way you were treated in the Cease Fire — on

the Cease Fire team?

A: I’ll give you an example. 

So when we — when everything happened, there was a lot

of things that occurred in Cease Fire. It all came from

Anthony Williams. I was initially assigned to Anthony

Williams, the captain. We would have meetings with Chief

Magnus, and there were times when Chief Magnus

would — would basically sit there and say, “Well, why did

you think you could do that? Why did you do that?” And

a lot of that came around because he wanted me to blame

Lieutenant Threets for Cease Fire’s failure.

And I told him I couldn’t say that because Lieutenant

Threets never had any disparaging comments, at least not

to me directly, about the [C]hief or Cease Fire. He’d

always been supportive.

The last time this topic came up, defendants attempted to clarify what the Chief allegedly said

when he demanded Hauschild lie (Dkt. No. 125-3 at 4):

A: Again, he tried to get me to say that DeVone Boggan and

Arnold Threets tried to set up Cease Fire to fail, that they

were negatively impacting it. There was — there’s a —

there’s a bunch of incidents in Cease Fire where the [C]hief

kind of — and I disagree on things.

Q: So what did the [C]hief say to you that led you to believe

he wanted you to lie?

A: Basically, he told me that he wanted me to say that DeVone

Boggan and Arnold Threets set up Cease Fire to fail. 

Q: Is there any documentation of that conversation or that —

A: We were in a meeting and I can tell you, I very specifically

remember it, because I said, “Chief, I’m here to do a job. 

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You’re the [C]hief. Whatever you want, I’m going to do,

as long as it’s moral, legal, and ethical. And I’m not going

to lie, and if you want someone that’s going to come in

here and lie and do what you want without having any

standard or moral compass, then you can transfer me out.” 

And I got the transfer memo the next day.

That’s how I remember that very specific conversation.

And I want to say AB or even his former secretary might

have been in there at the time.

Q: Who was in the meeting?

A: I believe his former secretary. I don’t know if she was

paying attention, but she was in there. I believe [Allwyn]

Brown was in there also.

So, race discrimination per se never came up in these passages. The first time there was

any express mention of a “racial discrimination” complaint was in Hauschild’s opposition to

defendants’ summary judgment motion. Hauschild relied exclusively on his own declaration to

make this point (Dkt. No. 67 at 4) (emphasis added):

In 2011, Defendant Magnus demanded that I lie in connection

with an investigation into a racial discrimination complaint

against Defendant Magnus. While I was assigned to CeaseFire, a

community policing program, Defendant Magnus demanded that I

lie about several failures of the CeaseFire program to discredit an

African-American command staff officer who had made a racial

discrimination complaint against Defendant Magnus. I explained

to Chief Magnus that I would not lie, as what he was asking me to

do was immoral, illegal, and unethical. When I refused, Defendant

Magnus looked at me with an extremely menacing face, saying

“You’re going to leave, one way or another.” I interpreted this

comment to mean that I now had a clear target on my back, and

that Magnus would be looking for any pretext to terminate my

employment.

The order in question found that Hauschild’s new theory had not been reflected in

Hauschild’s operative complaint. Ultimately, however, the First Amendment retaliation claim

lost because Hauschild’s self-serving and uncorroborated evidence was too thin for a reasonable

jury to find in his favor, particularly in light of defendants’ substantial showing that they

terminated Hauschild for legitimate reasons and long after the alleged refusal to lie. The order

on the First Amendment retaliation claim was as follows (Dkt. No. 78 at 11–12; 11 n.3 omitted): 

As an initial matter, it should be noted that plaintiff asserts entirely

new theories to support his First Amendment retaliation claim in

his opposition to defendants’ motion for summary judgment. 

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Plaintiff asserts that his First Amendment claim is supported by

complaints he made “about the criminal misconduct of his former

spouse” and his “refusal to lie during the course of a racial

discrimination complaint” (Opp. at 24). 

Plaintiff’s new theory of retaliation is not reflected in the First

Amended Complaint. A plaintiff may not raise new theories for

the first time on summary judgment. Pickern v. Pier 1 Imports

(U.S.), Inc., 457 F.3d 963, 969 (9th Cir. 2006). As such, the

complaint did not put defendants on notice about the evidence they

would need to defend against plaintiff’s new allegations. This

order finds that plaintiff failed to provide defendants with adequate

notice of these allegations. Plaintiff’s new theories will be

disregarded.

What remains under the First Amendment retaliation claim is

plaintiff’s assertion that he was fired in retaliation for making

complaints about alleged sexual harassment by Chief Magnus and

for refusing to lie in the course of an investigation.

A First Amendment retaliation claim involves a five-step analysis: 

(1) whether the plaintiff spoke on a matter of public concern;

(2) whether the plaintiff spoke as a private citizen or public

employee; (3) whether the plaintiff’s protected speech was a

substantial or motivating factor in the adverse employment action;

(4) whether the state had an adequate justification for treating the

employee differently from other members of the general public;

and (5) whether the state would have taken the adverse

employment action even absent the protected speech.

Plaintiff’s evidence of protected speech is thin. In a declaration,

he avers that he made a complaint to his supervisor, Threets, about

an alleged sexual advance by Magnus. The supervisor remembers

no such thing. Plaintiff further avers that Magnus demanded he lie

in connection with an investigation and that plaintiff refused to do

so. These statements are uncorroborated by any other evidence. 

Nonetheless, assuming arguendo that plaintiff complained to

Threets, and that he refused to lie during an investigation, the City

would have taken the same employment action regardless — and

reasonably so.

For the reasons described above [in the FEHA retaliation analysis],

defendants make a substantial showing that the City had a

legitimate basis for the employment decision. A reasonable trier of

fact could not conclude that plaintiff was terminated in retaliation

for a complaint he made about an alleged sexual advance or for his

alleged refusal to lie. 

ANALYSIS

Generally, a refusal-to-lie theory of retaliation is viable if the employer is a private firm. 

In Tameny v. Atlantic Richfield Co., 27 Cal.3d 167, 176 (1980), the Supreme Court of California

held an employer’s discharge of an employee is actionable in tort if it violates fundamental

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principles of public policy. The Tameny decision held an employee validly pled a tort cause

of action for wrongful termination based on his refusal to participate in an illegal scheme to fix

retail gasoline prices. Tameny relied on Petermann v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters,

174 Cal.App.2d 184 (1959). There, the employer was held liable in tort for discharging an

employee who refused instructions to perjure himself before a legislative committee. 

Tameny claims, however, may not be brought against public entities, like our defendant. 

Miklosy v. Regents of the University of California, 44 Cal.4th 876, 899-902 (2008). In Miklosy,

two scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory claimed they were terminated for

identifying costly and dangerous problems with the project they were working on. The decision

rejected their Tameny claims in holding the Government Claims Act of 1963 abolished common

law tort liability, including Tameny liability, for public entities. Id. at 900; Cal. Gov’t. Code

§ 815. 

So, Miklosy foreclosed any Tameny avenue for Hauschild. Both parties agreed on this at

our recent oral argument.

This circumstance forced our plaintiff to resort to a different theory of relief, namely

retaliation for exercising free speech rights, under Section 1983. It is well settled that public

employers may not condition employment on the forfeiture of constitutional rights; however,

public employers are also entitled to restrict their employees’ speech in a manner similar to

private employers. The Supreme Court summarized this balancing inquiry in Garcetti v.

Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410, 420 (2006), stating “[w]hile the First Amendment invests public

employees with certain rights, it does not empower them to constitutionalize the employee

grievance.” 

A First Amendment retaliation claim requires a five-factor analysis: (1) whether the

plaintiff spoke on a matter of public concern; (2) whether the plaintiff spoke as a private citizen

or public employee; (3) whether the plaintiff’s protected speech was a substantial or motivating

factor in the adverse employment action; (4) whether the state had an adequate justification for

treating the employee differently from other members of the general public; and (5) whether the

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state would have taken the adverse employment action even absent the protected speech. Eng v.

Cooley, 552 F.3d 1062, 1070 (9th Cir. 2009). 

Significantly, Hauschild must prevail on all five factors to succeed; defendants need only

disprove one. Coomes v. Edmonds School Dist. No. 15, 816 F.3d 1255, 1260 (9th Cir. 2016). 

Hauschild bears the burden of showing the first three factors go in his favor. If Hauschild does

so, the burden of proof is passed to defendants who must prevail either on the fourth or the fifth

factor. The burden of persuasion remains at all times with Hauschild. Eng, 552 F.3d at

1070–72. 

This order assumes without deciding that the first and second requirements would be met

if a supervisor required a police officer to lie in testimony about a police program and the officer

refused to do so. This would be true whether the proposed testimony involved a racial

discrimination complaint or not. It is unnecessary to march through the many First Amendment

decisions involved in this question because this order presupposes that they would support this

theory. The problem is not the legal theory but the factual support. 

1. THE ALLEGED REFUSAL TO LIE WAS NOT A SIGNIFICANT FACTOR 

IN THE ADVERSE EMPLOYMENT ACTION.

Hauschild bears the burden under the third factor of showing defendants took an adverse

employment action and that his refusal to lie was a substantial and motivating factor in the

adverse action. Id. at 1071–72. Hauschild relies exclusively on his self-serving and

uncorroborated declaration to show he refused to lie in the first place. Defendants invoke

Villiarimo v. Aloha Island Air, Inc., 281 F.3d 1054, 1061 (9th Cir. 2002), for the proposition

that “uncorroborated and self-serving testimony” in itself does not always create a triable issue

of material fact. The Villiarimo rule bears on both whether the refusal to lie was a significant

factor in the adverse employment action and if the refusal to lie even occurred in the first place. 

Our court of appeals, however, has provided further guidance on this issue. 

A district court may not disregard a declaration at the summary judgment stage solely

because of its self-serving nature. “Declarations are oftentimes self-serving, and this is properly

so because the party submitting it would use the declaration to support his or her position.” 

Nigro v. Sears, Roebuck and Co., 784 F.3d 495, 497 (9th Cir. 2015). However, a self-serving

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declaration does not always create a genuine issue of material fact for summary judgment. 

The district court can disregard a self-serving declaration that states conclusions rather than facts

via admissible evidence. Ibid. 

Nigro cited to Villiarimo and F.T.C. v. Publishing Clearing House, Inc., 104 F.3d 1168,

1171 (9th Cir. 1997), as examples of appropriate instances to disregard self-serving declarations. 

Villiarimo held that a declaration is properly disregarded if it includes facts beyond the

declarant’s personal knowledge and without indicating how the declarant knows those facts

to be true. In Publishing Clearing House, the FTC demonstrated that the defendant had the

requisite control over PCH, a corporation, to be liable for its judgment against it. The FTC

provided evidence that the defendant obtained and signed PCH’s business license and signed

the fund-raising agreement between PCH and a charity, and the charity’s application to conduct

charitable solicitation identified the defendant as the person in direct charge of conducting the

solicitation. The defendant asserted that she took these actions only because her partner had

convinced her that he could not legally open a telemarketing business in his name due to pending

criminal charges. The decision disregarded her affidavit as insufficient to create a genuine issue

of material fact because it was a conclusory, self-serving affidavit, lacking detailed facts and any

supporting evidence. Ibid.

If ever there were a situation to apply this rule, it is here. Hauschild provided only his

uncorroborated and self-serving declaration as evidence that Magnus demanded he “lie” during

the course of a formal racial discrimination complaint. The declaration lacked specific facts to

support this claim. He could not identify the timing of the conversation except to say it was

sometime in 2011. He declared that the Chief wanted him to blame an African-American

command staff officer for “several failures” of the Cease Fire program. That Hauschild

allegedly refused to blame someone hardly means that he was being asked “to lie,” for blame in

such circumstances is a matter of opinion. After Hauschild allegedly expressed a contrary

opinion, the Chief did not insist that Hauschild conform his testimony to the view expressed by

the Chief, at least insofar as the declaration revealed. There is nothing in the summary judgment

record showing that Hauschild ever even gave testimony in the race discrimination case — or

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that he was ever even scheduled to do so. Furthermore, Hauschild’s declaration is inconsistent

with his deposition. Hauschild asserted in his declaration that when he refused to lie during this

meeting sometime in 2011, Magnus menacingly said, “You’re going to leave, one way or the

other” (Dkt. No. 67 at ¶10). His deposition, on the other hand, pinned that comment “in

September of 2012,” when Magnus allegedly said, “You’re going to leave, one way or the other”

(Dkt. No. 125-3 at 6). Finally, the declaration finished with the conclusory statement, “I

interpreted this comment to mean that I now had a clear target on my back, and that Magnus

would be looking for any pretext to terminate my employment.” (Dkt. No. 67 at ¶10). This kind

of self-serving conclusion is exactly what Villiarimo condemned. 

As for corroboration, none exists. This order notes that Hauschild said during his

deposition that Magnus’ former secretary and possibly another person were in the refusal-to-lie

meeting (Dkt. No. 125-3 at 5). Hauschild, however, has submitted no statement, declaration, or

testimony from either of those two potential witnesses to corroborate his story either on the

original summary judgment motion or this motion for reconsideration. (Magnus, of course,

denies it.)

With respect to the alleged directive to lie, there is no showing by anyone, including

Hauschild, that he ever told anyone about it. Nor did he mention the alleged refusal to lie at any

time when he was subjected to the internal affairs investigation in September 2012 — one of the

alleged retaliatory actions resulting from his refusal to lie. The first time Hauschild ever made

any allegation about any refusal to lie came when he filed this lawsuit in April 2015, at least

forty months and possibly as many as fifty-two months after it supposedly occurred. 

This failure of proof is dispositive.

2. DEFENDANTS WOULD HAVE TAKEN THE ADVERSE ACTION 

ABSENT PROTECTED SPEECH.

Also dispositive is that defendants have proven beyond reasonable dispute that they

would have terminated Hauschild in any event. 

The final factor in the Eng test “asks whether the adverse employment action was based

on protected and unprotected activities, and if the state would have taken the adverse action if

the proper reason alone had existed.” Eng, 552 F.3d at 1072. Defendants had four proper

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reasons. Hauschild was found guilty of battering his estranged wife, a fellow officer; hanging a

condom on the front door of her residence; possessing eight unregistered firearms; and lying

about it all. He does not categorically deny these allegations. Rather, Hauschild argues only that

he was not the primary aggressor in the domestic violence incident; that he cannot recall hanging

the condom on her door but admits he might have done so; that the search of his locker

containing the guns was improper and that the officers he received the guns from should have

been disciplined as well. 

Defendants showed legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons for firing Hauschild. This too

is dispositive.

CONCLUSION

For the reasons stated above, plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration is DENIED.

The Court suspects that this motion for reconsideration was really intended to lard the

record with new angles and extra evidence that could have been used seven months ago when the

original motion was decided. On appeal, counsel shall please be frank with our court of appeals

as to what was and was not before the Court at the time of the original ruling.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: February 15, 2017. WILLIAM ALSUP

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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