Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-3_07-cv-08040/USCOURTS-azd-3_07-cv-08040-1/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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WO

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

Dan Frazier, 

Plaintiff, 

vs.

Patricia J. Boomsma, in her official

capacity as the City Attorney of the City of

Flagstaff, Arizona; Terence Hance, in his

official capacity as the Coconino County

Attorney, Arizona; Terry Goddard, in his

official capacity as the Attorney General

of the State of Arizona; John and Jane

Does, 1-50, individually and in their

official capacity as city or county attorneys

in Arizona; John and Jane Does 51-3551,

citizens provided a private right of action

against Plaintiff in Senate Bill 1014, 

Defendants. 

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No. 07-CV-8040-PHX-NVW

ORDER

Pending before the court are Defendant Patricia J. Boomsma’s (“Boomsma”)

original and amended motions for summary judgment. (Doc. ## 76, 89.)

I. Procedural History 

Plaintiff Dan Frazier (“Frazier”) brought this action on June 28, 2007, for

injunction against prosecution and a declaration that A.R.S. § 13-3726 is unconstitutional

on its face and as applied to his conduct. City Attorney Boomsma admitted in her answer

“that the Bill prohibits Plaintiff’s selling of T-shirts containing the names of soldiers

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killed in the Iraq war without authorization . . . , that by selling T-shirts containing the

names of soldiers killed in the Iraq war without authorization, Plaintiff subjects himself to

civil and criminal liability . . . , [and] that in her official capacity, [City Attorney

Boomsma] could criminally prosecute Plaintiff under the applicable statutes.” (Doc. # 22

¶¶ 26–28.) The court preliminarily enjoined Defendants from enforcing the law against

Frazier on September 27, 2007. (Doc. # 40.) 

The court then set the following deadlines in its case management order: initial

disclosures (January 11, 2008); motions to amend pleadings or join parties (February 3,

2008); close of discovery and pretrial disclosures (April 25, 2008); dispositive motions

(Plaintiff: May 16, 2008; Defendants: as cross-motion, or otherwise by June 6, 2008).

(Doc. ## 61, 67.) 

Boomsma submitted her original motion for summary judgment on June 6, 2008. 

(Doc. # 76.) Her unsigned affidavit said, “I instructed City of Flagstaff police officers to

prepare a report regarding Plaintiff’s conduct in connection with his t-shirt business,” and,

“Based on information I obtained . . . I had a reasonable belief that Plaintiff was

committing a violation of A.R.S. § 13-3726.” (Doc. # 77, Ex. A ¶¶ 4–5.) Counsel noted,

“Upon signature of the affidavit by Ms. Boomsma, counsel will submit a Notice of Filing

Affidavit.” (Doc. # 77 ¶ 2.) On June 19, 2008, Frazier submitted a stipulation to extend

his time to respond to Boomsma’s motion for summary judgment because “Defendant

will be filing an amended statement of facts to the Motion for Summary Judgment.” 

(Doc. # 80.)

On July 9, 2008, Boomsma submitted an Amended Motion for Summary Judgment

and an accompanying Amended Statement of Facts. (Doc. ## 89, 90.) The new

statement of facts was supported by the affidavits of City Attorney Boomsma and of an

attorney in her office, Lisa M. Stankovich. According to the new affidavits, the police

department contacted Ms. Stankovich with a charging request form. Boomsma states that

she allowed Ms. Stankovich “to exercise her best prosecutorial discretion in determining

whether to prosecute the plaintiff,” that “[a]t no time did I ever instruct the Flagstaff

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Police Department to contact, direct or otherwise, Mr. Dan Frazier,” and that it was not

until after the lawsuit was filed that “I learned that my office had declined to prosecute

Mr. Dan Frazier under A.R.S. § 13-3726.” (Doc. # 90, Ex. B ¶¶ 4–5, 7–8.) Ms.

Stankovich testifies that she never instructed the Flagstaff Police Department “to contact,

direct or otherwise, Mr. Dan Frazier” and that she declined the police department’s

request to prosecute Frazier because she determined that “the statute did not apply to the

alleged facts as outlined in the police report.” (Doc. # 90, Ex. A ¶¶ 8, 10, 12.) 

The court ordered the parties to submit simultaneous briefs addressing whether the

amended motion for summary judgment and its accompanying statement of amended

facts should be denied as untimely, beyond the scope of disclosures, or contradictory of

Boomsma’s prior testimony and pleadings. (Doc. # 91.) 

II. The Tardy Motion for Summary Judgment Will Be Allowed

Counsel for Boomsma explains that an associate in the law firm incorrectly

calendared the deadline for Defendants’ dispositive motions as June 6, 2008, when in fact

she was permitted to file a cross-motion for summary judgment along with her response

to Frazier’s motion. The associate also waited until the last minute to draft Boomsma’s

affidavit, and because Boomsma was unavailable to review the draft until June 9, 2008,

the original affidavit was filed unsigned. After Boomsma reviewed the draft affidavit,

she informed her counsel of its error. Her counsel later filed the amended motion for

summary judgment and accompanying affidavits. In the circumstances, the tardy

amended motion for summary judgment will be allowed. 

III. Boomsma’s Motion for Summary Judgment Will Be Denied

Boomsma’s arguments on summary judgment are plainly incorrect. Further

briefing is unnecessary to resolve her issues, so the court will rule on the motion now to

end the delay of this case. 

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A. Boomsma Is Bound by Her Answer and Admission

Boomsma admitted in her answer that she believed A.R.S. § 13-3726 prohibits

Frazier’s conduct and that she could prosecute him under the statute. Unless amended,

that admission is “binding on the parties and the Court” and has “the effect of

withdrawing a fact from issue and dispensing wholly with the need for proof of the fact.” 

Am. Title Ins. Co. v. Lacelaw Corp., 861 F.2d 224, 226 (9th Cir. 1988). She now attempts

to recant her admission, saying that she did not believe the statute prohibited Frazier’s

conduct and that she could not prosecute him. But her admission “cannot be ‘ignored by

the district court simply because it finds the evidence presented by the party against

whom the admission operates more credible.’” Tillamook Country Smoker v. Tillamook

County Creamery Ass’n, 465 F.3d 1102, 1112 (9th Cir. 2006). If she wished to change

her position, she had to amend her answer to withdraw the admission. She never

submitted a motion to amend her answer. Instead, she “amended” her motion for

summary judgment to assert new facts that contradict her answer. The evidence in the

new affidavits is not properly before the court for that reason alone. 

Even if she did move to amend her answer, an amendment would not be justified

at this late stage of the proceedings. The calendaring error and Boomsma’s unavailability

explain why the amended motion was filed a few weeks late, but they do not explain her

and her counsel’s failure to investigate her case for the past year. Counsel avow that

though they have participated in these proceedings since August of 2007, they only

discovered on June 9, 2008, that City Attorney Boomsma and her staff had nothing to do

with the threats of prosecution against Frazier. But Boomsma has known her own state of

mind since before she filed her answer and admitted that she believed that Frazier’s

conduct was proscribed by the statute and that she could prosecute him. As counsel

frankly admits, “there is no excuse why it was not known sooner” that Boomsma believes

the law does not apply to Frazier. (Doc. # 92 at 5.) Boomsma’s power and threat to

prosecute Frazier was posed as an issue in Frazier’s complaint and withdrawn as an issue

by her answer. Her wholly unjustified delay in reversing her position would defeat a

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motion to amend her answer, if a motion had been filed. See AmerisourceBergen Corp. v.

Dialysist West, Inc., 465 F.3d 946, 953 (9th Cir. 2005) (upholding district court’s denial

of an untimely motion to amend because the facts to be asserted were not newly

discovered); Komie v. Buehler Corp., 449 F.2d 644, 648 (9th Cir. 1971) (same). Her

delay would weigh similarly against abandoning the schedule set out in the case

management order. See Coleman v. Quaker Oats Co., 232 F.3d 1271, 1294 (9th Cir.

2000) (explaining that the good cause standard of Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(b) “primarily

considers the diligence of the party seeking the amendment”). 

Allowing Boomsma to withdraw her admission would also prejudice Frazier. 

Discovery closed and final pretrial disclosures were due months ago. Frazier filed his

own motion for summary judgment, which is fully briefed. None of this new information

was included in initial, supplemental, or final pretrial disclosures. Throughout the

discovery period Frazier was entitled to rely on Boomsma’s answer, and there was no

reason to take discovery on an admitted issue. If she is now allowed to change her

position, discovery must be reopened, resources must be expended to explore the new

allegations, and the case management schedule must be abandoned after it has mostly run

its course. This undue prejudice would weigh against allowing Boomsma to withdraw

her admission at this time. See AmerisourceBergen Corp., 465 F.3d at 953 (upholding

district court’s denial of motion to amend because allowing the movant to retract its own

previous admissions mid-stream without any explanation would be unduly prejudicial);

Komie, 449 F.2d at 648 (same).

Accordingly, Boomsma is bound by her admission that she believed that Frazier

was violating A.R.S. § 13-3726 and that she could prosecute him for that offense. This

precludes Boomsma’s argument that she is not a proper party to this action because

neither she nor anyone in her office took any action to enforce the statute against Frazier. 

Her argument fails because police officers in her jurisdiction “communicated a specific

warning or threat to initiate prosecutions” and she admitted that she believes that Frazier

is violating the statute and that she can prosecute him. Thomas v. Anchorage Equal

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Rights Comm’n, 220 F.3d 1134, 1139 (9th Cir. 2000) (en banc). She is therefore a proper

party to this action.

B. All the Other Prosecutors in Arizona Are Not Indispensable Parties

Boomsma’s argument that this action must be dismissed for failure to include as

defendants every City, Town, and County Attorney in the State of Arizona is

unmeritorious. She cites no case that so holds. Frazier was free to sue prosecuting

attorneys who presented a “credible threat of prosecution.” Babbitt v. United Farm

Workers Nat’l Union, 442 U.S. 289, 298 (1979). He did not have to seek relief against

every prosecutor who might pose a threat in order to get relief against those who do. 

Other prosecutors do not have “an interest relating to the subject matter” of the statute

that could be impaired by an adjudication in their absence. Fed. R. Civ. P. 19(a)(1)(B).

Prosecutors are servants of the law, not its owners. They have no personal stake in

whether a statute they enforce is upheld or struck down. The argument that Frazier’s

request for a permanent injunction is underinclusive fails for the same reason.

Boomsma also argues that Frazier’s request for a permanent injunction is

premature because it has not yet been adjudicated that the statute is unconstitutional. The

very point of Frazier’s motion for summary judgment is to get that adjudication. It cannot

be premature for Frazier to move for summary judgment on the last day permitted by the

case management order.

It is premature, however, for Boomsma to argue that she is not subject to award of

attorney’s fees. Frazier has not yet won his case or moved for attorney’s fees. The court

can consider such arguments if and when the need arises.

IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Defendant Patricia J. Boomsma’s motions for

summary judgment (doc. ## 76, 89) are denied.

DATED this 4th day of August, 2008.

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