Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-13-56141/USCOURTS-ca9-13-56141-0/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

SARA LOWRY,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

CITY OF SAN DIEGO,

Defendant-Appellee.

No. 13-56141

D.C. No.

3:11-cv-00946-MMA-WMC

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of California

Michael M. Anello, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

July 9, 2015—Pasadena, California

Filed April 1, 2016

Before: Stephen Reinhardt, A. Wallace Tashima,

and Richard R. Clifton, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Tashima;

Dissent by Judge Clifton

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2 LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO

SUMMARY*

Civil Rights

The panel reversed the district court’s summary judgment

and remanded in an action brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C.

§ 1983 alleging that the City of San Diego’s policy of training

its police dogs to “bite and hold” individuals resulted in a

violation of plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment rights.

The panel held that a reasonable jury could find that

police officers responding to an office building’s burglar

alarm used excessive force when they deliberately unleashed

a police dog that they knew might well “rip[] [the] face off”

any individual who might be present in the office. Because

a reasonable jury could find that the force used was excessive

and because the City conceded that the use of the force

involved was in conformance with its policy, the panel

reversed the district court’s summary judgment in favor of the

City and remanded for further proceedings.

Dissenting, Judge Clifton stated that given the facts

available to the reviewing court, it was clear that the type and

amount of force inflicted was moderate, that the City had a

strong interest in using force, and that the degree of force

used was commensurate with the City’s interest in the use of

force. Judge Clifton stated that the officers’ actions were

constitutional, and there could be no liability under Monell v.

Dep’t of Soc. Servs. of the City of N.Y., 436 U.S. 658 (1978).

* 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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LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO 3

COUNSEL

JeffreyA. Lake (argued), Nathan A. Shaman (argued), Jeffrey

A. Lake, A.P.C., San Diego, California, for PlaintiffAppellant.

Jan I. Goldsmith, City Attorney of San Diego, Daniel F.

Bamberg, Assistant City Attorney, Stacy J. Plotkin-Wolff,

Deputy City Attorney (argued), San Diego, California, for

Defendant-Appellee.

OPINION

TASHIMA, Circuit Judge:

After a night of drinking with her friends, Sara Lowry

returned to her workplace and fell asleep on her office couch. 

She awoke a short while later and went to the bathroom,

before returning to her couch and going back to sleep. 

Unfortunately for Lowry, during her trip to the bathroom, she

accidentally triggered the building’s burglar alarm. Several

officers from the San Diego Police Department (“SDPD”)

responded, accompanied by a police service dog named Bak. 

After searching the area and giving several warnings, the

officers released Bak into Lowry’s office. Bak found Lowry

and pounced on her, tearing open her upper lip.

Lowry filed suit against the City of San Diego (the

“City”) under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the City’s

policy of training its police dogs to “bite and hold”

individuals resulted in a violation of her Fourth Amendment

rights. The district court granted the City’s motion for

summary judgment, concluding both that Lowry did not

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4 LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO

suffer constitutional harm and that, even if she did, the City

was not liable for her injuries.

We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. The

question on this appeal is whether a reasonable jury could

find that the police officers responding to the alarm used

excessive force when theydeliberatelyunleashed a police dog

that they knew might well “rip[] [the] face off” any individual

who might be present in the office. Because a reasonable jury

could find that the force used was excessive and because the

City concedes that the use of the force involved was in

conformance with its policy, we reverse and remand the case

for further proceedings.

I.

In early 2010, Lowry was working at Tenzing

Corporation, located at 4603 Mission Boulevard, Suite 201,

in San Diego, California. On the night of February 11, 2010,

Lowry went out with a few friends after work. Over the

course of about four and a half hours, Lowry visited two bars

and consumed five vodka drinks. Lowry decided to call it a

night at around 9:30 p.m., but, instead of heading home, made

a pit stop at work to pick up some food she had left over from

lunch. Once there, Lowry decided to stay in the office, and

fell asleep on the couch.

Shortly thereafter, Lowry woke up and went to use the

bathroom. Acting on instinct, Lowry headed towards the

bathroom in the neighboring suite (owned by a separate

company, Drew George & Partners or “DGP”), the bathroom

she typically used during business hours. After opening the

door to DGP, Lowry decided against using their bathroom,

concluding that “it wouldn’t be right for [her] to use that

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LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO 5

restroom at night.” She closed the door, went to a bathroom

outside both suites that was open to the public and then

returned to her office and fell back asleep on the couch.

Around 11:00 p.m., the SDPD received a call from ADT

Security Services that a burglar alarm had been activated at

4603 Mission Boulevard, Suite 200. Minutes later, Officers

Mike Fish and David Zelenka and Sergeant Bill Nulton

arrived at the scene, accompanied by Sergeant Nulton’s

police service dog, Bak. The officers inspected the north,

south, and west sides of the building and saw no entry points. 

However, each officer saw that the door leading to Suite 201

was propped open.1 There were no signs of forced entry at

Suite 201, which was dark, except for some ambient light

shining through the open door from the parking lot.2 The

1 Lowry contends that a genuine issue of material fact exists as to

whether the door leading to Suite 201 was open. Specifically, she argues

that the officers’ assertion that the door was open is contradicted by her

deposition testimony that the door “automatically closes.” The district

court ruled Lowry’s testimony inadmissible, finding that Lowry failed to

offer “firsthand testimony.” Accordingly, the district court ruled that there

was no dispute that the door was open.

We reverse evidentiary rulings made in the context of summary

judgments only if they are “both manifestly erroneous and prejudicial.” 

Bias v. Moynihan, 508 F.3d 1212, 1224 (9thCir. 2007) (citations omitted). 

As explained below, even assuming that the door to Suite 201 was open,

a reasonable jury could find that deploying Bak was not an objectively

reasonable use of force. Accordingly, because the district court’s ruling

was not prejudicial, we need not rule on it.

2 Lowry contends that there is a material issue of fact regarding the level

of illumination inside Suite 201 at the time the officers entered. 

Specifically, she relies on the testimony of Drew George (the CEO of

DGP), who testified that the balcony is typically “pretty light.” However,

George offered no testimony as to how well-lit the interior of Suite 201

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6 LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO

officers could not see inside the suite, and therefore did not

know whether anyone was inside.

Before entering Suite 201, Sergeant Nulton yelled loudly,

“This is the San Diego Police Department! Come out now or

I’m sending in a police dog! You may be bitten!” Sergeant

Nulton waited between 30 and 60 seconds, but received no

response. He repeated the same warning once or twice more;

again, there was no response.3 Lowry did not hear these

warnings. Sergeant Nulton then released Bak “off lead” (that

is, off of her leash) into the suite, and followed Bak in. 

Sergeant Nulton did not keep track of Bak’s precise location

once he let her off lead, and gave no further warnings after

entering the suite.

Eventually, Sergeant Nulton made his way into the office

where Lowry was sleeping. Once there, he saw a purse

was on the night of the incident, and Lowry herself testified that, on that

night, Suite 201 was dark. Accordingly, we conclude that Lowry has not

raised a genuine issue of material fact regarding the degree ofillumination

inside Suite 201.

3 Lowry contends that there is an issue of material fact as to whether

Sergeant Nulton gave these warnings. Specifically, she argues that the

officers’ testimony is contradicted by her own testimony that she did not

hear Sergeant Nulton’s warnings. The district court ruled Lowry’s

testimony on this point inadmissible, finding that she lacked foundation

to testify as to whether Sergeant Nulton gave warnings because she was

sleeping. Therefore, the district court ruled that it was undisputed that

Sergeant Nulton gave these warnings.

As explained below, even assuming that Sergeant Nulton shouted

warnings that he was about to release a police dog, a reasonable jury could

find that deploying Bak was not an objectively reasonable use of force. 

Accordingly, because the district court’s ruling was not prejudicial, we

need not rule on it. See Bias, 508 F.3d at 1224.

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LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO 7

whose contents had been spilled across the floor. He then

shone his flashlight against the office wall and spotted a

person under a blanket on the couch. At that moment, Bak

jumped on top of Lowry. The two struggled momentarily

before Sergeant Nulton called Bak off. Bak responded

immediately, returning to Sergeant Nulton’s side.

Lowry emerged from her skirmish with Bak with a large

gash on her lip that was bleeding profusely. As hospital staff

would later inform Lowry, Bak had almost completely bitten

through her lip. Shortly after the incident, Sergeant Nulton

told Lowry, “I just can’t believe that’s the only damage. 

You’re very lucky. She could have ripped your face off.” 

After confirming that Lowry worked at Tenzing, Officer Fish

drove her to the hospital, where she was given a tetanus shot

and received three stitches.

The SDPD trains its police dogs to enter a building, find

a person, bite them, and hold that bite until a police officer

arrives and removes the dog. Moreover, as Sergeant Nulton

stated in his deposition, police dogs are not trained to

differentiate between “a young child asleep or . . . a burglar

standing in the kitchen with a butcher knife,” and will simply

bite the first person they find. Generally, the decision of

whether to conduct a canine search on or off lead is left to the

officer’s discretion. However, the SDPD’s Canine Unit

Operations Manual provides that residential searches “should

normally be conducted on-lead unless the handler can

reasonably determine there are no residents or animals in the

home.”

Lowry filed suit against the City under 42 U.S.C. § 1983,

alleging a violation of her Fourth Amendment rights. The

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8 LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO

City moved for summary judgment, which the district court

granted. Lowry timely appealed.

II.

We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment

de novo. Pac. Shore Props., LLC v. City of Newport Beach,

730 F.3d 1142, 1156 (9th Cir. 2013). “We must determine,

viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to [Lowry],

the non-moving party, whether there are any genuine issues

of material fact and whether the district court correctly

applied the substantive law.” Olsen v. Idaho State Bd. of

Med., 363 F.3d 916, 922 (9th Cir. 2004). In the absence of

material factual disputes, the objective reasonableness of a

police officer’s conduct is “a pure question of law.” Torres

v. City of Madera, 648 F.3d 1119, 1123 (9th Cir. 2011)

(quoting Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 381 n.8 (2007)). 

“Where the objective reasonableness of an officer’s conduct

turns on disputed issues of material fact,” however, “it is ‘a

question of fact best resolved by a jury.’” Id. at 1123 (quoting

Wilkins v. City of Oakland, 350 F.3d 949, 955 (9th Cir.

2003)).

III.

Lowry asserts a single cause of action against the City,

seeking to hold the municipality liable for her injuries under

Monell v. Department of Social Services of the City of New

York, 436 U.S. 658 (1978). Specifically, Lowry alleges that

the City’s “bite and hold” policy caused the police to use

excessive force against her. In order to prevail on a Monell

claim, Lowry “must demonstrate first that h[er] seizure by

[Bak] was unconstitutional and second that the city was

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LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO 9

responsible for that constitutional wrong.” Chew v. Gates,

27 F.3d 1432, 1439 (9th Cir. 1994).

A. Excessive Force

We begin our analysis of Lowry’s Monell claim by

assessing whether Bak’s seizure of Lowry was

unconstitutional. Objectively unreasonable uses of force

violate the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee against

unreasonable seizures. Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386,

394–95, 397 (1989). In deciding whether or not a particular

use of force is reasonable, we employ the familiar test set

forth by the Supreme Court in Graham. Under Graham, we

balance “the nature and quality of the intrusion on the

individual’s Fourth Amendment interests against the

countervailing governmental interests at stake.” Id. at 396

(citations omitted). This inquiry is a “highly fact-intensive

task for which there are no per se rules.” Torres, 648 F.3d at

1124 (citing Scott, 550 U.S. at 383). However, we must

evaluate the reasonableness of the force used “from the

perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than

with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.” Graham, 490 U.S. at

396. “Not every push or shove, even if it may later seem

unnecessary in the peace of a judge’s chambers, violates the

Fourth Amendment.” Id. (citation omitted).

Our excessive force analysis under Graham involves

three steps. “First, we must assess the severity of the

intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment rights by

evaluating the type and amount of force inflicted.” Glenn v.

Washington Cty., 673 F.3d 864, 871 (9th Cir. 2011) (citation

omitted). “Second, we evaluate the government’s interest in

the use of force.” Id. “Finally, we balance the gravity of the

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10 LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO

intrusion on the individual against the government’s need for

that intrusion.” Id. (citation omitted).

1. The Nature and Quality of the Intrusion

In evaluating the severity of the intrusion on the

plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment rights, we evaluate both “the

type and amount of force inflicted.” Miller v. Clark Cty.,

340 F.3d 959, 964 (9th Cir. 2003); see also Headwaters

Forest Def. v. Cty. of Humboldt, 240 F.3d 1185, 1198 (9th

Cir. 2000), vacated and remanded on other grounds sub nom.

Cty. of Humboldt v. Headwaters Forest Def., 534 U.S. 801

(2001) (“[T]he fact finder [must] evaluate ‘the type and

amount of force inflicted.’” (quotingChew, 27 F.3d at 1440)). 

We have repeatedly held that deploying a police dog to

effectuate an arrest is a “severe” use of force. See Smith v.

City of Hemet, 394 F.3d 689, 701–02 (9th Cir. 2005) (en

banc) (noting that use of a police dog is “the most severe

force authorized short of deadly force”); Chew, 27 F.3d at

1441 (holding that the use of a police dog was a “severe” use

of force); see also Miller, 340 F.3d at 964 (concluding that

use of a police dog was a “serious” intrusion on the plaintiff’s

Fourth Amendment interests).

Notwithstanding our precedents, the district court found

the force used against Lowry to be “moderate,” because

Bak’s encounter with Lowry was “very quick” and because

Lowry’s injuries were “slight.” In coming to its conclusion,

the district court distinguished our decision in Chew,

emphasizing that, in that case, the police dog bit the plaintiff

several times, dragged him between four and ten feet, and

nearly severed his arm. Chew, 27 F.3d at 1435, 1441. By

contrast, the district court noted, Lowry’s struggle with Bak

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LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO 11

was of “limited duration” and her injuries were relatively

minor.

By focusing solely on the amount of force used against

Lowry, the district court overlooked a critical component of

our inquiry under Graham’s first step. Namely, the district

court failed to consider the type of force employed. Our

precedents, as well as the Supreme Court’s, make clear that,

in evaluating the severity of the intrusion on a plaintiff’s

Fourth Amendment rights, we must assess not only the

amount of force used (and the severity of the resulting

injury), but also type of force used and the potential harm it

may cause. See Miller, 340 F.3d at 964 (“[W]e assess the

gravity of the particular intrusion on Fourth Amendment

interests by evaluating the type and the amount of force

inflicted.” (emphasis added)); see also Scott, 550 U.S. at 383

(“[I]n judging whether [Deputy] Scott’s actions were

reasonable, we must consider the risk of bodily harm that

Scott’s actions posed to respondent in light of the threat to the

public that Scott was trying to eliminate.” (emphasis added));

Glenn, 673 F.3d at 871–72 (holding that the use of a beanbag

shotgun is “permissible only when a strong governmental

interest compels the employment of such force” in “light of

this weapon’s dangerous capabilities” (citation omitted)

(emphasis added)); Chew, 27 F.3d at 1441 (concluding that

the force used was severe both because of the nature of

injuries sustained and because the dog was trained to

repeatedly bite a suspect if he or she resisted and because of

the undisputed testimony that the dog’s bites “could be fatal”

(emphasis added)).

To put it differently, looking solely to the actual

consequences of the force used rather than the risk inherent

in the use of that type of force accommodates one of the two

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12 LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO

purposes of § 1983 but wholly ignores the other. Those two

purposes are compensation and deterrence. Chaudhry v. City

of L.A., 751 F.3d 1096, 1103 (9th Cir. 2014) (citing

Robertson v. Wegmann, 436 U.S. 584, 599 (1978)). For

example, if a police officer fires a gun at a fleeing

misdemeanor suspect but the bullet only grazes the suspect’s

leg, we would not dismiss the force as non-severe because the

bullet did not do the damage that it foreseeably could have

done. See Robinson v. Solano Cnty., 278 F.3d 1007, 1014

(9th Cir. 2002) (holding that police officers’ pointing their

guns at close range at a suspect was excessive force even

though they did not fire the gun). Likewise, in this case we

must not rely on the plaintiff’s “luck” that she only ended up

bleeding profusely from a cut lip rather than having her whole

face “ripped off” to excuse the conduct that the officer

himself recognized could well have resulted in a far more

egregious injury. Indeed, the officer conducting the search

stated that he “just can’t believe [that] the only damage” was

Lowry’s gash on her lip; as he put it, she was “very lucky.” 

Whether or not the plaintiff in the case ended up being lucky,

a fundamental purpose of § 1983 is to deter the use of

unreasonable force in the future in order to avoid what could

be much more serious harm to the next person.

When we consider both the type and the amount of force

used against Lowry and draw all inferences in her favor, we

have little trouble concluding that the intrusion on Lowry’s

Fourth Amendment rights was severe. Indeed, this case

mirrors Chew in several material respects: just as the

defendants in Chew admitted that the dog’s bites “could be

fatal,” 27 F.3d at 1441, here, Sergeant Nulton stated that Bak

“could have ripped [Lowry’s] face off.” And, just like the

dog in Chew, Bak was trained to bite the first person she saw

and maintain the bite until ordered by an officer to release. 

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LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO 13

Moreover, the particular facts of this case magnified the

threat that Bak posed to Lowry: as Sergeant Nulton admitted,

Bak was not trained to differentiate between “a young child

asleep or . . . a burglar standing in the kitchen with a butcher

knife,” and would simply bite the first person she found. 

Furthermore, a reasonable juror could find that by allowing

Bak to enter Suite 201 before him off lead, and by failing to

keep track of Bak’s precise location while searching the suite,

Sergeant Nulton increased the likelihood that Bak would bite

and seriously injure Lowry before being called off.

Under these circumstances, a reasonable juror could

conclude that releasing Bak into the suite posed a high risk of

severe harm to any individual present. Accordingly, for

purposes of summary judgment, this factor weighs in favor of

a finding that Lowry’s constitutional rights were violated.

2. The City’s Countervailing Interests

Graham’s second step requires us to examine the

importance and legitimacy of the City’s countervailing

interests. Miller, 340 F.3d at 964. This determination is

guided by three factors: “(1) the severity of the crime at

issue, (2) whether the suspect posed an immediate threat to

the safety of the officers or others, and (3) whether the

suspect was actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade

arrest by flight.” Id. (citing Graham, 490 U.S. at 396). These

factors are not exclusive; instead, we must “examine the

totality of the circumstances and consider whatever specific

factors may be appropriate in a particular case, whether or not

listed in Graham.” Glenn, 673 F.3d at 872 (citations

omitted).

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14 LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO

a. Lowry Did Not Pose a Threat to the Officers or

Others

We begin our evaluation of the City’s interest in

deploying Bak off lead by analyzing the “most important

single element of the three specified factors: whether the

suspect pose[d] an immediate threat to the safety of the

officers or others.” Smith, 394 F.3d at 702 (quoting Chew,

27 F.3d at 1441). “A simple statement by an officer that he

fears for his safety or the safety of others is not enough; there

must be objective factors to justify such a concern.” Deorle

v. Rutherford, 272 F.3d 1272, 1281 (9th Cir. 2001). A

reasonable jury could find that any belief on the officers’ part

that they faced an immediate threat when they released Bak

was unjustified. See Torres, 648 F.3d at 1126 (holding that

there was a genuine dispute of material fact whether an

officer correctly evaluated the dangerousness of the situation

when deciding to use force). Thus, viewing the evidence in

the light most favorable to Lowry, the City has failed to show

that there are no questions of fact precluding summary

judgment in its favor.

Our case law helps guide this determination. In Chew, we

held that “a rational jury could easily find that Chew posed no

immediate safety threat to anyone.” 27 F.3d at 1442

(emphasis omitted). Chew had been stopped for a traffic

violation and then fled on foot and hid in a scrapyard. Id. at

1436. However, there was no evidence that Chew had

“engaged in any threatening behavior during this time, or that

he did anything other than hide quietly.” Id. at 1441. 

Accordingly, we concluded that the “record d[id] not reveal

an articulable basis for believing that Chew was armed or that

he posed an immediate threat to anyone’s safety.” Id.

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LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO 15

By contrast, in Miller, we held that the plaintiff “posed an

immediate threat to [the] officers’ safety.” Miller, 340 F.3d

at 965–66. There, the officer was chasing a felony suspect

who (1) was wanted for fleeing from the police by driving a

car with “a wanton or willful disregard for the lives . . . of

others,” (2) had possessed a large knife only moments earlier,

(3) might have had mental health problems, (4) had ignored

an officer’s warning that he was about to release a dog, and

(5) was familiar with the woods where he was hiding in the

dark and might have been planning an ambush. Id. at 965

(citation omitted). Under these circumstances, we concluded

that the officer was “entitled to assume that Miller posed an

immediate threat” to their safety. Id.

Applying these precedents, we conclude that a reasonable

jury could find that the officers would not have been justified

in believing that Lowry posed a threat to their safety or to

others’. Throughout the entire encounter, until she was bitten

by Bak, Lowry remained fast asleep on the couch. Much like

the plaintiff in Chew, Lowry did not “engage[] in any

threatening behavior,” nor do “anything other than [lie]

quietly.” 27 F.3d at 1441. And, unlike the plaintiff in Miller,

the officers in this case had no reason to believe that Lowry

was armed, dangerous, or intent on inflicting harm. 340 F.3d

at 965. In short, “[t]he record does not reveal an articulable

basis for believing that [Lowry] was armed or that [s]he

posed an immediate threat to anyone’s safety.” Chew,

27 F.3d at 1441.4

4 The City attempts to distinguish Chew by arguing that, unlike Sergeant

Nulton, the officer in Chew made physical contact with Chew before

releasing the police dog. According to the City, the officer’s contact with

Chew gave him an opportunity to eliminate the possibility that Chew was

armed – a luxury not afforded to Sergeant Nulton.

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16 LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO

The district court found otherwise, reasoning that the

“officers reasonably and objectively feared for their own

safety and any possible hostage’s safety,” because they were

searching for a “burglary suspect . . . at night,” because they

“did not know whether the suspect was armed,” and because

the door to DGP’s suite was “ajar, but no lights were on

inside.”5

A reasonable jury could easily disagree with this

portrayal. The district court’s reasoning assumes that any

person inside an office building where a security alarm has

been tripped at night necessarily poses an immediate threat to

their safety or that of others. We find this assumption

unwarranted.6 These facts, standing alone, do not provide an

Not so. In Chew, we specifically noted that “[t]he officer [did] not

search[] [Chew] for weapons” before he fled. 27 F.3d at 1436. More to

the point, our conclusion that Chew did not pose a threat to the safety of

the officers or others was grounded in our determination that the record as

a whole “did not reveal an articulable basis for believing that Chew”

presented such a threat. Id. at 1441. Likewise, as explained above,

nothing in the record here provides an articulable basis for believing that

Lowry posed a threat to the safety of the officers or others.

5

 Similarly, the City argues that, under our decision in Frunz v. City of

Tacoma, officers responding to a “burglary in process” are entitled to

“assume that the suspects will, if confronted, flee or offer armed

resistance.” 468 F.3d 1141, 1145 (9thCir. 2006) However, Frunz did not

address whether the officers’ use of force was reasonable. Id. at 1144. 

Instead, that case considered only whether the officers’ warrantless entry

into a home was justified. Id. at 1144. Accordingly, Frunz has little

relevance to our current inquiry.

6

Indeed, this assumption is particularly suspect in light of the fact

that the vast majority of burglar alarm calls are false. See San Diego

County Grand Jury, No ‘Cost’ For Alarm? 1 (June 1, 2011),

http://www.sandiegocounty.gov/content/dam/sdc/grandjury/reports/2010-

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LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO 17

“articulable basis for believing that” the occupant is “armed

or that [she or] he posed an immediate threat to anyone’s

safety.” Chew, 27 F.3d at 1441.

In sum, we conclude that taking the facts in the light most

favorable Lowry, a reasonable juror could conclude that the

“objective factors” did not suggest that Lowry posed a threat

to the safety of the officers or others. Deorle, 272 F.3d at

1281. Accordingly, for the purposes of summary judgment,

this factor weighs against a finding that the City’s interest

rendered its use of force objectively reasonable.

b. Lowry Did Not Resist or Attempt to Evade

Arrest

Similarly, the third Graham factor – whether Lowry

“actively resist[ed] arrest or attempt[ed] to evade arrest by

flight,” Graham, 490 U.S. at 396 – weighs against finding

that the City’s use of force was objectively reasonable. It is

undisputed that Lowry did not physically resist arrest, “did

not attack the officers” or anyone else, and did not attempt to

flee from the officers. Smith, 394 F.3d at 703. Nonetheless,

the district court found that this factor weighed slightly in the

City’s favor, reasoning that the officers could have construed

Lowry’s failure to respond to Sergeant Nulton’s commands

to exit the suite as an attempt to evade arrest.

But a reasonable jury would not necessarily be compelled

to draw such an inference. The mere failure to respond to an

officer’s orders, without more, generally does not support the

use of serious force – especially if the plaintiff has not heard

2011/AlarmsFinalReport.pdf (concluding that “95% or more of all police

alarm calls” received by the SDPD are false).

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18 LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO

the commands. We concluded as much in Glenn, where we

found that the plaintiff’s failure to follow an officer’s

instructions to drop a pocketknife did not warrant the

officers’ use of a beanbag shotgun, because it was “not clear

[that the suspect] heard or understood those orders.” 

673 F.3d at 875. Indeed, even in cases where a plaintiff

hears, and ignores, police warnings, we have found serious

uses of force unjustified. As we described in Glenn,

In Deorle, the plaintiff “brandish[ed] a

hatchet” and a crossbow and was verbally

abusive to officers, threatening to “kick [their]

ass.” He also continually roamed about his

propertydespite officers’ orders. Nonetheless,

we did not consider this sufficient active

resistance to warrant use of the beanbag

shotgun . . . . Similarly, in Smith, we held that

the plaintiff’s refusal to obey officers’

commands to remove his hands from his

pockets to show police whether he was armed,

as well as his entry into his home despite

officers’ orders and his brief physical

resistance were “not . . . particularly

bellicose.”

Id. (alterations in original) (citations omitted); see also Bryan

v. MacPherson, 630 F.3d 805, 830 (9th Cir. 2010) (“The only

resistance Officer MacPherson testified to was a failure to

comply with his order that Bryan remain in his car . . . . As

in Smith, Bryan’s ‘resistance’ was not ‘particularly

bellicose.’”). In short, where, as here, the “crux of the

resistance [is] the refusal to follow officer’s commands,

rather than actively attacking or threatening officers or

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LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO 19

others,” the government has little interest in using serious

force. Glenn, 673 F.3d at 875.

Accordingly, for the purposes of summary judgment, we

conclude that this factor weighs against a finding that the

City’s interest rendered its use of force objectively

reasonable.

c. The Severity of the Crime at Issue

Turning to the final Graham factor, we conclude that the

severity of the crime at issue – burglary – weighs only

slightly in the City’s favor. Burglary is not an inherently

dangerous crime.7 Although burglaries can be dangerous, see

Sykes v. United States, 131 S. Ct. 2267, 2273 (2011),

overruled on other grounds by Johnson v. United States,

135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015), the Supreme Court has explicitly held

that “the fact that an unarmed suspect has broken into a

dwelling at night does not automatically mean [s]he is

physically dangerous.” Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1, 21

(1985). Indeed, as the Supreme Court noted in Garner, the

FBI classifies burglary as a “property” rather than a “violent”

crime,8id., and a recent study by the Bureau of Justice

7 The City takes issue with this conclusion, arguing that all burglaries are

dangerous. In support of its contention, the City relies, once again, on our

statement in Frunz that officers may assume that “normal[]” burglary

suspects will, “if confronted, flee or offer armed resistance.” 468 F.3d at

1145. However, as explained above, see supra note 5, Frunz did not

address whether the officers’ use of force in that case was reasonable. Id.

at 1144. Accordingly, it has little bearing on the instant case.

8 Although Garner was decided in 1985, the FBI continues to classify

burglary as a “property” rather than a “violent” crime. See Federal

Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports, Crime in the

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20 LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO

Statistics concluded that only about seven percent of

burglaries nationwide involved incidents of violence. Bureau

of Justice Statistics, National Crime Victimization Survey:

Victimization During Household Burglaries 1 (September

2010), http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/vdhb.pdf.

Once again, the district court came to the opposite

conclusion, holding that, under United States v. AlcalaSanchez, 666 F.3d 571, 573 (9th Cir. 2012), burglary is an

“aggravated felony.” Because the officers were investigating

a felony, the district court reasoned, this factor “weighs

solidly in favor of the government.”

We disagree with this conclusion for two reasons. First,

it misstates the law. In Alcala-Sanchez, we held that burglary

under California Penal Code § 459 is an “aggravated felony”

as that term is defined under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. 

See 666 F.3d at 573. However, under California law,

burglary of uninhabited premises – like an office building –

is second degree burglary, a crime that may be punished

either as a felony or as a misdemeanor. See Cal. Penal Code

§§ 460, 461; People v. Williams, 233 P.3d 1000, 1042 n.6

(Cal. 2010). Accordingly, the government’s interest in

investigating a burglary of an office building is not as strong

as the district court’s reasoning suggests. See Bryan,

630 F.3d at 829 (“[T]here was no substantial government

interest in using significant force to effect [plaintiff’s] arrest

for . . . misdemeanor violations.”).

United States 2013, https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-theu.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/property-crime/property-crime-topicpage/propertycrimemain_final.

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LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO 21

Second, even if the officers were investigating a felony,

this label is not dispositive. Although the government’s

interest in apprehending criminal suspects is certainly

stronger when the suspect is suspected of having committed

a felony, see Miller, 340 F.3d at 964, we have noted that “[a]

wide variety of crimes, many of them nonviolent, are

classified as felonies,” Chew, 27 F.3d at 1442. As the

Supreme Court has recognized,

[W]hile in earlier times the gulf between the

felonies and the minor offences was broad and

deep, today the distinction is minor and often

arbitrary. Many crimes classified as

misdemeanors, or nonexistent, at common law

are now felonies . . . . [T]he assumption that

a ‘felon’ is more dangerous than a

misdemeanant [is therefore] untenable.

Garner, 471 U.S. at 14 (citations omitted). As set forth

above, a non-residential burglary is not an inherently

dangerous crime, and “the fact that an unarmed suspect has

broken into a dwelling at night does not automatically mean

[s]he is physically dangerous.” Id. at 21.

Accordingly, we conclude that this factor weighs only

slightly in favor of finding that the City’s countervailing

interest rendered its use of force objectively reasonable.

d. Other Factors

As noted above, the foregoing Graham factors are not

exclusive, and, in evaluating the importance and legitimacy

of the City’s interest in using force, we must “examine the

totality of the circumstances and consider whatever specific

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22 LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO

factors may be appropriate in a particular case, whether or not

listed in Graham.” Glenn, 673 F.3d at 872 (citation omitted).

One such additional factor is whether or not a warning

was given before force was used. See Nelson v. City of

Davis, 685 F.3d 867, 882 (9th Cir. 2012) (“[W]e have held

that ‘the giving of a warning or the failure to do so is a factor

to be considered in applying the Graham balancing test.’”

(quoting Deorle, 272 F.3d at 1284)). Here, we agree with the

district court’s conclusion that Sergeant Nulton’s warnings

prior to releasing Bak weighs in favor of finding that the

government’s use of force was reasonable. See Forrester v.

City of San Diego, 25 F.3d 804, 808 (9th Cir. 1994) (holding

that use of force was not unreasonable, in part because

protesters were given warning and instructions on how to

comply before force was applied).

However, the fact that Lowry did not hear these warnings

has some bearing on the weight we accord this factor. For

example, in Nelson, we held that, even though the officers

gave warnings before shooting pepperball guns, the fact that

the orders could not be heard over the din of the crowd

weighed against a finding that the use of force was

reasonable. 685 F.3d at 882–83. Accordingly, even though

we conclude that this factor weighs in favor of the

government, we find that it does so only slightly.

Another factor pertinent to this case is the availability of

other tactics to effect the search.9See Bryan, 630 F.3d at 831

9 Although most of the case law in this area has been developed in the

context of an arrest, i.e., a constitutional “seizure,” that law applies

equally in the search context. If anything, the justification for using force

in a search is even less than in making an arrest.

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LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO 23

(noting that, in evaluating whether a use of force was

reasonable, “we have held that police are required to consider

what other tactics if any were available to effect the arrest”)

(citations and brackets omitted); see also Smith, 394 F.3d at

701 (explaining that police must consider less intrusive

alternatives). While officers “are not required to use the least

intrusive degree of force possible,” Forrester, 25 F.3d at 807,

the availability of “clear, reasonable and less intrusive

alternatives” to the force employed “militate[s] against

finding [the] use of force reasonable,” Bryan, 630 F.3d at

831. Here, taking the evidence in the light most favorable to

Lowry, a reasonable jury could find that Sergeant Nulton had

at least one alternative available: namely, he could have kept

Bak on lead, a tactic that would have allowed him to exercise

greater control over Bak. Indeed, the SDPD’s Operation

Manual for its Canine Unit requires officers to keep police

dogs on lead during residential searches, “unless the handler

can reasonably determine there are no residents or animals in

the home.” For the purposes of summary judgment, the

availability of this alternative tactic weighs slightly against a

finding that the City’s use of force was objectively

reasonable.10

3. Weighing the Conflicting Interests

Whether deploying Bak in this case was “objectively

reasonable” turns on “whether the degree of force used was

necessary, in other words, whether the degree of force used

was warranted by the governmental interests at stake.” 

Deorle, 272 F.3d at 1282 (citing Graham, 490 U.S. at 396). 

10 Although not developed in this record, it may also be that the officers

could have visually scanned the suite with night-vision goggles before

sending in the police dog off lead.

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24 LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO

“To put it in terms of the test we apply: the degree of force

used by [the police] is permissible only when a strong

government interest compels the employment of such force.” 

Drummond ex rel. Drummond v. City of Anaheim, 343 F.3d

1052, 1057 (9th Cir. 2003) (quoting Deorle, 272 F.3d at 1280

(alterations and emphasis in original)).

Here, when responding to an alarm at an office building

at night, police officers encountered an open door to an

office, announced their presence, and received no reply. The

question on appeal is whether a reasonable jury could find

that under these circumstances the officers used excessive

force when they deliberately unleashed a police dog that they

knew might well “rip[] [the] face off” any individual who

might be present in the office. As the preceding discussion

makes plain, a reasonable jury could find that the City’s use

of force in this case was not an objectively reasonable one. 

The intrusion on Lowry’s liberty interests was severe. By

contrast, taking the evidence in the light most favorable to

Lowry, a reasonable jury could find that the City had little

interest in deploying such a serious use of force: three of the

five factors used to assess the City’s interests – including the

most important factor, the absence of any immediate threat to

the safety of the officers or any other person – weigh against

a finding that its use of force was objectively reasonable,

while the other two weigh only slightly in the City’s favor. 

Accordingly, a reasonable jurycould find that the deployment

of Bak was not an objectively reasonable use of force. See

Torres, 648 F.3d at 1126. Because the City has failed to

show that there are no questions of fact as to whether the use

of force was reasonable, see Espinosa v. City & Cty. of S.F.,

598 F.3d 528, 538 (9th Cir. 2010), summary judgment for the

City was not warranted.

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LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO 25

B. The City’s Liability

We now turn to the second prong of the Monell inquiry: 

whether the City can be held responsible for Lowry’s

constitutional injury. Chew, 27 F.3d at 1439. Municipalities

may not be held vicariously liable for the unconstitutional

acts of their employees under the theory of respondeat

superior. See Monell, 436 U.S. at 690–91. Rather, in order

to prevail on a § 1983 claim against a city, a plaintiff must

prove that the constitutional injury was inflicted pursuant to

city policy, regulation, custom, or usage. Id.; see also Chew,

27 F.3d at 1444. “City policy ‘causes’ an injury where it is

‘the moving force’ behind the constitutional violation, or

where ‘the city itself is the wrongdoer.’” Id. at 1444 (quoting

Monell, 436 U.S. at 694, Collins v. City of Harker Heights,

Tex., 503 U.S. 115, 122 (1992)). However, “City policy need

only cause the constitutional violation; it need not be

unconstitutional per se.” Chew, 27 F.3d at 1444 (citation and

brackets omitted).

Here, there is no dispute that the City’s bite-and-hold

policy was the “moving force” behind Lowry’s constitutional

injury. The City admitted as much in its Amended Answer to

Lowry’s First Amended Complaint, stating that:

at approximately 11:00 p.m. on February 11,

2010 Lowry was lawfully sleeping on the

couch in her unlocked office suite located at

4603 Mission Blvd., Suite 200, San Diego,

California when Sergeant Bill Nulton

deployed a police services dog in conformity

with the official policies and procedures

adopted by the San Diego Police Department

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26 LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO

and Plaintiff was bitten or scratched on her

upper lip.

Because the City concedes that Sergeant Nulton released Bak

in conformity with the SDPD’s official policies and

procedures, we conclude that the City’s policy was the

“moving force” behind Lowry’s injury. See Chew, 27 F.3d at

1444–45 (“There is little doubt that a trier of fact could find

that Chew’s injury was caused by city policy . . . [because]

[i]n the district court, the city conceded . . . that departmental

policy authorized seizure of all concealed suspects – resistant

or nonresistant, armed or unarmed, violent or nonviolent – by

dogs trained to bite hard and hold.” (emphasis omitted)).

The City raises several unavailing arguments as to why it

is entitled to summary judgment on the issue of municipal

liability. First, it argues that Lowry’s single incident provides

an insufficient basis for her Monell claim, citing to our

decision in Trevino v. Gates, 99 F.3d 911, 918 (9th Cir.

1996). Trevino, however, is inapposite. There, we held that

“[l]iability for improper custom may not be predicated on

isolated or sporadic incidents.” Id. (emphasis added). Here,

Lowry’s claim is predicated not on custom, but on an official

municipal policy.

Second, the City argues that, in order to prevail on a

Monell claim, Lowry must prove that the City’s policy

amounts to deliberate indifference of her constitutional right,

relying on our decision in Oviatt ex rel. Waugh v. Pearce,

954 F.2d 1470, 1477–78 (9th Cir. 1992). Once again, the

City relies on an inapplicable part of our Monell

jurisprudence: the “deliberate indifference” requirement

applies only to claims involving allegations of constitutional

deprivations resulting from governmental inaction or

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LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO 27

omission, such as a failure to adequately train. See id. at 1474

(“[A] local governmental body may be liable if it has a policy

of inaction and such inaction amounts to a failure to protect

constitutional rights.”). Because Lowry claims her

constitutional deprivation resulted from a City policy and

affirmative government conduct – training Bak to “bite and

hold” and releasing Bak off-lead into Suite 201 – the

“deliberate indifference” analysis does not apply.

Finally, the City argues that because there is no case law

indicating that a bite-and-hold policy is unconstitutional, it

cannot be held liable for Lowry’s injuries. The City appears

to argue that it is entitled to qualified immunity because there

was no “clearly established” law holding its bite-and-hold

policy unconstitutional.

The City is mistaken for two reasons. First, qualified

immunity analysis is irrelevant to the issue of Monell

liability. See Brandon v. Holt, 469 U.S. 464, 471 (1985)

(“[A] municipality is not entitled to the shield of qualified

immunity from liability under § 1983.”). Second,

establishing municipal liability does not require Lowry to

demonstrate that the City’s policy is “unconstitutional per

se;” rather, she need only demonstrate that the policy was the

“moving force” behind her constitutional injury. Chew,

27 F.3d at 1444.

Because the City conceded before the district court that

Lowry’s injuries were incurred “in conformity with the

official policies and procedures adopted by the San Diego

Police Department,” we conclude that the district court erred

in granting summary judgment in the City’s favor on the issue

of municipal liability.

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28 LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO

IV.

As noted above, the Supreme Court has said that the

objective reasonableness of an officer’s actions in the

excessive force context is a “pure question of law” only once

“the relevant set of facts” has been determined. See Scott,

550 U.S. at 381 n.8; see also id. at 386 (“The car chase that

respondent initiated . . . posed a substantial and immediate

risk of serious physical injury to others; no reasonable jury

could conclude otherwise.”). Our case law following Scott

has noted that “[b]ecause the reasonableness standard ‘nearly

always requires a jury to sift through disputed factual

contentions, and to draw inferences therefrom, we have held

on many occasions that summary judgment . . . in excessive

force cases should be granted sparingly.’” Torres, 648 F.3d

at 1125 (quoting Santos v. Gates, 287 F.3d 846, 853 (9th Cir.

2002)). In Torres, for example, the question was whether a

police officer’s mistake of pulling out and firing her gun

rather than her taser was “objectively unreasonable under the

totality of the circumstances,” including the exigencies of the

situation and her past training on where each weapon was

holstered. Id. at 1124. In that case, the district court

discounted the officer’s previous training and found that her

accidental shooting was the result of an action that she was

forced to take in a tense situation. Id. at 1225. We reversed,

holding that a reasonable jury “could weigh the significance

of [the officer’s] risk awareness and daily practice differently

from the way in which the district court weighed those

factors” and could find that, rather than a tense situation

forcing the officer to act, the officer’s “poor judgment and

lack of preparedness caused her to act with undue haste.” Id.

at 1225–26. In other words, we reversed because a

reasonable juror could have made different factual inferences

than the district court.

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LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO 29

Similarly, the district court here gave one interpretation

regarding how to weigh the different factors at issue. It found

that the officers faced a tense situation, unsure of who was

behind an open office door in a dark office building, and that

they cautiously used a police dog to apprehend a potential

burglar and then quickly called back the dog when they

realized Lowry was not a threat. Lowry v. City of San Diego,

2013 WL 2396062, at *5–*6 (S.D. Cal. May 31, 2013). As

in Torres, however, a reasonable juror could make wholly

different factual inferences: the officers, responding to a

routine alarm and not faced with a burglar who already had

engaged in threatening behavior, or who had attempted to

evade arrest, or who had committed an inherently dangerous

crime, unleashed a police dog that the officers believed was

likely to rip a person’s face off, even if she were an innocent

employee of a business who had fallen asleep in her office

late at night. It is the jury’s role to decide which of these or

other inferences should be drawn from the facts in the record. 

The City has thus failed to show that there are no questions of

fact as to whether its use of force was reasonable. See

Espinosa, 598 F.3d at 538. Given that there is no dispute that

the City’s “bite and hold policy” was the moving force behind

Lowry’s constitutional injuries, the City was not entitled to

summary judgment. We reverse and remand this case for

further proceedings.

REVERSED and REMANDED.

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30 LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO

CLIFTON, Circuit Judge, dissenting:

Put yourself in the shoes of Sergeant Bill Nulton of the

San Diego Police Department. Late one Thursday night in

February, around 11:00 pm, you are dispatched to respond to

a burglar alarm that has gone off at a two-story commercial

building. You arrive at the scene within two or three minutes

of getting the call, together with your police service dog, Bak,

and two other officers. Approaching the building, you do not

see anyone leaving the building or the parking lot. You

inspect the building and see that two doors on the second

floor are open. You go to the second floor and determine that

one open door leads to a bathroom, which is empty. Another

door is closed and locked. The remaining door leads to Suite

201. It is propped open. The building is dark. You cannot

see inside and do not know whether anyone is there. You yell

loudly, “This is the San Diego Police Department! Come out

now or I’m sending in a police dog! You may be bitten!” 

There is no response. You wait between 30 and 60 seconds,

but still no response. You repeat the same warning one or

two more times. Again, no response. Because nobody has

responded to the warnings, you are concerned that if there is

someone inside the building who triggered the alarm, that

person may be a burglar lying in wait. You have no way of

knowing whether that person is armed. What would you do?

Unfortunately for Sgt. Nulton and for all law enforcement

officers within the Ninth Circuit, if you release your trained

service dog and follow him with a flashlight to search for a

suspect, you might wind up in trial. Thanks to the majority

opinion, officers will be discouraged from protecting

themselves and encouraged to risk their lives by exposing

themselves to any burglar who might be armed and lying in

wait, either because they cannot use a dog at all or must

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LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO 31

remain so closely tethered to the dog that they necessarily

have to expose themselves to the potentially armed burglar.1

I respectfully dissent.

The majority opinion dutifully and accurately recites, at

9, that we are supposed to evaluate the reasonableness of the

force used “from the perspective of a reasonable officer on

the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.”

Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989). That is the

law, but that is not what the majority actually does.

Consider the attention given in the majority opinion to the

testimony of Sara Lowry that she did not hear the warnings

yelled loudly and more than once by Sgt. Nulton. See

majority op. at 17–19 & 22. I accept that to have been true;

she was asleep on the couch after consuming five vodka

drinks earlier in the evening. But that’s not something that

the officer could have known. The majority explicitly states,

at 22, that the fact that Lowry did not hear the warnings

diminishes the weight it is willing to give to the fact that the

officer gave warnings. That is not an evaluation based on the

perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene.

Similarly, the majority opinion emphasizes, at 14, that

“Lowry did not pose a threat to the officers or others.” See

also majority op. at 15–17. But the officers did not know and

could not have known that Lowry would be the one and only

1 Alternatively, the majority opinion appears to invite you to walk away

and disregard the burglar alarm and the propped door, because most

alarms are false, anyway. See majority opinion, at 16–17 n.6. I wonder

whether the majority opinion intends that police should simply not bother

with responding to any alarms. I doubt that’s what citizens expect.

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32 LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO

person they would encounter inside the building. The

majority opinion rests on “the 20/20 vision of hindsight.” 

That is error.

When viewed from the appropriate perspective, there is

no interpretation of the facts that could lead a jury to

conclude that the use of a police dog under the circumstances

was excessive force. The summary judgment entered by the

district court in favor of the City should be affirmed.

I. Facts

The facts, from the perspective of the officers, were as

follows. At approximately 10:40 pm on the night of

Thursday, February 11, 2010, a burglar alarm went off in a

two-story office building in San Diego. Three police officers

arrived within minutes of dispatch to find a darkened building

and, on the second-story balcony, two open doors, including

one that was propped open.2 After scaling the ground-floor

gate, the officers looked around the second story for any other

indication that the building was occupied by someone who

belonged there, finding none. The officers determined that

one of the open doors led to an empty bathroom. They

announced themselves loudly, more than once, at the door

that was propped open.3 No one responded.

2 Lowry contests that the door was, in fact, ajar. The district court

excluded Lowry’s testimony about the door, however, meaning that she

has provided no admissible evidence to support her contention, as

discussed in more detail below, at 43–44.

3 Lowry disputes this fact as well, but the district court also excluded the

evidence she offered on that subject, as discussed below.

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LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO 33

At this point, the officers were forced to make a decision,

aided only by the information above and a handful of

common-sense assumptions. Doors do not generally open of

their own accord, particularly in an empty office building. 

Nor do people often come to an office for a legitimate

purpose at nearly 11 o’clock at night without turning on the

lights. Those who do are unlikely to fail to notice if they set

off a burglar alarm, especially as it was loud enough to be

heard from the parking lot. And there is no obvious reason

why someone who was not actively trying to hide from the

police would fail to respond to a command to exit a building. 

In other words, the totality of the circumstances strongly

suggested that if there was someone in the building, that

person was likely a burglar, and possibly armed.

II. The use of force was reasonable

The question in an excessive force analysis is “whether

the officers’ actions are ‘objectively reasonable’ in light of

the facts and circumstances confronting them.” Graham,

490 U.S. at 397. We assess reasonableness by looking at

three factors: (1) “the type and amount of force inflicted,”

(2) “the government’s interest in the use of force,” and (3) the

balance between “the gravity of the intrusion on the

individual” and “the government’s need for that intrusion.” 

Glenn v. Washington Cty., 673 F.3d 864, 871 (9th Cir. 2011)

(internal citations omitted). The majority ignores Graham’s

admonition that courts must consider reasonableness from the

perspective of the officers under the circumstances and

instead veers between viewing the facts from Lowry’s

perspective, to the exclusion of the officers’, and speculating

on what could have happened under different circumstances. 

Viewed from the appropriate perspective, all three factors of

the analysis under Graham weigh in favor of the officers.

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34 LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO

A. The type and amount of force inflicted was not severe

The majority begins its analysis by reading into our case

law a blanket rule that has never existed before. We have

never held that the use of a police dog is categorically

“severe,” as the majority opinion suggests, at 10. Rather, the

cases the majority cites all involved an individual analysis of

the use of force under particularized circumstances.

In Smith v. City of Hemet, it was the Hemet Police

Department itself that categorized the use of a police service

dog as “intermediate” force, which by its description was “the

most severe force authorized short of deadly force.” 394 F.3d

689, 701–02 (9th Cir. 2005) (en banc). That usage suggests

only that intermediate force was the name used by that

department for the level of force between light and deadly. 

It is not a holding that requires us to consider the use of a

police dog severe in every case. To the contrary, our opinion

in Smith went on to consider the facts in that case—facts very

different from those here. The officers in that case sicced a

police dog on Smith three times, including once after he had

already been pinned down, and then pepper sprayed his open

wounds. Id. at 702. Similarly, in Chew v. Gates, the court

held that “the force used to arrest Chew was severe” because

the dog bit Chew three times, dragged him between four and

ten feet, and “nearly severed” his arm. 27 F.3d 1432, 1441

(9th Cir. 1994). Meanwhile, in Miller v. Clark County, this

circuit found the use of force reasonable when a fleeing

suspect suffered a dog bite that lasted between forty-five and

sixty seconds, “shredded” his muscles, and went down to the

bone. 340 F.3d 959, 961 (9th Cir. 2003).

Applying the case-by-case analysis employed in our

previous police dog cases, the district court here properly

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LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO 35

concluded that the force used against Lowry was “moderate.” 

In sharp contrast to the grisly injuries in the cases cited by the

majority, Lowry required only three stitches in her upper lip,

and experienced no visible scarring. The contact was so brief

that Sgt Nulton did not even know if contact had occurred. 

Even Lowry described it as “very quick.” Moreover,

although you might not realize it from the description in the

majority opinion, Nulton did not simply let Bak go but rather

followed closely behind her as she cleared the small office

suite. The district court took this into consideration, noting

that “Sergeant Nulton was present and immediately called the

dog off upon seeing Plaintiff on the couch.”

The facts of this case undermine the majority’s

conclusion, at 12–13, that the type of force used against

Lowry was comparable to that in Chew. In that case, the

police dog was “beyond the reach of a countermanding order”

when it found the plaintiff, and dragged him at least four feet

and possibly as many as ten feet before releasing him. Chew,

27 F.3d at 1441. “[T]he longer a dog is permitted to bite a

suspect, the greater the likelihood the suspect will be injured

severely.” Miller, 340 F.3d at 963. Here, the district court

properly recognized that the risk inherent in the officers’ use

of force was significantly lessened bySergeant Nulton’s close

proximity to Bak and his ability to call her off within mere

moments of contact. These circumstances cannot support a

conclusion that either the type or the amount of force used

was comparable to the “severe” force used in cases like Chew

and Smith.

B. The city’s interest in the use of force was strong

On the second step of the Graham analysis, which asks

the court to consider the City’s interest in the use of force, the

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36 LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO

majority errs by viewing the circumstances from Lowry’s

perspective. Generally, this step requires the court to assess

“(1) the severity of the crime at issue, (2) whether the suspect

posed an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or

others, and (3) whether the suspect was actively resisting

arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight,” considered in

the totality of the circumstances. Miller, 340 F.3d at 964. 

When viewed from the appropriate perspective, all of these

considerations weigh in favor of the City.

1. The officers reasonably anticipated a potential threat

I begin, as does the majority, with an analysis of whether

Lowry presented an immediate threat to the safety of the

officers. It is irrelevant to this inquiry that Lowry “remained

fast asleep on the couch” during the officers’ search of the

building. See majority op. at 15. Rather, the facts must be

viewed from the perspective of the officers, who knew only

that they had been called to a building showing signs of a

break-in,4that the building was dark and that as a result any

entry would be blind, and that it was nevertheless their job to

enter and investigate.

4 The majority’s focus on the rate of false alarms is misplaced, as well

as foolish. See majority op. at 16–17 n.6 and above at 31 n.1. The alarm

may have been the reason the police arrived on the scene, but once the

officers approached the building, several other factors, notably the open

door and the darkened suite, suggested that something was amiss. For the

same reason, the majority’s attempt, at 16, to characterize the district

court’s finding for the officers as suggesting that “any person inside an

office building where a security alarm has been tripped at night

necessarily poses an immediate threat to their safety or that of others” is

simply inaccurate.

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LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO 37

Our precedents make it clear that, when confronted with

signs of a burglary, investigating officers are entitled to

protect their own safety. “[B]urglary and attempted burglary

are considered to carry an inherent risk of violence.” 

Sandoval v. Las Vegas Metro. Police Dep’t, 756 F.3d 1154,

1163 (9th Cir. 2014). “Normally, when officers suspect a

burglary in progress, they have no idea who might be inside

and may reasonably assume that the suspects will, if

confronted, flee or offer armed resistance.” Frunz v. City of

Tacoma, 468 F.3d 1141, 1145 (9th Cir. 2006). “So long as

the officers have established probable cause for a burglary,

‘[i]n such exigent circumstances, the police are entitled to

enter immediately, using all appropriate force.’” Sandoval,

756 F.3d at 1163 (quoting Frunz, 468 F.3d at 1145). While it

is true, as the majority observes, that the legal issue in Frunz

concerned a Fourth Amendment claim of warrantless entry

rather than a claim of excessive force, that distinction does

not contradict the factual truth of our observation in Frunz.

Neither does it affect the analysis as to the City’s interest in

the use of force, where the concern is not with the nature of

the force used but rather whether the suspect posed a threat to

the officers. The factual reality of this threat is not dependent

on the point of law at issue.

Here, the officers reasonably suspected that a burglary

had taken or was taking place. They made this informed

judgment not simply because a burglar alarm had been

tripped, but in the totality of the circumstances, and they took

reasonable steps to protect themselves. As the district court

found, this factor of the analysis weighs in favor of the City.

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38 LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO

2. Lowry did not resist or attempt to evade arrest

The second factor of the analysis, whether Lowry was

resisting or attempting to evade arrest, weighs heavily in her

favor in the majority opinion, at 17–19. It is undisputed that

she “took no threatening actions (other than non-compliance

with shouted orders)” towards the police. Glenn, 673 F.3d at

875. But the majority fails again to consider the perspective

of the police officers. They did not know that she was there,

for she hadn’t responded to their warning calls. Neither did

they know that she was the only other person in the building.

Unlike the cases relied upon by the majority opinion, the

officers here did not have the benefit of being able to see the

suspect and make a reasoned judgment as to whether that

person was resisting or evading arrest. Instead, they had only

the information that whoever was in the building had failed

to respond to their warnings. They could not know whether

the unknown occupant would resist. On the facts of this case,

from the perspective of the officers, this factor does not point

either way.

3. Burglary carries an inherent risk of violence

The final factor in assessing the use of force is the

severity of the crime at issue. As noted above, we have found

burglary to “carry an inherent risk of violence,” as recently as

2014. Sandoval, 756 F.3d at 1163. The fact that not all

burglaries involve violence does not mean that there is no risk

of violence, or that police have any way of telling before it is

too late which burglars are violent and which are not.

While the majority minimizes the risks of police work,

during the year in which the events of this case occurred eight

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LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO 39

police officers were killed and 5,074 were assaulted while

investigating suspicious people or circumstances, in addition

to the three killed and 899 assaulted during a burglary in

progress. Criminal Justice Services Division, Law

Enforcement Officers Killed &Assaulted 2010, Tables 19 and

73, FBI, https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/leoka/2010. 

The majority trumpets that only seven percent of burglaries

nationwide involved incidents of violence, at 19–20, but that

means that approximatelyone in every 14 burglaries involved

violence, a significant number for police officers who

respond to burglary calls regularly.

5 The majority’s

unmerited jump from the fact that not all burglaries involve

violence to the conclusion that police should not protect

themselves against the possibility that violence may occur

minimizes the real danger that police officers face regularly

in an inherently risky job. As the district court properly

concluded, this factor weighs in favor of the City.

4. Other relevant considerations weigh in favor of the

City

The majority opinion errs again in weighing other

relevant considerations: (1) whether a warning was given

before force was used, and (2) whether there were alternative

tactics the officers could have used. And, it entirely

disregards another factor that merits consideration: the

5

In 2011, San Diego police handled a total of 5,840 burglaries. See

Automated Regional Justice Information System, Crime Statistics,

http://crimestats.arjis.org/. As of 2014, there were 1,651 SDPD officers on

full duty. Melissa Mecija, San Diego Police Department staffing levels at

lowest in over a decade, ABC 10 NEWS, (Aug. 12, 2014),

http://www.10news.com/news/san-diego-police-department-staffinglevels-at-lowest-in-over-a-decade-08122014.

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40 LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO

physical setting and the likelihood of encountering an

innocent bystander.

As to the first of these considerations, all three officers

stated that a warning was given. This factor weighs strongly

in favor of the City. See Nelson v. City of Davis, 685 F.3d

867, 882 (9th Cir. 2012) (quoting Deorle v. Rutherford,

272 F.3d 1272, 1284 (9th Cir. 2001) (“‘[T]he giving of a

warning or the failure to do so is a factor to be considered in

applying the Graham balancing test.’”). As noted above, the

majority’s observation that Lowry did not hear the warning

is irrelevant from the perspective of a reasonable officer on

the scene. The officers had no way to anticipate the unlikely

circumstance that someone would be asleep in a nonresidential building late at night and therefore unable to hear

a warning.

The majority opinion goes wrong regarding the warning

in a second way. It cites, at 22, our decision in Nelson to

support its conclusion to weigh this factor only “slightly” in

the officers’ favor, but that authority actually provides it no

support. The reason that we concluded in Nelson that the

warning should not be given much weight was because the

officers issued the warning without amplification into a

crowd of some 1,000 partygoers at a distance of 45 to 150

feet. Nelson, 685 F.3d at 872, 874. The officers on the scene

were obviously aware of the setting and should have known

that they could not expect people to hear a warning shouted

at a distance into a rowdy crowd. That was not the setting

here. A warning called into a silent three-room office suite

late at night should be more than sufficient to place any

occupants on alert. The officers here had no reason to expect

otherwise.

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LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO 41

The majority opinion similarly overreaches in speculating

about the alternative means that the officers could have used

to investigate Lowry’s office suite. It asserts that Sgt. Nulton

could have kept Bak on the lead so that he could have

exercised greater control. See majority op. at 23. But the

policy of allowing dogs off-lead is in place to protect

officers’ safety, as the officers understood. If Bak were kept

on the leash, Sgt. Nulton would have been required to expose

himself to whomever might have been lurking in the dark

office, possibly armed. Moreover, it is far from clear that the

results would have been any different had Bak been kept on

the lead. Sgt. Nulton was in the room when Bak jumped on

Lowry and was able to call off the dog quickly. Unless the

leash was especiallyshort—which would have minimized the

utility of having a dog at all—a leash may not have kept Bak

any closer to Nulton than she already was.

The majority’s alternative suggestion, at 23 n.10, that the

officers should have used night-vision goggles, is simply

puzzling. There is no indication in the record that these

officers—or any regular patrol officers—had access to that

technology, typically associated with military and SWAT

teams rather than local police forces. Nor is there any basis

for us to conclude that use of that equipment would have been

practical or beneficial. Would it have compromised the

officer in any other way, such as by cutting down on

peripheral vision or hindering movement? Would it have

actually permitted the officer to spot a burglar who could be

expected to be hiding behind a desk or in a closet? I don’t

know, and the majority opinion gives us no reason beyond

rank speculation to believe that it knows, either.

The majority fails seriously to consider the specific

context that the police officer faced and the relative risks that

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42 LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO

he had to balance when he decided to release and follow the

dog. Context matters. The majority opinion notes, at 23, for

instance, that the San Diego police department’s manual

requires an officer to keep a police dog on a lead during a

residential search, “unless the handler can reasonably

determine there are no residents or animals in the home.” 

That makes sense, because in a home the likelihood of

encountering an innocent bystander who might be found and

injured by the dog is obvious.

The officer involved in this case was not at a home,

however. He was at a dark commercial building, late at night,

where there had been no response to multiple shouted

warnings. That is where he made the decision to release and

follow the service dog, and that was not a location where an

innocent bystander was likely to be found. It was possible

that nobody was in the building, but in that case releasing the

dog posed no risk of harm because there would not have been

anyone to find. The risk of injury from releasing the dog

mattered only if there was someone else in the building, and

the likelihood of someone else in the building being unable to

respond to warning shouts (or the loud burglar alarm) because

she was passed out on a couch could not have seemed, from

the officer’s perspective, very great. None of that matters to

the majority, though. The San Diego police department

appreciates that there is a difference between a residence and

a commercial building, but the majority opinion does not.

C. The degree of force used was commensurate with the

City’s interest

On the last step of the excessive force inquiry, we weigh

the degree of force used against the government’s interest in

using force. Glenn, 673 F.3d at 871. The discussion above

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LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO 43

makes clear that the force used here was not severe, and the

police had a compelling interest in acting to protect

themselves against foreseeable danger in an uncertain

situation.

III. There are no material disputes of fact

The majority opinion acknowledges, at 28, that the

objective reasonableness of an officer’s actions in the

excessive force context is a “pure question of law” once “the

relevant set of facts” has been determined, quoting from Scott

v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 381 n. 8 (2007). It asserts that there

are questions of fact here that preclude summary judgment,

but it does not identify what they are. In reality, they don’t

exist. Summary judgment for the officers was appropriate

and should be affirmed.

In her briefing, Lowry pointed to several purported

factual disputes that she argued should preclude summary

judgment: whether the door to her suite was open, whether

the suite was dark, and whether the officers provided her with

warning prior to entering the suite. If these facts were in

dispute, summary judgment might be inappropriate. An open

door could be the difference between an overreaction to a

false alarm and a reasonable response to an apparent break-in. 

The illumination in the office is relevant to the officers’ need

to protect themselves from a potential ambush. And we have

explicitly held that whether a warning was provided is one of

the factors to be considered. See Nelson, 685 F.3d at 882.

However, these facts are not in dispute, as Lowry

presented no admissible evidence on her behalf. The district

court excluded Lowry’s testimony that the door to her office

suite was closed because it was not “firsthand”: she did not

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44 LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO

state that she had actually closed the door but rather relied on

a belief that it always closed automatically. Similarly, the

district court concluded that her testimony as to the level of

illumination in the suite was “entirely speculative.”6 Finally,

it concluded that Lowry lacked the proper foundation to

testify as to whether Sergeant Nulton had issued a warning

prior to releasing Bak, as she was asleep at the time the

warning was given.

The district court’s evidentiary rulings made in the

summary judgment context are reviewed for abuse of

discretion and can only be reversed if “both ‘manifestly

erroneous and prejudicial.’” Bias v. Moynihan, 508 F.3d

1212, 1224 (9th Cir. 2007) (internal citation omitted). Since

“[g]enerally, a witness must have ‘personal knowledge of the

matter’ to which she testifies,” Bemis v. Edwards, 45 F.3d

1369, 1373 (9th Cir. 1995) (quoting Fed. R. Evid. 602), it was

not manifestly erroneous to conclude that Lowry had no

personal knowledge of events that she did not in fact witness. 

Therefore, we must uphold the district court’s conclusions

that the door was open, the suite dark, and the warning given.

Without any admissible evidence to suggest that the doors

to the office suite were closed, the suite illuminated, or a

warning not provided, viewing the facts in the light most

favorable to Lowry does not change the analysis above. The

majority contends, at 29, that a jury might draw different

“inferences” from the facts, but it does not actually say what

different factual finding might be made—that the door was

not open, that the room was not dark, or that warnings had not

6

In fact, Lowry herself testified in her deposition that it was “dark” in

the suite when she went to sleep, and that there were no lights or computer

screens illuminating the room.

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LOWRY V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO 45

been given. No evidence supports any of those findings. The

“inferences” in question amount to the ultimate question of

whether the officer’s actions were objectively reasonable. 

That question, even the majority acknowledges, is a pure

question of law. Given the facts available to the reviewing

court, it is clear that the type and amount of force inflicted

was moderate, the City had a strong interest in using force,

and the degree of force used was commensurate with the

City’s interest in the use of force. As a result, the officers’

actions were constitutional, and there can be no liability under

Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs. of the City of N.Y., 436 U.S.

658 (1978).

I would affirm the district court’s grant of summary

judgment.

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