Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_06-cv-06042/USCOURTS-cand-3_06-cv-06042-11/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 442
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Employment
Cause of Action: 28:1441 Petition for Removal - Employment Discrimination

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

ROBERT K. LEUNG, CHARLES C. CHAN,

SEVERO N. FLORES, CONSTANTINE J.

ZACHOS, ANGELO J. SPAGNOLI,

JOSEPHINE N. BORGES, CLODAGH

COLES,

Plaintiffs,

 v.

CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO,

SAN FRANCISCO POLICE DEPARTMENT,

HEATHER FONG, and DOES 1–10, inclusive,

Defendants. /

No. C 06-06042 WHA

ORDER GRANTING IN PART

MOTION FOR SUMMARY

JUDGMENT AND REMANDING

TO STATE COURT

INTRODUCTION

In this police-promotion action, defendants City and County of San Francisco,

San Francisco Police Department, and chief of police Heather Fong move for summary

judgment against plaintiffs Robert Leung, Charles Chan, Severo Flores, Constantine Zachos,

Angelo Spagnoli, Josephine Borges, and Clodagh Coles. Plaintiffs are seven police officers

who allege that they were not promoted to the rank of sergeant in violation of federal and state

laws. For the reasons stated below, defendants’ motion for summary judgment is GRANTED

with respect to the Section 1983 claim and ADA claim. The remaining state claims shall be

remanded to San Francisco Superior Court.

STATEMENT

Plaintiffs all took the Q-50 Sergeant exam administered in late 2000. Their names

appeared on the eligible-for-promotion list. In July 2005, chief of police Heather Fong

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promoted 28 officers to the rank of sergeant. Another 29 officers were promoted to the rank of

sergeant on August 22, 2005, the day that the eligible-for-appointment list expired. 

When making her promotion decisions, Chief Fong considered factors other than test scores —

e.g., “secondary criteria,” disciplinary records, leadership indicators, the demonstrated

specialized skills, qualities and experience of each candidate, and the needs of the SFPD. 

None of the seven plaintiffs were promoted.

Plaintiffs filed their complaint on September 28, 2006, claiming that defendants used

non-merit based factors to make their promotion decisions. They allege the following claims

against defendants: (i) deprivation of due process under California Government Code § 3304;

(ii) deprivation of due process under the California Constitution, Article I, Section 15;

and (iii) deprivation of due process under 42 U.S.C. 1983. Plaintiff Borges alleges disability

discrimination in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Plaintiffs also seek

declaratory relief.

ANALYSIS

Summary judgment is granted when “the pleadings, depositions, answers to

interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no

genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a

matter of law.” FRCP 56(c). A district court must determine, viewing the evidence in the light

most favorable to the nonmoving party, whether there is any genuine issue of material fact. 

Giles v. General Motors Acceptance Corp., 494 F.3d 865, 873 (9th Cir. 2007). A genuine issue

of fact is one that could reasonably be resolved in favor of either party. A dispute is

“material”only if it could affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law. Anderson v.

Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248–49 (1986). 

The moving party “has both the initial burden of production and the ultimate burden of

persuasion on a motion for summary judgment.” Nissan Fire & Marine Ins. Co., Ltd. v. Fritz

Cos., Inc., 210 F. 3d 1099, 1102 (9th Cir. 2000). When the moving party meets its initial

burden, the burden then shifts to the party opposing judgment to “go beyond the pleadings and 

by [its] own affidavits, or by the depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file,

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designate specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial.” Celotex Corp. v. Catrett,

477 U.S. 317, 324 (1986).

1. SECTION 1983 CLAIM.

Plaintiffs bring a Section 1983 claim against defendants for violating their Fifth

Amendment right to due process. “Property interests . . . are not created by the Constitution. 

Rather they are created and their dimensions are defined by existing rules or understandings that

stem from an independent source such as state law — rules or understandings that secure certain

benefits and that support claims of entitlement to those benefits.” Board of Regents of State

Colleges v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 577 (1972). “To have a property interest in a benefit, a person

clearly must have more than an abstract need or desire for it. He must have more than a

unilateral expectation of it. He must, instead, have a legitimate claim of entitlement to it.” 

Duncan v. Dept. of Personnel Administration, 77 Cal. App. 4th 1166, 1175 (2000).

Plaintiffs were not entitled to a promotion, defendants argue. In Nunez v. City of

Los Angeles, 147 F.3d 867 (9th Cir. 1998), police officers sued the city police department under

Section 1983, alleging that the department violated their substantive due process rights by

promoting inexperienced candidates. The Ninth Circuit held that the officers had no

constitutionally protected property or liberty interest in receiving a promotion. 

Specifically, it stated:

Do these police-officer plaintiffs have a property interest in

promotion? Although one’s actual job as a tenured civil servant is

property, the prospect of a promotion is not in the same category. 

Several of our sister circuits have already reached the issue and

rejected attempts to classify an expectancy in a promotion as a

property interest . . . We see no reason to buck the trend . . . 

In California, the terms and conditions of public employment are

generally “fixed by the statute, rules or regulations creating it,

not by contract (even if one is involved).” No such law creates a

property interest in a promotion.

Id. at 871–72. Plaintiffs’ due process claim therefore fails because they lack a constitutionally

protected property right in an anticipated promotion.

Plaintiffs try to distinguish Nunez from this case — they argue that, while holding that

the officers could not pursue a claim for substantive due process violations with respect to

promotions, the Ninth Circuit did not say that officers could not allege procedural due process

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violations. They claim that “[a] plaintiff does have a property interest in the procedures for

promotions under procedural due process principles; when the challenged deprivation arises

from a state employee’s unilateral failure to follow procedures established by the state to protect

the plaintiff, and there is no post-deprivation relief available, there is a due process violation”

(Opp. Br. 15). They rely on Goodisman v. Lyle, 724 F. 2d 818, 820 (9th Cir. 1984) for the

proposition that procedural requirements can give rise to property interest when they impose

“significant limitation on the discretion of the decision maker.” Plaintiffs conclude that,

because defendants had overly-complicated policies and Chief Fong did not promote candidates

on the basis of merit, plaintiffs’ rights to procedural due process were violated.

This order disagrees. There is more to the Goodisman decision than plaintiffs concede. 

In Goodisman, a university professor who was denied tenure brought a Section 1983 action

against the university. He challenged the decision and the underlying procedure, claiming that

the university had deprived him of procedural due process. Put in context, the Ninth Circuit’s

holding in Goodisman was:

A protected property interest exists if there is a “legitimate claim

of entitlement” to a specific benefit. A subjective expectancy

creates no constitutionally protected interest. Procedural

requirements ordinarily do not transform a unilateral expectation

into a constitutionally protected property interest. A

constitutionally protected interest has been created only if the

procedural requirements are intended to be a “significant

substantive restriction” on the University’s decision making. If the

procedures required impose no significant limitation on the

discretion of the decision maker, the expectation of a specific

decision is not enhanced enough to establish a constitutionally

protected interest in the procedures.

Ibid. The court of appeals found “no significant substantive limitations” in the university’s

procedures. Nor did the procedures “enhance a candidate’s expectation of obtaining tenure

enough to establish a constitutionally protected interest.” Id. at 821.

Here, plaintiffs assert that “San Francisco’s municipal laws and other civil service

requirements impose a morass of policies, regulations and other protocols that severely

constitutes a ‘significant limitation’ on the Chief’s ability to make promotional decisions”

(Opp. Br. 15–16). Not so. The selection rule used has already been deemed lawful by

Ninth Circuit and California law. See Officers for Justice, 979 F.2d 721, 727–28 (9th Cir.

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1992); San Francisco Fire Fighters Local 798, 38 Cal. 4th 38 Cal. 4th 653, 675–81 (Cal. 2006). 

Defendants’ policies and procedures therefore are not a significant limitation on Chief Fong’s

ability to make promotional decisions. No constitutionally protected interest was created. 

Because plaintiffs cannot point to the deprivation of a constitutional right, this order shall grant

summary judgment with respect to the Section 1983 claim.

2. AMERICAN WITH DISABILITIES ACT CLAIM.

Defendants assert that the ADA claim fails because plaintiff Borges failed to exhaust her

administrative remedies. Plaintiffs do not oppose defendants motion on this point (Opp. Br. 20

n. 5). This order therefore grants summary judgment in favor of defendants on the ADA claim.

3. REMAND TO STATE COURT.

The remaining claims are all state-law claims. The power of a federal court to hear

state-law claims is discretionary. According to the Supreme Court in Carnegie-Mellon

University v. Cohill, 484 U.S. 343, 350 (1988) (emphasis added):

[A] federal court should consider and weigh in each case, and at

every stage of the litigation, the values of judicial economy,

convenience, fairness, and comity in order to decide whether to

exercise jurisdiction over a case brought in that court involving

pendent state-law claims. When the balance of these factors

indicates that a case properly belongs in state court, as when the

federal-law claims have dropped out of the lawsuit in its early

stages and only state-law claims remain, the federal court should

decline the exercise of jurisdiction by dismissing the case without

prejudice.

Keeping the values of judicial economy, convenience, fairness, and comity in mind, this order

shall remand the remaining claims to state court because they represent novel issues of state law

and should therefore be interpreted by state court judges.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the motion for summary judgment is GRANTED with respect

to the Section 1983 and ADA claims. This case is hereby REMANDED TO SAN FRANCISCO

SUPERIOR COURT.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: December 21, 2007.6 

WILLIAM ALSUP

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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