Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-1_11-cv-00718/USCOURTS-caed-1_11-cv-00718-29/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 28:1343 Violation of Civil Rights

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

Currently before the court is a pleading by plaintiff Eugene Forte (“Plaintiff”) titled 

“Plaintiff’s Objection to Magistrate Judge Barbara McAuliffe [sic] Order on Plaintiff’s Request 

for an Order to Show Cause Doc. # 220” (hereinafter, Plaintiff’s “Objection”). Doc. # 223. On 

June 13, 2014, judgment was entered following a jury trial awarding Plaintiff $10,000 in general 

damages and $7,500 in punitive damages. On April 24, 2015, the court held a Judgment Debtor’s 

Examination (“Examination”) of defendant Tommy Jones (“Defendant”) pursuant to a motion by 

Plaintiff. During the Examination, Plaintiff engaged in a line of questioning that was intended to 

elicit from Defendant testimony as to whether Defendant had spoken to either Carrigan or 

Vaughn, both Los Banos City officials, regarding the payment of the punitive damages portion of 

the judgment against Defendant. The magistrate allowed the line of question and Defendant 

unequivocally denied having had any contact with either official regarding City payment of some 

or all of the judgment against Defendant. On May 27, 2015, Plaintiff filed a motion titled: 

“MOTION FOR ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CIVIL AND CRIMINAL CONTEMPT BY 

DEFENDANT TOMMY JONES AND DEFENSE COUNSEL BENJAMIN RATLIFF.” Doc. # 

EUGENE E. FORTE,

Plaintiff

v.

TOMMY JONES,

Defendant.

1:11 – cv – 0718 AWI BAM

ORDER DENYING RECONSIDERATION 

OF MAGISTRATE JUDGE’S ORDER, 

DOC. # 220, DENYING PLAINTIFF’S 

MOTION FOR ORDER TO SHOW 

CAUSE AND RELATED ORDER

Doc. #’s 223 & 222

Case 1:11-cv-00718-AWI-BAM Document 224 Filed 06/17/15 Page 1 of 5
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216. The “Motion for Order to Show Cause” was amended the following day. As the title 

suggests, Plaintiff’s Motion for Order to Show Cause contended that Defendant had committed 

perjury and/or contempt by falsely answering the questions regarding his contact with Carrigan or 

Vaughn and that his perjury had been suborned by his attorney, Mr. Ratliff. On May 29, 2015, the 

Magistrate Judge Denied Plaintiff’s Motion to Show Cause. Doc. # 220. That order is the subject 

of Plaintiff’s Objection.

As an initial matter, the court notes that on the day prior to the filing of his Opposition, 

Plaintiff filed a document titled: “EX PARTE APPLICATION by Eugene E. Forte for 

PLAINTIFFS INITIAL REQUEST FOR A STAY OF RULING ON PLAINTIFFS OBJECTION 

TO MAGISTRATE MCAULIFFES ORDER DOC. 220 BY JUDGE ANTHONY ISHII AND 

REQUEST FOR 45 DAYS FOR PLAINTIFF TO FILE AND HAVE HEARD A MOTION TO

DISQUALIFY JUDGE ANTHONY ISHII” (hereinafter, the “Motion for Stay”). Doc. # 222. The 

Motion for Stay is based on Plaintiff’s perception of bias against him as evidenced by this court’s 

decision to apply terminating sanctions against Plaintiff in the case of Forte v. County of Merced, 

et a., 11cv0318 AWI BAM. As has been the case on prior occasions, Plaintiff perceives the 

court’s legal decisions that go against him as evidence of prejudice. It is apparently Plaintiff’s 

hope that in having an additional 45 days to compile the court’s decisions or opinions that are 

contrary to Plaintiff’s opinions or interpretations of the law, he can persuade this court to 

disqualify itself and forum shop until he finds one more to his liking. It should be noted that the 

only other District Judge available in this court, Judge O’Neill, is laboring under one of the 

highest workloads in the nation and is currently the District Judge for one of Plaintiff’s other cases 

in this court. The court cannot grant Plaintiff’s motion to stay and will not permit Plaintiff to 

substitute forum shopping for the standard practice of appeal of unfavorable decisions. As the 

court has stated or suggested on a number of occasions, the proper procedure in light of a decision 

or decisions that are unfavorable or disagreeable is appeal, not repeated arguments for 

reconsideration or attempts to reject the jurisdiction of the court. Any motion by Plaintiff to 

disqualify this court from the exercise of its jurisdiction will be summarily rejected.

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 72(a) gives Magistrate Judges the authority to hear and 

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decide nondispositive pre-trial matters. Fed. R. Civ. Proc. 72(a). Title 28 U.S.C. §636(b)(1)(A) 

states “A judge of the court may reconsider any pretrial matter under this subparagraph (A) where 

it has been shown that the magistrate judge’s order is clearly erroneous or contrary to law.” The 

court must give deference to a nondispositive order entered by a magistrate judge unless the order 

is “clearly erroneous or contrary to law.” Grimes v. City and County of San Francisco, 951 F. 2d 

236, 241 (9th Cir. 1991). Additionally, the reviewing court may not substitute its judgment for 

that of the deciding court. U.S. v. BNS, Inc., 858 F. 2d 456, 464 (9th Cir. 1988). 

An order is “clearly erroneous” if, after consideration of all of the evidence, the district court is 

left with the “definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” Burdick v. 

Commissioner, 979 F. 2d 1369, 1370 (9th Cir. 1992). An order is “contrary to law” if it fails to 

apply or misapplies the existing law including case law, statues, or rules of procedure. Yen v. 

Baca, 2002 WL 32810316 at *2 (C.D. Cal. 2002).

The Magistrate Judge’s Order provided a thorough discussion of the court’s purpose in 

conducting a Judgment Debtor’s Examination and the court’s authority to sanction perjured 

testimony. The Magistrate Judge reasoned:

The court exercises its discretion and does not issue an Order to Show Cause in this 

situation. The issue upon which Plaintiff seeks contempt is tangential to the 

fundamental purpose of the Rule 69 enforcement proceeding. The Rule 69 purpose 

is to uncover and determine assets from which the judgment could be satisfied. 

Here, the purported perjured answers are not related to the discovery of assets. 

Rather, the answers are related to Defendant’s communications with City officials 

on whether [Defendant] asked City officials to pay the judgment. As Defendant is 

not employed by the City and has no control over the City or its finances, inquiry 

into this subject area is only tangentially related to the purpose of the Rule 69 

enforcement proceeding.

Doc. 220 at 3:6-13. In concluding the discussion on civil contempt, the Magistrate Judge 

observed: “Of additional significance, the Court also declines to multiply the proceedings in this 

case. On balance, given the tangential nature and the relevance of the [allegedly false] 

information, the lack of any type of prejudice, and the crushing caseload in the Eastern District, 

the Court declines to issue the Order to Show Cause. Doc. # 220 at 5:3-6.

In his opposition Plaintiff contends that the allegedly perjured testimony was not 

“tangential” because the Magistrate Judge had ruled the line of question Plaintiff proposed was 

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germane to the discovery of assets under the control of Defendant that could be used to satisfy the 

judgment. The court disagrees with Plaintiff. Had Defendant testified that he had talked to the 

Los Banos Officials and testified that they had agreed to pay some portion of the judgment, there 

might have been some materiality as to Plaintiff’s line of questioning inasmuch as a source of 

assets to satisfy the judgment might have been identified. As Plaintiff’s Objection makes clear, 

however, his concern is not that Defendant did or did not identify a source of assets, it is whether 

any public funds might be used to pay the punitive damages portion of the judgment. Plaintiff is 

adamantly opposed to the use of any public funds to pay the punitive damages portion of the 

judgment against Defendant. 

The court agrees with the Magistrate Judge that whether or not Defendant had a 

conversation with Vaughn or Carrigan concerning any payment of, or contribution to, the 

judgment against defendant is tangential to the purposes of the Rule 69 hearing. First, whether a 

conversation occurred or not is not determinative of the existence of an asset for Rule 69 purposes. 

Second, Plaintiff has not shown that he has standing to challenge any source that might have been 

identified or that such a challenge is appropriate within the context of a Rule 69 hearing. The 

court concludes that the Magistrate Judge did not abuse the court’s discretion in finding that the 

questions posed by Plaintiff and the answers given by Defendant were merely tangential to the 

purposes of the Rule 69 proceedings.

Plaintiff also appears to contend that, contrary to the Magistrate Judge’s decision, he was 

somehow prejudiced by the allegedly perjured answers supplied by Defendant and will be greatly 

prejudiced by the Magistrate Judge’s denial of an issuance of an Order to Show Cause. The court 

agrees that no prejudice to Plaintiff is apparent. To the extent that Plaintiff contends he has some 

abstract type of constitutional Due Process right that is offended when facts alleged by the 

opposing party are not unassailably truthful, he does not; at least not in the sense that he has a 

right to direct the court’s limited resources to conduct a mini-trial for each instance in which 

Plaintiff feels he has been lied to. As the Magistrate Judge pointed out, prejudice, in the context of 

a Rule 69 examination, is evidenced by the impairment of the court’s effort to identify assets. The 

content or existence of conversations between Defendant and City officials that did not identify a 

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source of assets did not impair the court’s inquiry. The Magistrate Judge was present at the 

Judgment Debtor’s examination, took part in that examination and is in the best position to 

exercise the court’s discretion to pursue or not pursue allegations of untruthfulness. This court is 

convinced that the Magistrate’s Judge was not erroneous or contrary to law in exercising the 

court’s discretion to not pursue claims of perjury, obstruction or contempt pursuant to Plaintiff’s 

Objections.

THEREFORE, for the reasons discussed above, it is hereby ORDERED that:

1. Plaintiff’s ex parte motion to stay consideration pending motion to disqualify Judge Ishii, 

Doc. # 222, is DENIED.

2. Plaintiff’s Objection to the Magistrate Judge’s Order, Document Number 223, is hereby 

CONSTRUED as a motion for reconsideration and is hereby DENIED.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: June 16, 2015 

 SENIOR DISTRICT JUDGE

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