Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-15-15996/USCOURTS-ca9-15-15996-0/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

MANUEL DE JESUS ORTEGA

MELENDRES; JESSICA QUITUGUA

RODRIGUEZ; DAVID RODRIGUEZ;

VELIA MERAZ; MANUEL NIETO, JR.;

SOMOS AMERICA,

Plaintiffs-Appellees,

v.

MARICOPA COUNTY,

Defendant-Appellant,

and

JOSEPH M. ARPAIO,

Defendant.

No. 15-15996

D.C. No.

2:07-cv-02513-

GMS

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Arizona

G. Murray Snow, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

January 12, 2016—Pasadena, California

Filed March 7, 2016

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2 MELENDRES V. MARICOPA CTY.

Before: J. Clifford Wallace, Susan P. Graber,

and Marsha S. Berzon, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Wallace

SUMMARY*

Civil Rights/Civil Procedure

The panel dismissed for lack of jurisdiction an appeal by

Maricopa County after determining that the appeal was not

timely filed.

Plaintiffs filed this class action against Sheriff Arpaio (in

his official capacity), Maricopa County, and Maricopa

County Sheriff’s Office alleging that defendants violated

federal law by raciallyprofilingLatino drivers and passengers

and stopping them under the guise of enforcing federal and

state immigration laws. All of the parties later stipulated that

Plaintiffs would dismiss their claims against Maricopa

Countywithout prejudice. On appeal from the district court’s

subsequent permanent injunction, this court in Melendres v.

Arpaio (Melendres II), 784 F.3d 1254, 1267 (9th Cir. 2015),

concluded that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office was

improperly named as a party and ordered that Maricopa

County be substituted in its place. Maricopa County then

filed the present appeal which purported to challenge four

district court orders entered between December 2011 and

April 2014.

* 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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MELENDRES V. MARICOPA CTY. 3

The panel held that Maricopa County’s appeal, filed

almost a year after the most recent order from which it

appealed, was untimely under 28 U.S.C. § 2107(a) and Fed.

R. App. P. 4(a)(1)(A), which require that an appeal be filed

within thirty days after entry of the judgment or order

appealed from. The panel rejected Maricopa County’s

arguments that it would be unfair to dismiss its appeal since

it became a party only as a result of the Melendres II decision

and therefore never had a chance to file a timely appeal. The

panel held that even if it agreed (and it did not) with

Maricopa County that the Melendres II opinion worked an

injustice by substituting the County for the Maricopa County

Sheriff’s Office, it would still have no authority to entertain

the appeal since the Supreme Court has made abundantly

clear that federal courts cannot “create equitable exceptions

to jurisdictional requirements.”

COUNSEL

Richard K. Walker (argued), Walker & Peskind, PLLC,

Scottsdale, Arizona, for Defendant-Appellant.

StanleyYoung (argued) and Michelle L. Morin, Covington &

BurlingLLP, Redwood Shores, California; Cecillia D. Wang,

ACLU Foundation Immigrants’ Rights Project, San

Francisco, California; Dan Pochoda, ACLU Foundation of

Arizona, Phoenix,Arizona;AndreSegura, ACLU Foundation

Immigrants’ Rights Project, New York, New York; Anne Lai,

Irvine, California; Jorge Martin Castillo, Mexican American

Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Los Angeles,

California, for Plaintiffs-Appellees.

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4 MELENDRES V. MARICOPA CTY.

OPINION

WALLACE, Senior Circuit Judge:

Last year, we issued an opinion affirming (for the most

part) the district court’s decision to enter a permanent

injunction enjoining Sheriff Joseph M. Arpaio and the

Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) from conducting

racially discriminatory traffic stops. Melendres v. Arpaio

(Melendres II), 784 F.3d 1254, 1267 (9th Cir. 2015). In

addition to affirming the permanent injunction, we observed

that, during the ongoing litigation between the parties, the

Arizona Court of Appeals held that MCSO is a non-jural

entity, meaning that it cannot be subject to a lawsuit.

Braillard v. Maricopa Cty., 232 P.3d 1263, 1269 (Ariz. Ct.

App. 2010). That decision compelled us to conclude that “it

is now clear that MCSO has improperly been named as a

party in this action.” Melendres II, 784 F.3d at 1260. To

remedy that problem, we ordered that Maricopa County be

substituted in place of MCSO. Id. That substitution gave rise

to the present appeal by Maricopa County.

Maricopa County appeals from four district court orders

entered between December 2011 and April 2014, which are

the same orders that Sheriff Arpaio and MCSO appealed from

previously in Melendres II. A threshold issue that we must

consider is whether we have jurisdiction to hear the appeal,

since Maricopa County filed its notice of appeal almost a year

after the most recent order from which it appeals. This

attempted appeal is in obvious tension with the longstanding

rule that a party must file a notice of appeal within thirty days

“after entry of the judgment or order appealed from.” FED.R.

APP. P. 4(a)(1)(A). We conclude that the appeal is untimely

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MELENDRES V. MARICOPA CTY. 5

under this general rule and, accordingly, we dismiss it for

lack of jurisdiction.

I.

The facts of this case may be found in detail in our prior

opinions on the matter: Melendres II, 784 F.3d at 1258–61;

Melendres v. Arpaio (Melendres I), 695 F.3d 990, 994–96

(9th Cir. 2012). Here, we recount only those facts that are

essential to dispose of the issues raised in this attempted

appeal.

Plaintiffs filed this class action against Sheriff Arpaio (in

his official capacity), Maricopa County, and MCSO, alleging

that they violated federal law by racially profiling Latino

drivers and passengers and stopping them under the guise of

enforcing federal and state immigration laws. All of the

parties later stipulated, however, that Plaintiffs would dismiss

their claims against Maricopa County. The parties did so

because they believed, at that time, that “Defendant Maricopa

County is not a necessary party at this juncture for obtaining

the complete relief sought.” But the stipulation expressly

provided that the dismissal was “without prejudice to

rejoining Defendant Maricopa County as a Defendant in this

lawsuit at a later time if doing so becomes necessary to obtain

complete relief.” It is important to point out that, at the time

the parties agreed to dismiss Maricopa County, the Arizona

Court of Appeals had not yet held that MCSO is a non-jural

entity and therefore cannot be sued. It did so about a year

after the stipulated dismissal, in Braillard v. Maricopa

County, 232 P.3d 1263, 1269 (Ariz. Ct. App. 2010). Had that

decision been issued before Maricopa County’s dismissal, the

parties may well have decided that Maricopa County was a

necessary party.

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6 MELENDRES V. MARICOPA CTY.

The case proceeded after Maricopa County’s dismissal

and, after a bench trial, the district court concluded that

Sheriff Arpaio and MCSO acted unconstitutionally and

permanently enjoined them from conducting the racially

discriminatory conduct. The court later supplemented its

permanent injunction order to require that the MCSO take a

variety of measures intended to discourage further

constitutional violations, such as: appointing an independent

monitor to assess and report on MCSO’s compliance with the

injunction, increasing the training of MCSO employees,

improving traffic-stop documentation, and developing an

early identification system for racial-profiling problems. An

appeal to our court followed, resulting in our decision in

Melendres II. There, we affirmed the entirety of the district

court’s permanent injunction orders, except for certain

provisions dealing with internal investigations and reports of

officer misconduct. Melendres II, 784 F.3d at 1267. As to the

problematic provisions, we remanded to the district court so

that it could tailor them more precisely to the constitutional

violations at issue. Id.

In this same appeal, MCSO challenged the district court’s

refusal to dismiss it as a party. It argued that because the

Arizona Court of Appeals held in Braillard, that MCSO was

a non-jural entity, it could not be sued. 232 P.3d at 1269. We

agreed and, accordingly, held that MCSO was improperly

named as a party. Melendres II, 784 F.3d at 1260. To assure

a meaningful remedy for the plaintiffs despite MCSO’s

dismissal, we ordered that “Maricopa County be substituted

as a party in lieu of MCSO.” Id.

Following the issuance of our decision, Maricopa County

filed a petition for panel rehearing or rehearing en banc. After

we denied the petition, Maricopa County petitioned the

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MELENDRES V. MARICOPA CTY. 7

Supreme Court for writ of certiorari. The Court denied the

petition without comment. Maricopa Cty. v. Melendres, No.

15-376, 2016 WL 100382 (U.S. Jan. 11, 2016).

In addition to using the ordinary avenues for challenging

an appellate decision, Maricopa County filed the present

appeal on May 15, 2015, which purported to challenge

several of the district court’s orders. That is the appeal which

we address now.

II.

The threshold issue we must consider is whether we are

required to dismiss this appeal for lack of jurisdiction.

By statute, for an appeal to be considered timely it must

be filed “within thirty days after the entry of . . . judgment,

order or decree.” 28 U.S.C. § 2107(a). The Rules of Appellate

Procedure contain this same deadline, providing that: “In a

civil case . . . the notice of appeal required by Rule 3 must be

filed with the district clerk within 30 days after entry of the

judgment or order appealed from.” FED.R.APP.P. 4(a)(1)(A).

Since Maricopa County is the party seeking to invoke our

jurisdiction, it “has the burden of establishing that jurisdiction

exists.” Data Disc, Inc. v. Sys. Tech. Assocs., Inc., 557 F.2d

1280, 1285 (9th Cir. 1977) (citing KVOS, Inc. v. Associated

Press, 299 U.S. 269, 278 (1936)). Carrying this burden is no

small matter, since “[t]he requirement of a timely notice of

appeal is mandatory and jurisdictional,” Munden v. UltraAlaska Assocs., 849 F.2d 383, 386 (9th Cir. 1988) (citing

Browder v. Dir., Dep’t of Corr., 434 U.S. 257, 264 (1978)),

meaning that we are not at liberty to overlook a defect with

the notice of appeal no matter how compelling an appellant’s

argument may be. The thirty-day deadline serves an

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8 MELENDRES V. MARICOPA CTY.

important purpose, which is “to set a definite point of time

when litigation shall be at an end, unless within that time the

prescribed application has been made; and if it has not, to

advise prospective appellees that they are freed of the

appellant’s demands.” Browder, 434 U.S. at 264 (quoting

Matton Steamboat Co. v. Murphy, 319 U.S. 412, 415 (1943)

(per curiam)).

Rule 4 does provide certain exceptions to and extensions

of the thirty-day time requirement, such as cases in which the

United States is a party, FED.R. APP. P. 4(a)(1)(B), and cases

in which a party files certain post-judgment motions, FED.R.

APP. P. 4(a)(4). We do not have authority, however, to create

additional exceptions based on our own sense of what is

equitable or fair. See Bowles v. Russell, 551 U.S. 205, 214

(2007)(repudiating the non-statutory“unique circumstances”

exception and holding that federal courts have “no authority

to create equitable exceptions to jurisdictional

requirements”).

This legal background compels the conclusion that we

must dismiss Maricopa County’s appeal as untimely. The

district court orders that Maricopa County has challenged in

its notice of appeal were issued years ago, between 2011 and

2014. By filing its notice of appeal on May 15, 2015,

Maricopa County’s appeal does not come close to complying

with the thirty-day deadline. The exceptions to the deadline

set out in Rule 4 are of no help either and Maricopa County

has never argued that any of them applies here. Because the

County’s notice of appeal is untimely and no exceptions to

the deadline apply, it has not carried its burden of invoking

our jurisdiction and we must dismiss this appeal.

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MELENDRES V. MARICOPA CTY. 9

Maricopa County offers several arguments in support of

its assertion that we should consider the merits of its appeal,

but none is persuasive. First, it argues that its appeal is timely

because its notice of appeal was filed within thirty days after

we issued our opinion in Melendres II. The novelty of this

argument is best illustrated by the fact that Maricopa County

offers no supporting authority for it. Nothing in 28 U.S.C.

§ 2107(a) or Rule 4(a) allows a party to appeal from an

appellate decision with which it disagrees. Moreover, that the

County filed its appeal within thirty days of our Melendres II

decision is irrelevant because, under Rule 4(a), an appeal

must be filed “within 30 days after entry of the judgment or

order appealed from.” As the County specified in its notice of

appeal, the orders “appealed from” here are the district

court’s orders entered between 2011 and 2014. Therefore, it

makes no difference that the County filed its notice of appeal

within thirty days of our Melendres II decision.

Second, Maricopa County argues that it would be unfair

for us to dismiss its appeal since it became a party only as a

result of our Melendres II decision and therefore never had a

chance to file a timely appeal. Essentially, it argues that it

would be unfair to hold it to the thirty-day deadline since it

was not actively participating in the case at the time it would

have needed to file its appeal. This argument fails for

multiple reasons.

For one, there is no unfairness in holding Maricopa

County to its earlier stipulation that it would be rejoined “as

a Defendant in this lawsuit at a later time if doing so becomes

necessary to obtain complete relief.” Because of the Arizona

Court of Appeals’ decision in Braillard, it became necessary

that the County be rejoined as a defendant. By agreeing to be

rejoined in this case should it become necessary, Maricopa

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10 MELENDRES V. MARICOPA CTY.

County cannot now argue that it was unfair to hold it to its

stipulation.

Apart from the stipulation agreement, the position

Maricopa County takes in its briefs demonstrates the illusory

nature of its claim of unfairness. In its opening brief, the

County submits that it “does not object to, or seek any

modification of, the prohibitory provisions (i.e., the

provisions proscribing certain law enforcement practices the

district court found to be unconstitutional) in the district

court’s injunction orders.” Instead, it requests only that we

strike down “[a]ll affirmative mandates in the injunctive

orders entered by the district court.” Yet, in the very same

paragraph, it concedes that it is required, by Arizona state

statute, “to provide funding for the massive changes the

district court has imposed.” See ARIZ. REV. STAT. § 11-444.

Thus, the County has conceded that even if we had never

substituted it in place of MCSO, it would have nonetheless

had to bear the financial costs associated with complying with

the district court’s injunction. Given that concession, there is

no argument that our substitution of it into the case in

Melendres II saddled it with obligations that it would not

otherwise have had.

Further, under the Supreme Court’s decisions interpreting

42 U.S.C. § 1983, “[i]f the sheriff’s actions constitute county

‘policy,’ then the county is liable for them.” McMillian v.

Monroe Cty., 520 U.S. 781, 783 (1997) (citing Monell v.

Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 694 (1978)). Arizona state

law makes clear that Sheriff Arpaio’s law-enforcement acts

constitute Maricopa County policy since he “has final

policymaking authority.” Flanders v. Maricopa Cty., 54 P.3d

837, 847 (Ariz. Ct. App. 2002); see Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 11-

441(A) (requiring the sheriff to “[p]reserve the peace,”

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MELENDRES V. MARICOPA CTY. 11

“[a]rrest . . . all persons who attempt to commit or who have

committed a public offense,” and “[p]revent and suppress all

affrays, breaches of the peace, riots and insurrections which

may come to the knowledge of the sheriff”).1

Maricopa County attempts to sidestep this authority by

arguing that Sheriff Arpaio’s acts cannot create respondeat

superior liability. But under section 1983, “[l]iability is

imposed, not on the grounds of respondeat superior, but

because the agent’s status cloaks him with the governmental

body’s authority.” Flanders, 54 P.3d at 847 (citing City of

Phoenix v. Yarnell, 909 P.2d 377, 384–85 (Ariz. 1995)).

Accordingly, the case law Maricopa County cites holding that

it is not liable for the Sheriff’s acts under respondeat superior

is inapposite here.

This is not to say, however, that Maricopa County’s

alleged lack of control over Sheriff Arpaio has no

significance. For instance, should the Sheriff fail to comply

with the district court’s injunction, and thereby make himself

and the County subject to contempt proceedings, the County

could rely on the degree to which it can control his behavior

to potentially avoid any adverse consequences.

At bottom, even if we agreed with Maricopa County that

our Melendres II opinion worked an injustice by substituting

it for MCSO (which we do not), we would still have no

authority to entertain this appeal since the Supreme Court has

1 While we observed in our Melendres II decision that “[o]n remand, the

district court may consider dismissal of Sheriff Arpaio in his official

capacity,” Melendres, 784 F.3d at 1260, at this juncture it appears that

such a dismissal may be unwarranted given the County’s suggestion that

it cannot exercise control over Sheriff Arpaio.

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12 MELENDRES V. MARICOPA CTY.

made abundantly clear that federal courts cannot “create

equitable exceptions to jurisdictional requirements.” Bowles,

551 U.S. at 214.

III.

There is a “point of time when litigation shall be at an

end.” Browder, 434 U.S. at 264 (internal quotation marks

omitted). In this case, that point is prescribed by 28 U.S.C.

§ 2107(a) and Rule 4(a). Because Maricopa County’s notice

of appeal is untimely under both, we dismiss this appeal for

lack of jurisdiction. We have no authority to overlook those

provisions, regardless of whatever unfairness the County

believes not doing so engenders.

APPEAL DISMISSED.

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