Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_16-cv-00427/USCOURTS-cand-3_16-cv-00427-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Krol
Defendant
Melissa Perna-Schwartz
Plaintiff
San Francisco Sheriff's Department
Defendant

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United States District Court

Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

MELISSA PERNA-SCHWARTZ,

Plaintiff,

v.

SAN FRANCISCO SHERIFF'S 

DEPARTMENT, et al.,

Defendants.

Case No. 16-cv-00427-JD 

ORDER OF DISMISSAL WITH 

LEAVE TO AMEND

Plaintiff, a detainee, has filed a pro se civil rights complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. She 

has been granted leave to proceed in forma pauperis. 

DISCUSSION

I. STANDARD OF REVIEW

Federal courts must engage in a preliminary screening of cases in which prisoners seek 

redress from a governmental entity or officer or employee of a governmental entity. 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1915A(a). In its review, the Court must identify any cognizable claims, and dismiss any claims 

which are frivolous, malicious, fail to state a claim upon which relief may be granted, or seek 

monetary relief from a defendant who is immune from such relief. Id. at 1915A(b)(1),(2). Pro se 

pleadings must be liberally construed. Balistreri v. Pacifica Police Dep’t, 901 F.2d 696, 699 (9th 

Cir. 1990).

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) requires only “a short and plain statement of the 

claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Although a complaint “does not need detailed 

factual allegations, . . . a plaintiff’s obligation to provide the ‘grounds’ of his ‘entitle[ment] to 

relief’ requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a 

cause of action will not do. . . . Factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above 

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the speculative level.” Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007) (citations 

omitted). A complaint must proffer “enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its 

face.” Id. at 570. The United States Supreme Court has explained the “plausible on its face” 

standard of Twombly: “While legal conclusions can provide the framework of a complaint, they 

must be supported by factual allegations. When there are well-pleaded factual allegations, a court 

should assume their veracity and then determine whether they plausibly give rise to an entitlement 

to relief.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 679 (2009). 

To state a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a plaintiff must allege that: (1) a right secured by 

the Constitution or laws of the United States was violated, and (2) the alleged deprivation was 

committed by a person acting under the color of state law. West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42, 48 (1988).

II. LEGAL CLAIMS

Plaintiff states that while at San Francisco County Jail she was the victim of excessive 

force, she was sexually harassed, and forced to expose herself to other inmates. The Due Process 

Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects a post-arraignment pretrial detainee from the use of 

excessive force that amounts to punishment. Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 395 n.10 (1989) 

(citing Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 535-39 (1979)); cf. Pierce v. Multnomah County, Oregon, 76 

F.3d 1032, 1043 (9th Cir. 1996) (Fourth Amendment reasonableness standard applies to 

allegations of use of excessive force against pre-arraignment detainee). To prevail under 42 

U.S.C. section 1983, a pretrial detainee must show only that the “force purposely or knowingly 

used against him was objectively unreasonable.” Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 135 S. Ct. 2466, 2473 

(2015). “A court must make this determination from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the 

scene, including what the officer knew at the time, not with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.” Id. “A 

court (judge or jury) cannot apply this standard mechanically.” Id. “[O]bjective reasonableness 

turns on the ‘facts and circumstances of each particular case.’” Id. (quoting Graham v. Connor, 

490 U.S. at 396). A non-exhaustive list of considerations that may bear on the reasonableness of 

the force used include “the relationship between the need for the use of force and the amount of 

force used; the extent of the plaintiff’s injury; any effort made by the officer to temper or to limit 

the amount of force; the severity of the security problem at issue; the threat reasonably perceived 

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by the officer; and whether the plaintiff was actively resisting.” Id. 

A cross-gender strip search that involves touching the inmate’s genitalia and searching 

inside his anus is unreasonable as a matter of law in a non-emergency situation. Byrd v. Maricopa 

Cnty. Sheriff’s Dep’t, 629 F.3d 1135, 1142 (9th Cir. 2011) (en banc). Although a cross-gender 

strip search is unreasonable, that does not mean that all cross-gender searches are unreasonable, or 

that prisoners of one gender may not be guarded by guards of the other gender. Thus, the holding 

in Byrd is not inconsistent with the earlier holding in Grummett v. Rushen, 779 F.2d 491, 494 (9th 

Cir. 1985), that upheld a system of assigning female officers within a correctional facility such 

that they occasionally viewed male inmates in various states of undress and conducted routine patdowns of fully clothed inmates. See Byrd, 629 F.3d at 1142. Assigned positions of female guards 

that require only infrequent and casual observation, or observation at a distance, of unclothed male 

prisoners and that are reasonably related to prison needs are not so degrading as to warrant court 

interference. See Michenfelder v. Summer, 860 F.2d 328, 334 (9th Cir. 1988); Grummett, 779 

F.2d at 494-95; see also Jordan v. Gardner, 986 F.2d 1521, 1524-25 (9th Cir. 1993) (en banc) 

(privacy interest in freedom from cross-gender clothed body searches not “judicially recognized”). 

The issue is whether officers regularly or frequently observe unclothed inmates of the opposite sex 

without a legitimate reason for doing so. See Michenfelder, 860 F.2d at 334.

Plaintiff states that she was the victim of excessive force that resulted in bruised wrists, a 

black eye, and sprained finger. She also states that she was forced to remove her pants in front of 

other inmates and she was sexually harassed by a deputy. The only defendant is Lt. Krol, though 

plaintiff does not identify his specific actions in the complaint. 

The complaint is dismissed with leave to amend to identify the specific actions of the 

defendant and to describe how her constitutional rights were violated in more detail. Plaintiff has 

also attached a grievance she filed with the jail that provides additional information and names 

additional jail deputies. However, the grievance describes several incidents and it is not clear 

which incident is the subject of the complaint. Plaintiff should be clear in an amended complaint 

regarding the underlying facts of her action and if she wants to proceed against these other 

deputies she must name them as defendants in an amended complaint and identify their specific 

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actions. 

CONCLUSION

1. The complaint is DISMISSED with leave to amend. The amended complaint must 

be filed within twenty-eight (28) days of the date this order is filed and must include the caption 

and civil case number used in this order and the words AMENDED COMPLAINT on the first 

page. Because an amended complaint completely replaces the original complaint, plaintiff must 

include in it all the claims he wishes to present. See Ferdik v. Bonzelet, 963 F.2d 1258, 1262 (9th 

Cir. 1992). She may not incorporate material from the original complaint by reference. Failure to 

amend within the designated time will result in the dismissal of this case.

2. It is the plaintiff’s responsibility to prosecute this case. Plaintiff must keep the 

Court informed of any change of address by filing a separate paper with the clerk headed “Notice 

of Change of Address,” and must comply with the Court’s orders in a timely fashion. Failure to 

do so may result in the dismissal of this action for failure to prosecute pursuant to Federal Rule of 

Civil Procedure 41(b).

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: March 17, 2016

JAMES DONATO

United States District Judge

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United States District Court

Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

MELISSA PERNA-SCHWARTZ,

Plaintiff,

v.

SAN FRANCISCO SHERIFF'S 

DEPARTMENT, et al.,

Defendants.

Case No. 16-cv-00427-JD 

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

I, the undersigned, hereby certify that I am an employee in the Office of the Clerk, U.S. 

District Court, Northern District of California.

That on March 17, 2016, I SERVED a true and correct copy(ies) of the attached, by 

placing said copy(ies) in a postage paid envelope addressed to the person(s) hereinafter listed, by 

depositing said envelope in the U.S. Mail, or by placing said copy(ies) into an inter-office delivery 

receptacle located in the Clerk's office.

Melissa Perna-Schwartz

#15668342

425 7th Street

San Francisco, CA 94103 

Dated: March 17, 2016

Susan Y. Soong

Clerk, United States District Court

By:________________________

LISA R. CLARK, Deputy Clerk to the 

Honorable JAMES DONATO

Case 3:16-cv-00427-JD Document 3 Filed 03/17/16 Page 5 of 5