Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_16-cv-00157/USCOURTS-caed-2_16-cv-00157-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Thomas Andris
Defendant
Matthew Chesterman
Defendant
County of Sacramento
Defendant
Douglas Davis
Defendant
Brandon Gayman
Defendant
Shelly Hodgkins
Defendant
Sage D. Kaveny
Plaintiff
Brian Shortz
Defendant

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

----oo0oo----

SAGE D. KAVENY, 

Plaintiff,

v.

COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO; MATTHEW 

CHESTERMAN; BRIAN SHORTZ; 

BRANDON GAYMAN; SHELLY 

HODGKINS; DOUGLAS DAVIS; 

THOMAS ANDRIS; and DOES 1 

through 30, inclusive, 

 Defendants.

CIV. NO. 2:16-00157 WBS CKD

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

----oo0oo----

Plaintiff, a female criminal defense attorney, brings 

this action against the County of Sacramento, the Sacramento 

County Main Jail Commander and several deputy sheriffs based upon 

the alleged denial of her right to use the pass-through meeting 

rooms1 at the Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center (“RCCC”) and the 

 

1 A pass-through meeting room is one in which there is a 

glass partition with an opening that permits attorneys to share 

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Sacramento County Main Jail. Plaintiff’s only federal claims are 

asserted under 28 U.S.C. § 1983 for gender discrimination in 

violation of the Equal Protection Clause, and for violation of 

plaintiff’s procedural due process rights. 

Presently before the court is defendants’ motion to 

dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim under Rule 

12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. (Docket No. 

8.) 

A. Plaintiff’s § 1983 Claim for Violation of the Equal

Protection Clause - Gender Discrimination

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment 

provides that “no State shall . . . deny to any person within its 

jurisdiction equal protection of its laws.” The essence of the 

Equal Protection Clause is a requirement that similarly situated

people be treated alike. Ariz. Dream Act Coal. v. Brewer, 757 

F.3d 1053, 1063-64 (9th Cir. 2014). A plaintiff may prevail on 

an “equal protection claim by showing ‘that a class that is 

similarly situated has been treated disparately.’” Id. at 1064 

(citation omitted). The Complaint here fails to contain any 

allegation that male attorneys were treated differently under 

similar circumstances. The court must therefore grant

defendants’ motion to dismiss plaintiff’s § 1983 claim for 

violation of the Equal Protection Clause.

B. Plaintiff’s § 1983 Claim for Violation of Procedural Due 

Process

A § 1983 claim based upon a procedural due process

 

documents and evidence with their clients. (Compl. ¶ 4 (Docket 

No. 1).)

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violation “has three elements: (1) a liberty or property interest 

protected by the Constitution; (2) a deprivation of the interest 

by the government; (3) lack of process.” Portman v. County of 

Santa Clara, 995 F.2d 898, 904 (9th Cir. 1993). The procedural 

due process guarantees “apply only when a constitutionally 

protected liberty or property interest is at stake.” Soranno’s 

Gasco, Inc. v. Morgan, 874 F.2d 1310, 1316 (9th Cir. 1989). “The 

Due Process Clause does not create substantive rights in 

property; the property rights are defined by reference to state 

law.” Id. 

In order “‘[t]o have a property interest in a benefit, 

a person clearly must have more than an abstract need or desire’ 

and ‘more than a unilateral expectation of it. He must, instead, 

have a legitimate claim of entitlement to it.’” Town of Castle 

Rock, Colo. v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748, 756 (2005) (citation 

omitted). A benefit is not a protected entitlement “if 

government officials may grant or deny it in their discretion.” 

Id. 

Plaintiff alleges defendants violated her procedural

due process rights by revoking her pass-through privileges and 

repeatedly broadcasting that she had engaged in sexual conduct 

“without any process.” (Compl. ¶ 57.) Defendants allegedly did 

not provide plaintiff with an administrative hearing and 

reinstate her pass-through privileges until eight months after 

the initial incident. (Id. ¶¶ 48-50.) Further, the 

administrative hearing was provided only after a Sacramento 

County Superior Court Judge ordered the Sheriff’s Department to 

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either reinstate plaintiff’s privileges or provide her an 

administrative hearing. (Id. Ex. 2, May 29, 2015 Sacramento 

Superior Ct. Order at 2, 4 (Docket No. 5).) 

Plaintiff contends pass-through privileges are a

liberty or property interest because of a combination of state 

regulations and Sacramento County jail rules. (Pl.’s Opp’n at 

17-20.) First, plaintiff cites section 3178 of the California 

Code of Regulations, which specifies procedures that must be 

followed if an administrator seeks “to restrict, where cause 

exists, the confidential privileges . . . and/or normal visiting 

privileges afforded an attorney.” Cal. Code of Regs. tit. 15,

§ 3178(s). 

This state regulation, however, governs attorney 

visitation in state prisons, not visitation in local detention 

facilities. See id. § 3000 (defining “inmate” as “a person under 

the jurisdiction of the Secretary and not paroled”; “secretary” 

as the secretary of the Department of Corrections and 

Rehabilitation; and “facility” as “any institution; communityaccess facility or community correctional facility; or any camp 

or other subfacility of an institution under the jurisdiction of 

the” California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation); 

Id. § 5058 (authorizing the Secretary of the Department of 

Corrections and Rehabilitation to “prescribe and amend rules and 

regulations for the administration of the prisons”). 

Instead, the state regulation that governs attorney 

visitation in local correctional facilities is section 1068. 

This regulation provides that the “facility administrator shall 

develop written policies and procedures to ensure inmates have 

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access to the court and to legal counsel” and this access “shall 

consist of” unlimited mail and “confidential consultation with 

attorneys.” Id. § 1068; see also id. § 1006 (defining 

“facility/system administrator” as “the sheriff, chief of police, 

chief probation officer, or other official charged by law with 

the administration of a local detention facility/system”); Id.

§ 6030 (“The Board of State and Community Corrections shall 

establish minimum standards for local correctional facilities.”). 

Section 1068 therefore requires facility administrators to ensure 

inmates have access to “confidential consultation with 

attorneys,” not confidential consultation in pass-through rooms. 

Plaintiff next argues that the Sacramento County jail 

rules also create an attorney entitlement to pass-through 

privileges. (Pl.’s Opp’n at 18.) Plaintiff cites Sacramento 

County Sheriff’s Department Operations Order 6/18, which outlines 

“the procedures for inmate access to confidential visits at the 

Main Jail and the Rio Consumnes Correctional Center (RCCC) in 

accordance with the California Code of Regulations, Title 15, 

Article 6, Section 1068.” (Id. Ex. 1, Sacramento Cnty. Sheriff’s 

Dep’t Operations Order 6/18 (“Operations Order”) at 1.) The 

Operations Order provides that “confidential visits shall be 

granted to those persons who qualify under the law for such 

privileges” and will be “conducted in areas that cannot be 

audibly monitored by other inmates and custody staff.” (Id.) 

More specifically, it provides that a “confidential pass-through 

booth may be authorized for: licensed attorneys” and that 

“[p]ass-through booth privileges will be granted . . . unless the 

person has had his/her privileges revoked by the division 

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commander.” (Id. (emphasis added).) 

Like the applicable state regulation, the Operations 

Order reinforces an inmate’s right to confidential consultation 

with an attorney but not to consultation in a pass-through room. 

The Operations Order makes clear that pass-through privileges 

will be authorized for attorneys unless revoked by the division 

commander. The right to confidential consultations in passthrough rooms is therefore discretionary and cannot be construed 

as a mandatory liberty or property entitlement. Furthermore, 

while liberty or property entitlements can be created by state 

law, it is not clear to the court that such entitlements can be 

created by a county operations order implementing a state 

regulation. Accordingly, the court must dismiss plaintiff’s

procedural due process claim based upon denial of the passthrough privilege.

Plaintiff also argues that defendants violated her 

procedural due process rights by harming her professional 

reputation. (Compl. ¶ 57.) She alleges that defendants “tried 

to prevent Plaintiff from getting any work by informing inmates, 

other attorneys and other correctional officers, that Plaintiff 

engaged in sexual misconduct with inmate clients.” (Id. ¶ 37.) 

Harm to reputation, without more, is neither a liberty nor 

property interest guaranteed against state deprivation without 

due process of law. Paul v. Davis, 424 U.S. 693, 712 (1976). 

Under the “stigma plus” test, “a plaintiff must show the public 

disclosure of a stigmatizing statement by the government, the 

accuracy of which is contested, plus the denial of ‘some more 

tangible interest[ ] such as employment,’ or the alteration of a 

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right or status recognized by state law.” Ulrich v. City and 

County of San Francisco, 308 F.3d 968, 982 (9th Cir. 2002) 

(citation omitted and alteration original). Because the court 

will dismiss plaintiff’s pass-through entitlement claim, 

plaintiff’s harm to reputation claim would stand alone. As a 

result, plaintiff has failed to satisfy the “stigma plus” test

and the court must also dismiss plaintiff’s harm to reputation 

claim. 

Accordingly, the court will grant defendants’ motion to 

dismiss plaintiff’s § 1983 claim for violations of procedural due 

process.

C. Plaintiff’s § 1983 Monell Claim

Because the court dismisses. See Simmons v. Navajo 

County, 609 F.3d 1011, 1021 (9th Cir. 2010); Patel v. Maricopa 

County, 585 Fed. Appx. 452, 452 (9th Cir. 2014) (“Patel’s Monell

and supervisory liability claims fail as there was no underlying 

constitutional violation.”). 

D. State Law Claims

Plaintiff asserts state law claims for violation of the 

Unruh Civil Rights Act, negligence, defamation, and tortious 

interference with business relations. Because plaintiff has not 

alleged a cognizable federal claim, the court declines to 

exercise supplemental jurisdiction over her state law claims. 

See 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3) (“[A court] may decline to exercise 

supplemental jurisdiction over a claim ... if ... [it] has 

dismissed all claims over which it has original jurisdiction.”); 

Reynolds v. County of San Diego, 84 F.3d 1162, 1171 (9th Cir. 

1996), overruled on other grounds by Acri v. Varian Assocs., 

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Inc., 114 F.3d 999, 1000 (9th Cir. 1997) (“[I]n the usual case in 

which federal law claims are eliminated before trial, the balance 

of factors ... will point toward declining to exercise 

jurisdiction over the remaining state law claims.”).

IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that defendants’ motion to 

dismiss (Docket No. 8) be, and the same hereby is, GRANTED. 

Plaintiff is granted twenty days from the date this 

Order is signed to file an amended complaint, if she can do so 

consistent with this Order.

Dated: April 6, 2016

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