Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-90-02208/USCOURTS-ca10-90-02208-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Albuquerque Police Department
Appellee
City of Albuquerque
Appellee
Mervyns
Not Party
Kathy Ruiz
Appellant

Document Text:

• FILED 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

United State3 W'.tn of Appeal 

Tf>T'th r.il"Cuit 8 

FEB 1 3 7991 

KATHY RUIZ, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

ALBUQUERQUE POLICE DEPARTMENT; 

CITY OF ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico, 

Defendants-Appellees, 

MERVYNS, 

Defendant. 

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ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

No. 90-2208 

(D. C. No. CV-88-0874JB) 

(D. N.M.) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

Before ANDERSON, TACBA, and BRORBY, Circuit Judges. 

After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel 

has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially 

assist the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 

34(a); 10th Cir. R. 34.1.9. 

submitted without oral argument. 

The cause is therefore ordered 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall not 

be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, except 

for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of the case, 

res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 36.3. 

Appellate Case: 90-2208 Document: 010110099967 Date Filed: 02/13/1991 Page: 1 
• 

Kathy Ruiz (Plaintiff) appeals the grant of defendants' 

motions for summary judgment. 

The facts are undisputed. Plaintiff was an employee of 

Mervyns. A particular cash register in Mervyns' store had been 

missing cash for several days. Mervyns' security officers 

therefore positioned a video camera to observe the cash register 

actively without the knowledge of Mervyns' employees. Plaintiff 

was observed and taped taking money from the cash register on two 

occasions on one day. On the first occasion, Plaintiff gave money 

to a friend, and on the second occasion she took money from the 

cash register and placed it into her boot or leg warmer. The 

security officer, having both observed and taped this conduct, 

brought Plaintiff to the security office and questioned her about 

the money. Plaintiff was requested to turn over the money and she 

refused. The Albuquerque police were called, who first viewed the 

tape and then identified Plaintiff from the tape. The police then 

took custody of Plaintiff, arrested her for embezzlement, and 

advised her of her constitutional rights. Plaintiff maintained 

that the money she had taken from the cash register was her money, 

and upon police order she removed her boot and the money was 

found. Apparently there was a total of $10 involved, $1 of which 

Plaintiff had given to a friend to pay a debt and $9 of which was 

in her boot. Plaintiff was taken from the store in handcuffs and 

upon reaching the squad car, Plaintiff was given a citation for 

misdemeanor embezzlement and released. This criminal charge was 

later canceled. 

-2-

Appellate Case: 90-2208 Document: 010110099967 Date Filed: 02/13/1991 Page: 2 
Plaintiff then commenced this action against Me·rvyns, based 

upon diversity claims, for false imp~isonment, unlawful detention, 

and malicious prosecution. Claims were made under 42 u.s.c. 

§ 1983 against the municipal defendants for conversion and illegal 

arrest. 

Defendants filed motions for summary judgment, which were 

granted. In deciding the issues, the district court issued a 

fourteen-page Memorandum Opinion, which thoroughly analyzed the 

issues and the applicable law. Generally speaking, the district 

court held that probable cause existed for plaintiff's arrest; 

that respondeat superior liability is not available in S 1983 

actions; that no evidence existed concerning the city's alleged 

failure to train its police officers, which amounted to an 

official policy or a deliberate indifference to training; and that 

under New Mexico law a merchant has the lawful right to retain, 

for a reasonable time and in a reasonable manner, one suspected of 

taking a merchant's property. 

Plaintiff now asserts: (1) her § 1983 action was proper 

because the city allegedly converted her $9; (2) the object of 

Mervyns' detention of Plaintiff was to obtain the return of the 

money rather than to investigate a possible theft, and Mervyns has 

no defense to the false imprisonment claim because it detained 

Plaintiff for the purpose of recovering its money; and (3) the 

city is liable because the police do not have authority to arrest 

-3-

Appellate Case: 90-2208 Document: 010110099967 Date Filed: 02/13/1991 Page: 3 
.. 

for a misdemeanor violation unless it was committed in their 

presence. We disagree. 

We review a district court ' s grant of a motion for summary 

judgment under the same standard the district court applies. In 

determining whether there is a genuine issue of material fact, we 

view all facts and inferences in the light most favorable to the 

nonmoving party. Burnette v. Dow Chemical Co., 849 F.2d 1269, 

1273 (10th Cir. 1988). 

We have considered Plaintiff's arguments and the record on 

appeal, and having done so we find ourselves in substantial 

agreement with the district court. Plaintiff has failed to 

persuade us. We therefore AFFIRM the judgment of the district 

court for substantially the same reasons set forth in the district 

court's Memorandum Opinion and Order dated March 15, 1990 and 

entered on March 16, 1990, and the district court's Order of 

August 14, 1990, copies of which are attached hereto. 

The mandate shall issue forthwith. 

Entered for the Court: 

WADE BRORBY 

Circuit Judge 

-4-

Appellate Case: 90-2208 Document: 010110099967 Date Filed: 02/13/1991 Page: 4 
I 

I 

KATHY RUIZ, 

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW MEXICO 

Plaintiff, 

FILED 

IJNIT!D STAT!$ DISTRICT eot:RT 

ALIUQUMQUE, New MIXICO 

MAR 1 -· 1-; ~ Ju tl ' JJ 

ENTERED ON DOCKET 

3-H,-qo 

v. Civil No. 88-0874-JB 

MERVYNS, THE CITY OF ALBUQUERQUE, 

NEW MEXICO, and THE ALBUQUERQUE 

POLICE DEPARTMENT, 

Defendants. 

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER 

THIS MATTER is before the Court on the motion to dismiss or 

for summary judgment filed by Defendants City of Albuquerque and 

the Albuquerque Police Department ( "municipal Defendants"] on 

January 3, 1989, the motion for summary judgment filed by these 

same defendants on July 10, 1989, and the "motion for summary 

judgment, or in the alternative, partial summary judgment" filed 

by Defendant Mervyn's on July 10, 1989, together with all responses 

thereto and all replies to the responses. Having reviewed the 

pleadings, the evidence of record and the relevant law, the Court 

finds that the municipal Defendants' January 3 motion is well taken 

in part and will granted in part and denied in part; that the 

municipal Defendants' July 10 motion is well taken and will be 

granted; and that Defendant Mervyn's motion is well taken and will 

be granted. 

Appellate Case: 90-2208 Document: 010110099967 Date Filed: 02/13/1991 Page: 5 
Plaintiff brought this action for damages against a retail 

store and two municipal defendants, invoking 42 u.s.c. § 198 3 to 

redress alleged violations of her Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment 

rights. 1 Separately, pleading the same facts but rel y ing 

jurisdictionally on diversity of citizenship, Plaintiff brings 

state tort claims based on theories of unlawful arrest, unlawful 

detention, conversion, and negligence. 

At the time of the occurrence which prompted this litigation, 

Plaintiff was an employee of Defendant Mervyn' s. Plaintiff's 

duties apparently included operating cash registers in Defendant's 

gift-wrapping or "accommodations" department. All of the claims 

arise from an incident in which, according to Plaintiff, agents of 

Defendant Mervyn' s detained Plaintiff upon viewing an in-store 

surveillance videotape which appeared to show Plaintiff removing 

cash from a cash register in her charge and inserting it in her 

boot. During their detention of Plaintiff, the store's agents 

contacted the Albuquerque Police Department, an officer of which 

arrived, spoke to the agents, viewed the videotape, arrested 

Plaintiff, handcuffed her, and escorted her off the premises, 

retaining nine dollars in cash found in Plaintiff's boot. The 

officer drove Plaintiff to her car and, on consulting a field 

reference manual, discovered that the amount Plaintiff was alleged 

to have embezzled fell short of the minimum required to constitute 

her offense a felony under New Mexico law. Accordingly, the 

1

The Complaint also perfunctorily invokes the Sixth Amendment. 

However, nowhere in either the Complaint or Plaintiff's moving 

papers does there appear any intelligible Si~th Amendment cla i m. 

2 

Appellate Case: 90-2208 Document: 010110099967 Date Filed: 02/13/1991 Page: 6 
officer determined, Plaintiff's detention was barred under a New 

Mexico statute which provides that arrests for misdemeanors are 

only permitted where the offense was committed in the officer's 

presence. The officer thereupon cited Plaintiff for misdemeanor 

embezzlement and released her. 

I. 

Plaintiff's response to the municipal Defendants' January 3 

motion only refers generally to the Complaint, ignoring the 

requirement under D.N.M.R. 56.l(b) (1990) (reenacting former 

D.N.M.R. 9(j) (2)) that the opponent of a summary judgment motion 

specifically identify material facts and characterize them as 

"disputed" and "undisputed." The Court therefore has discretion 

to presume Plaintiff's assent to the conclusory factual account 

given in. Defendant's supporting memorandum. Yet to do so in this 

case would not affect the outcome. Given the Court's resolution 

of the essentially legal dispute presented by the parties, and even 

upon close scrutiny of the record in the light most favorable to 

Plaintiff, there _ app~ars no genuine issue of material fact -

precluding summary judgment in favor of the municipal Defendants. 

In their January 3 motion, the municipal Defendants urge that 

the police officer's affidavit is clear and uncontroverted evidence 

of the presence of "probable cause" as the federal courts have 

defined it, and that no reasonable jury could conclude otherwise. 

Defendants premise this result on the view that federal rather than 

state law supplies the meaning of "probable cause" in a federal 

civil rights action in which a seizure is claimed to have violated 

3 

Appellate Case: 90-2208 Document: 010110099967 Date Filed: 02/13/1991 Page: 7 
... the Fourth Amendment. Thus, Defendants contend, the "probable 

cause" standard prescribed by New Mexico law is inapplicable in 

such an action to the extent that it demands more than the federal 

standard. 

Plaintiff responds that her arrest for a misdemeanor offense 

violated the Fourth Amendment because it failed to meet the 

acknowledged New Mexico "probable cause" requirement that the 

officer have witnessed the commission of the offense. More 

generally, Plaintiff contends that the question of the presence vel 

non of "probable cause" is necessarily and invariably one for the 

jury. 

A motion for summary judgment properly may be granted only 

when there is no genuine issue of material fact and the movant is 

entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c). 

The movant bears the burden of demonstrating the absence of a 

genuine issue of material fact. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 

317 (1986); Houston v. National General Insurance Co., 817 F.2d 

83 (10th Cir. 1987). The Court must view the record in the light 

most favorable to the existence of triable issues. Exnicious v. 

United States, 563 F.2d 418 (10th Cir. 1977). The movant may 

discharge its burden by offering evidence that negates an element 

of the plaintiff's claim or by showing that there is an absence of 

evidence to support the plaintiff's case. Celotex, 477 U.S. at 

322-25. When the nonmoving party will have the burden of proof at 

trial on a dispositive issue, she is then required to designate 

specific facts showing there is a genuine issue for trial. Id. at 

4 

Appellate Case: 90-2208 Document: 010110099967 Date Filed: 02/13/1991 Page: 8 
324. In ruling on a motion for summary judgment, the Court does 

not weigh the evidence but rather asks whether, on the evidence 

before it, a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the 

nonmoving party. Dreiling v. Peugeot Motors of America, 850 F. 2d 

1373, 1377 (10th Cir. 1988). 

Whether an arrest meets the Fourth Amendment minimum known as 

"probable cause" is indeed a question of federal law. See, ~, 

Radich v. Goode, 886 F.2d 1391, 1396 n.3 (3d Cir. 1989); McKinney 

v. George, 726 F.2d 1183, 1188 (7th Cir. · 1984); Fisher v. 

Washington Metro. Area Transit Authority, 690 F.2d 1133 (4th Cir. 

1982); Street v. Surdyka, 492 F.2d 368 (4th Cir. 1974); see also 

Paige v. Potts, 354 F.2d 212 (5th Cir. 1965). That question as 

framed in the federal courts is simply whether, at the moment of 

the arrest, the facts and circumstances of which the officer had 

knowledge and of which she had reasonably trustworthy information 

were sufficient to warrant a prudent person in believing that the 

arrestee had committed or was committing the offense. Dunaway v . 

New York, 442 U.S. 200, 208 n.9 (1979); Beck v. Ohio, 379 U.S. 89, 

91 (1964); see also Easton v. City of Boulder, 776 F.2d 1441, 1448 

(10th Cir. 1985), cert. den., 479 U.S. 816 (1986) ("the 

Constitution requires no more of officers . . than probable 

cause"); Karr v. Smith, 774 F.2d 1029, 1031 (10th Cir. 1985). 

States, through their constitutions and laws, are free to demand 

more, but any transgression of such additional requirements i s 

actionable at most as a violation of state law, not of the Fourth 

Amendment. See McKinney. 726 F.2d at 1188; Fisher, 690 F. 2d a t 

5 

Appellate Case: 90-2208 Document: 010110099967 Date Filed: 02/13/1991 Page: 9 
1138-39; Street, 492 F.2d at 370-73. In other words, no federa l 

civil rights action will lie where the seizure is alleged only to 

have violated a rule of state law that exceeds federal 

requirements. See Street, 492 F.2d at 372-73; see also Fisher, 690 

F.2d at 1138-39. 

To little effect, Plaintiff invokes United States v. Ullrich, 

580 F.2d 765 (5th Cir. 1978), reh. den., 589 F.2d 1114 (5th Cir. 

1979). Ullrich concerned the application of the exclusionary rule 

in a criminal proceeding, not the availability of a civil action 

under § 1983. Moreover, Plaintiff apparently relies on the 

declaration in Ullrich that "'the requisite standard of probable 

cause for a lawful arrest is determined by [Florida's] state law 

provided such law meets federal constitutional standards" as 

affirming the more expansive proposition that a state standard 

exceeding the federal one would constitute the rule of decision in 

a federal civil rights action. Assuming without conceding that 

Plaintiff's reading is a viable one, this pronouncement was not 

necessary to the decision in Ullrich, which found the state I s 

"test" of probable cause for a "valid warrantless arrest" to be the 

same as that under the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 769. While the 

Ullrich court paused to note that "Florida law does not authorize 

an officer to make a warrantless arrest for a misdemeanor unless 

it was committed in his presence," id., nothing in that court's 

discussion purports to elevate this state statutory standard to a 

rule of federal constitutional law. 

6 

Appellate Case: 90-2208 Document: 010110099967 Date Filed: 02/13/1991 Page: 10 
,__ _______________ ::::::::::::::::::~~~~-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-:_-_-_-_-_-_-_--~-_-_-_-_-_----:_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-~

Of course, it is not disputed that federal courts will honor 

these additional state requirements for the purpose of applying the 

exclusionary rule in criminal proceedings; indeed, federal courts 

have invoked state law to invalidate a seizure and exclude its 

fruits for reasons not related to the Fourth Amendment. See,~, 

United States v. Di Re, 332 U.S. 581 (1948); see also Ker v. 

California, 374 U.S. 23, 33 {1963) (acknowledging distinction 

between constitutional and nonconstitutional grounds for 

exclusion); Ker, 374 U.S. at 53 (1963) (Brennan, J., concurring) 

(construing arrest invalidation under local law in Miller v. United 

States, 357 U.S. 301 {1958) as ''not rest[ing] upon constitutional 

doctrine but rather upon ... this Court's supervisory powers"); 

see generally 1 LaFave, Search and Seizure 107 (1987) (assessing 

Di Re as instance of federal court using its "supervisory power" 

to exclude fruits of arrest that, though constitutional, violated 

state law). Yet even in this context, no case suggests that the 

state requirements thereby become new rules of federal 

constitutional law the violation of which will give rise to civil 

actions under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a federal statute enacted to 

redress deprivations of federal rights. 

The record in this case leaves no room for any reasonable 

doubt that at the moment the police officer arrested Plaintiff, she 

had knowledge or reasonable trustworthy information of facts and 

circumstances which would warrant a prudent person in believing 

that Plaintiff had committed the offense of embezzlement. See 

Dunaway, 442 U.S. at 208 n.9; Beck, 379 U.S. at 91. Indeed, 

7 

Appellate Case: 90-2208 Document: 010110099967 Date Filed: 02/13/1991 Page: 11 
Plaintiff makes essentially no attempt to dispute Defendants' 

account of the circumstances that culminated in the arrest of 

Plaintiff, which amply establish the requisite basis of knowledge 

on which a proper determination of "probable cause" may be founded 

as a matter of federal law. To recap, it is not disputed that the 

officer was summoned upon being advised by store agents that their 

video surveillance had disclosed apparent embezzlement by Plaintiff 

that day, and that the officer arrived, spoke to the agents, viewed 

the videotape and corroborated this result. It has been held that 

where undisputed affidavits establish probable cause so clearly 

that no reasonable jury could conclude otherwise, summary judgment 

is appropriate. 

2 (E.D. Pa. 1983). 

See, ~, Jones v. Waters, 570 F. Supp. 1292 

Summary judgment will be granted in favor of 

the municipal Defendants on Plaintiff's claim that her arrest 

constituted a seizure in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth 

Amendments. 

The municipal Defendants' contention that the Court should 

decline pendent jurisdiction of Plaintiff's claims brought pursuant 

to state tort theories is inapposite. Plaintiff asserts, and 

Defendants do not deny, that this Court's jurisdiction as to those 

2

Indeed, courts have upheld the actions of agents and officers 

who found "probable cause" on grounds that seem tenuous by the side 

of those presented here. See,~, Duriso v. K-Mart No. 4195, 559 

F.2d 1274 (5th Cir. 1977) (affirming "probable cause" to initially 

detain suspected shoplifter even where he had not been seen 

actually taking merchandise); Roberts v. Hecht Co., 280 F. supp. 

639 (D. Md. 1968); see also United States v. Dowdy, 688 F. Supp. 

14 77 (D. Colo. 1988) (affirming "probable cause" to arrest for mail 

embezzlement based on signals from hidden "beeper" and other 

circumstances, but with no eyewitness to the act). 

8 

Appellate Case: 90-2208 Document: 010110099967 Date Filed: 02/13/1991 Page: 12 
claims is based independently upon diversity of citizenship. See 

28 U.S.C. § 1332. Accordingly, no question of pendent jurisdiction 

arises. 

II. 

Plaintiff's remaining claim against the municipal Defendants 

under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 fails to withstand the municipal Defendants' 

July 10 motion, which contends that Plaintiff cannot prove claims 

of "official policy" or "deliberately indifferent failure to train" 

against them. Indeed, as to the claim arising from the retention 

of the cash found in her boot, Plaintiff tenders nothing in support 

of either theory, choosing instead to expend her argumentative 

energies on the theory of "failure to train," and doing so only 

with respect to the officer's arrest of Plaintiff. Because 

respondeat superior liability is not available in§ 1983 actions, 

Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 

(1978), and because Plaintiff offers neither argument nor evidence 

to suggest any affirmative nexus between the named municipal 

defendants and the police officer's alleged misconduct in retaining 

the cash, see generally Canton v. Harris, 57 U.S.L.W. 4270 

(February 28, 1989); City of St. Louis v. Praprotnik, 485 U.S. 112 

(1988); City of Oklahoma City v. Tuttle, 471 U.S. 808 (1985); Owen 

v. City of Independence, 445 U.S. 622 (1980), the municipal 

Defendants' July 3 motion for summary judgment must be granted as 

to Plaintiff's claim that her cash was improperly seized. As the 

net result of the Court's rulings on both motions of the municipal 

Defendants, the only remaining claims against them are the state 

9 

Appellate Case: 90-2208 Document: 010110099967 Date Filed: 02/13/1991 Page: 13 
tort claims, as to which this Court's diversity jurisdiction 1s 

apparently not in dispute. 

III. 

Defendant Mervyn's seeks summary judgment as to all of 

Plaintiff's claims against it. Turning first to the false 

imprisonment claim, the Court is persuaded that on the state of the 

record, the defenses Mervyn's invokes are dispositive. An action 

for false imprisonment is predicated on the intentional confining 

or restraining of another without that person's consent and with 

the knowledge on the part of the one restraining that he or she has 

no authority to confine or restrain. State v. Fish, 102 N.M. 775, 

779 (Ct. App. 1985), cert. den., 102 N.M. 734 (1985). Recognized 

defenses are good faith and a reasonable belief in the lawfulness 

of the action taken. Perea v. Stout, 94 N.M. 595, 600 (1980), 

cert. den., 

Electronics, 

449 U.S. 1035 ( 1980) ; see also Diaz v. Lockheed 

95 N.M. 28 (Ct. App. 1980) ("reasonable cause to 

restrain" negates false imprisonment claim). Moreover, it is an 

acknowledged common law principle that a merchant has the lawful 

right to detain, for a reasonable time and in a reasonable manner, 

one suspected of taking the merchant's property. See , ~ , 

Steinbaugh v. Payless Drug Store, Inc., 75 N.M. 118, 120-22 (1965) 

(shoplifting case recognizing the presence of this defense "with 

or without the aid of legislation" as example of circumstance where 

there is "reasonable cause" for detention); Downs v. Garay, 106 

N.M. 321, 323-24 (Ct. App. 1987) (case involving "citizen's arrest 

for battery" but acknowledging extension of the common law 

10 

Appellate Case: 90-2208 Document: 010110099967 Date Filed: 02/13/1991 Page: 14 
principle in context of shoplifting); see also Parrott v. Bank of 

America Nat. Trust & savings Ass'n, 97 Cal. App. 2d 14, 217 P.2d 

89, 95 (C.A.2 1950). Indeed, the New Mexico legislature has even 

codified the principle with respect to detention of those suspected 

of converting merchandise,§ 30-16-23, N.M.S.A. 1978 (1984 Repl.). 

No party suggests, and the Court does not discern, any reason why 

a scenario in which an employee is suspected of wrongfully 

retaining cash would not be within the ambit of the common law 

rule. See § 38-1-3, N.M.S.A. 1978 (1987 Repl.) (incorporating 

"common law as recognized in the United States of America" as state 

law in the absence of statute). Nor is there any suggestion of 

factual basis to doubt this Defendant's good faith or reasonable 

belief in the lawfulness of its temporary detention of Plaintiff. 

It is undisputed in the record that Plaintiff was observed, by 

video monitor, removing money from a cash register and inserting 

it in her boot. Further, Plaintiff does not dispute that when 

asked for explanation, she told one store employee that the money 

was hers, Deposition of Ruiz at 133, and told another first that 

she had no money and then that the money was her lunch money, 

Deposition of Lunger at 15. These facts leave no room for the jury 

reasonably to infer that Defendant Mervyn's did not have probable 

cause or reasonable grounds to believe that Plaintiff was taking 

its property. Accordingly, the Court will grant summary judgment 

in favor of Defendant Mervyn's on Plaintiff's false imprisonment 

claim. 

11 

Appellate Case: 90-2208 Document: 010110099967 Date Filed: 02/13/1991 Page: 15 
• 

Next, the Court finds that Plaintiff's claim of malicious 

prosecution against Defendant Mervyn's necessarily fails because 

of the total absence of evidence that this Defendant initiated or 

procured the initiation of criminal proceedings against Plaintiff. 

See Zamora v. Creamland Dairies, Inc., 106 N.M. 628, 632 (Ct. App. 

1987). The Court will therefore grant summary judgment in favor 

of Defendant Mervyn's on Plaintiff's malicious prosecution claim. 

Finally, with respect to her claim under 42 u.s.c. § 1983, 

Plaintiff apparently aims to fulfill the "color of state law" 

requirement as to the private Defendant Mervyn's by characterizing 

its actions as sufficiently "in concert" with those of the avowedly 

state actor (the police officer) to pass muster under such cases 

as Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U.S. 922, 936-39 (1980) and El 

Fundi v. Deroche, 625 F.2d 195 (8th Cir. 1980) .

3 In support, 

Plaintiff focuses on evidence that after the police officer 

informed Plaintiff that she was being arrested, but before the 

officer handcuffed her and escorted her from the store, an employee 

of Defendant Mervyn's accompanied Plaintiff to her storage locker 

to enable her to retrieve her belongings. According to Plaintiff, 

the escorting employee must therefore be deemed to have "acted in 

concert with" the police officer or to have assumed the officer's 

3

It is not self-evident that the civil rights violations 

Plaintiff alleges against this private Defendant (seizure and 

detention of Plaintiff's person and property without probable 

cause) are sufficiently distinct in substance from those alleged 

against the municipal Defendants to be potentially viable 

notwithstanding their failure as against those Defendants (see Part 

I, supra). Ruling as it does on the threshold question of whether 

Mervyn' s was a "state actor," however, the Court need not reach 

this issue. 

12 

Appellate Case: 90-2208 Document: 010110099967 Date Filed: 02/13/1991 Page: 16 
authority at her "apparent acquiescence." There is no support in 

either logic or case law for Plaintiff's apparent suggestion that 

the timing of the journey to the locker somehow deputized the 

escorting employee. In El Fundi, for example, the allegations 

found to permit an inference of the requisite nexus between private 

and public entities were that store security guards detained two 

customers by "lock[ing them] and their grandchildren in an office 

and otherwise restrain[ing] them with physical force, threaten[ing] 

them with a cane and the use of handcuffs and den(ying] them 

permission to use the restroom . . until . city police 

officers arrived." El Fundi, 625 F.2d at 196. 4 Indeed, Plaintiff 

tenders no allegations or evidence that would permit the factfinder 

reasonably to infer that Defendant Mervyn's acted together with or 

obtained significant aid from state officials, or that its conduct 

is otherwise chargeable to the state. See Lee v. Town of Estes 

Park, Colo., 820 F.2d 1112 (10th Cir. 1987). 

4

In contrast, a court in this Circuit, considering somewhat 

less dramatic allegations in a case where suspected shoplifters 

were detained while awaiting police, has held that the detaining 

merchant did not act under color of state law. Warren v. Cummings, 

303 F. Supp. 803 (D. Colo. 1969) (cited with approval in Lee v. 

Town of Estes Park, Colo., 820 F.2d 1112 (lOth'Cir. 1987)). 

13 

Appellate Case: 90-2208 Document: 010110099967 Date Filed: 02/13/1991 Page: 17 
Wherefore, 

IT IS ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED that the municipal 

Defendants' January 3 motion for summary judgment be, and hereby 

is, granted in part and denied in part; that the municipal 

Defendants' July 10 motion for summary judgment be, and hereby is, 

granted; and that Defendant Mervyn's motion for summary judgment 

be, and hereby is, granted. 

r, DATED this~ day of March, 1990. 

14 

Appellate Case: 90-2208 Document: 010110099967 Date Filed: 02/13/1991 Page: 18 
UN!s£,~E D 

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COU'lUJuouERQUE DISTRICT COURT 

'NEW MEX/C 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW MEXICO O 

KATHY RUIZ, 

Plaintiff, 

v. 

MERVYN'S, the CITY OF ALBUQUERQUE, 

NEW MEXICO, and the ALBUQUERQUE 

POLICE DEPARTMENT, 

Defendants. 

0 R D E R 

AUG 1 <- l%J 

Civil No. 88-0874-JB 

ENTERED ON DOCKET x-1 c./-90 

THIS MATTER having come on for consideration of Defendants' 

MOTION TO DISMISS FOR LACK OF SUBJECT MATTER JURISDICTION and MOTION FOR COURT 

To GRANT JUDGMENT, and having reviewed the memoranda of Defendants and 

opposing counsel having been afforded ample opportunity to respond 

thereto but having failed to do so, the Court considers the failure 

to respond as consent to the granting of the motion, pursuant to 

the provisions of D.N.M. LR-Cv 7.8. 

Wherefore, 

IT IS ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED that Defendants City of 

Albuquerque and the Albuquerque Police Department be and hereby are 

DISMISSED from this action; and these Defendants' request for costs 

and attorney's fees be and hereby is DENIED. 

DATED this 13th day of August, 1990. 

Appellate Case: 90-2208 Document: 010110099967 Date Filed: 02/13/1991 Page: 19