Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_19-cv-05433/USCOURTS-cand-3_19-cv-05433-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
California Attorney General
Defendant
City of Oakland
Defendant
Marcus J Crawley
Plaintiff

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United States District Court

Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

MARCUS J CRAWLEY,

Plaintiff,

v.

CITY OF OAKLAND,

Defendant.

Case No. 19-cv-05433-EMC 

ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANT’S 

MOTION TO DISMISS; AND 

DENYING IN PART PLAINTIFF’S 

MOTION TO STRIKE

Docket Nos. 12, 18

Plaintiff Marcus Crawley has filed suit against the City of Oakland (“City”).1 Currently 

pending before the Court is the City’s motion to dismiss and Mr. Crawley’s related motion to 

strike. Having considered the parties’ briefs and accompanying submissions, the Court finds the 

motions suitable for disposition without oral argument and thus VACATES the hearing on the 

motion. The Court hereby GRANTS the motion to dismiss and DENIES in part the motion to 

strike.

I. FACTUAL & PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Although the complaint is not a model of clarity, Mr. Crawley has, in his opposition to the 

pending motion to dismiss, given further details explaining the basis of his lawsuit. Taken 

together, the complaint and opposition brief indicate as follows: (1) in November 2016, the City 

voters passed a bond measure known as Measure KK; (2) Mr. Crawley sued the City in state court 

challenging Measure KK but, ultimately, was not successful in that litigation, including through 

the appeals process; (3) his current lawsuit – in federal court – is predicated on the claim that the 

 

1 He also named the California Attorney General as a defendant but subsequently stipulated to his 

dismissal. See Docket No. 21-22 (stipulation and order).

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state courts (both superior and appellate) failed to address a specific argument he made before 

them regarding the measure and therefore the state courts deprived him of his due process rights. 

See, e.g., Compl. at 4 (“The [Measure] KK Cause of Action has not received a due process 

hearing.”); Opp’n at 4 (“The Court Order SKIPPED the Decision on Petition’s First Cause of 

Action.”); Opp’n at 11 (“The state Court Order/Judgement failed to decide . . . the issue . . . .”).

II. DISCUSSION

The City initially moved to dismiss Mr. Crawley’s complaint on two grounds: (1) the 

Rooker-Feldman doctrine and (2) res judicata. After Mr. Crawley filed his opposition and 

clarified the basis of his complaint, the City narrowed its argument in favor of dismissal to the 

Rooker-Feldman doctrine.2 

The Rooker-Feldman doctrine is based on Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 

(1923), and District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983). “[T]he

Rooker-Feldman doctrine . . . , in general terms, prevents ‘a party losing in state court . . . from 

seeking what in substance would be appellate review of the state judgment in a United States 

district court.’” Henrichs v. Valley View Dev., 474 F.3d 609, 611 (9th Cir. 2007). 

Essentially, the doctrine bars “state-court losers complaining of 

injuries caused by state-court judgments rendered before the district 

court proceedings commenced” from asking district courts to review 

and reject those judgments. Absent express statutory authorization, 

only the Supreme Court has jurisdiction to reverse or modify a state 

court judgment. The clearest case for dismissal based on the 

Rooker-Feldman doctrine occurs when “a federal plaintiff asserts as 

a legal wrong an allegedly erroneous decision by a state court, and 

seeks relief from a state court judgment based on that decision . . . .”

 

2 Presumably, the City no longer asserts res judicata because the current federal complaint – as 

clarified by Mr. Crawley – challenges the state courts’ actions which took place after he filed suit 

in state court. See L.A. Branch NAACP v. L.A. Unified Sch. Dist., 750 F.2d 731, 739 (9th Cir. 

1984) (“The scope of litigation is framed by the complaint at the time it is filed. The rule that a 

judgment is conclusive as to every matter that might have been litigated ‘does not apply to new 

rights acquired pending the action which might have been, but which were not, required to be 

litigated.’”); FMC Corp. v. Up-Right, Inc., 816 F. Supp. 1455, 1461 (N.D. Cal. 1993) (“Res 

Judicata attaches only to claims available at the time of filing the original complaint.”); see also

Bauerle v. City of Tucson, 234 F. App'x 607, 608 (9th Cir. 2007) (“Identity of claims is not 

satisfied for Bauerle's claims regarding three issues . . . . Claims regarding each of these issues 

arise out of separate transactional nuclei of facts that did not exist at the time Bauerle filed her 

amended complaint in the prior suit. Application of res judicata to these claims was therefore 

error.”).

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Id. at 613.

Because it was invoking the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, the City asked the Court to take 

judicial notice of the state court rulings that had been issued, both superior and appellate. When 

Mr. Crawley filed his opposition to the City’s motion, he did not object to the request for judicial 

notice or otherwise contest the admissibility of the state court decisions. However, after the City 

filed its reply, in which it narrowed its focus to the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, Mr. Crawley filed 

the pending motion to strike, in which he argues, inter alia, that the Court cannot consider the 

(unpublished) California Court of Appeal’s decision on his state court petition.

This motion to strike is denied. Contrary to what Mr. Crawley argues, the state court 

decision is not irrelevant. Mr. Crawley is challenging the state courts’ actions, claiming a failure 

to rule on an issue that he raised with the courts. Therefore, the Court must necessarily understand 

what the state court rulings were. In addition, the City has raised a Rooker-Feldman defense. 

Thus, again, the Court must necessarily understand what the state court rulings were. Cf. Fed. R. 

Civ. P. 26(b) (providing that “[p]arties may obtain discovery regarding any nonprivileged matter 

that is relevant to any party’s claim or defense”).

Mr. Crawley also contends that the state court decision is hearsay. But hearsay is defined 

as an out-of-court statement that “a party offers in evidence to prove the truth of the matter 

asserted in the statement.” Fed. R. Evid. 801(c)(2) (emphasis added). Here, the City is not asking 

the Court to accept the truth of the matters asserted in the state court decision (e.g., the correctness 

of the state court’s analysis). Rather, the City is simply asking the Court to consider what the state 

court held, regardless of whether that holding was correct. Cf. Reyn’s Pasta Bella, LLC v. Visa 

USA, Inc., 442 F.3d 741, 746 n.6 (9th Cir. 2006) (taking judicial notice of briefs and a hearing 

transcript filed in another lawsuit “[t]o determine what issues were actually litigated” in that 

lawsuit). Compare Bertuglia v. City of N.Y., 133 F. Supp. 3d 608, 631 n.14 (S.D.N.Y. 2015)

(stating that, “[b]ecause Judge Zweibel's opinions are hearsay and no hearsay exception applies, 

the opinions are inadmissible on this motion for the truth of whether there was sufficient probable 

cause for the first or second indictments” and “whether there was prosecutorial misconduct”; but 

“the decisions are admissible . . . for the fact that the prosecution terminated in favor of the 

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plaintiffs”). The Court therefore may consider the state appellate court order (as well as the state 

superior court order). The record before the Court thus reflects as follows.

Mr. Crawley initiated his state court action – a petition for a writ of mandamus – in 

February 2017. See Cal. AG RJN, Ex. 1 (petition). In his petition, he asserted several causes of 

action against, inter alia, the City. (The California Attorney General was named as a real party in 

interest.)

In the first cause of action, Mr. Crawley claimed that Measure KK violated the California 

Constitution because:

• the California Constitution “guarantees property owners the right to vote on all 

property taxes,” Cal. AG RJN, Ex. 1 (Pet. ¶ 21); see also Cal. Const. art. 13C, § 

2(c) (providing that “[n]o local government may impose, extend, or increase any 

special tax unless and until that tax is submitted to the electorate and approved by a 

two-thirds vote”); 

• Measure KK “only stated the $600 million cost of the . . . Bond” and did not 

“mention . . . the related property tax” that would be used to repay the bond in the 

“‘Ballot Label’” or “‘Ballot Title’”; and 

• Measure KK also did not state “the tax amount . . . in the ‘Title and Summary’ or in 

‘The Full Ballot Measure.’” Cal. AG RJN, Ex. 1 (Pet. ¶¶ 20, 24).

According to Mr. Crawley, “the one actual statement of the tax cost” – approximately $1.2 million 

– was “buried . . . on page 4 [of the voter pamphlet] in a field of other numbers in the ‘Tax Rate 

Statement,’ where the voters were least likely to read it.” Cal. AG RJN, Ex. A (Pet. ¶ 23).

In the third cause of action, Mr. Crawley asserted that California Election Code § 9404 is 

unconstitutional. Section 9404 is a part of Chapter 5 of the Election Code, titled “Bond Issues.” 

Section 9400 provides that the “chapter applies to all bond issues proposed by a county, city, 

district, or other political subdivision, . . . the security for which constitutes a lien on the property 

for ad valorem taxes within the jurisdiction and the proposal for which is required to be submitted 

to the voters for approval.” Cal. Elec. Code § 9400. Section 9401 provides that, “[i]n connection 

with each bond issued specified in Section 9400, a statement shall be mailed to the voters with the 

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sample ballot for the bond election.” Id. § 9401(a). Certain information is required to be included 

in the statement – e.g., “[t]he best estimate . . . of the average annual tax rate that would be 

required to be levied to fund that bond issue” and “[t]he best estimate . . . of the total debt service, 

including the principal and interest, that would be required to be repaid if all the bonds are issued 

and sold.” Id. Finally, § 9404 – the statute contested by Mr. Crawley – provides that “[t]he 

Legislature declares that the essence of compliance with this chapter [on bond issues] is good faith 

in presenting to voters the most accurate available information for their use in effecting 

comparisons and exercising judgment in casting their ballots.” Cal. Elec. Code § 9404. 

According to Mr. Crawley, § 9404 is unconstitutional because, “[e]ven though Oakland apparently 

complied with Election Code § 9401, the voters were deprived of their constitutional right to vote 

on the tax” and so “[t]he conclusion must be that Election Code § 9401 conflicts with Article 13C 

§ 2(d) [of the California Constitution] and is therefore unconstitutional.” Cal. AG RJN, Ex. 1 (Pet. 

¶ 34).

In response to Mr. Crawley’s petition, the City and the California Attorney General filed 

demurrers. In May 2017, the state superior court sustained the demurrers as to both the first and 

third causes of action. The superior court noted first that Measure KK had been “presented to 

voters and passed by the voters in November 2016. As a result, the court will disturb the results of 

the election only if the ballot materials are ‘so misleading and inaccurate that constitutional due 

process requires invalidation of the election.’” Cal. AG RJN, Ex. 2 (Order at 1). 

Moving on to the first cause of action asserted in the petition, the superior court stated:

The City disclosed that Measure KK was a tax. The ballot materials 

state “The City would impose a tax based on the value of the real 

property and improvements within the City to pay the principal and 

interest on the bonds.” Measure KK was submitted to the voters and 

the measure passed by two-thirds vote. The petition does not 

identify any misstatements or omissions that are “so misleading and 

inaccurate that constitutional due process requires invalidation of the 

election.”

Cal. AG RJN, Ex. 2 (Order at 2).

As for the third cause of action, the superior court found 

no conflict between California Constitution, Article 13C, section 

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2(d) and Elections Code 9401-9404. The former is a requirement 

that there be a vote and the latter concerns requirements for 

disclosures related to a vote. Assuming that they concerned the 

same subject matter, there is no facial conflict – the Election Code 

states requirements that the legislature decided were reasonable for 

permitting an informed vote. . . . There is no unconstitutionality in 

Elections Code 9401-9404 that “clearly, positively, and 

unmistakably appears.”

Cal. AG RJN, Ex. 2 (Order at 4).

Subsequently, Mr. Crawley appealed the superior court’s decision. The state appellate 

court affirmed. On the first cause of action, the appellate court acknowledged that “[t]he summary 

description of Measure KK printed on the ballot card and repeated at the beginning of the 

information about the measure in the voter pamphlet” did not mention that Measure KK would 

impose a tax. Crawley v. City of Oakland, No. A154348, 2019 WL 1760765, at *3 (Cal. Ct. App. 

April 22, 2019).

But that does not answer whether the ballot materials complied with 

Article XIII C. They did.

Article XIII C, section 2, subdivision (d) requires that special taxes 

must be submitted to the electorate for approval by a two-thirds 

vote. The taxes to be imposed as a result of Measure KK were 

plainly disclosed in the bond measure summary, the city attorney's 

analysis, the city auditor's analysis, and the tax rate statement in the 

voter information pamphlet. Indeed, as the City observes, 

“[l]iterally every page of the ballot materials... contain[s] references 

to Measure KK's tax, tax rate, or property tax, and the proposed 

Measure was included in the ballot materials.” The conclusion is 

inescapable that taxes associated with Measure KK were 

appropriately submitted to the electorate.

Crawley cites (and we have found) no authority that supports his 

claim the City was constitutionally required to explicitly state that

Measure KK would impose a tax and disclose the total debt service 

in the ballot summary and ballot label. Nor does he or could he 

plausibly claim the information provided to the voters in the 

analyses by the city attorney, the city auditor and the city 

administrator was incomplete or misleading.

The petition alleged the City “buried” the amount of the total debt 

service in the auditor's tax rate statement, but that allegation failed to 

raise a plausible due process claim. “Determination of how much 

process is due in a local, direct decisionmaking context – where the 

complained-of irregularities consist of omissions, inaccuracies or 

misleading statements in the ballot materials – will depend on 

whether the materials, in light of other circumstances of the election, 

were so inaccurate or misleading as to prevent the voters from 

making informed choices.” In this case, the $ 1.2 billion estimate 

for the maximum potential debt service was disclosed in the Tax 

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Rate Statement. Voters reading the ballot materials would readily 

locate that figure.

Id.

On the third cause of action, the appellate court rejected Mr. Crawley’s contention that 

Election Code § 9404 conflicts with Article 13C of the California Constitution

“because it claims to provide the ‘most accurate (tax) information’ 

to the voters even when an agency fails to include any tax 

information on the ballot card.” . . . As we explained in addressing 

the first cause of action, nothing in article XIII C requires that the 

tax rate or total debt service must be stated on the ballot label. As 

the trial court correctly found, the constitutional provision “is a 

requirement that there be a vote and [sections 9401 through 9404]

concern[ ] requirements for disclosures related to a vote. Assuming 

that they concerned the same subject matter, there is no facial 

conflict – the Election Code states requirements that the legislature 

decided were reasonable for permitting an informed vote.”

Id. at *4 (emphasis in original).

Following the appellate court’s decision, Mr. Crawley petitioned the California Supreme 

Court for relief, but his petition for review was denied in July 2019. See Cal. AG RJN, Ex. 4 

(order).

III. DISCUSSION

As noted above, Mr. Crawley’s complaint herein is that the state courts failed to rule on the 

specific issue that he raised to them during the state court proceedings and thus they violated his 

right to due process. As to what was specific issue the state courts failed to rule on, Mr. Crawley 

identifies the issue in his papers as the following: the failure of the City to disclose in the ballot or 

bond measure summary the amount of the tax (i.e., as opposed to the fact that there would be a 

tax). See, e.g., Opp’n at 5 (stating that the “legal issue has always been ‘The City must reveal the 

amount of the special tax (i.e. ‘that tax’) to the voters on the Ballot Card Statement’”); Opp’n at 7 

(stating that the “legal issue is that the amount of ‘That Tax’ must be stated on the Measure’s 

Ballot Card/Summary Statement”); Opp’n at 12 (stating that the City “might quibble that the 

Petition’s First Cause of Action only mentioned the Measure KK ‘Title & Summary’ rather than 

the ‘Ballot Card Statement’” but asserting that the two are the same “word for word”; “[t]he issue 

of the First Cause of Action was the statement that the voters vote on, not the title, label or 

designation of the statement”).

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The problem for Mr. Crawley is that, even if the state superior court did not address this 

specific issue, the state appellate court did. In fact, the appellate court explicitly rejected the 

argument. See, e.g., Crawley, 2019 WL 1760765, at *3 (“Crawley cites (and we have found) no 

authority that supports his claim the City was constitutionally required to explicitly state that 

Measure KK would impose a tax and disclose the total debt service in the ballot summary and 

ballot label.”).

In light of that fact, the relief Mr. Crawley seeks is to reverse the California Court of 

Appeal’s express ruling on a specific issue, and thus Rooker-Feldman clearly applies. In

Worldwide Church of God v. McNair, 805 F.2d 888 (9th Cir. 1986), the plaintiffs had sued in 

federal court on the basis that a state court judgment finding them liable for defaming a person 

was unconstitutional because the alleged defamatory statements constituted religious speech 

protected by the First Amendment. See id. at 889. The Ninth Circuit held that Rooker-Feldman

barred the federal suit because the state court had “considered and rejected the plaintiff’s argument 

that the allegedly defamatory statements were protected.” Id. at 892 (adding that “[i]t would be 

impossible for the federal court to review in the abstract the plaintiff’s constitutional challenge to 

the defamation verdict”). The same principle applies here.

The Court therefore grants the City’s motion to dismiss based on Rooker-Feldman. As to 

the remaining issues raised in Mr. Crawley’s motion to strike, they have no impact on the Court’s 

analysis above and are therefore moot.3 Finally, for purposes of clarity, the Court grants Mr. 

Crawley’s request to file a sur-reply, see Docket No. 20 (motion), but the arguments he makes 

therein do not alter the Court’s analysis above.

///

///

///

///

 

3

In the motion, Mr. Crawley also asked that the Court strike (1) a reference that the City made in 

one of its briefs to vexatious litigation and (2) a claim by the City that the only way to invalidate a 

ballot measure post-election is if the ballot materials are misleading and inaccurate.

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IV. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the City’s motion to dismiss is granted. The dismissal is with 

prejudice because Rooker-Feldman bars Mr. Crawley’s lawsuit. Given Mr. Crawley’s opposition 

brief, it is evident that there is no amendment he can make to avoid the bar.

The Clerk of the Court is instructed to enter a final judgment in accordance with this order 

and close the file in this case.

This order disposes of Docket Nos. 12 and 18.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: November 18, 2019

______________________________________

EDWARD M. CHEN

United States District Judge

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