Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_15-cv-01070/USCOURTS-cand-3_15-cv-01070-6/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Mark Buras
Plaintiff
City of Santa Rosa
Defendant
Michael Paetzold
Defendant
Santa Rosa Police Department
Defendant
Brett Siwy
Defendant

Document Text:

United States District Court

Northern District of California

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 

MARK BURAS,

Plaintiff,

v.

CITY OF SANTA ROSA, et al.,

Defendants.

Case No. 15-cv-01070-TEH

ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND 

DENYING IN PART DEFENDANTS’

MOTION FOR SUMMARY 

JUDGMENT

Plaintiff Mark Buras contends that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated by 

Defendants Brett Siwy, Michael Paetzold, and the City of Santa Rosa when he was 

searched and arrested on July 17, 2014.1 His complaint asserts violations of 42 U.S.C. 

§ 1983, as well as various state laws. 

Defendants filed a motion for summary judgment on all claims, but their three-page 

reply focused primarily on evidentiary objections. The Court overruled those objections 

and ordered Defendants to “file a supplemental brief (a) identifying which, if any, issues in 

their summary judgment motion they believe are not foreclosed by the Court’s evidentiary 

rulings and (b) addressing the arguments raised in Buras’s opposition on any such issues.” 

Aug. 2, 2016 Order at 2. Defendants filed a timely brief stating that two issues remain: 

first, whether Plaintiffs’ claims are barred by Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), 

following his no contest plea to a violation of California Health and Safety Code section 

11377(a); and, second, whether Defendant City of Santa Rosa is entitled to judgment as a 

matter of law. After carefully reviewing the parties’ written arguments, the Court finds 

these issues suitable for resolution without oral argument, see Civil L.R. 7-1(b), and now 

GRANTS IN PART and DENIES IN PART Defendants’ motion as discussed below.

 

1

Siwy and Paetzold are officers of the Santa Rosa Police Department. The 

complaint also names the Santa Rosa Police Department as a defendant but asserts no 

claims against it. The Court does not detail Buras’s factual allegations because they are 

not material to the pending motion. 

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United States District Court

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LEGAL STANDARD

Summary judgment is appropriate when “there is no genuine dispute as to any 

material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 

56(a). Material facts are those that may affect the outcome of the case. Anderson v. 

Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986). A dispute as to a material fact is “genuine” 

if there is sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to return a verdict for the nonmoving 

party. Id. The court may not weigh the evidence and must view the evidence in the light 

most favorable to the nonmoving party. Id. at 255. 

 A party seeking summary judgment bears the initial burden of informing the court 

of the basis for its motion, and of identifying those portions of the pleadings or materials in 

the record that demonstrate the absence of a genuine issue of material fact. Celotex Corp. 

v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323 (1986). Where the moving party will have the burden of 

proof at trial, it “must affirmatively demonstrate that no reasonable trier of fact could find 

other than for the moving party.” Soremekun v. Thrifty Payless, Inc., 509 F.3d 978, 984 

(9th Cir. 2007). However, on an issue for which its opponent will have the burden of proof 

at trial, the moving party can prevail merely by “pointing out to the district court . . . that 

there is an absence of evidence to support the nonmoving party’s case.” Celotex, 477 U.S. 

at 325. If the moving party meets its initial burden, the opposing party must then set out 

specific facts showing a genuine issue for trial to defeat the motion. Anderson, 477 U.S. 

at 250. 

DISCUSSION

I. Heck v. Humphrey

The Court first considers Defendants’ argument that Buras’s claims are barred 

under Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994). Under Heck, “the district court must 

consider whether a judgment in favor of the plaintiff would necessarily imply the 

invalidity of his conviction or sentence; if it would, the complaint must be dismissed 

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unless the plaintiff can demonstrate that the conviction or sentence has already been 

invalidated.” Id. at 487. 

Although the Ninth Circuit has previously applied Heck to bar claims following a 

no contest plea, e.g., Szajer v. City of Los Angeles, 632 F.3d 607 (9th Cir. 2011), a more 

recent case, Lockett v. Ericson, 656 F.3d 892 (9th Cir. 2011), has called that practice into 

question. In Lockett, the plaintiff filed a § 1983 complaint contending that officers 

violated his Fourth Amendment rights when they entered his home to obtain evidence of 

driving under the influence. Id. at 893. His motion to suppress the evidence was denied, 

and he subsequently entered a plea of nolo contendere to a lesser offense. Id. at 895. The 

district court dismissed the case based on Heck, but the Ninth Circuit reversed, concluding 

that:

He was not tried, and no evidence was introduced against him. 

Therefore, . . . Lockett’s conviction derives from his plea, not 

from a verdict obtained with supposedly illegal evidence. The 

validity of Lockett’s conviction does not in any way depend on 

the legality of the search of his home. We therefore hold that 

Heck does not bar Lockett’s § 1983 claim.

Id. at 897 (alterations, quotation marks, and citations omitted). The Ninth Circuit has since 

cited Lockett with approval as “holding that a plaintiff who pled nolo contendre to reckless 

driving was not Heck-barred from bringing a § 1983 claim based on an alleged unlawful 

search because the outcome of the claim had no bearing on the validity of the plaintiff’s 

plea.” Jackson v. Barnes, 749 F.3d 755, 760 (9th Cir. 2014). 

As two other district courts have observed, the Lockett court did not mention prior 

precedent “or purport to expressly overrule them, even though Szajer was decided only 

months earlier.” Cooley v. City of Vallejo, Case No. 2:14-cv-0620-TLH-KJN PS, 2014 

WL 3749369, at *4 (E.D. Cal. July 29, 2014); see also Leon v. San Jose Police Dep’t, Case 

No. 5:11-cv-05504 HRL, 2013 WL 5487543, at *3-4 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 30, 2013). 

Nonetheless, these courts followed Lockett as binding Ninth Circuit precedent. Cooley, 

2014 WL 3749369, at *4; Leon, 2013 WL 5487543, at *4; accord Ellis v. Thomas, Case 

No. 14-cv-00199-JCS, 2015 WL 5915368, at *5 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 9, 2015). Another district 

Case 3:15-cv-01070-TEH Document 51 Filed 08/17/16 Page 3 of 6
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court declined to follow Lockett where “Plaintiff assert[ed] claims for malicious 

prosecution against the charging prosecutors” and not claims “related to the methods used 

by police to obtain evidence.” Kowarsh v. Heckman, Case No. 14-cv-05314-MEJ, 2015 

WL 2406785, at *8 (N.D. Cal. May 19, 2015). Here, however, the claims fall into the 

latter category and are indistinguishable from the claims asserted in Lockett, which is 

directly on point and binding on this Court. Like Lockett, Buras “challenge[s] the search 

and seizure of the very evidence that led to the criminal charge[] against him” after 

pleading no contest to that charge. Leon, 2013 WL 5487543, at *4 n.6 (describing 

Lockett).

Defendants attempt to distinguish Lockett on grounds that the criminal docket for 

Buras’s case reflects a minute entry that “Defendant stipulates to factual basis for plea.” 

Ex. 5 to Req. for Judicial Notice at 3.2 However, the record in Lockett is silent as to 

whether there was a stipulated factual basis for the plea in that case, and Defendants have 

therefore not established that the case is distinguishable on that basis. Moreover, the cited 

minute entry does not reveal to which facts Buras stipulated, and Defendants have cited no 

authority for their assertion that a stipulated factual basis for the plea necessarily implies 

that “BURAS also stipulated to the non-existence of facts that Officer SIWY’s ‘search 

incident to arrest’ that discovered the meth was violative of the Fourth Amendment; that 

Officer SIWY’s attempted standing search of BURAS was violative of the Fourth 

Amendment; and that the traffic stop was violative of the Fourth Amendment.” Mot. at 22. 

This Court cannot draw these inferences when, as required, it views the record in a light 

most favorable to Buras. 

Accordingly, following Lockett, the Court DENIES Defendants’ motion for 

summary judgment based on Heck v. Humphrey.

//

//

 

2 Defendants’ unopposed request for judicial notice is GRANTED.

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II. Defendant City of Santa Rosa

Defendants also argue that Defendant City of Santa Rosa is entitled to summary 

judgment because Buras has presented no evidence to support a finding of municipal 

liability. Buras asserts only a § 1983 claim against the City, and it is well-established that: 

a local government may not be sued under § 1983 for an injury 

inflicted solely by its employees or agents. Instead, it is when 

execution of a government’s policy or custom, whether made 

by its lawmakers or by those whose edicts or acts may fairly be 

said to represent official policy, inflicts the injury that the 

government as an entity is responsible under § 1983. 

Monell v. Department of Social Services , 436 U.S. 658, 694 (1978). Buras seeks to rely 

on City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378 (1989), which he cites as standing for the 

proposition that “plaintiffs are able to show municipal liability by pointing to various 

failures on the part of the municipality, such as failures to adequately investigate, train, 

supervise or discipline their employees.” Opp’n at 27. However, he ignores the Supreme 

Court’s holding that “the inadequacy of police training may serve as the basis for § 1983 

liability only where the failure to train amounts to deliberate indifference to the rights of 

persons with whom the police come into contact.” City of Canton, 489 U.S. at 388. This 

is because “[o]nly where a municipality’s failure to train its employees in a relevant 

respect evidences a ‘deliberate indifference’ to the rights of its inhabitants can such a 

shortcoming be properly thought of as a city ‘policy or custom’ that is actionable under § 

1983.” Id. at 389.

Here, in addition to conceding that Officer Siwy received “many hours of training,” 

Opp’n at 29, Buras presents no evidence of deliberate indifference. Instead, he relies only 

on his counsel’s assertions – which are not evidence – that the internal investigation into 

Buras’s use of force allegations was “shockingly inadequate.” Opp’n at 27. This is 

insufficient to survive a motion for summary judgment. In the absence of any evidence of 

the required “policy or custom,” this Court GRANTS Defendants’ motion for summary 

judgment as to Defendant City of Santa Rosa.

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CONCLUSION

 For the above reasons, the Court GRANTS IN PART and DENIES IN PART 

Defendants’ motion for summary judgment. The motion is GRANTED only as to 

Defendant City of Santa Rosa. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: 08/17/16 _____________________________________ 

THELTON E. HENDERSON 

United States District Judge

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