Source: http://www.ndcalblog.com/2010/11/northern-california-judges-rule-in_21.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 10:16:39+00:00

Document:
In Ruiz v. Fischer the defendant warden labeled the prisoner plaintiff pro se a "prison gang affiliate" and placed him in administrative segregation. Mr. Ruiz claims that the evidence used to make that classification was so unreliable and insufficient it violated his Fourteenth Amendment Due Process rights in a manner actionable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. As this blog previously explained under 15 Cal. Code Regs. § 3378, to be validated as a gang member the warden must have three independent pieces of evidence. Here, Judge Marilyn Hall Patel explained five items of evidence were available.
Those five items provided evidence that: (1) Ruiz had in his possession the name and home address of a validated Mexican Mafia associate; (2) Ruiz had in his possession a drawing that contained Mexican Mafia gang symbols; (3) Ruiz was implicated in Mexican Mafia gang activity by a confidential informant in an April 11, 1995 memorandum; (4) Ruiz also was implicated in Mexican Mafia gang activity by the same informant in a 1998 debriefing report; and (5) Ruiz was identified by a different Mexican Mafia informant in May 1995 as being a soldier in the Mexican Mafia.
That evidence provided some indicia of reliability that Mr. Ruiz was in a gang and justified his move into the segregated housing unit (SHU). She granted summary judgment for the warden.
Here, Kemp does not allege that defendants denied him access to library services. Indeed, based on the allegations in the FAC, it appears that he was a long-time patron of the UCSF library before his arrest on May 3, 2003. Instead, his ADA complaint is based on the claim that library staff and UCSF police refused to enforce the "rules" of the library — no eating, no talking, no making noise — in the way that Kemp believed the rules should have been enforced, with the result that his ability to read and concentrate while in the library was affected.
She granted the defendant's motion to dismiss with prejudice.
Jackson v. Lombardi is a case this blog discussed previously.
In March 2008, four police officers used a taser on Mr. Jackson multiple times. He told them to stop and Mr. Lombardi tased him again. He prevailed on [one] claim [after post] trial [motions:] a First Amendment claim against Lombardi for chilling his free speech rights.
Now, both sides are moving for attorney fees. Under Thomas v. City of Tacoma, (9th Cir. 2005), a prevailing plaintiff “should ordinarily recover an attorney’s fee unless special circumstances would render such an award unjust.” Here both parties claim they prevailed, Mr. Jackson prevailed on his First Amendment claim, the defendants prevailed on everything else. So where does that leave us?
If it was the court’s intent to determine definitively that neither side "prevailed" over the other, then it is true that the plaintiffs are not entitled to any attorneys' fees at all. But for this court's "finding" in its earlier order regarding costs, the defendants would not have wasted any time contesting the plaintiffs' (really Mr. Jackson’s) "entitlement" to some attorneys' fees. In short, a dispute between the parties under [42 U.S.C.] § 1988 will concern the amount of such fees, rather than the absence of them.
Judge Alsup stated Mr. Jackson prevailed and is entitled to attorneys fees related to his (but no not the other plaintiff's) litigation expense.

References: v. 
 § 1983
 § 3378
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 § 1988