Source: https://govlawweb.typepad.com/government_liability_upda/state-law-civil-rights/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 00:57:45+00:00

Document:
In Scott v. County of San Bernardino, published September 10, 2018, the 9th Circuit affirmed summary judgment granted to the plaintiffs, three middle-school students. The three students, 12- and 13-year-old girls, went to school officials to talk about another student's bullying and threats toward them. A school administrator asked one of the defendants, a deputy who was a school security officer, to come to the campus to talk to the girls and the girl they complained about. He intended to mediate the conflict. WIthin a few minutes, however, he decided that the girls were being disrespectful. He decided to arrest them, to prove that he "wasn't playing around," "to prove a point" and "to make [them] mature a lot faster." He and another deputy defendant handcuffed the girls. The allege aggressor was released to her father on campus. The others were driven in a police vehicle to the sheriff's department, where they were interviewed and released to their parents. No charges were filed. At trial, the district court granted the plaintiffs summary judgment both on their 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim and their state law false arrest claim.
The 9th Circuit agreed that the deputies were liable. New Jersey v. TLO ruled that the Fourth Amendment protects students, subject to a "special needs" exception under which warrantless searches do not violate the Fourth Amendment if the actions are justified at their inception and reasonably related in scope to the circumstances that justified the actions. The arrests violated both parts of the test. The actions were not justified at their inception. The deputies had no specific information any of the arrested girls had done anything. Further, under the special needs exception, the officers' subjective motivation may be considered. The deputies' stated reasons for the arrest did not provide justification for arrest. Further, handcuffing and arresting middle-school girls was an unreasonable response to the school's need. Because the law was clear that the deputies' arrest violated the Fourth Amendment, they were not entitled to qualified immunity. Under state law, none of the statutes under which the deputies justified the arrest applied. The district court therefore properly granted summary judgment on the state law false arrest ground as well.
In B.B. v. County of Los Angeles, partially published on July 10, 2018 and modified on July 12, 2018, the Second District Court of Appeal, Division 3 affirmed in part and reversed in part a judgment against the defendant county and its deputies in a case in which a suspect passed away after deputy use of force. The jury apportioned the decedent 40% fault for his own death, found two deputies each 20% at fault, and allocated 20% fault to the remaining deputies. The jury awarded $8 million in noneconomic damages. The court entered judgment against one of the deputies for the full amount of the award, on the ground that the jury found he intentionally harmed the decedent.
The appellate court reversed this ruling. It ruled that in personal injury and wrongful death cases, Civil Code section 1431.2 (aka Proposition 51) requires that noneconomic damages be apportioned as to all defendants according to their respective fault for the injury. It declined to follow case law from other courts holding or stating in dictum that intentional tortfeasors are not entitled to have the noneconomic judgments against them reduced.
The appellate court also reversed summary adjudication of the plaintiffs' Civil Code section 52.1 (Bane Act) cause of action. The trial court ruled that because there was probable cause to arrest the decedent, the use of excessive force was not sufficient in itself to establish Bane Act liability; instead, the plaintiffs had to show some threat, coercion, or intimidation independent of the violation of the civil right itself. The appellate court ruled that this standard applies only where the violation of the civil right results from negligence or unintentional error. Where the violation is intentional or spiteful, however, the threat, coercion, or intimidation inherent in the violation of the civil right is sufficient. There must be a showing that the defendant had the specific intent to violate the subject's civil rights. The plaintiffs' opposition to summary adjudication presented sufficient evidence to raise a triable issue of fact on whether the defendants deliberately subjected the decedent to excessive force beyond that necessary to make the arrest. Once the deputles' use of force crossed that threshold, their conduct became a coercive interference with the decedent's civil rights as proscribed by the Bane Act.
In Rodriguez v. County, published May 30, 2018, the 9th Circuit affirmed judgment in favor of the plaintiffs after a jury trial in a lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. section 1983 and Civil Code section 52.1. The jury found that deputy defendants violated the Eighth Amendment by their use of force on inmates during cell extractions, including extensive use of tasers and blows that resulted in broken bones; and that supervisory defendants violated the Eighth Amendment by organizing and supervising the use of force, by observing the use and failing to stop it, or by creating an atmosphere where use of force was tolerated in the jail due to lack of punishment for excessive force.
The 9th Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of qualified immunity. Evidence supported a finding that the deputies who performed the extractions inflicted severe injuries on inmates who were not resisting, and in some cases unconscious. The evidence supported the jury's finding that the use of force violated the Eighth Amendment. The Eighth Amendment inquiry includes both an objective and a subjective standard. The objective standard addresses whether the force used was excessive and unnecessary under the circumstances. The subjective standard addresses whether the force used was applied in a good faith effort to maintain or restore discipline, or maliciously and sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm. As to the deputies using the force, the law was clearly established at the time (2008) that the level of force used with malicious and sadistic intent violated the Eighth Amendment. Case law determining reasonable use of tasers was not material, because it was decided under the Fourth Amendment, which uses only an objective standard of reasonableness. The law also clearly established that the supervisory officers' actions or omissions under the circumstances violated the Eighth Amendment.
The 9th Circuit also affirmed the extracting deputies' liability under Civil Code section 52.1, the Bane Act. Although violation of the Bane Act requires a showing of the defendant's specific intent to violate the plaintiff's rights, in excessive force cases, including under the Eighth Amendment, the violation does not require coercion beyond that inherent in the constitutional violation. Discretionary immunity under Government Code section 820.2 did not apply, because it does not apply in excessive force cases.
The 9th Circuit rejected the argument that the plaintiffs failed to exhaust their administrative remedies. Exhaustion under the Prison Litigation Reform Act is excused if the prisoner proves a genuine fear of retaliation for complaints, particularly if the prisoner is required to submit the complaint to an officer who allegedly injured the prisoner. The plaintiffs made the required showing.
The district court proceeded to trial while an interlocutory appeal from denial of summary judgment was pending. While a stay of the trial proceedings during an interlocutory appeal is required unless the appeal is found frivolous, the error was harmless. The appellants failed to identify proper issues on appeal, so the 9th Circuit concluded the interlocutory appeal was harmless.
The 9th Circuit also affirmed the district court's conclusion that a juror was not impliedly biased due to his relatives' actions and organizational affiliations, particularly since the juror was honest in providing information.
In Reese v. County of Sacramento, published April 23, 2018, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a district court's post-verdict order granting judgment as a matter of law on a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 claim under the Fourth Amendment, but reversed its sua sponte grant of summary judgment on a Civil Code section 52.1 Bane Act claim. Sheriff's deputies had received reports that a man in the plaintiff's apartment was armed. One deputy knocked on the door while another covered the door with a rifle. The plaintiff opened the door with a large knife in his hand, raised, about a foot from the knocking deputy. The deputy with the rifle fired at the plaintiff. The other deputy entered the apartment, expecting to see the plaintiff shot and incapacitated. He saw the plaintiff standing upright, and fired his handgun at the plaintiff. The plaintiff survived. He sued the officers under section 1983 and the Bane Act for use of excessive force. The jury made a finding that the officer with the handgun shot the plaintiff, rather than the officer with the rifle; and that at the time he was shot, the plaintiff did not pose an immediate threat. The district court granted a JMOL on the section 1983 claim based on qualified immunity, and sua sponte granted summary judgment on the Bane Act claim, concluding that the claim required an act of intimidation or force apart from the constitutional violation itself.
The 9th Circuit affirmed the judgment on the section 1983 claim. The first prong of qualified immunity, whether there was a constitutional violation, was resolved against defendants by the jury. But the second prong--whether the law clearly established that the deputies' acts under the circumstances violated the Fourth Amendment--was an issue for the court, not the jury. Since there were no court decisions at the time sufficiently similar to place beyond debate that the second deputy's use of force violated the Fourth Amendment, the district court properly granted qualified immunity.
The 9th Circuit reversed the summary judgment on the Bane Act, based on subsequent California appellate court law. That law established that outside of negligence cases, no act of threat or intimidation besides the constitutional violation is necessary for a Bane Act violation. But a Bane Act violation does require a showing of specific intent by the defendant to violate the plaintiff's constitutional rights. The court remanded the Bane Act claim for a determination of whether the deputy had the specific intent necessary for a violation.
In Smith v. City of Santa Clara, published November 30, 2017, the 9th Circuit affirmed a judgment after jury verdict in favor of the defendant city and its police officers who conducted a warrantless search of a duplex in which the plaintiff resided, over the plaintiff's protests. The police had probable cause to believe that the plaintiff's daughter, a probationer, had stabbed a victim and was at large. The daughter had repeatedly listed the plaintiff's duplex as the daughter's residence. The plaintiff argued that under U.S. Supreme Court authority holding that a warrantless search of a residence based only on a resident's consent violates the Fourth Amendment if another resident objects to the search, the search violated her Fourth Amendment rights.
The 9th Circuit held that under the circumstances--the officers had probable cause to believe that a probationer who had committed a violent crime and who was at large lived in the residence--the interests in apprehending the probationer and thus protecting the public outweighed the non-probationer resident's privacy interests. The case law concerning consent did not apply, because the rule that warrantless searches of probationers' residences are permitted is not based on consent.
In Cornell v. City and County of San Francisco, published November 16, 2017 and modified November 17, 2017, the First District Court of Appeal, Division 4, affirmed a jury verdict in favor of an off-duty trainee police officer who sued San Francisco and four police officers for the plaintiff's arrest and detention in jail, and the subsequent loss of the officer's job. While the plaintiff was jogging in a park during daylight hours, in plainclothes, officers approached him in a police car because the area was a high-crime one and the officer looked "clean cut" like a parolee. The plaintiff saw the car, decided not to get involved with the car, and continued his run. The officers pursued him. Eventually, an officer stood behind him, drew his gun, and made a disputed statement which included the phrase, "I will shoot you." The plaintiff believed that he was being attacked and ran. Eventually officers stopped him, arrested him, and brought him to a station for detention. They discovered that he was a trainee police officer. He complained of illness, and was taken for medical attention. Officers planted a recording device near his bed. After six hours in detention, he was released. An arresting officer issued him a citation for violation of Penal Code section 148(a), for resisting or delaying an officer. Due to the arrest and detention, the plaintiff was fired, effectively ending his law enforcement career. After receiving jury responses to factual questions, the trial court ruled that the defendant officers did not have reasonable suspicion to detain the plaintiff and that he was arrested without probable cause. The jury then returned a verdict in the plaintiff's favor on his causes of action for tortious interference with contract or economic advantage, and violation of Civil Code section 52.1 (the Bane Act).
The appellate court upheld the ruling that the officers lacked reasonable suspicion to detain the plaintiff. Because the officers were acting unlawfully in attempting to detain him, and Penal Code section 148(a) bars only interference with lawful police conduct, the officers lacked probable cause to arrest him.
The court rejected the defendants' theory (based upon legal scholars' commentary) that Penal Code section 847(b), which immunizes officers from false arrest/imprisonment liability if the arrest was lawful or the officer has reasonable cause to believe it is lawful, creates the state law equivalent of federal law qualified immunity for false arrest. Analyzing the statute and its history, the court concluded that the statute is phrased in the disjunctive to immunize officers for arrests for reasonable cause when the officers learn facts before arraignment that destroy the belief upon which the officer's reasonable cause was based.
The court also rejected an argument that the trial court should not have submitted the Bane Act claim to the jury, because the plaintiff had not proven that the officers committed an act of violence, intimidation, or coercion apart from the arrest itself. That interpretation of the Bane Act arose out the Shoyoye v. County of Los Angeles (2012) 203 Cal.App.4th 947 case, which dealt with an unlawful detention after an arrest with probable cause, and subsequent cases. The court held that Shoyoye's interpretation of the Bane Act does not apply when the initial arrest of the plaintiff lacks probable cause. Where an unlawful arrest is properly pleaded and proved, the egregiousness required by the Bane Act is present if the arresting officer had a specific intent to violate the arrestee's right to freedom from unreasonable seizure. That specific intent was shown here by evidence that once the officers discovered their error in arresting the plaintiff, they "doubled-down" by detaining him and issuing him the citation that ended his career.
In F.E.V. v. City of Anaheim, published September 19, 2017, the Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division 3 reversed the dismissal on demurrer of a wrongful death case arising out of a police shooting. The plaintiffs brought federal and state causes of action against the police and city in federal court. The federal district court granted summary judgment on the federal claims, ruling that the officers did not use excessive force and did not violate the Fourth Amendment. It dismissed the state law causes of action without prejudice. The plaintiffs appealed that decision to the 9th Circuit. The plaintiffs then filed a state court action based on their state law claims, including negligence, battery, and violation of the Bane Act. The trial court sustained a demurrer against the state court action and dismissed it, on the grounds that the federal decision had claim preclusion effect on the state law claims. The plaintiffs appealed the state court dismissal. Before the state court appeal was decided, the 9th Circuit affirmed the federal district court decision. The state appellate court ruled that the federal decision collaterally estopped the plaintiffs from pursuing their state law claims. Months later, the 9th Circuit issued an en banc review decision reversing the panel decision in the federal case as to the claims of excessive force. Plaintiffs then filed a new state court complaint, re-asserting their state law causes of action. The state court denied a motion to vacate the earlier state court decision. The appellate court denied a writ petition challenging that ruling. The defendants demurred on the ground of collateral estoppel. The trial court sustained the demurrer and dismissed the second state case.
The appellate court concluded that claim preclusion based on the earlier state court decision would apply, if equity permitted. But under the unusual circumstances, equity did not permit claims preclusion to bar the plaintiffs from litigating their state law claims, since the earlier judgment was based on a federal ruling that was ultimately reversed.

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