Opinion ID: 810771
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Official policy, custom, or pattern

Text: [9] Tsao must demonstrate that an “official policy, custom, or pattern” on the part of Desert Palace was “the actionable cause of the claimed injury.” Harper, 533 F.3d at 1022, 1026. A “policy” is “ ‘a deliberate choice to follow a course of action . . . made from among various alternatives by the official or officials responsible for establishing final policy with respect to the subject matter in question.’ ” Long v. Cnty. of Los Angeles, 442 F.3d 1178, 1185 (9th Cir. 2006) (alteration in original) (quoting Fairley, 281 F.2d at 918). Gibson v. County of Washoe discussed two types of policies: those that result in the municipality itself violating someone’s constitutional rights or instructing its employees to do so, and those that result, through omission, in municipal responsibility “for a constitutional violation committed by one of its employees, even though the municipality’s policies were facially constitutional, the municipality did not direct the employee to take the unconstitutional action, and the municipality did not have the state of mind required to prove the underlying violation.” 290 F.3d at 1185-86 (citing City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 387-89 (1989)). We have referred to these two types of policies as policies of action and inaction. Long, 442 F.3d at 1185. [10] A policy of inaction or omission may be based on failure to implement procedural safeguards to prevent constitutional violations. Oviatt v. Pearce, 954 F.2d 1470, 1477 (9th Cir. 1992). To establish that there is a policy based on a failure to preserve constitutional rights, a plaintiff must show, in addition to a constitutional violation, “that this policy ‘amounts to deliberate indifference’ to the plaintiff’s constitutional right[,]” Id. at 1474 (quoting Canton, 489 U.S. at 389), 12868 TSAO v. DESERT PALACE, INC. and that the policy caused the violation, “in the sense that the [municipality] could have prevented the violation with an appropriate policy.” Gibson, 290 F.3d at 1194. The Supreme Court has explained that these heightened requirements for establishing responsibility for a policy of omission are necessary to avoid imposing respondeat superior liability, which would run afoul of Monell. See Bd. of Cnty. Comm’rs v. Brown, 520 U.S. 397, 403-04 (1997). After all, when a municipal employee commits a constitutional tort, it could always be alleged that the municipality failed to enact a policy that would have prevented the tort. Without the rigorous state of mind requirements set out in Canton and subsequent cases, there would be nothing left of Monell’s rule against respondeat superior liability. See Connick v. Thompson, 131 S. Ct. 1350, 1359-60 (2011); Bd. of Cnty. Comm’rs, 520 U.S. at 406-07. Canton’s standards thus ensure that, even if the alleged defect in the municipality’s policy is one of omission, the acts of constitutional tortfeasors can still “fairly be said to be those of the municipality.” Bd. of Cnty. Comm’rs, 520 U.S. at 404. As the Supreme Court has also observed, however, such concerns are not present “[w]here a plaintiff claims that a particular municipal action itself violates federal law, or directs an employee to do so.” Id. Under this “direct path” to municipal liability, a plaintiff must “prove that the municipality acted with ‘the state of mind required to prove the underlying violation,’ just as a plaintiff does when he or she alleges that a natural person has violated his federal rights.” Gibson, 290 F.3d at 1185 (quoting Bd. of Cnty. Comm’rs, 520 U.S. at 405). [11] As Tsao has stated her claim, the alleged deficiency is properly seen as one of omission. Desert Palace in effect adopted two policies, with a gap between them that created the circumstances in which Tsao was arrested. First, Desert Palace keeps records of those it ejects from its casinos, and when those people return, it arrests them for trespassing or TSAO v. DESERT PALACE, INC. 12869 issues them citations under the SILA program. Second, Desert Palace sends promotional offers to repeat customers inviting them to visit the casino. Desert Palace’s security staff has no way of determining whether someone they are about to arrest for trespassing has in fact been invited onto the property, and the marketing staff apparently is not informed that someone has been warned never to return. Desert Palace conducts these two functions entirely separately, without any safeguard in place to prevent the situation that arose here. If any patron evicted by the security department were automatically removed from the marketing department’s mailing list, for instance, Tsao would not have received invitations, and there would be no question that she was trespassing. It is this gap in communication between the two departments, this omission, that led to the alleged constitutional violation in this case. A review of our case law on policies of commission further supports the idea that, as Tsao has stated her claim, the policy at issue here is one of omission. An official municipal policy, the Court has explained, “includes the decisions of a government’s lawmakers, the acts of its policymaking officials, and practices so persistent and widespread as to practically have the force of law.” Connick, 131 S.Ct. at 1359. Thus under the “direct path” to municipal liability, a policy may be facially unconstitutional, like “a city’s policy of discriminating against pregnant women in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Gibson, 290 F.3d at 1185 (citing Monell, 436 U.S. at 658). Or the constitutional violation may be the result of a direct order from a policymaking official, like “a policy-maker’s order to its employees to serve capiases15 in violation of the Fourth Amendment.” Id. at 1185-86 (citing Pembaur v. City of Cincinnati, 475 U.S. 469 (1986)). There is no suggestion here 15 “A capias is a writ of attachment commanding a county official to bring a subpoenaed witness who has failed to appear before the court to testify and to answer for civil contempt.” Gibson, 290 F.3d at 1185 n.6 (quoting Pembaur, 475 U.S. at 472 n.1). 12870 TSAO v. DESERT PALACE, INC. that Desert Palace’s overall policy is to oust unwanted gamblers even though they have been invited onto the property, that there is any such persistent or widespread practice, or that a policymaking official directed Makeley to arrest her although the policymaker knew that she was at the casino by invitation.16 [12] As Tsao has stated her claim, the cause of her arrest is thus best seen as an omission in Desert Palace’s policies— the failure to create a coordination system between security and marketing. Tsao therefore must show “that [Desert Palace’s] deliberate indifference led to [this] omission.” Gibson, 290 F.3d at 1186. [13] To show deliberate indifference, Tsao must demonstrate “that [Desert Palace] was on actual or constructive notice that its omission would likely result in a constitutional violation.” Id. (citing Farmer, 511 U.S. at 841). Only then does the omission become “the functional equivalent of a decision by [Desert Palace] itself to violate the Constitution.” Connick, 131 S. Ct. at 1360. As we observed in Gibson, “[p]olicies of omission regarding the supervision of employees . . . can be ‘policies’ or ‘customs’ that create municipal liability . . . only if the omission ‘reflects a deliberate or conscious choice’ to countenance the possibility of a constitutional violation.” 290 F.3d at 1194 (quoting Canton, 489 U.S. at 389-90) (internal quotation marks omitted). Tsao has not alleged that Desert Palace had actual notice of the flaw in its policies. The question thus becomes whether the risk that security personnel might arrest someone who had 16 Makeley did consult with John Banner, the casino manager, before approaching Tsao. But when asked whether Banner had instructed him to arrest her if she didn’t have identification, Makeley insisted that “that call was mine.” Moreover, there is no indication that Banner knew, or was in a position to know, that Tsao had received promotional invitations covering the period in question. TSAO v. DESERT PALACE, INC. 12871 been invited to the casino was so “obvious” that ignoring it amounted to deliberate indifference. [14] Tsao has not introduced facts sufficient to make this showing. First, there is no indication that this problem has ever arisen other than in the case of Tsao herself. In considering claims based on a failure to train municipal employees, the Court has noted that “a pattern of similar constitutional violations by untrained employees is ‘ordinarily necessary’ to demonstrate deliberate indifference.” Connick, 131 S. Ct. at 1360 (quoting Bd. of Cnty. Comm’rs, 520 U.S. at 409). Similarly, the absence here of any evidence of a pattern makes it far less likely that Tsao can prove Desert Palace was “on actual or constructive notice,” Farmer, 511 U.S. at 841 (quoting Canton, 489 U.S. at 396) (internal quotation marks omitted), that its policy would lead to constitutional violations. [15] Second, it is far from obvious that the omissions in Desert Palace’s policies would necessarily give rise to this situation. Tsao is a professional gambler, and, having been kicked out of the casino at least five times under a variety of aliases, was well aware that she was most likely not welcome at the Caesars Palace blackjack tables. For the situation at the heart of this case to arise, two circumstances must coalesce: First, someone like Tsao—who knows that she is persona non grata as far as the casino is concerned—would have to give the casino her real name and address at some point, so they would appear on the marketing department’s mailing list for promotional offers. Second, the unwanted gambler would have to interpret those promotional offers as invitations overriding previous trespass warnings and decide to return to the casino. It is not “obvious” that both of these things will happen, and Tsao has not introduced any evidence suggesting that Desert Palace was on constructive notice that its policy’s omissions made this situation likely. Under Monell, a plaintiff must also show that the policy at issue was the “actionable cause” of the constitutional viola12872 TSAO v. DESERT PALACE, INC. tion, which requires showing both but-for and proximate causation. Harper, 533 F.3d at 1026. We are not convinced that the casino’s omission was the but-for cause of Tsao’s allegedly unlawful arrest. Even if marketing had told the security department that it sent Laurie Tsao an invitation, Makeley had no way at the outset of connecting the woman whose name was on the invitation with the woman he saw at the blackjack table. After all, Makeley had a record that she was ejected under the name Shuyu Deng; she was using a player’s card with the name Monica Lieu; she gave her name Laurie Chang; and she was not carrying identification. Makeley did not learn the name was Laurie Tsao until after he had detained her, handcuffed her, taken her to the interrogation room, and kept her there for some time. [16] For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the District Court’s grant of summary judgment as to Tsao’s § 1983 claim against Desert Palace.