Opinion ID: 776026
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Davis and Presley

Text: 73 Governor Davis and Secretary Presley contend that they are not properly part of this portion of the lawsuit and that plaintiffs are barred from proceeding against them here by virtue of the settlement agreement entered into by the plaintiffs and the Department. A settlement is interpreted as any other contract, under the interpretive rules of the state. Gates v. Rowland, 39 F.3d 1439, 1444 (9th Cir. 1994). The first step in contractual interpretation in California is to examine the text, Cal. Civil Code 1638, and determine the intent of the parties. Cal. Civil Code 1636. Here, the Governor and the Secretary rely on two parts of the settlement agreement. First, they point to the text, which states that: This settlement does not resolve any issues between plaintiffs and the Board of Prison Terms or defendant Nielsen. Second, they rely on the inclusion in the settlement agreement of their names among the Department defendants. The two provisions on which they rely do not show that the agreement was intended to release Davis and Presley from the Board's portion of the case. The purpose of the provision of the settlement agreement quoted above was to make it clear that none of the issues regarding the Board's operations were to be affected by the Department's agreement. The fact is that the settlement agreement did resolve some issues involving Davis and Presley, because they, unlike Nielsen, have supervisory authority over the Department. Thus, it would have been erroneous to include their names in the quoted provision of the settlement agreement. As to the inclusion of Davis' and Presley's names on the list of Department defendants, their names were included because the two state officials have supervisory authority over the Department, and to the extent the claims against the Department were resolved, so were the claims against them. The claims against the Board were not resolved, however, nor were the claims against Davis or Presley that were based on their supervision of the Board. It is significant in this regard that there is no language in the settlement agreement providing that the Governor and the Secretary shall be dismissed as parties, or that all claims against them would be resolved by the agreement. 74 The simple fact is that the settlement agreement resolved only a portion of the issues between the plaintiffs and Davis and Presley, the two state officers who have jurisdiction over both the Department and the Board. While it might have been preferable to include a sentence stating explicitly that the Governor and the Secretary remain defendants in the instant portion of the lawsuit, such language was not essential. Thus, Davis and Presley properly remain parties to the litigation between the plaintiffs and the Board.