Opinion ID: 4516186
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Officer Kimura

Text: The majority assumes for purposes of its Monell analysis that Park plausibly alleges that Officer Kimura acted under color of law and violated Park’s Fourteenth Amendment right to bodily integrity. Because I would find that Park has also plausibly alleged deliberate indifference on the part of the County, as discussed below, it is necessary for me to explain why I think the majority’s assumption about Officer Kimura indeed reflects the correct legal result. The facts alleged in Park’s Second Amended Complaint (SAC) plausibly demonstrate that Officer Kimura was acting under color of law in two respects. First, “a state employee who . . . exercises his official responsibilities in an off-duty encounter, typically acts under color of state law.” Naffe v. Frey, 789 F.3d 1030, 1037 (9th Cir. 2015). Park alleges that Officer Kimura’s purpose for handling his firearm at the time of the shooting was to exercise his official responsibilities. Specifically, Honolulu Police Department (HPD) Policy No. 2.38 required HPD officers to carry a pistol at all times, even when not scheduled for work, except when “impaired” by alcohol. Park alleges that Officer Kimura was carrying and attempted to reload his revolver that night for purposes of compliance with HPD Policy No. 2.38. PARK V. CITY & CTY. OF HONOLULU 15 This is “typically” enough to find action under color of law, and I see no reason to stray from the general rule here. Id. at 1037. It is irrelevant that Officer Kimura technically violated HPD Policy No. 2.38 by possessing his firearm while impaired by alcohol. See Screws v. United States, 325 U.S. 91, 111 (1945) (“Acts of officers who undertake to perform their official duties are included whether they hew to the line of their authority or overstep it.”). Defendants do not offer a counter-explanation for Officer Kimura’s firearm handling, let alone one “so convincing” as to make Park’s explanation “implausible.” Starr v. Baca, 652 F.3d 1202, 1216 (9th Cir. 2011). The color of law test we articulated in Anderson v. Warner, 451 F.3d 1063 (9th Cir. 2006), fits poorly in the circumstances here. We developed the second prong of that test—“the officer’s pretense of acting in the performance of his duties must have had the purpose and effect of influencing the behavior of others,” id. at 1069—to address circumstances in which an off-duty officer was neither exercising nor even attempting to exercise his official duties. See id. at 1065–66 (off-duty county jail custodial officer assaulted plaintiff after plaintiff accidentally rear-ended officer’s personal truck); Van Ort v. Estate of Stanewich, 92 F.3d 831, 833–34 (9th Cir. 1996) (off-duty sheriff’s deputy attempted to rob plaintiffs at gunpoint); Naffe, 789 F.3d at 1033 (off-duty county prosecutor published derogatory statements about plaintiff on prosecutor’s personal blog and Twitter). As alleged in the SAC, Officer Kimura was similarly off duty but was attempting to exercise his official duties, his failure to properly heed HPD’s impairment policy notwithstanding. I do not believe we need look for a purpose of invoking official status to influence others when we have the more direct purpose of exercising official duties for official ends. See Naffe, 789 F.3d at 1037 (distinguishing 16 PARK V. CITY & CTY. OF HONOLULU cases involving “a state employee who . . . exercises his official responsibilities in an off-duty encounter,” from “[a] state employee who is [entirely] off duty,” and applying the Anderson test only to the latter). As we acknowledged in Anderson, “[t]here is no ‘rigid formula’ for determining whether a state or local law official is acting under color of state law.” 451 F.3d at 1068 (quoting Ouzts v. Md. Nat’l Ins. Co., 505 F.2d 547, 550 (9th Cir. 1974) (en banc)). Based on this analysis, Park plausibly alleges that Officer Kimura handled his revolver on the night in question for HPD reasons, not personal reasons. Construing the facts in Park’s favor, Officer Kimura therefore acted under color of law. See Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007); Naffe, 789 F.3d at 1037. Second, even if we were to apply the Anderson test, it is satisfied when we consider Park’s allegations regarding Officer Kimura’s prior conduct. The law of our circuit does not per se proscribe consideration of prior conduct. I would find that the prior conduct alleged here bears a sufficient nexus to the conduct on the night of the shooting to include it within the scope of our color of law analysis. On Park’s alleged facts, Officer Kimura plausibly “pretend[ed] to act under color of law” on previous occasions by flaunting his officer status, as well as by brandishing his firearm. Naffe, 789 F.3d at 1037. His pretense plausibly had the “purpose and effect of influencing the behavior of” Park so that she would tolerate his dangerous and drunken misbehavior at her bar, whenever he appeared. Id. He did not need to assert his officer status on every occasion in order to have this effect; asserting it regularly served the purpose well enough. The harm he inflicted on Plaintiff “related in some meaningful way” to his officer status, id., in that he “used ‘the badge of [his] PARK V. CITY & CTY. OF HONOLULU 17 authority’” to ensure his impaired firearm handling would be tolerated, Anderson, 451 F.3d at 1069 (quoting McDade v. West, 223 F.3d 1135, 1139 (9th Cir. 2000)). If he had not had the protection of purported state authority, he would likely have been banned from the bar or indeed arrested for his conduct. 1 And Park would not have ended up shot. 2 Our decision in Huffman v. County of Los Angeles, 147 F.3d 1054 (9th Cir. 1998), though facially similar, is distinguishable. See id. at 1058 (plainclothes, off-duty police officer did not act under color of state law when he inadvertently shot opponent during bar brawl). First, the officer in Huffman had a personal purpose for handling his firearm, namely securing his loose gun during a personal brawl. See id. at 1056. By contrast, Officer Kimura 1 Hawaii law allows open carry of a loaded handgun only with a license, which an applicant can obtain “only ‘[w]here the urgency or the need has been sufficiently indicated’ and the applicant ‘is engaged in the protection of life and property.’” Young v. Hawaii, 896 F.3d 1044, 1048 (9th Cir. 2018), reh’g en banc granted, 915 F.3d 681 (9th Cir. 2019) (quoting H.R.S. § 134-9). 2 The Fourth Circuit’s reasoning in Rossignol v. Voorhaar, 316 F.3d 516 (4th Cir. 2003), is persuasive. In that case, off-duty deputy sheriffs went to various stores to buy out all copies of a newspaper that criticized their department. Id. at 520. The officers were out of uniform, not wearing badges, and using their personal vehicles. Id. They were, however, “carrying their state-issued firearms, and some of those firearms were visible during the evening.” Id. at 526. The Fourth Circuit highlighted the fact that, despite being out of uniform and making no overt threats, the officers “were recognized as police officers by store employees throughout the county,” and, according to one store clerk, “basically came off real intimidating.” Id. Since “[p]roprietors of small stores often feel a keen need to stay on the right side of local law enforcement,” the Fourth Circuit found that the officers’ “status as sheriff’s deputies enabled them to execute their scheme in a manner that private citizens never could have.” Id. 18 PARK V. CITY & CTY. OF HONOLULU plausibly had an official purpose for handling his firearm. Cf. McDade, 223 F.3d at 1141 (distinguishing Huffman because the county employee in McDade was “committ[ing] an act that was related to her official duties”). Second, the officer in Huffman not only “never identified himself as a sheriff’s deputy on the evening of the shooting,” id. at 1058, but he also attempted to disguise his status by telling the victim he “owned an air conditioning company,” id. at 1056. Officer Kimura made no attempt to disguise his officer status, and indeed had engaged in a pattern of behavior designed to ensure his officer status would be recognized, and respected, whether he asserted it or not. Cf. McDade, 223 F.3d at 1141 (distinguishing Huffman because the county employee in McDade acted under pretense of state authority by entering her state passcode into a database of private information). 3 Our decision in Van Ort is also distinguishable. See 92 F.3d at 838–39 (off-duty police officer did not act under color of state law when he tortured and attempted to rob the residents of a home he had previously entered while on duty). As in Huffman, the officer in Van Ort had a personal purpose for handling his firearm, in this case robbing his victims at gunpoint. See id. at 834. As in Huffman, the 3 In McDade, we considered a § 1983 lawsuit against a clerical employee at a county District Attorney’s office. 223 F.3d at 1137. The employee had used her official access to a state medical database to locate her husband’s ex-wife at a battered women’s shelter. Id. The employee’s purpose was to enable her husband to serve papers on his exwife relating to child custody issues. Id. We held that the employee acted under color of law, despite being engaged in a purely personal pursuit, because she “acted under the pretense of state employment by asserting her state-authorized passcode to enter into the database.” Id. at 1141. Notably, we did not rely on the fact that the employee accessed the database during her scheduled work hours. PARK V. CITY & CTY. OF HONOLULU 19 officer in Van Ort attempted to disguise his official status during his crime. See id. at 838–39; cf. McDade, 223 F.3d at 1141 (distinguishing Van Ort for the same reasons as Huffman). Thus, it was not enough in Van Ort that the victim alleged he recognized the officer on account of a previous on-duty visit, because the officer “did not use his authority to gain entry to the home or to induce [the victim] to open his front door,” nor did the officer “purport to be acting as a policeman.” Id. at 839. By contrast, Officer Kimura’s identity as an officer was not just incidentally recognized by Park. Officer Kimura ensured Park would recognize his officer status by regularly flaunting it and by demonstrating his authority to wield a weapon in her bar without consequence. Thus, contrary to the County’s arguments, I conclude that prior conduct is potentially relevant to our under color of law analysis, and is in fact dispositive in this case. On the facts plausibly alleged in the SAC, I have no doubt that Officer Kimura’s drunken wielding of his revolver in a bar full of people was an abuse of power “possessed by virtue of state law and made possible only because the wrongdoer is clothed with the authority of state law.” Naffe, 789 F.3d at 1036 (quoting United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299, 326 (1941)). Thus, I believe that the majority’s assumption that Officer Kimura acted under color of law in fact reflects the correct result. I therefore also have no doubt that Park has plausibly alleged a Fourteenth Amendment violation of her right to bodily integrity, given the plausible allegation of a state actor, and of deliberate indifference by the County as I 20 PARK V. CITY & CTY. OF HONOLULU discuss below. 4 See P.B. v. Koch, 96 F.3d 1298, 1302–04 (9th Cir. 1996).