Opinion ID: 770594
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: partial summary judgment on liability

Text: 93 The HUD officials ask us to review the district court's decision granting the plaintiffs summary judgment on the issue of liability. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(c), a court may award a partial summary judgment that decides only that issue. The district court did so here. The court cited the following conduct as establishing liability: 1) defendant Smith's supervision of Lee and Zurowski and his specific direction that Lee ask the plaintiffs questions about their opposition to the Bel Air project, questions which Lee considered irregular and beyond the scope of a routine FHA investigation; 2) defendant Lee's work as the investigator on the case; 3) the offer made by defendant Zurowski to terminate the investigation if the plaintiffs agreed to relinquish their constitutionally protected expressive activities; and 4) defendant Gillespie's review and approval of the final investigative report. In participating and contributing to the HUD investigation, the court stated, each of these defendants engaged in conduct which impermissibly chilled the plaintiffs' First Amendment activities. 94 The plaintiffs argue that we do not have jurisdiction to review this ruling. In general, orders granting partial summary judgment are not appealable final orders under 28 U.S.C. 1291 because partial summary judgment orders do not dispose of all claims and do not end the litigation on the merits. Williamson v. UNUM Life Ins. Co. of America, 160 F.3d 1247, 1250 (9th Cir. 1998) (citations omitted). We conclude, however, that special circumstances exist in this case that permit us to review the award of partial summary judgment, and to leave for trial, with respect to these four defendants, only the issue of damages. 95 As explained earlier, we have jurisdiction to review on interlocutory appeal the district court's decision denying the officials summary judgment on the defense of qualified immunity. We also have jurisdiction to review at the same time other issues that are inextricably intertwined with the question of qualified immunity. See Swint v. Chambers County Comm'n, 514 U.S. 42, 51 (1995); Mendocino Environmental Ctr., 192 F.3d at 1296. In Marks v. Clarke, 102 F.3d 1012 (9th Cir. 1996), we concluded that we had jurisdiction to review the district court's rulings granting partial summary judgment on liability which, we found, were unquestionably inextricably intertwined with the district court's decision to deny the defendants qualified immunity. Id. at 1018. 96 In reviewing the plaintiffs' qualified immunity appeal under the methodology mandated by the Supreme Court, we have already found that the plaintiffs stated a valid claim for a violation of their First Amendment rights. We recognize, however, that an interlocutory appeal of a denial of summary judgment as to the defense of qualified immunity necessarily involves only issues of law, see Johnson, 515 U.S. at 319, while an appeal from a grant of partial summary judgment on the merits may well involve disputed factual issues or even additional or different questions of law. 97 In the case before us the material facts as to defendants Smith, Lee, Zurowski, and Gillespie are undisputed, as a result primarily of the parties' commendable submission to the district judge of a comprehensive joint statement of undisputed facts. Moreover, the principal issues of law involved in the partial summary judgment appeal have necessarily all been resolved by our qualified immunity determination. It is clear from that determination, moreover, that the conduct of each of these defendants violated the plaintiffs' constitutional rights. Accordingly, we conclude that here the two issues on appeal are sufficiently inextricably intertwined  to justify our exercise of jurisdiction over them both. Cf. Huskey v. City of San Jose, 204 F.3d 893, 904-05 (9th Cir. 2000) (exercising interlocutory appellate jurisdiction to find city not liable where its liability was based solely on liability of individual officials and qualified immunity analysis showed that plaintiff had not stated proper constitutional claim). 98 The four HUD officials argue that the partial summary judgment ruling was erroneous because there are factual issues that remain despite the joint statement of undisputed facts. They make two specific points. First, they argue that whether the plaintiffs were in fact chilled in the exercise of the speech is a disputed question for the jury. The dispute, if there were one, would not be material. In making their First Amendment claim, the plaintiffs were obligated to prove only that the officials' actions would have chilled or silenced a person of ordinary firmness from future First Amendment activities, not that their speech and petitioning were actually inhibited or suppressed. Mendocino Environmental Ctr., 192 F.3d at 1300 (citation omitted). In any event, the officials point to no evidence in the record that disputes the assertions in the plaintiffs' declarations that their rights were in fact chilled. The officials did not submit excerpts of any depositions of the plaintiffs, or any other evidence tending to undermine the plaintiffs' credibility on this point. While, on remand, the officials will certainly be entitled to challenge the extent of the injury suffered by the plaintiffs for purposes of determining damages, the fact that the plaintiffs incurred First Amendment injury is not a matter in genuine dispute. 99 Second, the officials contend that the district court plainly erred in entering a finding of liability against defendant Zurowski. The joint statement of undisputed facts states only that Zurowski conveyed to the plaintiffs HRI's conciliation proposal demanding that the plaintiffs cease all litigation and publication of discriminatory statements (including articles in the CNA Newsletter) and fliers about the potential residents of the Bel Air Project. The officials argue that a government official's mere conveyance of a settlement offer, even one containing patently unconstitutional terms, does not violate the First Amendment. We need not decide this question because it is also undisputed that Zurowski advised David Bryden, the attorney then representing the plaintiffs, to accept the unconstitutional conciliation proposal because, Zurowski said, HUD had already collected evidence that the plaintiffs had violated the FHA. Such official action, we have already held, was sufficiently chilling to establish liability under the First Amendment. 100 The HUD officials repeatedly contend in their briefs that the assertion, set forth in a declaration by attorney Bryden, that Zurowski endorsed the conciliation proposal, is disputed and therefore an improper basis for an award of summary judgment. At oral argument, however, counsel conceded that the record contains no evidence that disputes Bryden's assertion -not even a declaration from Zurowski denying that the conversation as reported by Bryden took place. In civil rights cases, as in all others, summary judgment can work both for and against the government. Rule 56(e) provides that[w]hen a motion for summary judgment is made and supported as provided in this rule, an adverse party may not rest upon the mere allegations or denials of the adverse party's pleading, but the adverse party's response, by affidavits or as otherwise provided in this rule, must set forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial. We may not reverse an award of partial summary judgment simply because the government asserts, without evidence in the record, that a critical fact is disputed. 101 Resolving all inferences from the evidence in the four officials' favor, we conclude that it was not error for the district court to award the plaintiffs partial summary judgment on the issue of liability. 24 102