Opinion ID: 6328260
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: If a state law causing total abatement of a

Text: particular claim is consistent with § 1983, so is a law barring a single category of damages. The Valenzuela majority adopted the same failed position as the Fifth Circuit in Robertson, arguing that California’s prohibition on post-death “hedonic” damages, “run[s] afoul of § 1983’s remedial purpose . . . .” Valenzuela, 6 F.4th at 1103. But just as the Robertson Court found “nothing in the statute or its underlying policies to indicate that a state law causing abatement of a particular action should invariably be ignored in favor of a rule of absolute survivorship,” Robertson, 436 U.S. at 590, the Valenzuela majority has pointed to “nothing in the statute or its underlying policies to indicate that a state law” prohibiting the award of a single category of damages “should be invariably ignored in favor of a rule of” damages maximization. Id. Yet that is precisely what the majority held. Robertson found that Louisiana’s survival law which entirely abated the § 1983 action was not inconsistent with § 1983 especially in light of the fact that “most Louisiana actions survive the plaintiff’s death.” Id. at 591. Similarly, California’s tort damages scheme, as modified by Chaudhry, is consistent with § 1983 because it makes available every category of damages, except post-death “hedonic” damages. It stands to reason that if abatement of an entire cause of action can be not inconsistent with the policy goals of § 1983, a law prohibiting a single category of damages should be not inconsistent as well. 12 VALENZUELA V. CITY OF ANAHEIM 2. Robertson rejected the majority’s point that postdeath “hedonic” damages are necessary to incentivize police not to kill. The Valenzuela majority also argued that California law was inconsistent with the deterrent purpose of § 1983 because it has “the perverse effect of making it more economically advantageous for a defendant to kill rather than injure his victim.” Valenzuela, 6 F.4th at 1102 (citing Chaudhry, 751 F.3d at 1103–04). As a practical and mathematical matter this is not accurate, as discussed below. But more importantly, as a legal matter, the Supreme Court in Robertson has already rejected this argument: In order to find even a marginal influence on behavior as a result of Louisiana’s survivorship provisions, one would have to make the rather farfetched assumptions that a state official had both the desire and the ability deliberately to select as victims only those persons who would die before conclusion of the § 1983 suit . . . and who would not be survived by any close relatives. Robertson, 436 U.S. at 592 n.10. To think that a police officer, when deciding to use deadly force, calculates the difference in exposure of himself and his employer to damages for the victim’s pain and suffering versus wrongful death damages arising from the instant death of the victim is necessarily based on the “rather far-fetched assumption” that the policeman had information about the suspect’s family and earning potential, and had the sang-froid, the cynicism, and the time to calculate the optimal result in damage reduction before he used that force. VALENZUELA V. CITY OF ANAHEIM 13 3. Robertson considered and rejected the majority’s hypothetical about the victim with no family. The Valenzuela majority also argued that, in the absence of post-death “hedonic” damages, the availability of a wrongful death claim in California is insufficient to bring California’s damages scheme in line with the federal law because, “such a framework would still preclude recovery for the decedent who is penniless, without family, and killed immediately on the scene.” Valenzuela, 6 F.4th at 1103. But the Supreme Court had rejected this argument as well; a zero-recovery result is no basis to disregard state law. See id. at 1106 (Lee, J., dissenting) (“[W]e cannot refuse to apply a state law just because it causes abatement of a particular action.” (quoting Robertson, 436 U.S. at 590–91) (cleaned up)). Acknowledging that Louisiana’s survival law precluded recovery for people without families, the Court went on to say that “surely few persons are not survived by one of these close relatives, and in any event no contention is made here that Louisiana’s decision to restrict certain survivorship rights in this manner is an unreasonable one.” Id. at 592. Indeed, “[t]he reasonableness of Louisiana’s approach is suggested by the fact that several federal statutes providing for survival take the same approach . . . .” Id. at 592 n.8. Similarly, here, there are no federal statutes which state a possible recovery for post-death “hedonic” damages, and the reasonableness of California’s approach is evidenced by the fact that 44 other states prohibit such damages. Confronted with the majority’s hypothetical, the Supreme Court was unpersuaded and found no inconsistency between the Louisiana law and the remedial purposes of § 1983, even when total abatement of the family-less and penniless victim’s claim was at stake. 14 VALENZUELA V. CITY OF ANAHEIM 4. Any limitations in Robertson’s holding do not support the panel majority’s conclusion. The opposition to the petition for rehearing en banc downplays the applicability of Robertson’s holding because, in that case, the victim’s death was not due to his unconstitutionally inflicted injuries. 5 But the Robertson holding left open only the narrow question of “whether abatement based on state law could be allowed in a situation in which deprivation of federal rights caused death.” Id. at 594–95 (emphasis added). The California law at issue does not cause any action to abate— it merely fails to award one item of damages after allowing pre-death economic damages, wrongful death damages, damages for loss of consortium, and now, per Chaudhry, pre-death pain and suffering damages. Furthermore, Robertson’s limited holding did not make this court’s holding in Valenzuela a foregone conclusion. Leaving the question open did not preordain its answer, and the majority opinion fails to explain how Valenzuela is meaningfully distinguishable from Robertson. Confronted with the facts of Valenzuela, in which the family of the victim of the constitutional violations was awarded millions of dollars, it is a stretch to infer that the Supreme Court would have reached a different conclusion than the one it 5 I acknowledge that Robertson’s holding is limited: “Our holding today is a narrow one, limited to situations in which no claim is made that state law generally is inhospitable to survival of § 1983 actions and in which the particular application of state survivorship law . . . has no independent adverse effect on the policies underlying § 1983 . . . We intimate no view, moreover, about whether abatement based on state law could be allowed in a situation in which deprivation of federal rights caused death.” Robertson, 436 U.S. at 594. VALENZUELA V. CITY OF ANAHEIM 15 reached in Robertson, where the victim’s estate went entirely uncompensated. 5. Robertson is widely applicable. The Sixth Circuit, relying on Robertson has already held that prohibitions on post-death “hedonic” damages are not inconsistent with § 1983 because § 1983 compensates for “actual damages suffered by the victim” and a loss of life is not “actual . . . because it is not consciously experienced by the decedent.” Frontier Ins. Co., 454 F.3d at 601–03. 6 In Sharbaugh v. Beaudry, 267 F. Supp. 3d 1326, 1335 (N.D. Fla. 2017), the court held that Florida’s prohibition on pre-death pain and suffering damages in wrongful death actions was not inconsistent with § 1983 because “neither § 1983 nor the common law expressly provided for the survival of a personal injury pain and suffering claim after death occurs, and . . . Congress has placed the survival of claims in the legislative hands of the states.” In that case, the plaintiff argued that the lack of pre-death pain and suffering damages would not satisfy the compensation and deterrence goals of § 1983 because the victim, “had a learning disability which limited his earning potential, he had no loss of earnings before his death, he 6 Why the Sixth Circuit’s opinion is perfectly consistent with the common law theory of awarding damages only for harms consciously experienced is discussed below. See infra Part II(C)(2). However, the Seventh Circuit has reached the opposite conclusion. See Bell, 746 F.2d at 1239 (holding that a Wisconsin law precluding post-death “hedonic” damages was inconsistent with § 1983 because it created perverse incentives for police officers to kill rather than injure). If not vacated en banc, the panel majority’s opinion here will deepen the circuit split. 16 VALENZUELA V. CITY OF ANAHEIM permitted his children to be adopted by his father-in-law, and the State of Florida paid for his cremation.” Id. at 1336. The court was unpersuaded. Citing Robertson, the court correctly noted that the “inquiry under § 1988 . . . is not whether the level of damages that a particular plaintiff will receive in the specific circumstances of one case is inconsistent with the civil rights policies but rather whether the state law is inconsistent with federal policies.” Id. Even if looking at the actual damages awarded to the plaintiff was the relevant inquiry under Robertson, in this case, Valenzuela’s estate and his family were awarded millions of dollars even without the “hedonic” damages. B. California Tort Law is Consistent with the “Broad Remedial Purposes” Which Underlie § 1983. Consistent with the Supreme Court’s decision in Robertson, California’s ban on post-death “hedonic” damages awards should not be viewed in a vacuum. Robertson found that Louisiana’s survival law which entirely abated the action was not inconsistent with § 1983 in light of the fact that “most Louisiana actions survive the plaintiff’s death.” Id. at 591. Similarly, here, California’s prohibition on post-death “hedonic damages” should be viewed in the context of the other available categories of damages, including damages for pre-death economic losses, wrongful death, loss of consortium, and, as modified by Chaudhry, pre-death pain and suffering. 1. Unconstitutional police killings do not save money in California. Not only has the majority’s “perverse effect” argument been rejected by the Supreme Court but given the wide availability of damages under California law, there is simply VALENZUELA V. CITY OF ANAHEIM 17 no evidence that police officers are economically incentivized to kill rather than injure. Valenzuela, 6 F.4th at 1102 (citing Chaudhry, 751 F.3d at 1103–04). In fact, the facts of Valenzuela belie this assertion. Imagine if Valenzuela’s injuries were not fatal and he survived his encounter with police long enough to obtain a judgment at trial. Under California law, plaintiffs are not entitled to a separate pain and suffering instruction and a predeath “hedonic” damages instruction. Huff, 57 Cal. App. 3d. at 944. Thus, in this hypothetical, the jury would have been able to compensate Valenzuela only for his pain and suffering and any economic damages he incurred as a result of the officers’ excessive force. Based on what the jury awarded Valenzuela’s estate for his pre-death pain and suffering, we can assume this number would be in the ballpark of $6 million. Valenzuela, 6 F.4th at 1101 n.4. If Valenzuela had died prior to trial but the jury had not awarded post-death “hedonic” damages in violation of California law, the jury could have awarded the $6 million for pre-death pain and suffering to Valenzuela’s estate and the $3.6 million it awarded for wrongful death to the family, for a total of $9.6 million. That is a damages award $3.6 million dollars greater than what Valenzuela would have received had he lived, even without post-death “hedonic” damages. We see that the same is true in Craig v. Petropulos, 856 F. App’x 649 (9th Cir. 2021) (unpublished), which was decided at the same time and by the same panel as Valenzuela. There, the jury awarded $200,000 in predeath pain and suffering, $1.4 million for wrongful death, and $1.8 million for post-death loss of life. Even operating under the doubtful assumption that police officers respond to their economic incentives when choosing to apply deadly force, they are still properly incentivized to avoid the use of 18 VALENZUELA V. CITY OF ANAHEIM deadly force, and thereby avoid an adverse wrongful death award. This is so even without post-death “hedonic” damages added to the equation. The majority’s math does not add up.