Court Opinion

ID: 9461143
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:07:06.350429+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:54.997614
License: Public Domain

CHAMBERS, Circuit Judge
(concurring) :
I concur in the result reached by Judge Wallace but for the following reasons.
The vindication of federal rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 is to be determined by federal law.1 See Donovan v. Reinbold, 433 F.2d 738, 742 (9th Cir. 1970). Several arrest cases similar to this case have so held. Sullivan v. Murphy, 156 U.S.App.D.C. 28, 478 F.2d 938, 972 (1973); Martin v. Duffie, 463 F.2d 464, 467 (10th Cir. 1972); Anderson v. Haas, 341 F.2d 497, 499 (3d Cir. 1965); see Mueller v. Powell, 203 F.2d 797, 800 (8th Cir. 1953). As stated by the Supreme Court in McNeese v. Board of Education, 373 U.S. 668, 674, 83 S.Ct. 1433, 1437, 10 L.Ed.2d 622 (1963):
“Nor is the federal right [to be redressed under § 1983] in any way entangled in a skein of state law that must be untangled before the federal case can proceed. For petitioners assert that respondents have been and are depriving them of rights protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. It is immaterial whether respondents’ conduct is legal or illegal as a matter of state law.”
But that general rule does not resolve this ease. A judgment of the district court which is correct must be upheld on appeal even if it was not decided on the best grounds. Brizendine v. Visador Co., 437 F.2d 822, 829 (9th Cir. 1971); Tanimura v. United States, 195 F.2d 329, 330 (9th Cir. 1952). The application of federal law by the district court would have mandated the result which it reached using state law.
The dissenter characterizes the issues of good faith and probable cause as defenses for which the burden of proof is borne by the defendants, but the analysis does not seem to consider the distinction between this case and the cases such as Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547, 87 S.Ct. 1213, 18 L.Ed.2d 288 (1967). The difference is that which must be shown in order to establish a prima facie case. In cases such as Pierson the plaintiff is able to establish a prima facie case without reference to probable cause because the violation of a constitutional right results from an arrest for violation of an unconstitutional law. In the present context the violation of a constitutional right results, if at all, from an arrest without legal justification. The proper *1280resolution of the good faith and probable cause issues in cases involving arrests allegedly made without legal justification was demonstrated in Martin v. Duffie, supra, 463 F.2d at 469:
“It is true that the burden was on the plaintiff to establish an invasion of his rights: an unlawful arrest. He did so by showing arrest and confinement without a warrant and without other justification. The plaintiff having established a prima facie case, the initiative passed to the defendant to go forward with evidence showing justification. Ultimately the plaintiff had what is often described as the risk of nonpersuasion on the issue of lack of probable cause . . . 6 ”
In this case Bergstralh not only failed in his burden but his evidence established the existence of probable cause for the arrest.2 The withdrawal of that issue from the jury was therefore proper.

. “This is not to say that federal courts do not look to state decisions in formulating a federal standard in civil rights actions. The important point is that federal courts are not bound by the decisions of the state court . . . ” Martin v. Duffie, supra, 463 F.2d at 468.

“6. We are mindful that there may be instances in which the plaintiff’s evidence itself creates an issue of fact, but this is not one of them . . . ’’

. The district judge’s admonition to Bergs-tralh that he was ignoring the testimony of his own witnesses that established probable cause for the arrest demonstrates that the judge may indeed have applied the proper federal standards in reaching his decision.