Court Opinion

ID: 9917149
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-11 18:01:10.893898+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:01:58.869144
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION                           FILED
                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                        JAN 11 2024
                                                                      MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                       U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
                           FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

COALITION ON HOMELESSNESS; et al.,              No.    23-15087

                Plaintiffs-Appellees,           D.C. No. 4:22-cv-05502-DMR

 v.
                                                MEMORANDUM*
CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN
FRANCISCO; et al.,

                Defendants-Appellants.

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Northern District of California
                   Donna M. Ryu, Magistrate Judge, Presiding

                      Argued and Submitted August 23, 2023
                            San Francisco, California

Before: BUMATAY, KOH, and DESAI, Circuit Judges.
Concurrence by Judge BUMATAY.

      Appellant City and County of San Francisco (“the City”) appeals the grant

of a preliminary injunction in this action brought by the Coalition on Homelessness

and seven current or formerly homeless residents of San Francisco (“Plaintiffs”).

      *
             This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
We affirm in part and remand in part.1

      1.     Under this court’s decisions in Martin v. City of Boise, 920 F.3d 584

(9th Cir. 2019), and Johnson v. City of Grants Pass, 72 F.4th 878 (9th Cir. 2023), a

person who has refused a specific offer of available shelter is not involuntarily

homeless. See Martin, 920 F.3d at 615–17, 617 n.8; Johnson, 72 F.4th at 888 n.24.

We remand for the district court to clarify that the preliminary injunction applies

only to the City’s enforcement of the enjoined laws as to the involuntarily

homeless. On remand, the district court should also consider whether enjoining

enforcement of San Francisco Police Code § 169 was appropriate given that § 169,

by its own terms, cannot be enforced without an offer of available shelter. See S.F.

Police Code § 169(d). To prevent harm to Plaintiffs, the current preliminary

injunction remains intact while the district court reconsiders its scope and makes

any necessary clarifications. See Nat’l Org. for Reform of Marijuana L. v. Mullen,

796 F.2d 276, 276 (9th Cir. 1986).

      2.     The City also contends that the preliminary injunction’s prohibition

on “threatening to enforce” the listed laws is impermissibly vague. As Plaintiffs

1
  In a concurrently filed opinion, we address the City’s argument that the limited
geographic scope of the encampment resolutions at issue in this case and the time-
limited nature of some of the enjoined ordinances distinguish this case from Martin
v. City of Boise, 920 F.3d 584 (9th Cir. 2019), and Johnson v. City of Grants Pass,
72 F.4th 878 (9th Cir. 2023).

                                          2
note, the injunction does not prevent nebulous “threats” or threatening behavior; it

prohibits the City from “threatening to enforce” a specific set of ordinances against

involuntarily homeless individuals for sitting, lying, or sleeping on public property.

Therefore, action beyond “mere police presence” is required to constitute a “threat

to enforce” within the meaning of the preliminary injunction. Because there

appears to be some confusion on this point, the district court should specify on

remand that the preliminary injunction prohibits verbal or written threats to

enforce.

      3.     The City also contends that the injunction is unworkable because it

remains in effect “as long as there are more homeless individuals in San Francisco

than there are shelter beds available.” Like any preliminary injunction, however,

the preliminary injunction remains in effect only while litigation in this case is

ongoing. Should the number of shelter beds surpass the number of homeless

individuals before entry of final injunction, the preliminary injunction provides an

escape hatch. As noted above, the City may still take enforcement action against

individuals who are not involuntarily homeless while the preliminary injunction

remains in effect.

      4.     The district court did not abuse its discretion by requiring the City to

comply with its “bag and tag” policy as written. The City has not challenged the

propriety of preliminary injunctive relief on Plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment claims

                                           3
and has not shown that the district court abused its “considerable discretion” in

fashioning a remedy. See Hernandez v. Sessions, 872 F.3d 976, 999 (9th Cir.

2017) (quoting Tanner Motor Livery, Ltd. v. Avis, Inc., 316 F.2d 804, 809 (9th Cir.

1963)). The City invokes caselaw on “obey the law” injunctions, which are

disfavored because they may run afoul of the requirement that “those enjoined

receive explicit notice of precisely what conduct is outlawed.” Schmidt v. Lessard,

414 U.S. 473, 476 (1974) (per curiam); see Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(d). Requiring the

City to comply with its own detailed policy document does not raise these

concerns.

      5.     Finally, we decline to address the challenges about the propriety of the

preliminary injunction raised by amici California League of Cities et al. Although

the City adopted these arguments in its reply brief to this court, the City did not

raise these objections in its opening brief or to the district court, so these arguments

are “not properly before the panel.” Kaffaga v. Estate of Steinbeck, 938 F.3d 1006,

1018 n.8 (9th Cir. 2019). We further decline to exercise our discretion to consider

these doubly forfeited arguments because we disagree with the City that they

present pure questions of law. Armstrong v. Brown, 768 F.3d 975, 981–82 (9th

Cir.2014) (internal quotation marks omitted) (explaining that we may exercise our

discretion to consider a waived issue that “is purely one of law”).

                                    *      *      *

                                           4
      We AFFIRM in part and VACATE and REMAND in part.2 The

preliminary injunction shall remain in place to allow the district court to conduct

further proceedings consistent with this disposition. Each party shall bear its own

costs on appeal.

2
  We grant the City’s motion for judicial notice, Dkt. 13, and Plaintiffs’ motion for
judicial notice, Dkt. 35.

                                          5
                                                                              FILED
Coalition on Homelessness v. City and County of San Francisco, No. 23-15087
BUMATAY, Circuit Judge, concurring:                                       JAN 11 2024
                                                                           MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                             U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
      As explained in my dissent to the concurrently filed published opinion, I

would have vacated the injunction as it relates to the Eighth Amendment in its

entirety. The district court inappropriately expanded our precedents to enjoin

enforcement of San Fransisco’s ordinances under the Cruel and Unusual

Punishments Clause. But because the panel narrows the injunction and remands to

the district court for further consideration, I concur in this memorandum disposition.