Brandon Smith v. City of Chandler ( 2019 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS DEC 11 2019
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
BRANDON SMITH, No. 17-16820
Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No. 2:12-cv-02391-FJM
v.
MEMORANDUM*
CITY OF CHANDLER; KEITH SMITH,
Officer #616,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Arizona
Frederick J. Martone, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted July 15, 2019
San Francisco, California
Before: PAEZ and RAWLINSON, Circuit Judges, and HUCK,** District Judge.
This appeal arises out of Plaintiff-Appellant Brandon Smith’s state law
negligence claim against the City of Chandler, Arizona (the “City”). He alleges
that injuries he sustained by his suicide attempt during an encounter with the City’s
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The Honorable Paul C. Huck, United States District Judge for the U.S.
District Court for Southern Florida, sitting by designation.
police officers resulted from Officer Keith Smith negligently disregarding his
professional training on how to deal with emotionally disturbed, potentially
suicidal persons. Appellant appeals the district court’s decision granting judgment
as a matter of law on Appellant’s negligence claim in favor of the City.1 The
district court granted the City’s post-trial motion for judgment as a matter of law
because it concluded that the Appellant’s suicide attempt constituted, under
Arizona law, an intervening, superseding cause of Appellant’s injuries. We reverse
and remand for further proceedings.
A district court’s grant of judgment as a matter of law is reviewed de novo.
See Krechman v. Cty. of Riverside, 723 F.3d 1104, 1109 (9th Cir. 2013). “In doing
so, we ‘view the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party . . .
and draw all reasonable inferences in that party’s favor.’” Id. (quoting EEOC v. Go
Daddy Software, Inc., 581 F.3d 951, 961 (9th Cir. 2009)). A district court may
grant a motion for judgment as a matter of law only “if ‘a party has been fully
heard on an issue and there is no legally sufficient basis for a reasonable jury to
1
Appellant originally proceeded to trial on a federal claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983
against Officer Smith and a negligence claim under Arizona law against the City.
At the close of Appellant’s case, Smith and the City moved for judgment as a
matter of law on the claims. The district court denied the motion without prejudice.
The jury found for Smith on the section 1983 claim but failed to reach a verdict on
the negligence claim. The district court declared a mistrial on the negligence claim.
The City then renewed its motion for judgment as a matter of law on the
negligence claim.
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find for that party on that issue.’” Jorgensen v. Cassiday, 320 F.3d 906, 917 (9th
Cir. 2003) (quoting Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods., Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 149
(2000)).
Here, the district court, misinterpreting three Arizona decisions, erroneously
held that, as a matter of Arizona law, Appellant’s suicide attempt superseded the
City’s alleged negligence as the cause of Appellant’s injuries because Officer
Smith did not cause Appellant’s underlying mental condition. The district court
concluded, as a matter of Arizona law, that a suicide is a superseding cause “unless
the defendant’s conduct caused the mental condition from which the attempted
suicide arose . . . .” In other words, the district court concluded that Arizona law
required the Appellant to show that the City caused Appellant’s underlying mental
illness in order to hold the City liable for his suicide attempt.
There is no such requirement. Under Arizona law, causing a plaintiff’s
underlying mental illness is merely one basis for holding a defendant liable for a
plaintiff’s suicide. See Maricopa Cty. v. Cowart, 471 P.2d 265, 267–68 (Ariz.
1970); Pompeneo v. Verde Valley Guidance Clinic, 249 P.2d 1112, 1113–15 (Ariz.
Ct. App. 2011); Tucson Rapid Transit Co. v. Tocci, 414 P.2d 179, 184–86 (Ariz.
Ct. App. 1966). Contrary to the district court’s interpretation of these three cases,
no Arizona case establishes that suicide is a superseding cause unless the defendant
caused the underlying mental illness.
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The district court failed to analyze Appellant’s claim under applicable
Arizona tort law relating to applicable duty and foreseeability concepts. Under
Arizona law, whether an event constitutes an intervening, superseding cause of a
plaintiff’s injuries depends on whether the intervening event was a foreseeable risk
of the negligence the defendant was under a duty to avoid. See Tocci, 414 P.2d at
183–84. Whether an event constitutes a superseding cause is ordinarily a question
of fact for the jury to decide. See Pompeneo, 249 P.2d at 415. Here, Appellant’s
evidence presented a factual issue of whether Appellant’s suicide attempt was
foreseeable. When Appellant’s stepmother called the City police, she informed the
dispatcher that Appellant was suicidal and had previously been on a suicide watch.
The call was dispatched to the officers as a suicidal subject call. At oral argument,
the City acknowledged that Officer Smith had received specific training on how to
deal with emotionally disturbed persons, he knew Appellant was such an
emotionally disturbed person with the potential to commit suicide, and he was
under a legal duty to treat Appellant accordingly. Under these facts, a jury could
reasonably find that Officer Smith was under a legal duty to follow his training
relating to dealing with an emotionally disturbed, suicidal person, and could
foresee that violating the training could lead the Appellant to attempt suicide.
Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s grant of judgment as a matter of
law. Because we reverse the judgment as a matter of law, we also vacate the
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court’s award of attorneys’ fees and non-taxable costs.
REVERSED and REMANDED.
5
FILED
Smith v. City of Chandler, Case No. 17-16820
DEC 11 2019
Rawlinson, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in part:
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
Although I agree with the majority that the award of attorneys’ fees to the
defendants should be reversed, I respectfully disagree that the district court erred in
granting judgment as a matter of law in favor of the City. In my view, the district
court’s ruling was consistent with Arizona precedent.
In Tucson Rapid Transit Co. v. Tocci, 414 P.2d 179, 183 (Ariz. Ct. App.
1966), the Arizona Court of Appeals noted the general rule that “a person will not
be relieved of liability by an intervening force which could reasonably have been
foreseen.” The court specifically acknowledged that if the “intervening force takes
the form of suicide the practically unanimous rule is that such act is a new and
independent agency which does not come within and complete a line of causation
from the wrongful act to the death.” Id. In that circumstance, the court explained,
the defendant would not be “liable for the suicide.” Id. (quoting 11 A.L.R.2d 751,
757 (1950)).
The court also relied upon the Restatement (Second), Torts § 455 (1965), for
the proposition that unless the “actor’s negligent conduct . . . brings about the
delirium or insanity of another,” the negligent actor is not “liable for harm done by
the other to himself while delirious or insane.” Id. at 184. The district court’s
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ruling was consistent with this analysis.
In a similar vein, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled in Pompeneo v. Verde
Valley Guidance Clinic, 249 P.3d 1112, 1114 (Ariz. Ct. App. 2011) that its prior
ruling in Tocci precluded liability on the part of a mental health clinic for an
unsuccessful suicide attempt by the plaintiff. The court held that Tocci was
“directly applicable to [Plaintiff’s] claim.” Id. at 1115. Despite the allegations that
his attempted suicide was caused by the clinic’s negligence, the court observed that
the plaintiff “presented no facts to challenge the contention that his attempted
suicide was volitional.” Id. Because the attempted suicide was intentional, “his
actions constituted a supervening cause as a matter of law.” Id.
A third Arizona case supports the district court’s decision. In Maricopa Cty.
v. Cowart, 471 P.2d 265, 267 (Ariz. 1970) (in banc), the Arizona Supreme Court
cited Tocci and reiterated:
[T]he almost universal rule is that the suicide by the
injured party is a superseding cause which is neither foreseeable
nor a normal incident of the risk created and therefore relieves
the original actor from liability for the death resulting from the
suicide.
Nothing about the facts of this case takes it outside the holdings of these
three Arizona cases, namely that suicide or attempted suicide is not foreseeable and
constitutes an intervening event precluding liability under a negligence theory of
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liability. Trial testimony established that the officers were not the cause of
Plaintiff’s suicidal state. Admittedly, Officer Hawkins yelled for Plaintiff to drop
the knife, but Plaintiff had already placed the knife to his neck at that point.
Plaintiff had a long history of making suicidal threats, of polysubstance abuse, and
of self-mutilation. Plaintiff’s mother informed the officers that Plaintiff was
suicidal on that night and “wanted to hurt himself.” Plaintiff himself testified that
he “wanted to die” and “was glad” when he stabbed himself in the neck. Finally,
the jury absolved the City and the officers of all liability for excessive force.
Under these circumstances, the district court correctly applied Arizona negligence
law in concluding that Plaintiff’s intentional, attempted suicide was an intervening
cause of his injuries. See id.
I would affirm the judgment of the district court.
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