Noe Silva v. San Pablo Police Department ( 2020 )

FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
MAR 9 2020
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
NOE ADALBERTO SILVA; VERONICA No. 18-16453
DE SILVA,
D.C. No. 3:16-cv-04360-VC
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v. MEMORANDUM*
SAN PABLO POLICE DEPARTMENT;
et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of California
Vince Chhabria, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted January 24, 2020
San Francisco, California
Before: W. FLETCHER and R. NELSON, Circuit Judges, and SESSIONS,**
District Judge.
Plaintiffs Noe Adalberto Silva (“Silva”) and Veronica de Silva filed an
action in district court in August 2016 after San Pablo Police officers, suspecting
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The Honorable William K. Sessions III, United States District Judge
for the District of Vermont, sitting by designation.
Silva was a burglar, used a canine to apprehend and subdue him in his bedroom.
This action (“Silva I”) named as defendants the City of San Pablo (“San Pablo”),
the San Pablo Police Department (“SPPD”), SPPD Police Chief Lisa Rosales, and
“Does 1 through 10,” in their individual and official capacities. In November
2017, plaintiffs filed a second complaint (“Silva II”) for damages stemming from
the same incident against SPPD officers Brett Bennett, Robert Brady, Scott Cook,
David Hoff, Jeremy Johnson, Amardeep Kullar, and “Does 1 through 10,” in their
individual capacities.
Plaintiffs appeal several of the district court’s decisions, including its grant
of summary judgment in favor of San Pablo in Silva I. We have jurisdiction under
28 U.S.C. § 1291. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand.
1. Plaintiffs argue that the district court abused its discretion when it denied
their motion for leave to amend their Silva I complaint to add as named defendants
the individual officers involved in the incident. Plaintiffs filed their motion to
amend on February 15, 2018, after the district court suggested that Silva II might
be dismissed as duplicative under the claim-splitting doctrine. The district court
ultimately dismissed Silva II for this reason.
The district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that granting the
plaintiffs’ motion to amend their Silva I complaint under Rule 15(a) would have
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caused undue delay and possible prejudice to the opposing party. See In re Tracht
Gut, LLC, 836 F.3d 1146, 1151–52 (9th Cir. 2016). The plaintiffs moved for leave
to amend their complaint well after learning the identities of the involved
officers—specifically, some fourteen months after San Pablo produced
investigative materials in the action. This delay was partially attributable to
strategic decisions by plaintiffs’ counsel. Additionally, the defendants faced
possible prejudice by virtue of amendment. When the plaintiffs moved to amend,
discovery in Silva I had already closed; two rounds of summary judgment filings
had occurred; and trial was set for four months out. Under these circumstances, the
district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the plaintiffs leave to amend
their Silva I complaint. See, e.g., Lockheed Martin Corp., v. Network Solutions,
Inc., 194 F.3d 980, 986 (9th Cir. 1999); Ascon Props., Inc. v. Mobil Oil Co., 866
F.2d 1149, 1161 (9th Cir. 1989); Parker v. Joe Lujan Enters., Inc., 848 F.2d 118,
121 (9th Cir. 1988); cf. DCD Programs, Ltd. v. Leighton, 833 F.2d 183, 187–88
(9th Cir. 1987). We affirm.
2. Plaintiffs contend the district court erred when it found that they did not
sue Chief Rosales in her individual capacity and accordingly granted her summary
judgment on all claims. We review de novo a district court’s grant of summary
judgment. Martinez v. City of Clovis, 943 F.3d 1260, 1269 (9th Cir. 2019). The
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district court based its decision solely on plaintiffs’ response to an interrogatory
refusing to answer a question. However, the interrogatory response indicates that
plaintiffs may have believed evidence supporting their theory of Chief Rosales’s
individual liability overlapped with evidence supporting their municipal liability
claims and was therefore excluded from discovery under a bifurcation order by the
court. The district court later clarified its bifurcation order. Moreover, the Silva I
complaint specifically stated, “Plaintiff sues Rosales in her individual and official
capacities.” The district court’s decision was error, and we reverse.
3. Plaintiffs argue the district court erred in finding that SPPD was not a
separate legal entity capable of being sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and in
therefore granting summary judgment to SPPD on the § 1983 claims. We review
this question de novo. Martinez, 943 F.3d at 1269.
The Supreme Court in Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of
New York, 436 U.S. 658, 690 (1978), held that municipalities and other local
governmental units could be sued as “persons” under § 1983. The Ninth Circuit
has squarely held that, depending on state law, a local law enforcement agency can
be a separately suable entity. See Streit v. Cty. of Los Angeles, 236 F.3d 552,
565–67 (9th Cir. 2001); Karim-Panahi v. Los Angeles Police Dep’t, 839 F.2d 621,
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624 n.2 (9th Cir. 1988). The district court erred in holding otherwise without
analysis of state law.
4. Finally, plaintiffs argue that the district court erred in granting summary
judgment on their § 1983 claims on the ground that they had not sufficiently shown
San Pablo could be liable under Monell for any constitutional violations its police
officers may have committed. We review this question de novo. Martinez, 943
F.3d at 1269. Like the district court, we assume a reasonable jury could find
constitutional violations (excessive force, unlawful entry, and false arrest).
A plaintiff may hold a municipality liable for constitutional violations if he
or she proves that “a city employee committed the alleged constitutional violation
pursuant to a formal governmental policy . . . .” Gillette v. Delmore, 979 F.2d
1342, 1346 (9th Cir. 1992) (citing Jett v. Dallas Indep. Sch. Dist., 491 U.S. 701,
737 (1989)). A plaintiff must then show that “the circumstance was (1) the cause
in fact and (2) the proximate cause of the constitutional deprivation.” Trevino v.
Gates, 99 F.3d 911, 918 (9th Cir. 1996). As the district court acknowledged, a
policymaker’s after-the-fact approval of a subordinate’s conduct may be used as
evidence that a municipality had a pre-existing policy that caused the alleged
constitutional violations. See, e.g., Larez v. City of Los Angeles, 946 F.2d 630, 647
(9th Cir. 1991).
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The district court held that plaintiffs had argued Chief Rosales’s after-the-
fact “ratification” of the officers’ actions was a “cause in fact” of their injuries,
rather than evidence of pre-existing policy. We do not read plaintiffs’ argument to
the district court so narrowly. We read their argument to have been that Chief
Rosales’s ratification was evidence of San Pablo’s pre-existing policy concerning
use of canines, pursuant to which the officers acted.
Here, two pieces of evidence suggest the existence of such a policy. First,
Chief Rosales, an official policymaker for SPPD, reviewed and approved of the
officers’ conduct. In a deposition, she testified that she reviewed “the reports,”
“the audio,” “the incident history, the call history,” and “the canine and use of
force policy” before “sign[ing] off on the incident” because she “believe[d] that it
was within policy and training.” Second, San Pablo’s own expert opined that both
the officers’ entry into the plaintiffs’ home and their decision to deploy the police
canine were “reasonable, lawful, . . . and consistent with . . . departmental policies
and procedures.” Accordingly, there is a triable issue of fact as to the existence of
a municipal policy under Monell and San Pablo’s liability under § 1983. We
reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment.
We AFFIRM in part, REVERSE in part, and REMAND for proceedings
consistent with this disposition. The parties shall bear their own costs.
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