Kelvin Gant v. County of Los Angeles

FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION NOV 24 2014
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
KELVIN GANT, an individual; et al., No. 12-56080
Plaintiffs - Appellants, D.C. No. 2:08-cv-05756-GAF-
PJW
v.
COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES; et al., MEMORANDUM*
Defendants - Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of California
Gary A. Feess, District Judge, Presiding
Argued April 9, 2014
Submitted May 19, 2014
Pasadena, California
Before: THOMAS, M. SMITH, and CHRISTEN, Circuit Judges.
This is a case of mistaken identity arising from the separate arrests and
detentions of three men—Kelvin Gant, Reginald Lenard Smith, and Jose
Alexander Ventura—based on warrants intended for other people. Appellants filed
over twenty federal and state law claims alleging that various defendants issued
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
flawed warrants, improperly arrested them, or improperly detained them. The
district court ruled against all of the appellants’ claims at issue on appeal either on
motions to dismiss, through judgment on the pleadings, or on summary judgment.
We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and affirm.1
A dismissal for failure to state a claim pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 12(b)(6) is reviewed de novo. See Knievel v. ESPN, 393 F.3d 1068,
1072 (9th Cir. 2005). All allegations of material fact are taken as true and
construed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Id. A complaint
need not contain detailed factual allegations, but “a plaintiff’s obligation to provide
the grounds of his entitlement to relief requires more than labels and conclusions,
and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.” Bell
Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007) (alteration and internal quotation
marks omitted).
1
In an opinion filed concurrently with this memorandum disposition,
we address Gant’s Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment claims against the L.A. City
and L.A. County defendants filed under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Ventura’s Fourth and
Fourteenth Amendment § 1983 claims against the L.A. City, L.A. County, San
Bernardino, and Chino defendants, and Ventura’s Bane Act claim against the
Chino defendants.
Because the parties are familiar with the facts of the case, we will not
recount them here.
2
Judgment on the pleadings pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
12(c) is reviewed de novo. Lyon v. Chase Bank USA, N.A., 656 F.3d 877, 883 (9th
Cir. 2011). “A judgment on the pleadings is properly granted when, taking all the
allegations in the pleadings as true, the moving party is entitled to judgment as a
matter of law.” Owens v. Kaiser Found. Health Plan, Inc., 244 F.3d 708, 713 (9th
Cir. 2001) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
A district court’s decision to grant summary judgment is reviewed de novo.
Szajer v. City of Los Angeles, 632 F.3d 607, 610 (9th Cir. 2011). On review, the
appellate court must determine, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to
the nonmoving party, whether there are any genuine issues of material fact and
whether the district court correctly applied the relevant substantive law. See Olsen
v. Idaho State Bd. of Med., 363 F.3d 916, 922 (9th Cir. 2004).
1. Kelvin Gant
Kelvin Gant argues that the L.A. County defendants used “the coercive
power of law enforcement to intentionally seize and hold” him in violation of
California’s Bane Act (Cal. Civ. Code § 52.1). The district court concluded that
Gant’s complaint did not allege any act that might qualify as “threats, intimidation,
or coercion” under the Act and dismissed the claim on this basis. The record
indicates that Gant was only briefly in the L.A. County defendants’ custody, and
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only for the purpose of appearing in court. Gant argues his detention, by itself,
was a coercive act. But the California Court of Appeal recently held that “where
coercion is inherent in the constitutional violation alleged, i.e., an overdetention in
County jail, the statutory requirement of ‘threats, intimidation, or coercion’ is not
met. The statute requires a showing of coercion independent from the coercion
inherent in the wrongful detention itself.” Shoyoye v. Cnty. of Los Angeles, 137
Cal. Rptr. 3d 839, 849 (Cal. Ct. App. 2012). Gant did not allege any independent
coercive acts by the L.A. County defendants. We therefore affirm the district
court’s order dismissing this claim.
The L.A. County defendants briefly detained Gant post-arrest, and Gant
argues they knew or should have known he was falsely imprisoned because his
fingerprints did not match those of the warrant’s subject. The district court
concluded that Gant’s false imprisonment claim was barred by California Civil
Code § 43.55, which states in pertinent part: “[t]here shall be no liability on the
part of, and no cause of action shall arise against, any peace officer who makes an
arrest pursuant to a warrant of arrest regular upon its face if the peace officer in
making the arrest acts without malice and in the reasonable belief that the person
arrested is the one referred to in the warrant.” Section 43.55 pertains to arresting
officers, not jail personnel, but Lopez v. City of Oxnard rejected a similar false
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arrest claim against jail personnel. 254 Cal. Rptr. 556, 560 (Cal. Ct. App. 1989)
(“Jail personnel may not be similarly situated to police officers on the street, but
they, too, are entitled to rely on process and orders apparently valid on their
face.”); see also Rivera v. Cnty. of Los Angeles, 745 F.3d 384, 393 (9th Cir. 2014)
(confirming that jail personnel are not liable when they rely upon a warrant that is
valid upon its face). Since the warrant at issue in Gant’s arrest appeared to be valid
on its face, and because Gant does not argue that he showed his judicial clearance
form to the L.A. County defendants or otherwise complained to them that they
were detaining the wrong person, we affirm the district court’s order dismissing
Gant’s false arrest claim.
2. Reginald Lenard Smith
Smith argues that the L.A. County defendants violated the Fourth
Amendment’s particularity requirement by not including the warrant subject’s
known biometric identifiers or full name on the warrant. We assume Smith refers
to the warrant abstract, not the warrant issued by a court. Smith’s claim
challenging the particularity of the warrant is foreclosed by Rivera, which
concluded that the warrant at issue there “satisfied the particularity requirement
because it contained both the subject’s name and a detailed physical description,”
even though it did not include a Criminal Investigation and Identification number.
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Id. at 388. The warrant at issue in Smith’s arrest satisfied that standard. We affirm
the district court’s order dismissing Smith’s Fourteenth Amendment claim against
the L.A. County defendants.
Smith might also appeal the dismissal of his claim that the L.A. County
defendants over-detained him in violation of his Fourteenth Amendment due
process liberty interest.2 Assuming that this claim is raised on appeal, we affirm
the district court’s order dismissing it. The district court concluded the L.A.
County defendants had lawful authority to detain Smith from August 15, 2007 to
August 22, 2007 based on a misdemeanor warrant actually meant for him, and
from August 22, 2007 until he was released on August 28, 2007 based on a valid
court order. The latter was in place while it was determined that Smith was not the
subject of a felony sexual battery warrant that appeared in the computerized
database. Rivera held that “[i]f a suspect is held according to court order, county
officials are not required to investigate whether that court order is proper.” 745
F.3d at 392. Because Smith was detained pursuant to a court order, his jailers are
not liable for detaining him for the period from August 22 to August 28.
2
Plaintiffs’ opening brief only summarizes this claim in its discussion
of the district court’s rulings. It does not include this claim in its discussion of the
Fourteenth Amendment, and plaintiffs’ reply brief mentions Smith only in the
Fourth Amendment context.
6
The district court dismissed Smith’s Bane Act and state law false
imprisonment claims against the L.A. County defendants after concluding that
Smith failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. Smith does not address
exhaustion on appeal. Under the California Tort Claims Act, a plaintiff may not
sue a public entity for “money or damages” until he has presented the claim to that
entity, and the entity has either acted upon or rejected the claim. Cal. Gov’t Code §
945.4. The Act further provides that “[a] claim relating to a cause of action for . . .
injury to person . . . shall be presented . . . not later than six months after the
accrual of the cause of action.” Cal. Gov’t Code § 911.2(a). In the district court,
Smith did not contest that he failed to file an administrative claim, instead arguing
that he was covered under Gant’s administrative claim. Even where two people
suffer separate injuries from the same act or omission—which was not true of
Smith and Gant—one person cannot rely on an administrative claim presented by
another. Nelson v. Cnty. of Los Angeles, 6 Cal. Rptr. 3d 650, 661 (Cal. Ct. App.
2003). We affirm the district court’s order dismissing Smith’s Bane Act and false
imprisonment claims against the L.A. County defendants.
3. Jose Alexander Ventura
The district court dismissed Ventura’s Bane Act and false imprisonment
claims against the L.A. County defendants after concluding that Ventura failed to
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exhaust his administrative remedies against these defendants. Ventura does not
address exhaustion on appeal. We affirm the district court’s order dismissing these
claims.
Ventura makes the identical Bane Act claim against the San Bernardino
defendants that Gant made against the L.A. County defendants—namely, that the
defendants used the coercive power of law enforcement to intentionally seize and
hold him in violation of his rights. But, like Gant, Ventura did not allege any
independent coercive acts by the San Bernardino defendants apart from wrongful
detention. For this reason, we affirm the district court’s order granting San
Bernardino summary judgment on Ventura’s Bane Act claim.
The operative complaint did not assert a false imprisonment claim against
the San Bernardino defendants by Ventura. Ventura argues that the Third
Amended Complaint’s Third Cause of Action (Bane Act damages claim) contained
a state law false imprisonment claim. Even if the Third Cause of Action included
such a claim, the Third Cause of Action did not list San Bernardino as a defendant.
Ventura also argues that his false arrest claim is contained within the Fourth Cause
of Action, but Ventura’s Fourth Cause of Action is a §1983 claim, not a state law
claim. We therefore affirm the district court’s order dismissing Ventura’s Bane
Act claim against the San Bernardino defendants.
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On appeal, Ventura argues that he has a viable false imprisonment claim
against the Chino defendants and the district court did not rule on the claim. This
is likely because it is unclear whether the operative complaint asserted a state law
false imprisonment claim against Chino in the first place. As with the San
Bernardino defendants, Ventura argues that his state law false imprisonment claim
against the Chino defendants was included in the Third and Fourth causes of
action, but the Third Cause of Action does not list the Chino defendants, and the
Fourth Cause of Action is a § 1983 claim, not a state law claim. Thus, the district
court did not err by failing to rule on this claim.
The judgment of the district court on the aforementioned claims is affirmed.
The parties shall bear their own costs on appeal.
AFFIRMED.
9