Price v. Kramer

• Decision Date: 11 January 2000
• Docket Number: 98-55484,Nos. 97-56580,s. 97-56580
• Citation: 200 F.3d 1237
• Parties: (9th Cir. 2000) MARILYN PRICE, Guardian Ad Litem for LOHREN PRICE, CHERYL CRAMER, Guardian Ad Litem for DANIEL MASON, and NICOLE CRAMER, Guardian Ad Litem for NICHOLAS CRAMER, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. ALBERT KRAMER, STEPHEN D'ANJOU, JOSEPH DELADURANTEY, and CITY OF TORRANCE, Defendants-Appellants
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 1237

200 F.3d 1237 (9th Cir. 2000)

MARILYN PRICE, Guardian Ad Litem for LOHREN PRICE, CHERYL CRAMER, Guardian Ad Litem for DANIEL MASON, and NICOLE CRAMER, Guardian Ad Litem for NICHOLAS CRAMER, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. ALBERT KRAMER, STEPHEN D'ANJOU, JOSEPH DELADURANTEY, and CITY OF TORRANCE, Defendants-Appellants.

Nos. 97-56580, 98-55484

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

Argued and Submitted June 7, 1999

Filed January 11, 2000

[Copyrighted Material Omitted]

[Copyrighted Material Omitted]

COUNSEL: Robert D. Acciani, Senior Deputy City Attorney, Torrance, California, Martha A. Shen, Ginsburg, Stephan, Oringher & Richmond, PC, Los Angeles, California, for the defendants-appellants.

Howard R. Price, Brodey & Price, Beverly Hills California, for the plaintiffs-appellees. Alan Rubin, Epstein, Adelson, & Rubin, Los Angeles, California, for the plaintiff appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California; J. Spencer Letts, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CV-06506-JSL

Before: Dorothy W. Nelson, Stephen Reinhardt, and Stephen S. Trott, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

REINHARDT, Circuit Judge:

Three teen-age boys, two African-American and one white, brought a civil rights lawsuit in federal district court alleging that City of Torrance police officers illegally stopped their vehicle, conducted an illegal search of their car, and used excessive force in searching them, causing them bodily injury. They also alleged that the officers' conduct resulted from racial bias. The jury found in favor of the plaintiffs and awarded them $245,000 in compensatory and punitive damages. The defendants in the case, City of Torrance police officers Albert Kramer and Stephen D'Anjou, the City of Torrance, and the Torrance Police Chief, appeal the judgment below. We reverse the district court's failure to dismiss the City of Torrance and the Torrance Police Chief from the action. We affirm the district court's judgment in all other respects.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

To understand the events that follow, one needs to know a bit about the geography and demographics of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The principal city is the City of Los Angeles. There are a number of smaller communities, some incorporated, some unincorporated, that adjoin or even fall within the territory that comprises the City of the Angels, as Los Angeles is sometimes fondly called. Beverly Hills, for example, is completely surrounded by Los Angeles, and Santa Monica partially so. The City of Torrance adjoins Los Angeles along most of Torrance's eastern border, while parts of Los Angeles lie both north and south of the smaller municipality. A person going from his home in Los Angeles to work or to school in another part of the city may pass through one or more other cities including Torrance, or through unincorporated areas, or both. According to the 1990 Census, Torrance is a predominantly white community, in which blacks comprise only 1.5 percent of the population. By comparison, in the City of Los Angeles, the majority of the population is non-Caucasian, and 15 percent is black. The law enforcement needs of some of the communities in the Los Angeles area, both incorporated and unincorporated, are served by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. The City of Los Angeles and the City of Torrance, however, each has its own police department.

On May 27, 1994, Lohren Price, Daniel Mason, and Nicholas Cramer, all seventeen-year-olds, attended their last day of prep school at Harvard-Westlake Preparatory School in Los Angeles. That evening, the boys decided to celebrate their graduation by going to see the Eddie Murphy movie Beverly Hills Cop 3. After the movie let out, they drove south toward Mason's house. They took Crenshaw Boulevard, a major north-south artery that runs through both Los Angeles and Torrance. Price and Mason, who are black, were in the front seat of Price's mother's car, a 1979 Chevrolet. Cramer, who is white, was lying down on the back seat because he was tired. The boys were having fun, discussing the colleges they planned to attend and reminiscing about high school, so they decided to pass Mason's home and cruise around to talk some more before returning home for the night. At some point, Price realized that they needed gas and that they would have to stop at a service station along the way.

The boys continued to drive south on Crenshaw Boulevard. In doing so, they left Los Angeles and ended up in Torrance, without attaching any particular significance to that fact. They were approximately seven to ten minutes away from Price's and Mason's homes in Los Angeles, and barely within the municipal boundaries of Torrance when still headed southbound on Crenshaw, they stopped at a red light. A City of Torrance patrol car was stopped at the opposite traffic light, headed northbound on that same boulevard. After the light changed, the two vehicles passed each other. At trial, Officer Kramer admitted that when the cars passed, he saw only the two black teens, Price and Mason; Cramer, the white teen, was not visible to the officers. The patrol car immediately made a U-turn, accelerated to catch up, and then proceeded to follow Price's vehicle from approximately two car lengths behind.¹

The boys noticed that the patrol car had turned around and was now following them.² Price proceeded to drive within the speed limit, at 30-35 mph. Cramer, who had been dozing in the backseat, sat up and looked out the rear window. Price continued on to a Chevron station a few blocks ahead. He slowed down, applied his right-turn signal, and carefully entered the station. Price and Mason discussed taking particular pains not to make any sudden or precipitous moves that might raise the suspicions of the police officers. The patrol car also entered the station and stopped behind the boys at the pump where they were getting gas. The patrol car first parked perpendicular to Price's car, where the officers waited, staring directly at the newly graduated students. The officers then drove around, parked parallel to their car, and continued to stare. The officers next pulled out of the station and went to a parking lot across Crenshaw, where they sat, continuing their surveillance. By this time, the boys had become concerned about the officers' behavior, and they decided to go home. They pulled out of the gas station, turned onto Crenshaw, and headed northbound out of Torrance and back toward Mason's home in Los Angeles.

The officers pulled onto Crenshaw to follow the boys' vehicle. The patrol car ran a red light and caught up with the boys' car. While still behind it, the officers turned on their flashing lights. Price did not think that he had done anything wrong, but pulled over immediately. At trial, the officers testified that they made the stop because of a defective taillight and seatbelt violations. Officer Kramer testified that he first observed these traffic violations after the boys' car left the gas station and started heading north up Crenshaw. The plaintiffs argued that for various reasons it was evident that the defective taillight violation was completely fabricated. They acknowledged that two of the boys were not wearing their seatbelts, but asserted that the officers could not have known that fact until after stopping Price's car.³

Officer D'Anjou came to the driver's side of the car with his gun drawn and pointed directly at Price. Officer Kramer approached from the other side and pointed his gun at Mason's head. Mason could see D'Anjou's gun out of Price's window and Kramer's gun out his own. Officer D'Anjou asked Price for his driver's license and registration which Price handed him.

The teens were taken out of the car one at a time, and, while Officer D'Anjou kept his gun pointed at them, Officer Kramer conducted a pat-down search of each boy. Officer Kramer weighed 300 pounds and could bench press nearly 500 pounds. Officer Kramer told each boy to lock his hands together behind his head. He then gripped the teens by their hands and forcefully yanked their bodies backwards onto the curb. During the ensuing search, Officer Kramer grabbed each boy's testicles, pulled down on and then forcefully squeezed them. All three boys experienced severe pain, including nausea and extreme soreness. In each case, the sharp pain lasted throughout the questioning which followed. Mason explained, "my throat had swollen up, it felt like I swallowed a grapefruit, I had this tremendous pain in my stomach, I wanted to throw up, and I was just trying to . . . answer these questions."

Officer Kramer separately asked Price and Mason, the two African American teens, "What are you doing out here?" The questions that Officer Kramer asked Nicholas Cramer, the white teen, were of a very different character. He asked Cramer, "Do you know the two men in the car with you?" Cramer answered, "Of course." The officer next asked Cramer if the other two boys were his friends. Cramer answered, "Yes." Officer Kramer then questioned Cramer as to how long he had known the two young blacks.

Following the questioning, the boys were instructed to sit on the curb. While they were seated there, Officer D'Anjou kept his gun trained on them and instructed them not to speak to each other. Officer D'Anjou taunted Mason by aiming his gun at him and remarking, "You look like you have something on the tip of your tongue that you want to say, why don't you say it."

Meanwhile, Officer Kramer searched Price's car. He never asked permission to search the vehicle, and questioned Price only as to where his car keys were. Having obtained the keys, Officer Kramer searched the front seat, the glove compartment, the back seat, and underneath the front seat. He then opened the hood of the car, searched in the engine compartment, and opened the trunk. In the trunk, he found a box of papers belonging to Marilyn Price. He emptied out the contents of...