Jackson v. Hayakawa
| Citation | 605 F.2d 1121 |
| Decision Date | 04 October 1979 |
| Docket Number | No. 77-2289,77-2289 |
| Parties | CA 79-3695 Charles JACKSON, Lonnie Daniels, Johnny Jenkins, Peter Pursley, Jean Simmons, Isaac Reams, Steve Bell, Trotter Jordan, and Anthony Greene, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, the Black Students' Union, an unincorporated association, Willie E. Phillips and Phillip Frazier, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. S. I. HAYAKAWA, former President of San Francisco State College, Board of Trustees of the California State College System, San Francisco State College, Donald Garrity, Vice President for Academic Affairs at San Francisco State College, Frank Dollard, Executive Vice President at San Francisco State College, Donald Scobel, Administrative Assistant at San Francisco State College, Edward Duerr, Coordinator of Internal Affairs at San Francisco State College, Orrin Deland, Business Manager at San Francisco State College, William Harkness, Dean of Student Activities at San Francisco State College, Bruce Angell, Activities Advisor at San Francisco State College, and Paul Romberg, current President of San Francisco State College, Individually and in their official capacity, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (9th Circuit) |
Jeffrey B. Neustadt, Lawrence L. Curtice (argued), San Francisco, Cal., for plaintiffs-appellants.
Matthew P. Boyle, Deputy Atty. Gen., San Francisco, Cal., for defendants-appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
Before TRASK and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges, and WYATT, * District Judge.
This civil rights case arose from the campus turmoil which occurred at San Francisco State College (now known as California State University, San Francisco) in late 1968 and early 1969. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendant college officials. The plaintiffs (a former instructor and students at the college) appeal, raising questions involving the statute of limitations, res judicata, and the sufficiency of their pleadings. We affirm in part and reverse in part.
In the fall of 1968 the Black Students' Union initiated a student-faculty strike at San Francisco State College (College). On January 23, 1969, there was a rally in the College's central campus area, which was conducted in contravention of a ban on such meetings which had been imposed earlier by S. I. Hayakawa, the then President of the College. After the rally had begun, one of the College officials attempted to have the crowd disperse. A San Francisco police officer then informed the crowd that the meeting was unlawful and ordered everyone to leave the area. After these warnings were ignored, the police arrested over four hundred people. All of those arrested were charged with violations of California Penal Code §§ 408 (unlawful assembly), 409 (failure to disperse), and 415 (disturbing the peace).
A number of suits were filed as a result of these arrests and the disciplinary proceedings which were conducted by the College.
1 In Carrillo v. Hayakawa, No. C-50808 (N.D.Cal. June 27, 1969), a declaratory judgment action was filed on behalf of all those arrested, challenging both the constitutionality of the state statutes under which everyone was arrested, and their application. A three-judge federal court rejected both arguments. There was no appeal. The district court held the statutes were not unconstitutional on their face and also were not enforced in bad faith so as to discourage plaintiffs from exercising their First Amendment rights. In Wong v. Hayakawa, No. 50983 (April 24, 1969), the disciplinary proceedings conducted by the College were challenged. The district court found that the arrested students were given notice and a sufficient hearing to meet procedural due process notice and hearing requirements. It found, however, that due process was violated in the limited instance where the decision to discipline was based solely upon a police report that did not show any evidence of misconduct on the part of the plaintiffs. The court then issued an affirmative injunction, ordering the University to expunge from plaintiffs' school records all reference to disciplinary action and to reinstate plaintiffs as students. The court also suggested that the same be done for all students who were disciplined solely on the basis of the police report. This court, on appeal, affirmed the order of the district court, Wong v. Hayakawa, 464 F.2d 1282 (9th Cir. 1972), Cert. denied, 409 U.S. 1130, 93 S.Ct. 938, 35 L.Ed.2d 263 (1973).
The present action was originally filed on March 21, 1972. The first complaint was filed by one former black student and two black student organizations. Amended complaints adding plaintiffs and new claims were subsequently filed. It was determined that the action might be maintained as a class action in respect of the second of the five claims, but not otherwise (Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(c)(1)). The court below granted summary judgment on all five claims of the Third Amended Complaint which had been filed on December 17, 1975.
The plaintiffs appeal from the adverse judgment on four of their claims. One claim involves the allegation that the mass arrests were unconstitutional. Another deals with a blacklist circulated at the College which barred all those arrested from employment. The third claim stems from the College disciplinary proceedings against those arrested. And the final claim on appeal involves allegations by black students who allegedly were not paid for work performed for the College. Since each claim implicates different issues, we address each separately.
In reviewing the summary judgment granted by the court below, this court will affirm the judgment only when it appears "that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). The record and the inferences derived therefrom are reviewed in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. Great Western Bank & Trust v. Kotz, 532 F.2d 1252, 1254 (9th Cir. 1976); 10 Wright and A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure (West 1973), § 2716.
This, the first claim, is based on the arrests of the people who attended the campus rally on January 23, 1969. Plaintiffs Greene and Simmons brought it as a class action on behalf of all those who were arrested at the rally. The essence of this claim is the allegation that the College officials, along with the San Francisco Police, engaged in a conspiracy to deprive the plaintiffs of their First Amendment rights by having them arrested. In turn, this is dependent upon the implicit assertion that the statutes under which the arrests were made (§§ 408, 409, and 415) were applied without good faith and for the purpose of depriving plaintiffs of their First Amendment rights.
The court below granted summary judgment on this claim finding that it was either barred by the statute of limitations or res judicata. Because we find ample grounds to support summary judgment based on principles of res judicata, we do not decide whether summary judgment was appropriate under the alternative ground of the statute of limitations.
In Carrillo v. Hayakawa, No. C-50808 (N.D.Cal., June 27, 1969), a three-judge federal court rejected a similar challenge to the validity of the mass arrests. The plaintiffs in Carrillo brought their suit on behalf of themselves and others similarly situated challenging the constitutionality of the January 23 arrests. The court found that the arrests under §§ 408, 409 and 415 were proper and had not been conducted in bad faith. 2
Under the principles of res judicata, a judgment on the merits in a prior suit bars a second suit involving the same parties or their privies based on the same cause of action. Parklane Hosiery Co. v. Shore, 439 U.S. 322, 326 n. 5, 99 S.Ct. 645, 649 n. 5, 58 L.Ed.2d 552, 559 n. 5 (1979); Hooker v. Klein, 573 F.2d 1360, 1367 (9th Cir. 1978), Cert. denied, 439 U.S. 932, 99 S.Ct. 323, 58 L.Ed.2d 327. On appeal, the plaintiffs argue that Carrillo 3 did not involve either the same cause of action or the same parties. 4
The plaintiffs concede that Carrillo presented and decided the issue of whether the California criminal statutes which were used in the mass arrests were applied unconstitutionally and in bad faith to discourage the First Amendment rights of free speech and assembly. Nonetheless, the plaintiffs contend that the question of whether the California criminal statutes "were unconstitutional as applied to the arrests in question" was not resolved in Carrillo. We are unable to perceive any meaningful distinction between the issue decided in Carrillo and the issue presented in the present case. The rights sought to be vindicated remain the same, the passage of years has not altered their character in any way. Both cases arose out of the mass arrests which occurred on January 23, 1969. Although damages are sought here, whereas declaratory relief was sought in Carrillo, the issues are identical. Cambist Films, Inc. v. Duggan, 475 F.2d 887, 890-891 (3d Cir. 1973) (Van Dusen, J., concurring). Both cases involved the question of whether the defendants had applied the California criminal statutes in bad faith in violation of the constitutional rights of those arrested. 5
Plaintiffs argue that the parties to the Carrillo suit are not the same as those involved in the present case. They claim that Carrillo involved different plaintiffs. 6 Although the named plaintiffs may have been different, we otherwise disagree with this contention. Initially, courts are no longer bound by rigid definitions of the parties or their privies for the purposes of applying collateral estoppel or res judicata. See Montana v. United States, 440 U.S. 147, 155-158, 99 S.Ct. 970, 975-976, 59 L.Ed.2d 210, 216-218 (1979); and Green v. Ancora-Citronelle Corp., 577 F.2d...
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