Quintanilla v. City of Downey, 94-56550

• Decision Date: 22 May 1996
• Docket Number: No. 94-56550,94-56550
• Citation: 84 F.3d 353
• Parties: 96 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 3597, 96 Daily Journal D.A.R. 5821 Ever QUINTANILLA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF DOWNEY; Clayton Mays; R.R. Wells; Officer Biarnesen, in his personal and official capacity; J. Hoekter, in his personal and official capacity, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 353

84 F.3d 353

96 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 3597, 96 Daily Journal

D.A.R. 5821

Ever QUINTANILLA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF DOWNEY; Clayton Mays; R.R. Wells; Officer Biarnesen, in his personal and official capacity J. Hoekter, in his personal and official capacity, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 94-56550.

United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted Dec. 11, 1995.

Decided May 22, 1996.

Donald W. Cook and Robert Mann, Los Angeles, California, for plaintiff-appellant.

John C. Burton, Pasadena, California, for plaintiff-appellant.

S. Frank Harrell, Franscell, Strickland, Roberts & Lawrence, Santa Ana, California, for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California; Lourdes G. Baird, District Judge, Presiding.

Before: SCHROEDER and O'SCANNLAIN, Circuit Judges, and BURNS, ^* District Judge.

ORDER

SCHROEDER, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff Ever Quintanilla appeals from a judgment entered after a jury verdict against him in his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 suit against the city of Downey, its police chief, and three individual officers. The suit alleged that the use of a police dog to search and detain Quintanilla during his arrest violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment. Plaintiff challenges the district court's denial of his motion for a directed verdict on the issue of deadly force, its denial of his motion for a new trial because of allegedly erroneous evidentiary rulings and jury instructions, and its entry of judgment for the police chief and the city on the basis of jury findings that the individual police officers did not violate Quintanilla's constitutional rights. ¹ We affirm.

BACKGROUND

Shortly after midnight on July 27, 1991, the city of Downey's police dispatcher radioed a report that a Ford Bronco had been stolen. One officer spotted the Bronco, driven by Quintanilla, and began a high speed chase through various residential areas. The auto chase ended in a dead-end cul-de-sac, where Quintanilla got out, threw an empty vodka bottle at the officer, scaled a barbed-wire fence, and vanished into a poorly lit truck-yard.

Other line officers, including defendant Randy Wells, arrived at the cul-de-sac and picked up the pursuit using a trained, German Shepard police dog. Wells announced that if Quintanilla did not surrender voluntarily, a canine unit would be released to find him. After receiving no response, Wells released the dog, which almost immediately found Quintanilla hiding between two trucks, beyond the officers' reach. The dog bit Quintanilla's arms and legs. The officers heard the scuffling, ran to the scene, and observed Quintanilla in control of the dog, holding it in a head-lock. Wells repeatedly ordered Quintanilla to release the dog and surrender, but he refused. Wells then entered the area between the trucks, dragged Quintanilla out into an open area, where the other officers handcuffed him, and ordered the dog away. The dog immediately complied. The scuffle with the dog lasted approximately one minute. Quintanilla required medical treatment but suffered no serious injuries.

Quintanilla sued Wells and the two assisting line officers, Keith Biarnesen and John Hoekter, on various federal and state grounds, including the asserted use of excessive force through the deployment of a police dog in violation of Quintanilla's right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment. Quintanilla also sued the city of Downey and its Police Chief, Clayton Mayes, alleging their maintenance of an unconstitutional custom or policy involving police dogs. See Monell v. Dep't of Social Services of City of New York, 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978). Prior to trial, the district court, over Quintanilla's opposition, bifurcated the claims against the three individual line officers and the Police Chief and city, so that the first phase of the trial would address the excessive force claim against the individual officers, and the second phase the Monell claim against the Chief and city. The court, relying upon City of Los Angeles v. Heller, 475 U.S. 796, 799, 106 S.Ct. 1571, 1573, 89 L.Ed.2d 806 (1986), ruled that if the jury found that the three line officers committed no constitutional transgressions when they used the dog to arrest Quintanilla, then the city and Chief would be absolved, as a matter of law, from any liability under Monell. The court thus required plaintiff to show during the first phase that the use of the police dog Plaintiff, in an attempt to circumvent the district court's bifurcation and evidentiary rulings, voluntarily dismissed the three individual officers so that he could offer evidence of the policy during the first phase. The district court rejected the offer as an attempt to influence the jury with other incidents, and admitted only evidence relevant to the issue of the individual officers' liability in Quintanilla's case. In doing so, the court excluded testimony from Mr. VanNess Bogardus, a police practices expert, and Dr. Peter Meade, a medical expert. At the close of evidence, the court denied plaintiff's motion for a directed verdict. The jury then returned a special verdict finding that the individual officers had not used excessive force in violation of plaintiff's Fourth Amendment rights. Accordingly, the court entered judgment for the Chief and city on the grounds that Monell liability may not arise absent a constitutional violation of the plaintiff's rights. It then denied plaintiff's motions for judgment as a matter of law and for a new trial. Plaintiff timely appealed.

                on this occasion led to a constitutional deprivation.   Accordingly, in a pre-trial ruling, the court excluded from the first phase any evidence of police dog use in other situations.   Plaintiff offered such evidence to prove the existence, under Monell, of an unconstitutional policy.   This evidence included graphic photographs, from unrelated cases, of police dog bite victims;  medical summaries, prepared for an unrelated case, of persons bitten by police dogs;  a videotape of a police dog attack in a different case, and a police dog training videotape
                

On appeal, Quintanilla argues that the district court erred in 1) entering judgment on the Monell claim for the Chief and city solely on the basis of the jury's finding that the individual officers did not violate plaintiff's constitutional rights; 2) denying his motion for a new trial based on the exclusion of the photographs, medical summaries, videotapes, and expert testimony; 3) denying his motion for a new trial based on the failure to give instructions relating to the use of deadly force; and 4) denying his related motion for directed verdict on the issue of deadly force.

DISCUSSION

The Monell Claim

Underlying this entire appeal is plaintiff's position that he should not have been required to show that the individual police officers violated his constitutional rights before proceeding on the theory that the Chief and city maintained a policy that resulted in the constitutional violation of other individuals' rights. The dispositive authority is City of Los Angeles v. Heller, 475 U.S. 796, 106 S.Ct. 1571, 89 L.Ed.2d 806 (1986)(per curiam). The Supreme Court there held that a public entity is not liable for § 1983 damages under a policy that can cause constitutional deprivations, when the factfinder concludes that an individual officer, acting pursuant to the policy, inflicted no constitutional harm to the plaintiff. Id. at 799, 106 S.Ct. at 1573; see also Palmerin v. City of Riverside, 794 F.2d 1409, 1414-15 (9th Cir.1986). In so holding, the Court said:

[i]f a person has suffered no constitutional injury at the hands of the individual police officer, the fact that the departmental regulations might have authorized the use of constitutionally excessive force is quite beside the point.

475 U.S. at 799, 106 S.Ct. at 1573 (emphasis in original). Thus, an individual may recover under § 1983 only when his federal rights have been violated.

Plaintiff cites Chew v. Gates, 27 F.3d 1432, 1438, 1445 (9th Cir.1994), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 1097, 130 L.Ed.2d 1065 (1995), and Hopkins v. Andaya, 958 F.2d 881, 888 (9th Cir.1992), for the proposition that a police department may be liable under § 1983 for damages caused by unconstitutional policies notwithstanding the exoneration of the individual officer whose actions were the immediate cause of the constitutional injury. While this may be true if the plaintiff established that he suffered a constitutional injury, and the officer's exoneration resulted from qualified immunity, see Palmerin, 794 F.2d at 1414-15, this proposition has no applicability here. Plaintiff failed to establish that he suffered a constitutional injury.

In the instant case, plaintiff's strategy was to convince the jury to award him damages on the strength of evidence concerning police dog attacks on others. The district court, under Fed.R.Civ.P. 42(b), in the interest not only of convenience and judicial economy but also the avoidance of potential prejudice and confusion, bifurcated the trial of the individual police officers from the Chief and city. See Larez v. City of Los Angeles, 946 F.2d 630, 635, 640 (9th Cir.1991). The bifurcation enabled the court to separate the questions regarding the constitutionality of the three officers' actions from the questions regarding the Chief and city's liability under Monell. Plaintiff was not entitled to circumvent the bifurcation and evidentiary rulings by voluntarily dismissing the three individual officers and proceeding to demonstrate the existence of a policy using evidence of attacks more severe than his own. Under Heller and general principles of § 1983 liability, an individual may recover only when that individual's federal rights have been violated. The district court correctly entered judgment for the Chief and city based on the jury's special...