Scott v. Cnty. of San Bernardino

• Decision Date: 10 September 2018
• Docket Number: No. 16-55518,16-55518
• Citation: 903 F.3d 943
• Parties: David SCOTT, as guardian ad litem for his minor daughter, S.S.; Angelica Santana, as guardian ad litem for her minor daughter, L.R.; Dejah Hall, as guardian ad litem for her minor daughter, R.H., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. COUNTY OF SAN BERNARDINO; Luis Ortiz; Anthony Thomas, Defendants-Appellants, Andrew Garcia, Defendant, Etiwanda School District; Balbina Kendall; Janella Cantu-Myricks, Cross-Defendants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

903 F.3d 943

David SCOTT, as guardian ad litem for his minor daughter, S.S.; Angelica Santana, as guardian ad litem for her minor daughter, L.R.; Dejah Hall, as guardian ad litem for her minor daughter, R.H., Plaintiffs-Appellees,

v. COUNTY OF SAN BERNARDINO; Luis Ortiz; Anthony Thomas, Defendants-Appellants,Andrew Garcia, Defendant,Etiwanda School District; Balbina Kendall; Janella Cantu-Myricks, Cross-Defendants.

No. 16-55518

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted November 13, 2017, Pasadena, California

Filed September 10, 2018

Laura L. Crane (argued), Deputy County Counsel; Jean-Rene Basle, County Counsel; San Bernardino County Counsel, San Bernardino, California; for Defendants-Appellants.

Brenton Whitney Aitken Hands (argued), Law Office of Jerry L. Steering, Newport Beach, California, for Plaintiffs-Appellees.

Before: Jacqueline H. Nguyen and Andrew D. Hurwitz, Circuit Judges, and Richard K. Eaton,^* Judge.

NGUYEN, Circuit Judge:

On October 8, 2013, a group of seventh grade girls (twelve and thirteen year-olds) were handcuffed, arrested, and transported in police vehicles from their middle school campus to the police station. An assistant principal had asked a school resource officer, Sheriff’s Deputy Luis Ortiz, to counsel a group of girls who had been involved in ongoing incidents of bullying and fighting. School officials gathered the girls in a classroom to wait for Deputy Ortiz. The group included both aggressors and victims, and the school did not identify or separate them. When he arrived on campus, Deputy Ortiz initially intended to verify the information the school had given him and to mediate the conflict. Within minutes, however, Deputy Ortiz concluded that the girls were being unresponsive and disrespectful. He decided to arrest the girls because, as he explained to them, he was not "playing around" and taking them to jail was the easiest way to "prove a point" and "make [them] mature a lot faster." Deputy Ortiz stated that he did not care "who [was] at fault, who did what" because "it [was] the same, same ticket, same pair of handcuffs."

Three of the girls sued the arresting officers and the County of San Bernardino for unlawful arrest in violation of state laws and the Fourth Amendment. The district court denied the defendants qualified immunity and granted summary judgment in favor of the students. We affirm.

I.Factual Background

A. Events Leading to the Arrests

In September and October of 2013, seventh-grade student L.V. harassed and bullied several classmates, including Plaintiffs L.R. and S.S., at the Etiwanda Intermediate Middle School ("EIS") in Rancho Cucamonga, California. On September 6, 2013, L.V. assaulted L.R. on the school’s playground. L.V. approached L.R. during a classroom break, grabbed her hair, and punched her in the face. R.H., the third plaintiff in this case, tried to pull L.V. off L.R. L.R. did not hit L.V. back, but the school suspended both girls. According to L.R.’s mother, Angelica Santana, the Assistant Principal, Balbina Kendall, told L.R. and Santana that it was school policy to suspend any student involved in a fight, regardless of who was at fault.

After the incident, Santana asked school officials for help in filing a police report with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. Deputy Anthony Thomas, a school resource officer, met with L.R. and Santana about the altercation. Santana asked Deputy Thomas about filing a restraining order against L.V. to protect her daughter L.R., but he replied that it would not be "practical" since the girls attended school together.¹ Deputy Thomas also told his colleague, Deputy Ortiz, that he had taken a report regarding a fight on campus, but did not share any further details.

A few weeks later, L.V. told other students that she was going to assault S.S. On October 2, 2013, S.S. confronted L.V. and said "[i]f you’re going to beat me up, get it over with," and "hit me, bitch." L.V. made good on her threat by punching S.S., who did not hit L.V. back. S.S. later successfully asked the school to change her schedule to separate her from L.V. Over the following weekend, L.V. and another student, A.J., attempted to assault L.R. and S.S. in a local park. The victims fled, seeking assistance at the home of a stranger, who allowed them to call their parents to pick them up.

B. The Arrests

On the morning of October 8, 2013, Santana notified the school that L.V. had attacked her daughter, L.R., over the weekend, and that she was afraid L.V. would attack L.R. again at school. That same morning, L.R., S.S., and R.H. went together to the school office and asked to speak with someone about L.V.’s bullying and threats. No administrator was available to speak with them, and the girls were sent to class. Later, the three girls and two other students, L.V. and A.J., were summoned to a group meeting to discuss the conflict. Two other students, M.L. and H.P., were brought to the room shortly after.

Assistant Principal Kendall had asked Deputy Ortiz to come to school in order to speak to the students. Kendall, Deputy Ortiz, and the school’s principal, Janella Cantu-Myricks, were present at the meeting. Kendall told Deputy Ortiz that she had gathered a group of female students who had been involved in an "ongoing feud." Kendall had previously told Deputy Ortiz that EIS had made multiple unsuccessful attempts to stop the conflict and that the problem was escalating. Deputy Ortiz had responded to an "unusually high" number of physical fights between students since the start of the school year.

Kendall addressed the students first, stating that "the threats, the fights after school, the threats [to] fight [at] school ... this needs to end." She told them "[s]o far as I know, all five ... all seven of you are, have been part of this continuous argument, on campus and off campus. And that is why the officer, Officer Ortiz, is here today. We are going to put an end to this." Deputy Ortiz then spoke to the students, in an "attempt[ ] to mediate the problems between the two factions of students and verify[ ] the information provided" to him by Kendall. Deputy Ortiz quickly formed the view that the students were unresponsive to his efforts and were behaving disrespectfully, based on their "body language and continued whispering." An audio tape of the incident, however, reflects mostly silence in response to Deputy Ortiz’s questioning; no student is captured on the audio as speaking loudly or being verbally aggressive.²

Within minutes after his arrival, Deputy Ortiz threatened to take all of the students to jail to "prove a point." He told the students, "And for the one lady laughing that thinks it’s funny, I am not playing around. I am dead serious that we are taking you guys to jail. That might [be], it might be-is, the most easiest thing to do ... to wanting to prove a point ... that I am not playing around. ... Eventually, maybe, you guys will make it into high school, then I will have to deal with you even more. Here is a good opportunity for me to prove a point and make you guys mature a lot faster." Deputy Ortiz also said that he did not care "who is at fault, who did what. ... To me, it is the same, same ticket, same pair of handcuffs."

Deputy Ortiz then announced that he was arresting all of the students for unlawful fighting in violation of California Penal Code § 415. He called Deputy Thomas for backup, and together the two deputies cited and handcuffed all seven students. L.R. and S.S. were handcuffed in the classroom, and R.H. was handcuffed outside of the school while waiting for police transport. Six of the seven girls, including the three Plaintiffs, were driven in police vehicles to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, where they were separated, interviewed, and released to their parents. L.V.—the alleged aggressor—was released to her father on the school campus. Deputy Ortiz later stated that he decided to arrest all seven girls, instead of releasing them to their parents, to avoid what he believed would be further disruption to the school’s campus, and to prevent potential conflict between the girls’ parents.

The school took no disciplinary action against any of the seven students, and no criminal charges were filed.

C. The Present Lawsuit

The parents of L.R., S.S., and R.H. sued Deputy Ortiz, Deputy Thomas,³ and the County of San Bernardino. The district court granted partial summary judgment to Defendants on several claims, but set the case for trial on the students’ Fourth Amendment claims, as well as their state law false arrest and imprisonment claims. On the day trial was to begin, the court allowed Plaintiffs to move for summary judgment on the remaining claims based on newly-discovered authority regarding the scope of California Penal Code § 415, which the Defendants had claimed justified the students’ arrests. The district court then granted summary judgment to the students. Defendants timely appealed.

II.Standard of Review

We review de novo both the district court’s grant of summary judgment and its decision on qualified immunity. Davis v. City of Las Vegas, 478 F.3d 1048, 1053 (9th Cir. 2007).

III.Discussion

In determining whether a police officer is entitled to qualified immunity, we ask (1) whether he violated a constitutional right, and (2) whether the right was "clearly established" at the time of the violation. See Saucier v. Katz , 533 U.S. 194, 200, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001). "These two prongs of the analysis need not be considered in any particular order, and both prongs must be satisfied for a plaintiff to overcome a qualified immunity defense." Shafer v. Cty. of Santa Barbara , 868 F.3d 1110, 1115 (9th Cir. 2017).

A.The Fourth Amendment Violation

We begin our analysis with New Jersey v. T.L.O. , in which the Supreme Court held that the Fourth Amendment’s "prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures applies to searches conducted by public school officials." 469 U.S. 325, 333...