Los Angeles Police Protective League v. Gates

• Decision Date: 08 June 1993
• Docket Number: 91-55361,Nos. 91-55293,s. 91-55293
• Parties: LOS ANGELES POLICE PROTECTIVE LEAGUE, Plaintiff, and Roger Gibson, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Daryl F. GATES, Chief of Police, et al., Defendant-Appellee. LOS ANGELES POLICE PROTECTIVE LEAGUE, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Daryl F. GATES, Chief of Police, et al.; Marvin Iannone; Donald Vincent; Charles Dinse; Robert Kellar; Kenneth Colby; Harry Nearing; City of Los Angeles, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 1469

995 F.2d 1469

LOS ANGELES POLICE PROTECTIVE LEAGUE, Plaintiff, and Roger Gibson, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Daryl F. GATES, Chief of Police, et al., Defendant-Appellee.

LOS ANGELES POLICE PROTECTIVE LEAGUE, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Daryl F. GATES, Chief of Police, et al.; Marvin Iannone;

Donald Vincent; Charles Dinse; Robert Kellar;

Kenneth Colby; Harry Nearing; City of

Los Angeles, Defendants-Appellants.

Nos. 91-55293, 91-55361.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted July 7, 1992.

Decided June 8, 1993.

Larry J. Roberts, Gregory G. Petersen, a Law Corp., Orange, CA, for plaintiffs-appellants.

S. David Hotchkiss, Deputy City Atty., Los Angeles, CA, for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California, Richard A. Gadbois, Jr., District Judge, Presiding.

Before: FLETCHER, O'SCANNLAIN, and KLEINFELD, Circuit Judges.

O'SCANNLAIN, Circuit Judge:

This is the second round in a federal civil rights action brought by Gibson, a terminated police officer, against the City of Los Angeles and several police officials arising out of a corruption investigation and disciplinary hearing by the Los Angeles Police Department.

I

The facts of this case are set forth in the prior opinion of this court, Los Angeles Police Protective League v. Gates, 907 F.2d 879 (9th Cir.1990). We summarize the relevant history here.

In the early 1980s, the Los Angeles Police Department ("LAPD") conducted an investigation of corruption in its Hollywood Division. The LAPD Internal Affairs Division ("IAD") uncovered evidence that officers of the Hollywood Division were conducting burglaries while on duty. A fellow Hollywood Division officer caught in an IAD sting implicated Gibson.

The IAD obtained an administrative warrant to search Gibson's home garage and vehicles for stolen goods. When the warrant was served on Gibson, he refused to allow the IAD to conduct the search. Gibson was then charged with insubordination.

Gibson was first given notice of charges against him on June 25, 1982, and he discussed the charges at the time with his commanding officer. More charges were added on June 27, 1982 and August 10, 1982. In each of these latter instances, Gibson declined to discuss or to respond to the charges, although he was given the opportunity to do so. On August 13, 1982, Gibson was relieved from duty without pay.

A hearing was conducted on November 29, 1982 before the Board of Rights, the LAPD's disciplinary review board. Gibson was found not guilty of committing burglaries while on duty, but was found guilty of thirteen offenses, including insubordination regarding the administrative warrant incident, "improperly abandoning ... an unsecured business," failing "to properly recover evidence," and ten counts of lying to investigators. The Board recommended that Gibson be dismissed, and the LAPD terminated Gibson on January 21, 1983.

Gibson filed suit in federal court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging constitutional violations in connection with his dismissal. Named as defendants were the City of Los Angeles and various officials of the LAPD, including Chief Gates and former Acting Chief Ianonne, and members of the IAD, collectively referred to as "LAPD parties."

The district court found as a matter of law that the attempt to search Gibson's garage and vehicles based only on an administrative warrant violated the Fourth Amendment, and hence that the LAPD's imposition of discipline for Gibson's objection to such search was improper. The district court further found that the individual defendants were not protected by qualified immunity. The district court also granted summary judgment for Gibson on his claim that being denied an opportunity personally to address the ultimate decisionmaker, here the chief of police, violated due process.

Liability for other alleged constitutional violations, and the question of damages for all constitutional violations, was left to the jury. The jury returned a verdict awarding Gibson $2,887,000 in compensatory damages and $55,000 in punitive damages. The verdict form allowed the jury to apportion the damages among the various alleged constitutional infractions and the various defendants. The district court found the amount of damages excessive as a matter of law, and offered Gibson a remittitur down to $1,550,000, which he accepted.

The LAPD parties appealed. This court affirmed in part, reversed in part and remanded for further proceedings. We agreed with the district court that the attempted search of Gibson's garage and vehicles, based merely on an administrative search warrant, violated the Fourth Amendment. We concluded, however, that the individual defendants were all protected by qualified immunity, and that the city had no policy of conducting administrative searches of officers' homes and thus also was not liable. "[N]one of the [defendants] can be held liable for disciplining Gibson because he refused to accede to the administrative search." Los Angeles Police Protective League, 907 F.2d at 890.

The prior decision of this court also reversed the district court's summary judgment for Gibson that due process required personal access to the ultimate decisionmaker. "Gibson did have the opportunity to meet with his commanding officer, Captain Dyment; he did not have the right to a face-to-face meeting with Iannone." Id. at 892.

We also reversed two specific parts of the jury verdict as unsupported by substantial evidence: (1) that the City, Chief Gates, former Acting Chief Iannone, and IAD Captain Vincent had falsely accused Gibson of stealing a car battery when they knew he had in fact not done so, and (2) that the LAPD parties (except for Vincent) had denied Gibson an adequate opportunity to clear his name.

We affirmed the remaining parts of the verdict: (1) that the LAPD parties "failed to provide Gibson with relevant information on which his suspension was based and failed to provide Gibson with information relevant to his Board of Rights hearing"; (2) that IAD Captain Vincent, Acting Chief Iannone and the City failed to provide Gibson sufficient time within which to respond to the disciplinary charges; and (3) that Vincent denied Gibson the opportunity to clear his name. Id. at 895.

On remand, Gibson moved for the equitable relief of reinstatement and back pay based on the unconstitutional actions of the LAPD concerning the attempted administrative search of his garage and vehicles. Gibson also moved for reentry of those parts of the jury verdict affirmed by this court, and for partial summary judgment that his due process rights had been violated. The district court denied Gibson's request for reinstatement because, notwithstanding the unconstitutionality of the insubordination charge against Gibson, the court was convinced he would have been dismissed in any event based on the remaining twelve charges of which he was convicted by the Board of Rights. The district court also denied Gibson's restated due process claim without elaboration. However, the court reinstated in the full amount awarded by the jury, without any remittitur, all of the jury verdicts which had been affirmed by this court.

Both Gibson and the LAPD parties bring these timely appeals from the judgment on remand.

II

Gibson challenges rejection of his equitable relief claims for reinstatement and back pay. When this matter was last before this court, we held that the attempt to search Gibson's home garage and personal vehicles for stolen goods, based merely on an administrative search warrant, "was improper and enforcement of the warrant would violate Gibson's rights." Los Angeles Police Protective League, 907 F.2d at 886. Moreover, "Gibson could not be disciplined when he refused to allow [defendants] to violate his constitutional rights." Id. Nonetheless, we held that damages were unavailable for this violation of Gibson's constitutional rights. The individual defendants were protected by qualified immunity, id. at 887, and the City had no liability because the unconstitutional conduct here was not the result of an official city policy or custom, id. at 890. Thus, it is the law of the case that "the search would have violated Gibson's rights under the fourth amendment," and that the City "could not discipline Gibson when he refused to submit to a search of his garage." Id. at 895.

On remand, the district court denied the motion for equitable relief on the basis that the LAPD would have dismissed Gibson even without the improper insubordination charge, based on the other twelve counts on which he was found guilty by the Board of Rights. As the court stated, "[t]here isn't a shadow of doubt in my mind that Mr. Gibson would have been fired in any event." Gibson argues that such ruling is impermissible because the district court findings were inconsistent with the jury's verdict.

A

As a threshold matter, we note that equitable relief, such as reinstatement of his job and pension rights, is not barred by the prior rulings of this court on immunity from liability for damages. "Qualified immunity ... does not bar actions for declaratory or injunctive relief." American Fire, Theft & Collision Managers, Inc. v. Gillespie, 932 F.2d 816, 818 (9th Cir.1991) (quotation omitted); accord Wheaton v. Webb-Petett, 931 F.2d 613, 620 (9th Cir.1991). Further, the City can be subject to prospective injunctive relief even if the constitutional violation was not the result of an "official custom or policy." ¹ Chaloux v. Killeen, 886 F.2d 247, 251 (9th Cir.1989).

Gibson argues that the district court erred in denying equitable relief because it relied on improper factfinding. That is, the district court denied his motion for reinstatement and back pay on the basis of its finding that the LAPD would have fired Gibson regardless of the charge of insubordination connected with the unconstitutional administrative search. Gibson contends that the...