Black Lives Matter Seattle-King Cnty. v. City of Seattle

• Decision Date: 28 January 2021
• Docket Number: Case No. 2:20-cv-00887-RAJ
• Citation: 516 F.Supp.3d 1202
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Washington
• Parties: BLACK LIVES MATTER SEATTLE-KING COUNTY, Abie Ekenezar, Sharon Sakamoto, Muraco Kyashna-Tocha, Alexander Woldeab, Nathalie Graham, and Alexandra Chen, Plaintiffs, v. CITY OF SEATTLE, SEATTLE POLICE DEPARTMENT, Defendant.

516 F.Supp.3d 1202

BLACK LIVES MATTER SEATTLE-KING COUNTY, Abie Ekenezar, Sharon Sakamoto, Muraco Kyashna-Tocha, Alexander Woldeab, Nathalie Graham, and Alexandra Chen, Plaintiffs,
v.
CITY OF SEATTLE, SEATTLE POLICE DEPARTMENT, Defendant.

Case No. 2:20-cv-00887-RAJ

United States District Court, W.D. Washington, at Seattle.

Signed January 28, 2021

516 F.Supp.3d 1205

Breanne Mary Schuster, John B. Midgley, Lisa Nowlin, Nancy Lynn Talner, Molly Tack-Hooper, ACLU of Washington, Carolyn S. Gilbert, Heath L. Hyatt, Nitika Arora, Paige L. Whidbee, Joseph M. McMillan, Mallory Gitt Webster, Rachel Ayn Smith Haney, David A. Perez, Perkins Coie (SEA), Robert Seungchul Chang, Melissa R. Lee, Jessica E. Levin, Seattle University School of Law, Seattle, WA, for Plaintiffs.

Ann E. Trivett, Megan Maria Coluccio, Robert Leslie Christie, Thomas P. Miller, Christie Law Group PLLC, Carolyn U. Boies, Ghazal Sharifi, Seattle City Attorney's Office, Seattle, WA, for Defendant.

ORDER ON MOTIONS FOR CONTEMPT SANCTIONS (Dkt. # 164), ATTORNEYS’ FEES (Dkt. # 166), AND RECONSIDERATION AND LEAVE TO SUPPLEMENT THE RECORD (DKT. # 178)

Richard A. Jones, United States District Judge

I. INTRODUCTION

Before the Court are three motions. Having considered the submissions of the parties, the relevant portions of the record, and the applicable law, the Court finds that oral argument is unnecessary. For the reasons below, Plaintiffs’ Motion for Contempt Sanctions (Dkt. # 164) is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part ; Plaintiffs’ Petition for Attorneys’ Fees (Dkt. # 166) is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part ; and Defendant's Motion for Reconsideration and Request for Leave to Supplement the Record (Dkt. # 178) is DENIED .

II. BACKGROUND

On December 7, 2020, the Court found Defendant City of Seattle ("City") in contempt for violating the Court's preliminary injunction orders. Dkt. # 161. That ruling was the result of a contempt proceeding set in motion months earlier.

In late September, Plaintiffs filed a motion for an order to show cause why the City should not be held in contempt for violating the Court's preliminary injunction orders. Dkt. # 114. It was the second time Plaintiffs sought to hold the City in contempt. Two months before, Plaintiffs had filed another contempt motion. Dkt. # 51. That motion was initially set for an evidentiary hearing, Dkt. ## 89, 90, until

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the parties stipulated to dismiss the motion without prejudice and to enter an amended preliminary injunction, Dkt. # 110.

In their second motion for contempt, Plaintiffs claimed that the City violated the original preliminary injunction order, Dkt. # 42, and the amended preliminary injunction order, Dkt. # 110, during several protests. Specifically, Plaintiffs contended that the City's use of crowd control weapons on August 26, September 7, September 22, and September 23 of last year violated the two orders. Dkt. # 114.

Like the previous motion for contempt, the Court held a status conference to determine how to proceed with an evidentiary hearing. Dkt. ## 140, 159. The Court also asked whether the parties would stipulate to an alternative process. Id. Days after the conference, the parties agreed that the Court could consider the motion for contempt "based entirely on [ ] written submissions and without any live testimony." Dkt. # 141 at 2; see also Dkt. ## 142, 143. And so the Court did. In addition to its initial response to Plaintiffs’ contempt motion, the City filed a supplemental response. Dkt. # 144. The supplemental response was supported by several declarations, containing scores of video evidence and police officer "use of force reports. Dkt. ## 145-151. In turn, Plaintiffs filed their reply. Dkt. # 152. On November 18, 2020, the Court heard oral argument on the motion. Dkt. # 160.

Weeks later, after reviewing both parties’ submissions and hearing oral argument, the Court granted in part and denied in part Plaintiffs’ contempt motion and held the City in contempt. Dkt. # 161. The contempt order identified four violations of the preliminary injunction orders and four "compliant uses." The remaining deployments, the Court held, were neither violations nor compliant uses. To determine the appropriate sanction, the Court requested supplemental briefing.

Since then, the parties have filed three motions. Dkt. ## 164, 166, 178. As requested, Plaintiffs filed a motion for contempt sanctions, in which they explain their requested sanctions. Dkt. # 164. Part of their request is a request for attorneys’ fees, so they also filed a separate petition to that end. Dkt. # 166. The City responded to both motions, Dkt. ## 171, 176, and filed a motion of its own, a motion for reconsideration and leave to supplement the record, Dkt. # 178. Those motions are now before this Court, and the Court addresses each in turn.

III. DISCUSSION

A. Motion for Reconsideration and Leave to Supplement the Record (Dkt. # 178)

Found in contempt of the Court's preliminary injunction orders, the City now asks for reconsideration. Dkt. # 178. According to the City, the Court erred "because it did not apply the Monell standard; erroneously held the City to a perfect, rather than substantial, compliance standard; and incorrectly concluded 4 of 122 deployments violated the injunction[s]." Id. at 3. The Court finds no such error.

i. Standing Order – Meet and Confer

Under this Court's standing order, "counsel contemplating the filing of any motion shall first contact opposing counsel to discuss." Dkt. # 24 ¶ 6 (emphasis in original). This is a strict requirement. Id. Before filing this motion, the City did not meet and confer with Plaintiffs, nor did it seek to meet and confer. Dkt. # 187 ¶ 3. This is a violation of the Court's standing order. Though the Court will not strike the motion on that basis, it will not hesitate to do so in the future.

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ii. Legal Standard

Motions for reconsideration are disfavored under the Local Rules for the Western District of Washington. Local Rules W.D. Wash. LCR 7(h)(1). "[I]n the absence of a showing of manifest error in the prior ruling or a showing of new facts or legal authority which could not have been brought to [the Court's] attention earlier with reasonable diligence," such motions will ordinarily be denied. Id. "A motion for reconsideration ‘may not be used to raise arguments or present evidence for the first time when they could reasonably have been raised earlier in the litigation.’ " Marlyn Nutraceuticals, Inc. v. Mucos Pharma GmbH & Co. , 571 F.3d 873, 880 (9th Cir. 2009) (emphasis in original) (quoting Kona Enters., Inc. v. Estate of Bishop , 229 F.3d 877, 890 (9th Cir. 2000) ).

iii. Monell

The City previously argued that, to find it in contempt, the Court must fuse the civil contempt standard with the municipal liability standard articulated in Monell v. N.Y.C. Dep't of Soc. Servs. , 436 U.S. 658, 692, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978). Dkt. # 144 at 4-5. The Court already considered the argument and rejected it. Dkt. # 161 at 9-10. The City insists that this was in error. Dkt. # 178 at 3-5. But it is the City that is mistaken.

The City claims that although individual SPD officers are indeed bound by the preliminary injunction orders, the "legal question of which entities and individuals are bound ... is distinct from the legal question of what constitutes a violation by the City as a whole." Dkt. # 178 at 3. The Court's contempt finding, it says, still needed to be based on an "unconstitutional policy or practice." Id. Despite having multiple opportunities to do so, the City has cited no case in which a court has fused the civil contempt analysis and the municipal liability analysis in this way.

In re-raising this argument, the City does not raise new facts or intervening law that were not previously available to it. The Court presumes then that the City is seeking reconsideration for manifest error.

The Court rejects the City's call to ignore the well-settled standard for civil contempt in favor of a makeshift legal standard that the City just fashioned. The City's proposed standard fails for many reasons, two chief among them. First, neither the City nor the Court has found any precedent for this approach. At oral argument, when asked if they were aware of any other court fusing Monell with civil contempt, counsel for the City responded, no, "believe me, we looked." Dkt. # 165 at 38:18. Even now, the City has failed to supply any pertinent authority. Based on the Court's independent review, no court has done as the City suggests. Second, the City does not explain what its innovative civil contempt standard might look like. The City postulates that Monell ’s standard for municipal liability applies equally to municipal contempt but does not say what its new proposed standard is. It does not say where the civil contempt analysis ends and where the Monell analysis begins. Even if the Court were to accept that Monell should be incorporated here, the City does not explain how.

The Court rejected this argument before, and it does so again. There is no manifest error.

To be sure, Monell is a live issue in this case; it is just not an issue here. Plaintiffs must no doubt meet the demands of Monell to ultimately prevail on their § 1983 claims. In granting preliminary injunctive relief, a court's findings of fact and conclusions of law are just that, preliminary, and are not binding at trial.

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Univ. of Texas v. Camenisch , 451 U.S. 390, 395, 101 S.Ct. 1830, 68 L.Ed.2d 175 (1981). Surely, when the Court returns to the merits of the case, the City is free to argue that Plaintiffs have not proven municipal liability under Monell . But here the Court's inquiry is much narrower.

This matter is before the Court on the City's contempt of a court order. The Court's...