Davis v. City of L. A.

• Decision Date: 14 October 2014
• Docket Number: B241631
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: DAVID R. DAVIS et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. CITY OF LOS ANGELES et al., Defendants and Respondents.

DAVID R. DAVIS et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. CITY OF LOS ANGELES et al., Defendants and Respondents.

B241631

COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION SEVEN

October 14, 2014

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

(Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. BS131915)

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, James C. Chalfant, Judge. Affirmed.

Michel & Associates, C. D. Michel, Joshua R. Dale and Tamara M. Rider for Plaintiffs and Appellants.

John C. Eastman and Anthony T. Caso for Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Plaintiffs and Appellants.

Michael N. Feuer, City Attorney, and Gregory P. Orland, Deputy City Attorney, for Defendants and Respondents.

__________________

INTRODUCTION

Plaintiffs David R. Davis, Jacob Daniel Hill, Brian Goldstein, Paul Cohen, Jill Brown, Chris Butler, Scott Austin, Eric Feder, and Lisa Siegel appeal from a judgment denying their petition for writ of mandate. By their petition, plaintiffs sought to compel defendants City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), and Police Chief Charlie Beck (collectively the City) to issue them permits to carry concealed weapons (CCW). The trial court concluded that mandate was not the proper remedy in this case and denied the petition. We affirm.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

A. The Assenza Judgment and the LAPD Concealed Weapons Permit Policy

In 1994 the Los Angeles Superior Court entered a stipulated judgment in an action entitled Assenza v. City of Los Angeles (Super. Ct. L.A. County, 1994, No. BC115813) brought by a group of plaintiffs against the City, LAPD, then-Police Chief Willie L. Williams, and others. The plaintiffs were citizens and taxpayers who had unsuccessfully sought CCW permits from the City. They "challeng[ed] LAPD's procedure, rules and practices for issuing licenses to carry concealed firearms pursuant to" Penal Code former section 12050 et seq.¹

The judgment stated that the City "admit[ted] that certain rules, policies, practices and procedures, and certain features of the Board Policy Statement . . . were not incompliance with [Penal Code former s]ection 12050 [et seq]. Those former rules, policies, practices and procedures have been altered. The Policy Statement itself has been repealed and will be replaced by the provisions of items E and F of this judgment, provided that the Los Angeles defendants reserve the right to add further specifications to their rules, regulations and guidelines, so long as such amendments are not inconsistent with the provisions of this judgment."

Item D of the Assenza judgment provided: "The allegations of the complaint showed good cause as to all of the plaintiffs who sought to be issued [CCW] licenses. . . . These named plaintiffs will receive licenses, and their licenses will be renewed for a one year term, but only so long as they continue to have good cause, good character, not to be barred by law from the ownership of concealable firearms, and to meet each of the other requirements of licensure under [Penal Code former s]ection 12050 [et seq]."

Item E provided: "The policy LAPD has adopted is that good cause exists if there is convincing evidence of a clear and present danger to life or of great bodily [injury] to the applicant, his (or her) spouse, or dependent child, which cannot be adequately dealt with by existing law enforcement resources, and which danger cannot be reasonably avoided by alternative measures, and which danger would be significantly mitigated by the applicant's carrying of a concealed firearm."

Item F provided "further rules and guidelines . . . for the interpretation and implementation of Item E[.]" Specifically, paragraph 2 of Item F stated: "Good cause shall be deemed to exist, and a license will issue in the absence of strong countervailing factors, upon a showing of any of the following circumstances: a) The applicant is able to establish that there is an immediate or continuing threat, express or implied, to the applicant's, or the applicant's family's, safety and that no other reasonable means exist which would suffice to neutralize that threat. b) The applicant is employed in the field of security, has all requisite licenses, is employed by a security firm having all requisite licenses, and provides satisfactory proof that his or her work is of such a nature that it requires the carrying of a concealed weapon. c) The applicant has obtained, or is a person included within the protections of, a court order which establishes that theapplicant is the on-going victim of a threat or physical violence or otherwise meets the criteria set forth in [Penal Code s]ection 12025.5. d) The applicant establishes that circumstances exist requiring amounts of valuable property which it is impractical or impracticable to entrust to the protection of armored car services or equivalent services for safe transportation of valuables. e) The applicant establishes that he or she is subject to a particular and unusual danger of physical attack and that no reasonable means are available to abate that threat." Paragraph 5 of Item F further provided that "[a]bsent good cause for denial, persons having good cause as defined in paragraph 2 shall be issued licenses for the maximum time period allowed by [Penal Code former] section 12050, and their licenses shall be renewed so long as they continue to have good cause. . . ." Paragraph 6 of Item F provided that "[a]ll applicants shall receive a copy of these guidelines along with the application form."

Finally, the judgment provided that "[t]he court will retain continued jurisdiction of the action in order to make any further orders which may be necessary.'" The LAPD then adopted a Concealed Weapon License Policy that included the language of Item E and Item F, paragraph 2, of the Assenza judgment.

In 1998 the parties amended the judgment to substitute Bernard Parks for Willie L. Williams, and in 2003 amended the judgment to substitute William J. Bratton for Bernard Parks. The operative third amended judgment entered on June 11, 2010 substituted Charlie Beck for William J. Bratton.

Thereafter, the Assenza plaintiffs claimed that defendants were not complying with the judgment. The Assenza court issued an order to show cause re contempt. Following a hearing, the court on July 29, 1998 issued an order designed to ensure that all police stations have applications for CCW permits and copies of the Concealed Weapon License Policy available for applicants.

B. This Action

On May 18, 2011 plaintiffs filed this action as a petition for writ of mandate alleging that the City was not abiding by the Assenza judgment. Plaintiffs alleged thatdefendants "have failed to consistently provide to CCW permit applicants both the CCW permit application and/or the LAPD Concealed Weapon Policy." Plaintiffs further alleged that the City had "also failed to inform all CCW applicants of the existence of the Advisory Review Panel," which reviews the denial of CCW permit applications, and that the City had "failed to promptly reconsider any application in which the Advisory Panel submits a different decision tha[n] the Defendants[]." Plaintiffs complained that the reconsideration "process takes about one year to complete," which "is an unreasonable amount of time because these [plaintiffs], all of whom the Advisory Review Panel determined satisfy the 'good cause' requirement for the issuance of a CCW, demonstrate the requisite showing of clear and present danger which necessitates the need for a CCW to be issued immediately."

Plaintiffs alleged that the City continued to infringe on their "right to obtain and receive a carry concealed weapons license, in addition to the procedure to obtain a response from Defendants[] with respect to CCW applications . . . ." Claiming they had no other plain, speedy, and adequate remedy, plaintiffs sought a writ of mandate pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 1085 to compel the City to comply with the Assenza judgment. Plaintiffs also sought a writ of prohibition to prevent the City from refusing to comply with the Assenza judgment and an order requiring the City to issue CCW permits to plaintiffs.

On May 26, 2011 plaintiffs filed a notice of related cases, asserting that the Assenza action was related to this action because the two cases involved the same defendants and the same subject matter. Plaintiffs sought to have their case heard by the judge to whom Assenza was assigned. The City opposed the notice of related cases, pointing out that the plaintiffs in Assenza had filed a motion to enforce the judgment and for monetary sanctions.² The City noted that "[s]ince the Assenza and Davis casesinvolve some of the same claims and the exact same declarations were filed in support of both matters, it is odd that two separate actions seeking essentially the same relief—a Petition for Writ of Mandate and a Motion to Enforce Judgment—were filed by the exact same attorneys." The City argued that "[n]otwithstanding this duplication of claims in two separate matters, the Assenza and Davis cases should not be related because they will not require 'substantial duplication of judicial resources if heard by different judges.'" First, the motion by the Assenza plaintiffs to enforce the judgment was fully briefed and set for hearing on June 9, 2011. Second, the claim in the Assenza case was that the defendants in that case had not provided CCW applications and copies of the LAPD CCW policy to applicants and had altered the CCW permit policy, whereas the issue in this case was whether the named plaintiffs were entitled to CCW permits. The trial...