Hayes v. City of Portland, Case No. 3:18-cv-00988-AC
| Decision Date | 10 March 2020 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 3:18-cv-00988-AC |
| Parties | STEVEN HAYES, as personal representative of the estate of Quanice Hayes, deceased, and VENUS HAYES, Plaintiffs, v. CITY OF PORTLAND, a municipal corporation, and ANDREW HEARST, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Oregon |
Presently before the court is Plaintiffs Steven Hayes and Venus Hayes's (collectively "Plaintiffs") Rule 12 Motion to Strike Defendants' Affirmative Defenses and Memorandum in Support ("Motion to Strike") pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(f) ("Rule 12(f)"). (Mot. to Strike, ECF No. 76.) Plaintiffs seek to strike certain affirmative defenses raised in Defendants City of Portland ("the City") and Andrew Hearst ("Hearst") (collectively "Defendants") Amended Answer and Affirmative Defenses to Plaintiffs' First Amended Complaint ("Amended Answer") (Am. Answer, ECF No. 75) as immaterial, redundant, legally insufficient, impertinent, scandalous, and irrelevant to any issue in the case. For the reasons that follow, Plaintiffs' Motion to Strike is granted in part and denied in part.
On February 9, 2017, Quanice Hayes ("Plaintiff") was shot and killed by Portland Police Officer Defendant Hearst. (First Am. Compl., ECF No. 48, at ¶ 17.) Hearst shot Plaintiff twice in the torso and once in the forehead. (Id.) Quanice Hayes was unarmed and died at the scene. (Id. at ¶¶ 17, 20, 21.) Plaintiffs allege that Hearst used excessive force and that Portland Police Bureau's ("PPB") review of the shooting wrongly found that all aspects of the shooting were "in policy." (Id.)
As relevant to this motion, Plaintiffs bring a Fourth Amendment claim for excessive force against Hearst and two Monell claims under § 1983 against the City. (Id. at ¶¶ 24-36.) Plaintiffs also bring a state law wrongful death claim against the City and battery action against Hearst. (Id. at ¶¶ 37-47.) In their excessive force claim against Hearst individually, Plaintiffs allege that Hearst's use of force was objectively unreasonable under the circumstances, constituted excessive force, and was an unreasonable and unjustified use of deadly force. (Id. at ¶ 24.) In the first Monell claim, Plaintiffs allege the City of Portland has a policy, custom, and practice of utilizing a team apprehension approach when encountering suspects believed to be armed ("high risk arrests"). (Id. at ¶ 25.) Plaintiffs allege that the City's practice fails to create a "command control" during high-risk arrests, leads to chaotic situations, and places suspects at extreme risk of being shot and killed during apprehension. (Id. at ¶¶ 25-28.) Plaintiffs allege the City's practice was a proximate cause of Quanice Hayes's death. (Id. at ¶ 28.)
In the second Monell claim, Plaintiffs allege that the City maintains an unconstitutionaltraining policy, premised on the principle of "action-reaction." (Id. at ¶ 29.) Plaintiffs allege that the City has failed to properly train its PPB officers with respect to the action-reaction principle, a psychological concept related to police use of force. (Id. at ¶¶ 30-31.) Plaintiffs contend that the failure to properly train police officers was a proximate cause of Quanice Hayes's death. (Id. at ¶ 32.)
Under Oregon law, Plaintiffs allege negligence against the City and battery against Hearst. In their negligence claim, Plaintiffs allege that the City's failure to require officers to use apprehension policies that give clear, uncontradicted instructions creates a foreseeable risk of harm to individuals they choose to arrest. (Id. at ¶ 39.) Plaintiffs further allege the City of Portland's failure to enforce policies and develop and execute plans to safely take suspects into custody that minimize the risk of harm to officers and arrestees is unreasonable. (Id. at ¶ 40.) Plaintiffs contend the City's failure to effectively train its police officers and ensure that training is followed creates a risk of death, and these failures caused the death of Quanice Hayes. (Id. at ¶¶ 42-43.) Plaintiffs further allege that Hearst's failure to listen and recognize that officers were giving contradictory commands and the officers' failure to develop and execute a plan to minimize the risk to the suspect and officers to take the suspect into custody was a cause of Quanice Hayes's death and created an unreasonable, obvious risk of death. (Id. at ¶¶ 44-47.) In their battery claim, Plaintiffs allege Hearst's use of force against Quanice Hayes was intentional and excessive under the circumstances. (Id. at ¶¶ 37-38.)
In response, in the Amended Answer, Defendants raise sixteen affirmative defenses as follows:
(Am. Answer at 16-22). In the current motion, Plaintiffs move to strike Defendants' third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, and sixteenth affirmative defenses. (Mot. to Strike at 1-2.) Plaintiffs move to strike these affirmative defenses as immaterial, redundant, legally insufficient, immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous. (Mot. to Strike at 5-20.) Further, Plaintiffs argue Defendants improperly use facts unknown to Hearst at the time of the events to justify Hearst's actions and to "smear" Quanice Hayes and confuse the issues. (Mot. to Strike at 3.)
In Defendants' Response to Plaintiffs' Rule 12 Motion to Strike ("Defendants' Response"), Defendants concede the third affirmative defense is a negative defense but nonetheless urge the court not to strike it. (Defs.' Resp., ECF No. 80, at 8.) Defendants further concede the sixteenth affirmative defense is not an affirmative defense but a "notice of reservation to Plaintiffs" that this court may properly strike. (Defs.' Resp. at 21.) Defendants also clarify the fifth, sixth, and eighth affirmative defenses apply only to Plaintiffs' state law claims, and the eleventh affirmative defense applies only to Plaintiffs' negligence claim againstthe City. (Defs.' Resp. at 9, 12, 14.) Otherwise, Defendants maintain they may assert the remaining affirmative defenses.1
Moreover, Defendants argue the collective knowledge doctrine should permit them to assert facts unknown to Hearst at the time of the events in support of their second affirmative defense of qualified immunity on the issue of probable cause, their eleventh and thirteenth affirmative defenses of comparative fault, and their twelfth affirmative defense of certain felonious conduct. (Defs.' Resp. at 6-7, 14-21.)
Pursuant to Rule 12(f), the court "may strike from a pleading an insufficient defense or any redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous matter." FED. R. CIV. P. 12(f); Whittlestone, Inc. v. Handi-Craft Co., 618 F.3d 970, 973 (9th Cir. 2010). "An affirmative defense may be insufficient as a matter of pleading or as a matter of law." Kohler v. Staples the Office Superstore, LLC, 291 F.R.D. 464, 467 (S.D. Cal. 2013) (citing Sec. People, Inc. v. Classic Woodworking, LLC, No. C-04-3133 MMC, 2005 WL 645592, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 4, 2005)). An affirmative defense is pleaded insufficiently when it "fails to comply with Rule 8 pleading requirements by not providing 'plaintiff [with] fair notice of the nature of the defense' and the grounds upon which it rests." Hayden v. U.S., 147 F. Supp. 3d 1125, 1127 (D. Or. 2015) (quoting Wyshak v. City Nat'l Bank, 607 F.2d 824, 827 (9th Cir. 1979)). Where amotion challenges the factual sufficiency of the pleaded defenses, the court may properly apply theTwombly/Iqbal standard. Hayden, 147 F. Supp. 3d at 1128 (). "[A]n affirmative defense is legally insufficient only if it clearly lacks merit 'under any set of facts the defendant might allege.'" Kohler, 291 F.R.D. at 468 (quoting McArdle v. AT&T Mobility, LLC, 657 F. Supp. 2d 1140, 1149-50 (N.D. Cal. 2009), rev'd on other grounds, 474 Fed. Appx. 515 (2012)).
A matter is redundant if it is superfluous and can be omitted without a loss of meaning. See Wilkerson v. Butler, 229 F.R.D. 166, 170 (E.D. Cal. 2005) (); Orff v. City of Imperial, No. 17-CV-0116W (AGS), 2017 WL 2537250, at *3 (S.D. Cal. June 12, 2017) (). A matter is immaterial if it "has no essential or important relationship to the claim for relief or the defenses being plead." Whittlestone, 618 F.3d at 974 (quoting Fantasy, Inc. v. Fogerty, 984 F.2d 1524, 1527 (9th Cir. 1993), rev'd on other grounds, 510 U.S. 517 (1994)). A matter is impertinent if it "consists of statements that do not pertain, and are not necessary, to the issues in question." Id. (quoting Fantasy, 984 F.2d at 1527). "Scandalous matters are allegations that unnecessarily reflect . . . on the moral character of an individual or state . . . anything in repulsive language that detracts from the dignity of the court[.]" Consumer Sols. REO, LLC v. Hillery, 658 F. Supp. 2d 1002, 1020 (N.D. Cal. 2009) (internal quotation marks, alterations, and citation omitted).
An affirmative defense will defeat the plaintiff's claim "even where the plaintiff has stated a prima facie case for recovery under the applicable law." Quintana v. Baca, 233 F.R.D. 562, 564 (C.D. Cal. 2005). "Not all contentions that attack a plaintiff's cause of action are affirmative defenses." Id. "An attack...
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