Jones v. Kmart Corp.

• Decision Date: 29 January 1998
• Docket Number: No. S058207,S058207
• Citation: 949 P.2d 941,70 Cal.Rptr.2d 844,17 Cal.4th 329
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 949 P.2d 941, 98 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 786, 98 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 828, 98 Daily Journal D.A.R. 1021 Floyzell JONES et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. KMART CORPORATION et al., Defendants and Appellants

Page 844

70 Cal.Rptr.2d 844

17 Cal.4th 329, 949 P.2d 941, 98 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 786,

98 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 828,

98 Daily Journal D.A.R. 1021

Floyzell JONES et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. KMART CORPORATION et al., Defendants and Appellants.

No. S058207.

Supreme Court of California

Jan. 29, 1998.

Darryl Parker, Fairfield, Sarah Lawrence, Price and Associates, Pamela Y. Price, Oakland and Karen T. Wolff, San Francisco, for Plaintiffs and Appellants.

Alan L. Schlosser and Edward M. Chen, San Francisco, as Amici Curiae on behalf of Plaintiffs and Appellants.

J. Randall Andrada, Oakland, Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold, Frederick D. Baker, Stuart W. Miller and Linh N. Ha, San Francisco, for Defendants and Appellants.

MOSK, Justice.

Civil Code section 52.1 authorizes an action at law, a suit in equity, or both, against anyone who interferes, or tries to do so, by threats, intimidation, or coercion, with an individual's exercise or enjoyment of rights secured by federal or state law. Subdivision (h) of section 52.1 permits a prevailing plaintiff to recover attorney fees. We must decide whether plaintiffs could recover damages on the basis of conduct by defendants that allegedly interfered with one plaintiff's rights under the federal and state Constitutions' search and seizure provisions. We hold that plaintiffs were not entitled to damages under section 52.1.

Defendants appealed from a judgment and order awarding plaintiff Belafanti Jones $71,394.25 in damages, including $30,000 under Civil Code section 52.1--unlabeled statutory references herein are to that code--and $216,762.50 in attorney fees under that statute. The Court of Appeal reversed that portion of the judgment awarding damages and attorney fees under section 52.1, but otherwise affirmed.

Jones, who is an African-American, aroused the suspicion of a Kmart employee who believed he might be shoplifting. When he left the store, Kmart employees pursued him. A struggle ensued and they seized him. One searched his left front pants pocket and grabbed his arm to handcuff him. As a result of the struggle, Jones suffered lingering back, neck and shoulder pain, and property damage; the back pain lasted about a year. He also sought psychological counseling. It turned out that he had not shoplifted anything.

The jury returned a verdict for Jones on his claims of false imprisonment, battery, interference with his constitutional rights "by using excessive force against him [and] by the illegal search of his person," and negligence. It found, however, that defendants did not discriminate against or subject him to violence or intimidation because of his race. Under the heading of compensatory damages, it awarded him $1,394.25 in economic and $40,000 in noneconomic damages. As mentioned, it awarded him $30,000 for interference with his constitutional rights. For this tort he also recovered $188,724 in attorney fees and $28,038.50 for time spent on his fees application.

The Court of Appeal's decision eliminated the attorney fee award and Jones's $30,000 in damages for interference with his constitutional rights. Plaintiffs petitioned for review on the ground that defendants' conduct fell within the scope of section 52.1.

Section 52.1, subdivision (a), permits the Attorney General or any city or district attorney to sue in equity "[w]henever a person or persons, whether or not acting under color of law, interferes by threats, intimidation, or coercion, or attempts to interfere by threats, intimidation, or coercion, with the exercise or enjoyment by any individual or individuals of rights secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or of the rights secured by the Constitution or laws of this state...." As alluded to, subdivision (b) of section 52.1 allows anyone whose rights have been interfered with as described in subdivision (a) to sue for damages or for equitable relief, and subdivision (h) permits a prevailing plaintiff to recover "reasonable attorney's fees."

Plaintiffs' section 52.1 claim stated in effect that defendants' use of excessive force and their illegal search of Jones interfered with his state and federal constitutional rights. The jury instructions predicated defendants' section 52.1 liability solely on a claim of interference with either the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution or article I, section 13 of the California Constitution.

I

The Court of Appeal accurately explained the nature of the constitutional provisions in question: "The proscription against unreasonable search and seizure in the Fourth Amendment applies only to the acts of government officers or their agents. The right secured is a right to be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion or acquisition. (Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives' Assn. (1989) 489 U.S. 602, 614, 109 S.Ct. 1402, 1411, 103 L.Ed.2d 639; Burdeau v. McDowell (1921) 256 U.S. 465, 475, 41 S.Ct. 574, 576, 65 L.Ed. 1048; In re Christopher H. (1991) 227 Cal.App.3d 1567, 1572, 278 Cal.Rptr. 577.) In order for conduct by private parties to be deemed state action under the federal Constitution, 'the party charged with the deprivation [of a federal right] must be a person who may fairly be said to be a state actor. This may be because he is a state official, because he has acted together with or has obtained significant aid from state officials, or because his conduct is otherwise chargeable to the State. Without a limit such as this, private parties could face constitutional litigation whenever they seek to rely on some state rule governing their interactions with the community surrounding them.' (Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., Inc. (1982) 457 U.S. 922, 937, 102 S.Ct. 2744, 2753, 73 L.Ed.2d 482; see also Collins v. Womancare (9th Cir.1989) 878 F.2d 1145, 1151-1156 [citizen's arrests performed by private employees did not constitute state action]; In re Christopher H., supra, 227 Cal.App.3d at p. 1576, 278 Cal.Rptr. 577 [detention and search by private security guards did not implicate Fourth Amendment rights].) ...

"Similarly, the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure provided in article I, section 13 of the California Constitution is subject to a state action requirement. (Hill v. National Collegiate Athletic Assn. (1994) 7 Cal.4th 1, 19, 26 Cal.Rptr.2d 834, 865 P.2d 633; In re William G. (1985) 40 Cal.3d 550, 557, fn. 5, 558-559, 221 Cal.Rptr. 118, 709 P.2d 1287; People v. Zelinski (1979) 24 Cal.3d 357, 365, 155 Cal.Rptr. 575, 594 P.2d 1000.)"

Plaintiffs do not deny that defendants' actions were those of private actors and that the state played no role in causing Jones's losses. They contend, however, that because section 52.1 provides for relief regardless of whether the offender acted under color of law, the Legislature has removed any state action requirement in every case in which a private actor commits misconduct that, if committed by a state actor, would violate a constitutional provision. ¹

Plaintiffs misunderstand the statute's scope, and accordingly miss the point. They are correct that there is no state action requirement per se. Section 52.1 nowhere mentions state action. But section 52.1 does require an attempted or completed act of interference with a legal right, accompanied by a form of coercion. Plaintiffs produced no evidence that defendants interfered with Jones's rights against unreasonable search and seizure. When they assert that defendants interfered with those rights by directly violating them, they are mistaken: Only the government or its agents can do so.

We recognize that because section 52.1 proscribes attempted or completed interferences with rights secured by law, it may provide a cause of action based on such rights when a private actor interferes with them or attempts to do so by coercion, even if the wrongdoer could not violate them directly. For example, if a burglary victim, suspecting that his stolen property lay hidden in a nearby house, stood at the door with the police and threatened to injure the homeowner if she did not change her mind and consent to an official and warrantless search of her premises, the homeowner might, under section 52.1, be able to sue her neighbor for interfering with her Fourth Amendment rights, assuming for purposes of this example that the Fourth Amendment protected her against warrantless searches by the state without her consent under the circumstances. For another example, the right to vote (Burdick v. Takushi (1992) 504 U.S. 428, 441, 112 S.Ct. 2059, 2067, 119 L.Ed.2d 245) includes a right to vote, under the Fifteenth, Nineteenth and Twenty-fourth Amendments to the United States Constitution, free of certain burdens (Ex parte Yarbrough (1884) 110 U.S. 651, 664-665, 4 S.Ct. 152, 158-159, 28 L.Ed. 274; Williams v. Rhodes (1968) 393 U.S. 23, 29, 89 S.Ct. 5, 9, 21 L.Ed.2d 24). To the extent that the right to vote is guaranteed by the federal Constitution, or by other "laws" (§ 52.1), a private actor's coercive attempted or completed interference with it might be actionable under section 52.1.

But this case does not present a similar situation. Plaintiffs in effect pleaded interference with the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 13, of the California Constitution. Yet they only presented evidence that defendants themselves conducted an aggressive search and seizure. However rough defendants' treatment of Jones may have been, it did not interfere with his ability to assert his rights under those constitutional guaranties. Those rights were not put in jeopardy in this dispute, as they might have been if defendants had called the police and then coercively interfered with Jones's Fourth Amendment rights when he attempted to exercise them against the police. Because plaintiffs presented no evidence that defendants interfered with Jones's constitutional rights as pleaded, they were not entitled to the instructions the court gave under ...