Jones v. Williams
| Decision Date | 18 April 2002 |
| Docket Number | No. 00-56929.,00-56929. |
| Citation | 286 F.3d 1159 |
| Parties | Betty JONES, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Willie WILLIAMS; City of Los Angeles; Michael Akana; Grady Dublin; Richard Ludwig; Chester McMillion; Edward Ortiz; Wilson Wong; Alfonso Reyes; Richard A. Brown; Richard Ginelli; Gary Clarke; Robert Holcomb; David Nila; Richard Selleh; Mark Kroecker; Michael Hillman Michael Downing, individually and in their official capacities, Defendants-Appellees, and Daryl Gates; Arthur Daedelow; Martina Villalobos, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
Stephen Yagman, Yagman & Yagman & Reichmann, Venice, CA, for the plaintiff-appellant.
Janet G. Bogigian, City Attorney's Office, Los Angeles, CA, for the defendants-appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California, Consuelo B. Marshall, District Judge, Presiding.
Before O'SCANNLAIN and SILVERMAN, Circuit Judges, and REED, Jr.,* District Judge.
This case presents a difficult question: can officers be held liable for an allegedly unlawful search when there is no direct evidence of their individual participation? We conclude that in this case they cannot. This case also presents a difficult situation: a search of a house, pursuant to a warrant, that results in the destruction of personal property. Our reaction to the situation is great sympathy for Betty Jones.
On April 1, 1995, officers from the Los Angeles Police Department (hereinafter "LAPD") arrived at Betty Jones's (hereinafter "Jones") house in Los Angeles. The officers were part of "Operation Sunrise," the name given to a massive group of searches in homes to locate weapons and contraband related to various gangs. Jones's house was selected for search because of allegations that certain residents of her house had an affiliation with the 8 Trey Gangster Crips, one of the gangs targeted in Operation Sunrise. These searches were all conducted with warrants. The police were given the criminal history of the people residing in the houses where the raids were to be conducted, and the locations were graded on various risk factors. The police testified that they took different actions based on their understanding of the risk posed at each location.
On the morning of the search of Jones's house the officers announced their presence through a bullhorn and with two telephone calls. When the residents did not respond, the officers attempted to break down the door with a sledgehammer. Their first try was unsuccessful, and before they could try again, Jones's son, LeRoy Bowling ("Bowling"), opened the door. The officers entered the house and removed Bowling, William Arnold, and Ronald Dominguez to secure the house. After the house was secured, but before the search was completed, the men were brought back into the house where they sat on the couch and watched the officers continue to search the house. From their vantage point they watched the officers search the living room, and the dining room. The men could see into a hallway, but they could not tell what happened in the bedrooms.
When the officers completed their search the house was a mess. The officers did not clean the house before they left. Jones returned from work to find her house in shambles. She filed a complaint with the LAPD about the search, and then filed a lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claiming that the officers had violated her Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights by conducting an unreasonable search of her house.
At trial the officers testified to the actions they took in the house. The officers admitted that they moved furniture, opened doors and drawers, moved pictures, broke a lock on a closet door, moved clothes and auto parts around, moved knick knacks, photographs, and books, and broke drawers off a dresser. After an eight-day trial, the jury found that none of the officers had searched the house in an unreasonable manner.
Jones appeals the verdict,1 claiming that the district court's failure to give her proposed instructions on group liability deprived her of the inference that, despite the fact no officer took responsibility for the destruction of the living room and causing a urine smell in her iron, all officers could be held liable for these actions if they were part of the searching team. Jones argues that she was permitted by law to have her instructions given to the jury.
We review the district court's formulation of the jury instructions for abuse of discretion. Monroe v. City of Phoenix, 248 F.3d 851, 857 (9th Cir.2001). A party is entitled to an instruction about his or her theory of the case if it is supported by law and has foundation in the evidence. Jenkins v. Union Pac. R.R. Co., 22 F.3d 206, 210 (9th Cir.1994). The district court must formulate a set of jury instructions that fairly and accurately states the law, covers the issues presented, and is not misleading. Duran v. City of Maywood, 221 F.3d 1127, 1130 (9th Cir. 2000) (per curiam).
Jones argues that she needed a jury instruction on group liability because the officers escorted all of the residents out of the house before they began to search, and, therefore, there were no witnesses to contradict the denials of the officers. Jones is specifically concerned that all officers denied responsibility for the condition of the living room, and that all officers denied urinating in the iron. The district court rejected Jones's proposed group liability instructions. On appeal, Jones claims that the district court's rejection of her instructions was reversible error because failure to give the instructions deprived her of the ability to hold the officers liable for the unreasonable search.
42 U.S.C. § 1983 creates a cause of action against a person who, acting under color of state law, deprives another of rights guaranteed under the Constitution. Section 1983 does not create any substantive rights; rather it is the vehicle whereby plaintiffs can challenge actions by governmental officials. To prove a case under section 1983, the plaintiff must demonstrate that (1) the action occurred "under color of state law" and (2) the action resulted in the deprivation of a constitutional right or federal statutory right. Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 535, 101 S.Ct. 1908, 68 L.Ed.2d 420 (1981), overruled on other grounds by Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 106 S.Ct. 662, 88 L.Ed.2d 662 (1986). There is no dispute that the officers were acting under color of state law. The dispute in this case was whether the officers unreasonably searched Jones's house in violation of her Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
In order for a person acting under color of state law to be liable under section 1983 there must be a showing of personal participation in the alleged rights deprivation: there is no respondeat superior liability under section 1983. See Monell v. Dep't of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978) (); Taylor v. List, 880 F.2d 1040, 1045 (9th Cir.1989) (); May v. Enomoto, 633 F.2d 164, 167 (9th Cir.1980) ().
In Chuman v. Wright, we defined the contours of individual liability further when we stated a plaintiff could not hold an officer liable because of his membership in a group without a showing of individual participation in the unlawful conduct. 76 F.3d 292, 294 (9th Cir.1996). Chuman does not appear to bar any use of a group liability instruction, but does seem to require the plaintiff to first establish the "integral participation" of the officers in the alleged constitutional violation. Id. (quoting Melear v. Spears, 862 F.2d 1177, 1186 (5th Cir.1989))(internal quotations omitted). Chuman clearly states that a "team liability" instruction that does not require any individual liability:
is an improper ... alternative ground for liability. It removes individual liability as the issue and allows a jury to find a defendant liable on the ground that even if the defendant had no role in the unlawful conduct, he would nonetheless be guilty if the conduct was the result of a "team effort."
Id. at 295. With this legal framework in place, we consider each of Jones's instructions below.
When a plaintiff cannot specifically state which defendant police officers engaged in an unreasonable search of a plaintiff's residence, but there is evidence to specify that certain defendants were among the police officers who were inside plaintiff's residence, and the officers agree they are among the officers who were present, the jury can reasonably infer that the named officers were participants in the alleged unlawful conduct.
Jones's support for this instruction is Rutherford v. City of Berkeley, 780 F.2d 1444, 1448 (9th Cir.1986).2 In Rutherford, the plaintiff alleged that four police officers threw him to the ground and punched, kicked, and handcuffed him. Id. The defendants denied assaulting Rutherford but admitted they handcuffed him and placed him under arrest. Id. at 1445. Rutherford was not certain which of the four officers actually punched or kicked him while he was on the ground, but testified that he saw each of their faces while he was being assaulted. Id. There, we held that the district court erred when it granted a directed verdict for defendants because there was sufficient evidence for the jury to reasonably infer that the four officers participated in the beating of Rutherford.
In her proposed instruction, Jones asks us to take the holding of Rutherford to an extreme not intended by the...
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