Martel v. County of Los Angeles

• Decision Date: 12 April 1994
• Docket Number: No. 91-56268,91-56268
• Citation: 21 F.3d 940
• Parties: , 28 Fed.R.Serv.3d 1510 Angel MARTEL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, Sherman Block, Sheriff of Los Angeles County, Elias Cuevas, Harry DeLong, Richard Mariadiaga, Mark Shaugnessy, Herb Howland, Jeffrey Lammers, Margarito Robles, and Frank Yanes, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 940

21 F.3d 940

62 USLW 2687, 28 Fed.R.Serv.3d 1510

Angel MARTEL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, Sherman Block, Sheriff of Los Angeles County, Elias Cuevas, Harry DeLong, Richard Mariadiaga, Mark Shaugnessy, Herb Howland, Jeffrey Lammers, Margarito Robles and Frank Yanes, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 91-56268.

United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted April 7, 1993.

Decided April 12, 1994.

Thomas E. Beck, Los Angeles, CA, for plaintiff-appellant.

Douglas J. Collodel, Morris, Polich & Purdy, Los Angeles, CA, for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California.

Before: FARRIS, William A. NORRIS, and REINHARDT, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge REINHARDT; Dissent by Judge NORRIS.

OPINION

REINHARDT, Circuit Judge:

The district judge in this case is an exceptionally able, hard-working, and conscientious jurist. However, he enforces a procedure widely known as the "rocket docket." His standard practice is to set cases for trial within three months of the filing of the answer. He adhered to that policy in this Sec. 1983 police brutality action. As a result, the plaintiff, Angel Martel, was forced to go to trial before he had any opportunity to conduct meaningful discovery. Martel appeals from the jury's verdict in favor of the defendants. Because we conclude that the district judge's refusal to grant any continuance constituted an abuse of his discretion, and because his enforcement of his "rocket docket" policy violated the Local Rules of the Central District of California, we reverse.

I.

Angel Martel was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic following a brain injury suffered in 1978. On June 6, 1990, while at his home in Pico Rivera, California, he experienced delusions that someone was attempting to break into his car. He took a shotgun and went into his backyard. Martel's brother-in-law, Henry Ortega, followed him into the yard and attempted to disarm him. In the struggle, the gun discharged without causing injury. Martel's wife, Ester, heard the shot and called 911 for assistance. Eight sheriff's deputies responded to the call and attempted to restrain Martel. Martel alleges that the deputies entered the backyard, removed the shotgun from the immediate area, and subdued him. He alleges that, after he surrendered, the deputies beat him with flashlights and batons, kicked him, and shocked him with a taser. Martel claims that the beating left him with a broken left kneecap and right leg, as well as head lacerations.

On April 22, 1991, Martel filed suit against the County of Los Angeles, the L.A. County Sheriff, one named deputy sheriff, and several "John Doe" defendants. He sought damages under the federal civil rights statutes, as well as several state law causes of action. Two days after Martel filed his complaint, the district judge issued a copy of his standing order setting forth the procedures followed in his court. Although the local rules of the district court require a minimum of at least four months between service of the answer and a pretrial conference, the order stated:

This court strives to set trial dates as early as possible and does not approve of protracted discovery. EXCEPT FOR UNUSUALLY COMPLEX CASES, COUNSEL SHOULD EXPECT THE CASE TO GO TO TRIAL WITHIN THREE MONTHS OF THE FILING OF THE FIRST ANSWER.

Order of April 24, 1991, at 3. To emphasize the point, the order went on to state that "[c]ontinuances are rarely granted.... The Court sets firm trial dates and will not change them except for emergencies." Id. The defendants filed an answer on May 17, thus starting the clock under the district judge's standing order.

Martel initiated discovery immediately after bringing the suit. Because he did not know the identities of seven of the eight deputies who had subdued him, he served the county with interrogatories accompanying the complaint. These interrogatories sought the names of all of the possible defendants. The county responded on May 24, although Martel claimed that it had not provided the names of all of the defendants and had misidentified one.

At a mandatory status conference on June 24, the district judge scheduled the pretrial conference for August 26, and the trial for August 27, just over three months after the defendants filed their answer. As his trial preparation continued, Martel eventually discovered the names of all eight of the deputies involved in his case. Accordingly, on July 22 and August 12, he filed amended complaints, and eventually named seven additional deputies as defendants. Although he promptly served these new defendants with interrogatories and requests for admission, the responses to these requests were not due until after the August 27 trial date.

Because more time was necessary to complete essential discovery, Martel moved for a continuance on August 22. In addition to pointing out that the new defendants' responses to discovery requests were due only after the scheduled trial date, Martel's counsel claimed that the original defendants had not been cooperative in discovery. He stated that a motion to compel was pending and that it would likely not be heard until after the trial date. He also stated that he had been unable to depose any of the defendants because he was a sole practitioner and had been in trial nearly continuously since late May. The district judge denied the motion. Pursuant to the district judge's order, trial began on August 27, although Martel had not had an opportunity to depose any of the defendants. The jury returned a verdict in favor of the defendants. Because the jury determined that he had suffered no constitutional injury, the district judge dismissed Martel's Monell ¹ claims against the county and Sheriff Block. Martel now appeals. The district court had jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Secs. 1331 and 1343. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1291.

II.

A.

The decision to grant or deny a continuance lies within the district judge's discretion. However, this discretion "is not without limits." Rios-Berrios v. I.N.S., 776 F.2d 859, 862-63 (9th Cir.1985). In determining whether a district judge has abused his or her discretion in refusing to grant a continuance, our precedents require us to consider four factors: the appellant's diligence in attempting to prepare his case for the originally-scheduled trial date; the likelihood that the grant of a continuance would have resolved the problem which led the appellant to seek a continuance; the inconvenience a continuance would have caused the court and the opposing party; and the extent to which the appellant might have suffered harm as a result of the district court's denial. United States v. 2.61 Acres of Land, 791 F.2d 666, 671 (9th Cir.1985) (citing United States v. Flynt, 756 F.2d 1352, 1358 (9th Cir.1985)). Although all of the Flynt factors must be weighed against one another, we will not reverse absent a showing of prejudice. See id.

We conclude that the district judge abused his discretion in denying Martel a continuance and that this error requires reversal. Two of the Flynt factors clearly support our conclusion and require no extended discussion. First, it is clear that a continuance would have resolved the problem that impelled Martel to seek one. Martel moved for a continuance because he had not been able to depose any of the eight individual defendants, and because he had received responses to his written discovery requests from only one of them. Had the district judge moved back the trial date, Martel could have completed this necessary discovery. Second, a brief continuance for the completion of discovery would not have caused great inconvenience. Although any continuance might be said to cause some inconvenience, the defendants here could hardly have had a significant interest in proceeding to trial before they had responded to written discovery requests and been deposed. Nor is there anything in the record that shows that the work of the district court would have been disrupted by the delay. Moreover, even had such a showing been made, that would not affect our decision; for a continuance was necessary here only because of the district judge's decision to schedule the trial at a date that was too early to permit the parties to take reasonable discovery. It is also significant that the four month interval between the filing of the complaint and the trial in this case was substantially shorter than that in the average case. In the Central District of California in 1991 and 1992, the median time between filing of the answer and trial in civil cases was thirteen months. See Administrative Office of the United States Courts, 1992 Federal Court Management Statistics 129 (1992).

In denying the continuance, the district judge focused principally on the first Flynt factor: the extent of Martel's diligence in preparing for the scheduled trial date. In doing so, the judge ignored both the facts of this case and the realities facing individual plaintiffs in modern litigation. At the hearing on the motion for a continuance, the judge claimed that Martel's counsel was "very, very slow in getting a handle on this case." This statement apparently referred to the attorney's representation that he had calculated the exact amount of Martel's medical expenses for the first time earlier that afternoon. Yet, whether or not Martel's attorney was slow in calculating the damages (and we do not mean to suggest that he was), this issue was simply irrelevant to Martel's request for a continuance. Martel did not seek the continuance in order to evaluate evidence, such as the medical bills, which were already in his possession. By the time the judge heard the motion, Martel's counsel had already performed the necessary damage calculations, and there was no need to delay for this purpose. Rather, Martel sought the continuance in order to obtain information which was...