Quinonez v. United States

• Docket Number: 22-cv-03195-WHO
• Decision Date: 29 June 2023
• Parties: RENE QUINONEZ, et al., Plaintiffs, v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of California

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RENE QUINONEZ, et al., Plaintiffs, v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, et al., Defendants.

No. 22-cv-03195-WHO

United States District Court, N.D. California

June 29, 2023

ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING IN PART MOTIONS TO DISMISS RE: DKT. NOS. 64, 65

William H. Orrick United States District Judge

The defendants, the United States of America and four United States Postal Service or Postal Inspection Service employees Jeff Agster, Eva Chan, Mark Hodges, and Robin Lee(“the individual defendants”), again move to dismiss claims brought by plaintiffsRene Quinonez and Movement Ink LLC(“Movement Ink”), who allege that the defendants unlawfully seized, detained, and searched four packages containing masks screen-printed with political messages.^[1]The plaintiffs have now alleged enough to plausibly show that the packages were searched without a warrant, placing their trespass to chattels claim beyond the discretionary function exception to the Federal Tort Claims Act (“FTCA”).That claim may proceed based on the alleged search.They have also adequately alleged that one of the defendants, Lee, knew Quinonez and his business, and thus that an economic relationship existed between the plaintiffs and a third party when he mailed the packages.This supports their interference with prospective economic relations claim as asserted under the FTCA.That claim may proceed, but only based upon the alleged acts of Lee and the Postal Service employees; the plaintiffs do not plausibly allege that the Postal Inspection Service employees knew about their business.

However the individual defendants' motion to dismiss is GRANTED.Counts 4 and 7 allege violations of the Fourth Amendment under Bivens v. Six Unknown Federal Narcotics Agents, 403 U.S. 388(1971), but the plaintiffs have not alleged nor argued anything that changes my previous decision declining to extend Bivens to their claims.These claims present a new Bivens context (the search and seizure of packages by postal workers), and special factors counsel against extending Bivens to this context (the available grievance procedure and potential systemwide consequences that such a decision would have on the Postal Service).They are dismissed with prejudice, as no other facts could plausibly save the claims.

BACKGROUND

Quinonez owns and manages Movement Ink, a small screen-printing business “known for its brand of activism-inspired business practices and relationships.”Second Am. Compl.(“SAC”)[Dkt. No. 63]¶¶ 9, 14.The SAC alleges that “social justice and activism movements, organizations, nonprofits, and individual organizers” regularly ordered screen-printed products, such as T-shirts and sweatshirts, from Quinonez and Movement Ink for years.Id.¶¶ 15-17.

During the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Movement Ink saw an increase in orders for screen-printed face masks.Id.¶ 24.When the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor prompted nationwide protests in late May and early June 2020, the SAC alleges, the plaintiffs“were the supplier of choice” when organizers “began ordering COVID-protective masks bearing political messages.”Id.¶¶ 25-26.The masks that Quinonez and Movement Ink printed bore “core political messages, such as ‘STOP KILLING BLACK PEOPLE' and ‘DEFUND POLICE.'”Id.¶ 27.

The plaintiffs printed and shipped three orders of masks to organizers in Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Oakland.Id.¶ 29.Quinonez mailed these orders “from the same postal facility and using similar packaging methods as he has done for years on behalf of Movement Ink.”Id.¶ 30.The SAC states that “[t]he postal officials at that facility know [Quinonez] and his business,”“were friendly with each other,” and “used to joke about [his] and Movement Ink's last-minute rush shipments and the high prices he paid for next-day deliveries.”Id.¶ 31.

About a week after those shipments, on June 3, 2020, Quinonez shipped the four packages now at issue.Seeid.¶¶ 35, 39.Those packages, which also contained masks, were mailed to organizers in New York City, Washington, D.C., Minneapolis, and St. Louis.Seeid.¶ 41.The SAC says that the packages were “nondescript, securely packaged, cleanly taped boxes,” marked or identified with Movement Ink as the sender, and shipped using priority mail express overnight shipping.Id.¶¶ 36-38.

But the packages were allegedly not delivered on time.Id.¶ 39.Instead, Quinonez and the intended recipients received an alert via the Postal Service's online tracking system, which stated that the packages were “seized by law enforcement.”Id.¶¶ 41-42.The packages did not arrive at their destinations until June 6(“two days and several protests late,” according to the SAC).Id.¶ 43.

The plaintiffs allege that the defendants seized, detained, and searched the packages not because they had a lawful reason to do so, but because the packages contained masks with political statements-and in doing so, defendants hurt the plaintiffs' business.Seeid.¶¶ 2-5, 65.They contend that, based on their “regular interactions” with Quinonez and his shipment of the three other packages the week before, “Postal Service Defendants Does 1 and 2” knew the plaintiffs, “the political and ongoing nature of [their] business,” and that they“had no reason to ship the packages except for ongoing economic relations with existing and potential customers.”Id.¶ 64.

Quinonez later obtained some information about the incident via an official inquiry through Representative Barbara Lee's office.Id.¶ 59.In response, the Postal Inspection Service said that the packages “were detained solely because the external physical characteristics of the parcels were consistent with parcels in other non-related instances that were confirmed to contain nonmailable matter, specifically controlled substances.”Id.¶ 60.The letter denied that the packages were detained because of the sender or recipient, “because they were associated with organizations involved in protests,” or “because it was known” that they“contained masks or any articles containing statements supporting any group or position.”Id.The letter further stated that once the Postal Inspection Service became aware of news stories about the shipment on June 5, it “immediately took action to rectify the situation” and returned the packages to the mail stream.Id.

Quinonez sought additional information via Freedom of Information Act(“FOIA”) requests, which returned the defendants' notes about the incident.Id.¶ 61.According to the SAC, those notes “explain that the Inspection Service knew that the packages contained, in their words, ‘BLM MASKS'(indicating that one or more defendants opened and searched the packages).”Id.The SAC also alleges that these notes indicated that the packages were considered suspicious because: (1) of their “bulging contents”; (2)they were “taped or glued on all seams”; (3) there were “frequently mailed parcels from the same sender/address”; (4) the “parcel destination is a known drug trafficking area”; and (5) the “parcel [was] mailed from a known drug source area.”Id.¶ 78.

The plaintiffs filed suit in June 2022, and their First Amendment Complaint (“FAC”) in September of that year.Dkt. Nos. 1, 33.Upon separate motions from the United States and the individual defendants, I dismissed all the claims with limited leave to amend only four: trespass to chattels and interference with prospective economic relations (against the United States under the FTCA), and two Fourth Amendment claims(against the individual defendants under Bivens).See Order Granting Mots. to Dismiss(“First MTD Order”)[Dkt. No. 62] 26:25-27:1.

The plaintiffs filed the SAC in May 2023, which the United States and individual defendants again separately moved to dismiss.Dkt. Nos. 63, 64, 65.

LEGAL STANDARD

I.RULE 12(B)(1)

A motion to dismiss filed pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1) is a challenge to the court's subject matter jurisdiction.SeeFed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1).“Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction,” and it is “presumed that a cause lies outside this limited jurisdiction.”Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 511 U.S. 375, 377(1994).The party invoking the jurisdiction of the federal court bears the burden of establishing that the court has the requisite subject matter jurisdiction to grant the relief requested.Id.

A Rule 12(b)(1) challenge may be facial or factual.White v. Lee, 227 F.3d 1214, 1242(9th Cir.2000).In a facial attack, the jurisdictional challenge is confined to the allegations pled in the complaint.SeeWolfe v. Strankman, 392 F.3d 358, 362(9th Cir.2004).The challenger asserts that the allegations in the complaint “are insufficient on their face to invoke federal jurisdiction.”SeeSafe Air Safe Air for Everyone v. Meyer, 373 F.3d 1035, 1039(9th Cir.2004).To resolve facial attacks, the court assumes that the allegations in the complaint are true and draws all reasonable inferences in favor of the party opposing dismissal.SeeWolfe, 392 F.3d at 362.

“By contrast, in a factual attack, the challenger disputes the truth of the allegations that, by themselves, would otherwise invoke federal jurisdiction.”Safe Air, 373 F.3d at 1039.To resolve factual attacks, the court“need not presume the truthfulness of the plaintiff's allegations.”Id.(citation omitted).Instead, the court“may review evidence beyond the complaint without converting the motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment.”Id.(same).Once the moving party has made a factual challenge by offering affidavits or other evidence to dispute the allegations in the complaint, the party opposing the motion must “present affidavits or any other evidence necessary to satisfy its burden of establishing that ...