Raymond v. Sloan
| Decision Date | 25 August 2014 |
| Docket Number | CIV. NO. 1:13-423 WBS |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Idaho |
| Parties | JACKIE RAYMOND, individually as an heir, and as Personal Representative of the Estate of Barry Johnson, Plaintiff, v. SCOTT SLOAN; PAYETTE COUNTY, a political subdivision of the State of Idaho; CHARLES HUFF, Sheriff; and JOHN DOES 1-20, Defendants, and the IDAHO STATE POLICE, Intervenor. |
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Plaintiff Jackie Raymond brought this action against defendants Scott Sloan, Sheriff Charles Huff, and Payette County arising out of the death of her father in an automobile collision with Sloan. Defendants now move to dismiss plaintiff's Complaintpursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted and to stay discovery pending the determination of their motion; plaintiff moves to amend her complaint; and the Idaho State Police ("ISP") moves to intervene pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24(b).
On October 18, 2011, Barry Johnson attempted to make a left turn from Highway 30 into the driveway of his residence near New Plymouth, Idaho. (Compl. ¶ 12 (Docket No. 1).) As he did so, Sloan, a deputy sheriff of Payette County, allegedly passed him in the left-hand lane at a speed of 115 miles per hour. (Id. ¶ 13.) Their cars collided. (Id. ¶ 16.) Johnson was ejected from the driver's seat of his vehicle and died as a result of his injuries. (Id.)
Plaintiff is Johnson's daughter and heir. (Id. ¶ 4.) She asserts two basic theories of relief. First, she brings a state-law claim for negligence against Sloan and Payette County, which she alleges is both vicariously liable for Sloan's conduct and independently liable for its failure to train, supervise, and control its employees. (Id. ¶¶ 6, 15, 17-19.) Second, she alleges that defendants conspired with officers of the ISP to cover up Sloan's misconduct and asserts that this conspiracy denied her of her constitutional right of access to the courts in violation of 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985. (Id. ¶¶ 20-21.)
Defendants now move to dismiss plaintiff's Complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, (Docket No. 27), and to stay discovery pending resolution of themotion to dismiss, (Docket No. 28); plaintiff seeks leave to amend her Complaint, (Docket No. 31); and ISP moves to intervene in the action for the purpose of opposing plaintiff's motion to file an amended Complaint, (Docket No. 41).
On a motion to dismiss, the court must accept the allegations in the complaint as true and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff. Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236 (1974), overruled on other grounds by Davis v. Scherer, 468 U.S. 183 (1984); Cruz v. Beto, 405 U.S. 319, 322 (1972). To survive a motion to dismiss, a plaintiff needs to plead "only enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007). This "plausibility standard," however, "asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully," and where a complaint pleads facts that are "merely consistent with" a defendant's liability, it "stops short of the line between possibility and plausibility." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556-57).
Subsection 1985(3) prohibits two or more persons from conspiring to deprive any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws. "To bring a cause of action successfully under § 1985(3), a plaintiff must demonstrate a deprivation of a right motivated by 'some racial, or otherwise class-based, invidiously discriminatory animus behind the conspirators' action.'" RK Ventures, Inc. v. City of Seattle, 307 F.3d 1045, 1056 (9th Cir. 2002) (quoting Sever v. Alaska Pulp Corp., 978F.2d 1529, 1536 (9th Cir. 1992)); accord Griffin v. Breckenridge, 403 U.S. 88, 102 (1971). This requires "either that the courts have designated the class in question a suspect or quasi-suspect classification requiring more exacting scrutiny or that Congress has indicated through legislation that the class required special protection." Schultz v. Sundberg, 759 F.2d 714, 718 (9th Cir. 1985) (citing DeSantis v. Pac. Tel. & Tel. Co., 608 F.2d 327, 333 (9th Cir. 1979)).
Here, plaintiff alleges only that defendants deprived her of her right of access to the courts in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. (See Compl. ¶¶ 20-21.) She has not alleged that she is a member of any protected class, let alone that defendants' conduct was motivated by a membership in such a class. See RK Ventures, 307 F.3d at 1056. Accordingly, the court must grant defendants' motion to dismiss plaintiff's § 1985 claim.
In relevant part, § 1983 provides:
Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State . . . , subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States . . . to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity or other proper proceeding for redress . . . .
42 U.S.C. § 1983. While § 1983 is not itself a source of substantive rights, it provides a cause of action against any person who, under color of state law, deprives an individual of federal constitutional rights or limited federal statutory rights. Id.; Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 393-94 (1989).
"The Supreme Court held long ago that the right of access to the courts is a fundamental right protected by the Constitution." Delew v. Wagner, 143 F.3d 1219, 1222 (9th Cir. 1998) (citing Chambers v. Balt. & Ohio R.R. Co., 207 U.S. 142, 148 (1907)). That right is "deni[ed] . . . where a party engages in pre-filing actions which effectively cover[] up evidence and render[] any state court remedies ineffective." Id. (citing Swekel v. City of River Rouge, 119 F.3d 1259, 1262 (6th Cir. 1997)).
However, because the right of access to the courts is "ancillary to the underlying claim" that a plaintiff seeks to litigate, a plaintiff must allege that the defendants' conduct actually prevented her from litigating that claim. Christopher v. Harbury, 536 U.S. 403, 415 (2002). A plaintiff "cannot merely guess that a state court remedy will be ineffective because of a defendant's actions." Delew, 143 F.3d at 1222 (quoting Swekel, 119 F.3d at 1264) (internal quotation marks omitted). Rather, she must show that she was "shut out of court" as a result of the defendants' conduct. Christopher, 536 U.S. at 415.
Even if plaintiff's allegations were sufficient to establish that defendants had conspired to cover up Sloan's misconduct, (see Compl. ¶ 20), she has not alleged that "defendants' alleged cover-up caused h[er] to lose or inadequately settle h[er] prior meritorious action." Ejigu v. City of Los Angeles, 286 Fed. App'x 977, 978 (9th Cir. 2008). In fact, aside from her bare allegation that defendants' conduct "significantly impaired" her ability to seek legal redress for her injuries, (Compl. ¶ 21), plaintiff has not alleged any factsestablishing that she is currently unable to litigate her state-law negligence claim.
At this stage in the litigation, it is premature to determine whether defendants' alleged cover-up will result in the defeat of her negligence claim. Instead of speculating upon the fate of that claim, the court will instead dismiss plaintiff's § 1983 claim without prejudice. See Delew, 143 F.3d at 1223 (). If plaintiff's efforts to litigate that claim in state court prove unsuccessful, she is free to file a new access-to-courts claim in either state or federal court.1
28 U.S.C. § 1367 authorizes federal courts to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over state-law claims that are sufficiently related to those claims over which they have original jurisdiction. 28 U.S.C. § 1367(a); United Mine Workers of Am. v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 725 (1966). A district court "may decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over a claim . . . if . . . the district court has dismissed all claims over which it has original jurisdiction." 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3); see alsoAcri v. Varian Assocs., Inc., 114 F.3d 999, 1000 (9th Cir. 1997) ().
Factors courts consider in deciding whether to dismiss supplemental state-law claims include judicial economy, convenience, fairness, and comity. City of Chicago v. Int'l Coll. of Surgeons, 522 U.S. 156, 172-73 (1997). "[I]n the usual case in which federal law claims are eliminated before trial, the balance of factors . . . will point toward declining to exercise jurisdiction over the remaining state law claims." Reynolds v. County of San Diego, 84 F.3d 1162, 1171 (9th Cir. 1996), overruled on other grounds by Acri, 114 F.3d at 1000.
Because the court will dismiss plaintiff's §§ 1983 and 1985 claims, only her state-law negligence claim remains. Plaintiff does not identify any extraordinary or unusual circumstances suggesting that the court should retain jurisdiction over her state-law claim in the absence of any federal claim. And because plaintiff's federal-law claims essentially assert that she was deprived of her ability to seek relief available under state law, comity principles suggest that the state courts of Idaho should be allowed to hear her negligence claim in the first instance. Cf. Delew, 143 F.3d at 1223. The court therefore declines to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiff's state-law negligence claim pursuant to 28 U.S.C....
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