Sinaloa Lake Owners Ass'n v. City of Simi Valley
| Decision Date | 30 November 1995 |
| Docket Number | No. 92-56399,92-56399 |
| Citation | 70 F.3d 1095 |
| Parties | 95 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 9002, 95 Daily Journal D.A.R. 15,739 SINALOA LAKE OWNERS ASSOCIATION; Robert A. Ain; Diantha Ain; Leonard Bellenson; Ann Bellenson, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CITY OF SIMI VALLEY, Defendant, and Roger Stephenson; James Doody; Vernon H. Persson; David Jacinto; James E. Ley; Howard McEwan, executor of the Estate of Sheldon McEwan, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
Mark Schaeffer, Fadem & Douglas, Los Angeles, California, for plaintiffs-appellants.
Thomas A. Freiberg, Jr., and David A. Buchen, Fulbright & Jaworski, Los Angeles, California, for defendants-appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
Before: HUG, WIGGINS, and NOONAN, Circuit Judges.
This appeal concerns a 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 action against state officials for breaching a private dam and the consequent draining of a private lake. The dam was breached by officials of the California Division of Safety of Dams ("DSOD") because they believed it was in a damaged condition and dangerous to the homeowners downstream. The DSOD is responsible for inspecting non-federally owned dams in California. At the close of the presentation of evidence by the plaintiffs and defendants, the district court entered judgment as a matter of law on the ground that the state officials were entitled to qualified immunity. The principal issue is whether, in light of the evidence presented at trial, the state officials were entitled to qualified immunity as a matter of law. We affirm the judgment of the district court.
Sinaloa Lake Owners Association, Inc. ("SLOA") owns a private dam and the lake behind the dam. The dam is an earthen structure, 800 feet long and 30 feet high, and is located upstream from the City of Simi Valley. In early 1983, after heavy rains raised the lake's water level endangering the safety of the dam, the DSOD declared an emergency, breached the dam, and drained the lake.
The SLOA and a group of homeowners brought this section 1983 action on December 16, 1983, against the City of Simi Valley, the County of Ventura, the DSOD, and the officials of DSOD for inverse condemnation, for seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and for violation of both substantive and procedural due process rights guaranteed under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. The district court granted the state officials' motion to dismiss on the grounds that the plaintiffs' claims were not ripe for review because they had failed to exhaust state and judicial remedies. On appeal from the entry of judgment on the pleadings, we affirmed the dismissal of the Fourth Amendment claim and the inverse condemnation claim. We reversed the dismissal of the procedural and substantive due process claims and remanded for trial. Sinaloa Lake Owners Ass'n v. City of Simi Valley, 882 F.2d 1398, 1404-10 (9th Cir.1989), cert. denied, 494 U.S. 1016, 110 S.Ct. 1317, 108 L.Ed.2d 493 (1990) ("Sinaloa I "). Following the remand, the City and County were dismissed by stipulation of the parties. The DSOD, as an agency of the State, was dismissed on Eleventh Amendment grounds for lack of jurisdiction. That order was appealed under a Fed.R.Civ.P. 54(b) certification, and we affirmed that order in an unpublished memorandum disposition. Sinaloa Lake Owners Ass'n v. California Division of State of Dams, 993 F.2d 884 (9th Cir.1993).
The case proceeded to a jury trial against the individual employees of the DSOD. At the conclusion of the plaintiffs' presentation of the evidence, the district court found that all defendants except James Doody, Chief Engineer of the DSOD, were entitled to qualified immunity and entered judgment as a matter of law in their favor. At the conclusion of the trial of the remaining claim against Doody, the district court held that Doody also was entitled to qualified immunity and entered judgment as a matter of law in his favor. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1291, and we affirm.
In the prior appeal before our court, the district court dismissed the complaint for lack of ripeness, and therefore, lack of jurisdiction. Sinaloa I, 882 F.2d 1398. In considering the appeal we were required to take the allegations in the complaint as true. Id. at 1401. The focus of the appeal was whether the complaint alleged any valid claims for relief for which there was jurisdiction. We held that violation of procedural and substantive due process rights had been adequately alleged in the complaint. At that stage, the question of qualified immunity was not an issue because we were merely dealing with the allegations of the complaint.
This appeal concerns the issue of qualified immunity and the entry of a judgment as a matter of law at the completion of the trial. The issue before us is not the substantive issue of whether the plaintiffs were or were not deprived of property without due process of law, but rather whether these state officials were entitled to qualified immunity in carrying out their official duties. We conclude that they were.
It is important to note at the outset the purpose of the defense of qualified immunity. The Supreme Court stated "[t]he central purpose of affording public officials qualified immunity is to protect them 'from undue interference with their duties and from potentially disabling threats of liability.' " Elder v. Holloway, --- U.S. ----, ----, 114 S.Ct. 1019, 1022, 127 L.Ed.2d 344 (1994) (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, Ideally, this should be decided at the earliest possible stage in the litigation because it is not only an immunity from liability but an immunity from suit. Id. at 227-28, 112 S.Ct. at 536-37. In this case, qualified immunity is not being decided at an early summary judgment stage but, instead, after an evidentiary trial of the case. Following our opinion in Sinaloa I, reversing the judgment on the pleadings and remanding for trial, no motion for summary judgment was made. The first motion for judgment based on qualified immunity was made after the conclusion of the plaintiffs case in chief. Although the court ruled as to the subordinate DSOD officials, it did not rule as to Doody until the presentation of all the evidence was complete. The court obviously deemed it important to consider all the evidence before the ruling. Thus, the earliest stage at which the district court deemed it appropriate to rule on qualified immunity for Doody was after the presentation of all the evidence. The district judge observed that the historical facts of what the DSOD officials knew, the action that was taken to breach the dam, and the person who made that decision were not in dispute. He noted that both the plaintiffs and the defendants relied on the same records, but characterized the reasonableness of the action differently.
806, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2732, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982)). The qualified immunity defense allows for mistaken judgments and protects "all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law." Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U.S. 224, 229, 112 S.Ct. 534, 537, 116 L.Ed.2d 589 (1991) (per curiam) (quoting Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341, 106 S.Ct. 1092, 1096, 89 L.Ed.2d 271 (1986)). "This accommodation for reasonable error exists because 'officials should not err always on the side of caution' because they fear being sued." Hunter, 502 U.S. at 229, 112 S.Ct. at 537 (citation omitted).
We have recently discussed the dilemma of the appropriate procedure to follow when qualified immunity is not decided at the summary judgment stage, but is presented as a defense at trial. The difficulty presented is what is appropriate for the judge to decide and what should be submitted to the jury when the facts are in dispute. Here, we are not faced with that issue because the essential facts relating to the defense of qualified immunity are not in dispute. It is important to recognize that although facts relating to the underlying issue of whether there was or was not a violation of due process were in dispute, the essential facts concerning the defense of qualified immunity were not in dispute.
Once a law enforcement officer asserts qualified immunity, "the district court must determine whether, in light of clearly established principles governing the conduct in question, the officer objectively could have believed that his conduct was lawful." Act Up!/Portland v. Bagley, 988 F.2d 868, 871 (9th Cir.1993). This requires a two-step analysis: "1) Was the law governing the official's conduct clearly established? 2) Under that law, could a reasonable officer have believed the conduct was lawful?" Id. An official is entitled to qualified immunity even where reasonable officers could disagree as to the lawfulness of the official's conduct, so long as that conclusion is objectively reasonable. Id. at 872.
The threshold determination of whether the law is clearly established is a question of law for the court. See id. at 871. The second part of the test, whether a reasonable state official could have believed the action taken was lawful, is a mixed question of law and fact. It involves an objective test of whether a reasonable official could have believed that his conduct was lawful in light of what he knew and the action he took. If there are genuine issues of material fact in issue relating to the historical facts of what the official knew or what he did, it is clear that these are questions of fact for the jury to determine. The difficult issue is whether, when there are disputed issues of historical fact, the entire second mixed question of law and fact should be submitted to the jury under appropriate instructions as we do in negligence cases or whether the jury should be instructed only to find the historical...
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