Smith v. City of Fontana

• Decision Date: 07 July 1983
• Docket Number: No. 82-5896,82-5896
• Parties: Sonja Renee SMITH, as Administratrix of the Estate of Rufus A. Smith, Sr., Deceased, as Guardian Ad Litem for the minor children of the Deceased, and individually; and Marcus Smith, a minor; Netra Smith, a minor; Anthony Smith, a minor; Jarren Smith, a minor; Sherri Smith, a minor; Arkillius Smith, a minor; and Tashieka Smith, a minor, Rufus Anthony Smith, Jr., individually, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. The CITY OF FONTANA, a municipal corporation; Robert Mejia; Larry Smith; Nathan A. Simon; Charles A. Koehler; Ben Abernathy; Bill Freeman; Donald F. Day; William Fragness; Jack Ratelle; John M. Rager; and Kathy Wilson, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 1411

818 F.2d 1411

Sonja Renee SMITH, as Administratrix of the Estate of Rufus

A. Smith, Sr., Deceased, as Guardian Ad Litem for the minor

children of the Deceased, and individually; and Marcus

Smith, a minor; Netra Smith, a minor; Anthony Smith, a

minor; Jarren Smith, a minor; Sherri Smith, a minor;

Arkillius Smith, a minor; and Tashieka Smith, a minor, Rufus Anthony Smith, Jr., individually, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. The CITY OF FONTANA, a municipal corporation; Robert Mejia;

Larry Smith; Nathan A. Simon; Charles A. Koehler; Ben

Abernathy; Bill Freeman; Donald F. Day; William Fragness;

Jack Ratelle; John M. Rager; and Kathy Wilson,

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 82-5896.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Submitted July 7, 1983. ^*

Resubmitted May 27, 1986.

Decided Jan. 6, 1987.

As Amended on Denial of Rehearing

and Rehearing En Banc

May 5, 1987.

As Amended July 7, 1987.

Andrena G. Dancer, Upland, Cal., for plaintiffs-appellants.

Bradley C. Withers, David L. Shain, Cotkin, Collins & Koltz, Los Angeles, Cal., for defendants-appellees.

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

Before TANG, ^** ALARCON and NORRIS, Circuit Judges.

NORRIS, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiffs filed this civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 (1982) and other provisions of the Civil Rights Act. The district court dismissed their complaint for failure to state a claim on the ground that relief under section 1983 was barred by Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 101 S.Ct. 1908, 68 L.Ed.2d 420 (1981), and Rutledge v. Arizona Bd. of Regents, 660 F.2d 1345 (9th Cir.1981), aff'd on other grounds sub nom. Kush v. Rutledge, 460 U.S. 719, 103 S.Ct. 1483, 75 L.Ed.2d 413 (1983). We reverse on the basis of recent Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit authority holding that Parratt and its progeny are inapplicable to civil rights actions asserting substantive as opposed to purely procedural due process violations. ¹

I FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

According to the plaintiffs' complaint, City of Fontana police officers Robert Mejia Plaintiffs brought suit in federal district court under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 ² against officers Mejia and Smith, the City of Fontana, and various city officials, ³ claiming that the defendants' conduct violated the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Eighth Amendments and both the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Plaintiff Sonja Smith, suing in her capacity as administratrix of the decedent's estate, seeks to vindicate Mr. Smith's personal civil rights. She and the other plaintiffs also sue in their capacities as adult or minor children of Mr. Smith, seeking to vindicate their own personal rights.

and Larry Smith responded to a call concerning a domestic quarrel at the apartment of Rufus A. Smith, Sr. on May 27, 1982. Encountering Mr. Smith in his parking lot, the officers asked him to place his hands on his head and detained him in order to discuss the alleged incident. As Mr. Smith attempted to comply, Officer Smith without provocation clenched him from behind in a chokehold and began to drag him backwards. While Mr. Smith was thus being held, Officer Mejia without provocation began to knee him in the groin and strike him in the face. Though Mr. Smith was unarmed and offered only instinctive resistance against the blows to his groin and face, Officer Smith drew his duty revolver and shot Mr. Smith in the back. Mr. Smith died approximately one and a half hours later during emergency surgery. Mr. Smith was a black man.

Relying on the then recently-decided Parratt v. Taylor and Rutledge v. Arizona Bd. of Regents, the district court dismissed the action in its entirety for failure to state a claim on the ground that California's post-deprivation remedies for violations of state tort law were adequate to protect the plaintiffs from suffering any cognizable constitutional injury. ⁴

II LIMITATIONS ON PARRATT AND ITS PROGENY

In Parratt v. Taylor, the Supreme Court held that when a state actor negligently deprived a prisoner of a minor property interest through a "random and unauthorized" act, the state's provision of an adequate post-deprivation remedy satisfied the constitutional requisite of procedural due process. 451 U.S. at 541-44, 101 S.Ct. at 1915-17. The district court apparently understood Parratt to preclude any section 1983 action based on an official's "random and unauthorized" deprivation of a constitutional right when a state provides adequate post-deprivation remedies. However, Parratt and its progeny merely determine when a state's post-deprivation remedies are adequate to protect a victim's procedural due process rights. The Parratt line of cases does not focus on the relevance of procedural protections to alleged violations of substantive constitutional rights. As Justice Stevens recently noted in his concurrence in Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 106 S.Ct. 662, 88 L.Ed.2d 662 (1986), the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment "is the source of three different kinds of constitutional protection. First, it incorporates specific provisions defined The due process clause also "contains a substantive component, sometimes referred to as 'substantive due process,' which bars certain arbitrary government actions 'regardless of the fairness of the procedures used to implement them.' " Daniels, 106 S.Ct. at 678 (separate opinion of Stevens, J.) (citation omitted). Writing for the Court in Daniels, Chief Justice Rehnquist recently reaffirmed this understanding that the due process secures both procedural and substantive constitutional protections:

                in the Bill of Rights."    106 S.Ct. at 677 (separate opinion of Stevens, J., concurring in the judgment).  Actions which violate these specific substantive protections of the Bill of Rights lie outside the scope of Parratt because the constitutional violation is complete at the moment the action or deprivation occurs, rather than at the time the state fails to provide requisite procedural safeguards surrounding the action.  Hence, Parratt is inapplicable to alleged violations of one of the substantive provisions of the Bill of Rights, such as the Fourth Amendment.    See Daniels, 106 S.Ct. at 678 (separate opinion of Stevens, J.)    ("If the claim [concerns a] ... violation of one of the specific constitutional guarantees of the Bill of Rights[ ], a plaintiff may invoke Sec. 1983 regardless of the availability of a state remedy.");   see also Robins v. Harum, 773 F.2d 1004, 1009 (9th Cir.1985) (Parratt's focus on post-deprivation remedies simply "is not applicable to a claim, such as the instant excessive use of force claim, brought under the Fourth Amendment")
                

By requiring the government to follow appropriate procedures when its agents decide to "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property," the Due Process Clause promotes fairness in such decisions. And by barring certain government actions regardless of the fairness of the procedures used to implement them, it serves to prevent governmental power from being "used for purposes of oppression."

Id. at 665 (citations omitted). Like specific provisions of the Bill of Rights, "substantive due process is violated at the moment the harm occurs [and therefore] the existence of a post-deprivation state remedy should not have any bearing on whether a cause of action exists under Sec. 1983." Rutherford v. City of Berkeley, 780 F.2d 1444, 1447 (9th Cir.1986). See Shah v. County of Los Angeles, 797 F.2d 743, 746 (9th Cir.1986); McRorie v. Shimoda, 795 F.2d 780, 785-86 (9th Cir.1986); Gaut v. Sunn, 792 F.2d 874, 876 (9th Cir.1986); Mann v. City of Tucson, 782 F.2d 790, 792-93 (9th Cir.1986); see also Daniels, 106 S.Ct. at 678 (separate opinion of Stevens, J.).

Only claims lying within the third category of constitutional protections--procedural protections against wrongful deprivations of life, liberty or property--fall within the scope of the Parratt doctrine. Constitutional violations of procedural due process occur not at the moment of the deprivation, but only when the State fails to provide adequate procedures to protect against wrongful deprivations. Id. at 678-79.

Dismissal of the plaintiffs' section 1983 claims was therefore improper to the extent that the complaint stated valid claims for relief for violations of substantive rather than procedural constitutional rights. ⁵ We address each of the constitutional claims asserted by each of the plaintiffs in turn, reviewing the claims de novo. Guillory v. County of Orange, 731 F.2d 1379, 1381 (9th Cir.1984). In conducting this review we presume that the facts alleged in the complaint are true and construe them in the light most favorable to the appellant. North Star Intern. v. Arizona Corp. Comm'n, 720 F.2d 578, 580 (9th Cir.1983).

                Dismissal is improper " 'unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief.' "   Franklin v. Oregon, 662 F.2d 1337, 1343 (9th Cir.1981) (quoting Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236, 94 S.Ct. 1683, 1686, 40 L.Ed.2d 90 (1974))
                

III FOURTH AMENDMENT CLAIMS

The estate's first legal theory is that the officers' actions and the City's policies violated Mr. Smith's Fourth Amendment rights. In Tennessee v. Garner, the Supreme Court held that "apprehension by the use of deadly force is a seizure subject to the reasonableness requirement of the Fourth Amendment." ⁶ 471 U.S. 1, 7, 105 S.Ct. 1694, 1699, 85 L.Ed.2d 1 (1985). Where a victim of a seizure alleges that officers unreasonably employed excessive force under the circumstances in order to detain or subdue her, the "reasonableness of force should be analyzed in light of such factors as the requirements for the officers' safety, the motivation for the arrest [or detention], and the extent of the injury inflicted." McKenzie v. Lamb, 738 F.2d 1005, 1011 (9th Cir.1984). Hence, an allegation that force used during a...