Walker v. City of N. Las Vegas
| Decision Date | 30 May 2019 |
| Docket Number | Case No.: 2:14-cv-01475-JAD-NJK |
| Parties | Thomas WALKER and Cathy Cataldo, Plaintiffs v. CITY OF NORTH LAS VEGAS, Officer Paul Maalouf, and Officer Travis Snyder, Defendants |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Nevada |
John M. Naylor, Jennifer L. Braster, Naylor & Braster, Alina M. Shell, Margaret A McLetchie, McLetchie Law, Las Vegas, NV, for Plaintiff.
Gregory Bean, Wolfe & Wyman, Robert W. Freeman, Jr., Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP, Las Vegas, NV, for Defendant.
This case arises out of the shooting death of plaintiffs Thomas Walker and Cathy Cataldo's dogs by North Las Vegas Police Department (NLVPD) Officers Paul Maalouf and Travis Snyder while the NLVPD's Narcotics Bureau executed a warrant to search the plaintiffs' home. Discovery is closed and five claims remain to be determined: unreasonable seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment against Maalouf and Snyder; failure to provide adequate training and supervision in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments and Nevada law against the City of North Las Vegas; and both negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress under Nevada law against Maalouf, Snyder, and the City.1
Defendants move for summary judgment on all five claims and plaintiffs' demand for punitive damages.2 Plaintiffs move for summary judgment on their unreasonable-seizure claim and Maalouf and Snyder's qualified-immunity defense to that claim.3 Each side also moves for sanctions against the other side under FRCP 11.4 Finally, plaintiffs twice object that six of defendants' summary-judgment exhibits are inadmissible and move to strike them.5
Except for one police report and some photographs, I overrule plaintiffs' objections to defendants' summary-judgment evidence. I deny the parties' competing motions for sanctions. I also deny plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment. But I grant defendants' summary-judgment motion in part and, finally, order the parties to a mandatory settlement conference on plaintiffs' remaining claims for unreasonable seizure and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Plaintiffs twice object to six exhibits that defendants provide to support their summary-judgment arguments, contending that this evidence is not admissible and should be struck.6 At the summary-judgment stage, the focus is not on the admissibility of the evidence's current form, but on the admissibility of its contents.7 When an objection is made, "[t]he burden is on the proponent to show that the material is admissible as presented or to explain the admissible form that is anticipated."8
Plaintiffs object that the photographs of the exterior (ECF Nos. 165-2, 185-2) and interior (ECF Nos. 165-10, 185-10) of their home are not relevant. Evidence is relevant if it has any tendency to make a fact of consequence more or less probable than it would be without the evidence.9 Defendants provide the exterior photographs to support the alleged fact that NLVPD obtained a warrant to search plaintiffs' home because of an undercover drug-buy that occurred in plaintiffs' home.10 The claims and defenses in this case concern the shooting and death of plaintiffs' dogs, which occurred just outside the plaintiffs' home while the officers were executing a warrant to search that home. Though the exterior photographs don't support the fact for which defendants provide them, they do contain information that is relevant to the claims and defenses. For example, I must consider the totality of the circumstances in determining whether the officers are entitled to qualified immunity from plaintiffs' unreasonable-seizure claim. The general layout of the plaintiffs' property, which is depicted in the exterior photographs, is relevant to that analysis. Plaintiffs' objection to the exterior photographs is therefore overruled.
Defendants provide the interior photographs to support the alleged fact that the NLVPD searched and photographed plaintiffs' home after the shooting.11 The interior photographs largely depict illicit items that the NLVPD allegedly seized from plaintiffs' home after the event that gives rise to plaintiffs' claims—the shooting death of their dogs by Maalouf and Snyder. The photographs of those items are not relevant to the questions before me, and because my job on summary judgment isn't to weigh evidence or assess the witnesses' credibility, I do not consider those photographs in deciding the parties' summary-judgment motions. But some of these photographs are relevant to the totality of the circumstances surrounding the shooting death of plaintiffs' dogs because they provide context for the witnesses' deposition testimony. Thus, plaintiffs' objection to the interior photographs is sustained for the photographs Bates stamped NLV MSJ PHO 19–30 and overruled for the photographs Bates stamped NLV MSJ 14–18.
Plaintiffs argue that one of the reports prepared by nonparty Fernando Calderon (ECF Nos. 165-9, 185-9) lacks foundation, hasn't been authenticated, is irrelevant, and isn't a "true and correct copy" because two pages are missing. Calderon is an NLVPD investigator who interviewed Walker and Cataldo while they were detained as their home was being searched. Defendants use Calderon's report to support the facts that Walker allegedly admitted to Calderon that he used methamphetamine the night before the search, owned an unregistered handgun that he kept in the home, and that a records check showed the gun was stolen.12 None of these alleged facts is consequential to any claim or defense in this case because what plaintiffs challenge is the seizure of their property, not the search of their home, and these alleged facts were not known to NLVPD until after the seizure occurred. Defendants argue that Calderon's report describes what happened and lays the foundation for why the police were at the plaintiffs' home in the first place. This is an overly generous characterization. In truth, all the challenged report states about those topics is that NLVPD's Narcotics Bureau executed a court-ordered narcotics search warrant at the plaintiffs' home on September 14, 2012, and "[p]rior to execution of the warrant, [Calderon] set up surveillance of the location were [he] had a visual of the front door."13 Plaintiffs' objection that Calderon's report is not relevant is sustained, so I do not reach plaintiffs' other objections to this evidence nor do I consider this exhibit in deciding the parties' summary-judgment motions.
Plaintiffs object to the curriculum vitae (ECF Nos. 165-11, 185-12) and affidavit-report (ECF Nos. 165-12, 185-13) of defendants' expert W. Ken Katsaris, arguing that this evidence is inadmissible under FRE 702 because Katsaris isn't an expert on police use of force on dogs or police interactions with dogs. Defendants provide this evidence to support their argument that Maalouf and Snyder acted reasonably when they shot and killed plaintiffs' two dogs.14 Defendants also use this evidence to support their argument that the training the City provides for NLVPD officers adequately covers their potential interactions with dogs.15
I do not consider the substance of this evidence for the first factual point because plaintiffs have demonstrated that the circumstances surrounding the shooting death of their dogs is genuinely disputed. As for the sufficiency of the officers' training, plaintiffs have not demonstrated that Katsaris is unqualified or that his anticipated trial testimony will be unhelpful or useless on that topic. Rather, plaintiffs' objections go to issues of weight and credibility, matters that are for the factfinder to determine and not a judge ruling on summary-judgment motions. Plaintiffs' objection to this evidence is overruled.
Finally, plaintiffs object to the "Deadly Force" section that defendants provide from the NLVPD's "Police Facility Procedure Manual," arguing that defendants failed to attach it to their appendix of exhibits. Plaintiffs don't explain why this filing error necessitates court intervention, and defendants filed an erratum correcting their mistake.16 Plaintiffs' objection is overruled. With the evidence sorted into buckets that I can and cannot consider, I move onto the parties' motions for Rule 11 sanctions.
Plaintiffs move for sanctions under FRCP 11, arguing that defendants misrepresented in their summary-judgment motion that their version of the facts is undisputed.17 Defendants countermove for sanctions, arguing that plaintiffs' motion for sanctions itself violates Rule 11.18 I deny defendants' sanctions motion because there is no evidence that they served that motion on plaintiffs 21 days before they filed it with the court.19 Though plaintiffs' motion is procedurally sound, I deny it, too, because the complained-about conduct doesn't violate Rule 11.
" Rule 11 is intended to deter baseless filings in district court and imposes a duty of ‘reasonable inquiry’ so that anything filed with the court is ‘well grounded in fact, legally tenable, and not interposed for any improper purpose.’ "20 Thus, the rule automatically imposes upon any attorney or pro se party who files a writing with the court the certification that, "to the best of the person's knowledge, information, and belief, formed after an inquiry reasonable under the circumstances[,]" the writing is not frivolous, legally unreasonable, without evidentiary foundation, or brought for an improper purpose.21
The crux of plaintiffs' argument is that defendants' summary-judgment motion is factually misleading—i.e., violates FRCP 11(b)(3) —because defendants misstate that their version of the facts is undisputed. But defendants don't outright ignore the fact that their version of the facts is...
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