Matthews v. San Diego Cnty. Bd. of Supervisors

THOMAS MATTHEWS, Plaintiff, v. SAN DIEGO COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS, et al.,CODE ENFORCEMENT AGENTS TERESA WILLIS & MICHAEL MURPHY;SAN DIEGO COUNTY TREASURE'S OFFICE,(all defendants sued in their individual and official capacity), Defendants.

Case No.: 3:18-CV-711-GPC-NLS

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

April 24, 2019

ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING IN PART DEFENDANTS' MOTION TO DISMISS [ECF No. 33];

ORDER DENYING PLAINTIFF'S REQUEST FOR A TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER [ECF No. 41.]

Before the Court is an ongoing dispute between pro se Plaintiff Thomas Matthews and Defendants, the County of San Diego ("County"), the County of San Diego Board of Directors, and a number of their employees ("the employee defendants") (collectively, "Defendants") arising from nuisance abatement actions brought against Plaintiff's property.

Two motions are currently before the Court. On January 25, 2019, Defendants filed a motion to dismiss Plaintiff's First Amended Complaint ("FAC"). (ECF No. 33.) That motion has been fully briefed. (ECF Nos. 35, 36.) On April 22, 2019, Plaintiff filed an emergency request for a temporary restraining order ("TRO") to enjoin the tax sale of his property, scheduled for April 26, 2019. (ECF No. 41.) The Court ordered an expedited response from Defendants, and Defendants complied on April 23, 2019. (ECF No. 45.)

Pursuant to Civil Local Rule 7.1(d)(1), the Court finds the pending motions suitable for adjudication without oral argument. For the reasons explained below, Defendants' motions to dismiss will be granted in part and denied in part, and Plaintiff's request for a TRO to enjoin the impending sale of his property will be denied.

I. Background

A. Factual Background¹

The instant litigation concerns events ensuing after nuisance complaints were lodged against the property located at 5602 Trafalgar Road, El Cajon, CA 92109 (the "property"). In 2004, the County received complaints that solid waste was being stored on the property, in violation of several sections of the San Diego County Code of Regulatory Ordinances and the San Diego County Zoning Ordinance. The solid waste included "scrap wood, scrap metal, wood pallets, metal racking, cages, automotive parts/equipment, inoperative vehicles, trailer coaches, construction materials/equipment/vehicles/debris, broken/discarded appliances/furnishings, wiring/cables, plastic buckets/bins/containers, tarps, tubing, cardboard boxes, old machinery and parts, outside stored items, and debris strewn about." (ECF No. 33-1, at 4.) A number of administrative warnings were issued with respect to the property. Site inspections in later years further revealed storage of sixteen commercial vehicles, fourteen inoperative vehicles, large tractor trailers, trailer coaches, and old machinery and construction, and trash and debris. (Id. at 6.)

Despite these notices, the waste and hazardous materials on the property remained on site. On May 13, 2014, a Notice and Order to Abate was posted on the property, and a copy was mailed to the property owner of record, a John M. Smith. (ECF No. 33-1, at 10.)

In response, Plaintiff, Mr. Smith's nephew, filed an administrative appeal of that abatement order. A hearing was held on May 13, 2014. At the hearing, the presiding County Hearing Officer questioned Plaintiff's standing to bring the appeal, noting that he was not the property owner of record for the property. (Id. at 12.) In response, Plaintiff represented that "he is a long term tenant of the property, having lived at the Trafalgar Road address for 21 years, and that he was appearing in place and stead of Mr. Smith, and had full legal authority to appear for and to bind the record property owner to the rulings of th[e] administrative tribunal." (Id.). At the conclusion of the appeal, the County Hearing Officer upheld the Notice and Order to Abate. (Id.)

After losing the administrative appeal, Plaintiff proceeded to file two actions in San Diego Superior Court contesting the abatement enforcement proceedings. (Id. at 21-32.) Both actions were filed in July of 2014 and claimed violations of Plaintiff's constitutional rights. The complaint for a preliminary injunction contains a signature line for John M. Smith, and a handwritten signature appears above it. (Id. at 28.) The Superior Court sustained the County's demurrer as to the initial complaint and denied the request for a preliminary injunction. (Id. at 34-43.)

On March 4, 2015, the County obtained an abatement warrant for the property which authorized any Code Enforcement Officer to enter "for the purpose of abating and removing any and all trash, junk, and broken/discarded appliances/furnishings . . . outside stored items and debris strewn about the property." (Id. at 15-16.) The abatement warrant was executed starting on March 4, 2015. (Id. at 18.) Advance Demolition was retained for clean up services. During the initial execution of the warrant, Code Enforcement Officer Teresa Willis discovered approximately 200 containers of unknown substances which required HazMat personnel to investigate; testing confirmed that somecontainers held hazardous substances. (Id.) In light of the extensive scope of the nuisance, Officer Willis requested and was granted a seven day extension of the existing abatement warrant to March 21, 2015. (Id. at 19.) On April 7, 2015, Officer Willis signed a document titled "Schedule of Costs for Public Nuisance Abatement" which calculated the cost of abatement due as $114,835.10. (ECF No. 1-3, at 1.)

The record demonstrates that at the end of abatement, 195 tons of solid waste had been removed from the property. (ECF No. 1-5, at 1.) At some point, the County assessed the cost of abatement as a lien against the property subject to San Diego Code of Regulatory Ordinance sections 16.212-215 (permitting unpaid abatement costs due to the County to be applied against the property as a lien, and for the amount of the costs to be added to the property tax bill).

Plaintiff filed an administrative appeal challenging the assessment of the abatement costs. On June 4, 2015, a hearing was held wherein a San Diego County Hearing Officer denied Plaintiff's appeal. (ECF No. 33-1, at 48-49.) The hearing officer's order advised that "Appellant has a right to file a lawsuit challenging this decision within 90 days after this decision becomes final." (Id. at. 49.)

Plaintiff filed the present action on April 10, 2018. On April 27, 2018, Plaintiff recorded the grant deeds giving him ownership of the property. (Id. at 75-82.) Prior to that point, John M. Smith was the owner of record, though it appears that Plaintiff has been receiving the County's tax bill for the property since approximately 2009. (See ECF No. 28, at 49.)

Despite Plaintiff's early history of making tax payments for the property, it appears that Plaintiff defaulted on this endeavor at some point. After the abatement costs were issued as a lien on the property and added to Plaintiff's property taxes, Plaintiff fell behind on his taxes. In an effort to collect, the San Diego County Treasurer-Tax Collector's Office scheduled a tax sale of the property for May 4, 2018. That sale was cancelled after Plaintiff filed for bankruptcy on April 30, 2018. (ECF No. 45, at 4, 6.) On September 10, 2018, Plaintiff's bankruptcy petition was dismissed pursuant toPlaintiff's request. (ECF No. 45, at 4.) Thereafter, a notice was mailed out on March 11, 2019, informing Plaintiff that the property would be listed for sale at public auction on April 26, 2019. (Id. at 6.)

B. Procedural Background

Plaintiff amended his complaint on December 27, 2018. (ECF No. 28.) The FAC names the County, the County Board of Supervisors, several employee defendants, and Advance Demolition as defendants. Plaintiff's claimed causes of action are legion; he makes allegations under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, civil RICO (for wire and mail fraud), the Constitution, and asserts claims of perjury, and fraud, bad faith, and trespass, among others.

At base, all of Plaintiff's claims are premised on his contention that the abatement proceedings were null and void. The gravamen of Plaintiff's theory is that Defendants had full knowledge that Mr. Smith, the property owner of record until 2018, passed away in 2003, but nonetheless instituted and executed the abatement proceedings in his name. Plaintiff further asserts that Defendants were put on notice that Plaintiff was the true owner because he had been paying property taxes on the property. Naming Mr. Smith, then, evinced Defendants' nefarious plot to "collect an illegal debt by writing false claims against Plaintiff's real property by using a deceased person." (ECF No. 28, at 19.)

On January 25, 2019, Defendants filed a motion to dismiss based on state-law immunity, statute of limitations, and res judicata and collateral estoppel grounds. (ECF No. 33). Defendants opposed the motion (ECF No. 35) and Plaintiff filed a response. (ECF No. 36.) On April 22, 2019, Plaintiff filed a motion requesting a temporary restraining order to enjoin the sale of his property scheduled for April 26, 2019.

The Court addresses these two motions in turn.

II. Defendants' motion to dismiss

A. Legal Standard for Rule 12(b)(6)

A complaint must contain only a "short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief," FED. R. CIV. P. 8(a)(2), not "detailed factualallegations," Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007). But this rule demands more than unadorned accusations; "sufficient factual matter" must make the claim at least plausible. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). A party may thus move to dismiss for "failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted." FED. R. CIV. P. 12(b)(6). The motion may be granted only if the complaint lacks a "cognizable legal theory" or if its factual allegations do not support a cognizable legal theory. Hartmann v. Cal. Dep't of Corr. & Rehab., 707 F.3d 1114, 1122 ...