Mollica v. County of Sacramento, 2:19-cv-02017-KJM-DB

Lia D. Mollica, Plaintiff, v. County of Sacramento, et al., Defendants.

No. 2:19-cv-02017-KJM-DB

United States District Court, E.D. California

July 7, 2021

ORDER

Lia D Mollica moves to strike several affirmative defenses from the defendants' answers to her amended complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(f). The court grants the motion in part and denies it in part.

I. BACKGROUND

Mollica alleges she severely injured her foot falling from the top bunk of her bed in the Sacramento County Main Jail. See generally Am. Compl., ECF No. 20. She also alleges she was denied necessary medical care. See generally Id. She asserts claims against the County of Sacramento, the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department, and several individual officers, citing 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the Rehabilitation Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, California Government Code section 845.6, the Tom Bane Civil Rights Act, and California tort law. See Id. ¶¶ 6-11, 70-119.

The defendants have answered Mollica's allegations. See County Defs.' Answer, ECF No. 22; Indiv Defs.' Answer, ECF No. 29. They deny liability and assert thirteen affirmative defenses, detailed below, which Mollica moves to strike under Rule 12(f). See Mot. Strike County, ECF No. 24; Mot. Strike Indiv. Defs., ECF No. 30.^[1] The defendants oppose the motions, which are now fully briefed, and the court submitted them without oral argument. See County Defs.' Opp'n, ECF No. 26; Reply County Defs., ECF No. 28; Indiv. Defs.' Opp'n, ECF No. 31; Reply Indiv. Defs., ECF No. 32; Minute Orders, ECF Nos. 27, 33.

II. LEGAL STANDARD

The court may strike “from a pleading an insufficient defense or any redundant, immaterial, impertinent or scandalous matter.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(f). A defense may be insufficient (1) as a matter of pleading or (2) as a matter of law. Cal. Brewing Co. v. 3 Daughters Brewing LLC, No. 15- 02278, 2016 WL 4001133, at *1 (E.D. Cal. Jul. 26, 2016).

An affirmative defense is insufficient as a matter of pleading if it does not provide “fair notice” of the defense to the plaintiff.^[2] See Wyshak v. City Nat'l Bank, 607 F.2d 824, 827 (9th Cir. 1979) (per curiam). An answer provides fair notice of an affirmative defense if it identifies “the nature and grounds for the affirmative defense.” Dodson v. Munirs Co., No. 13-0399, 2013 WL 3146818, at *2 (E.D. Cal. June 18, 2013). This is a “low bar” that requires some factual basis, but not great detail. Gomez v. J. Jacobo Farm Labor Contractor, Inc., 188 F.Supp.3d 986, 992 (E.D. Cal. 2016) (citations omitted). Generalized references to a legal doctrine or a statute normally fall short of this standard unless they rely on a well-known defense whose applicability is clear in context. See Id. at 992-93.

A defense is insufficient as a matter of law if it is redundant, immaterial, impertinent or scandalous. Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(f). An allegation is “redundant” if it is “needlessly repetitive or wholly foreign to the issues involved in the action.” Cal. Dep't. of Toxic Substances Control v. Alco Pac., Inc., 217 F.Supp.2d 1028, 1033 (C.D. Cal. 2002). An allegation is “immaterial” if there is no essential or important relationship to the pleaded claims or defenses. Fantasy, Inc. v. Fogerty, 984 F.2d 1524, 1527 (9th Cir. 1993), rev'd on other grounds, 510 U.S. 517 (1994). An allegation is “impertinent” if it consists of statements that do not pertain and are unnecessary to the issues. Id. An allegation is “scandalous” if it casts a “cruelly derogatory light on a party or other person.” In re 2TheMart.com, Inc. Sec. Litig., 114 F.Supp.2d 955, 965 (C.D. Cal. 2000).

In addition to these requirements, some courts have required a party moving to strike to show it would suffer prejudice if its motion were denied. See, e.g., Wynes v. Kaiser Permanente Hospitals, No. 10-00702, 2011 WL 1302916, at * 12 (E.D. Cal. Mar. 31, 2011) (“[C]ourts often require a showing of prejudice by the moving party . . . .”); Wolk v. Green, 516 F.Supp.2d 1121, 1134 (N.D. Cal. 2007) (“[T]he remedy of striking a pleading should generally be granted only to avoid prejudice to the moving party . . . .”). Although a party who moves to strike can certainly improve its chances of success by showing prejudice would be likely, “Rule 12(f) says nothing about a showing of prejudice.” Houston Cas. Co. v. Crum & Forster Ins. Co., No. 16-535, 2016 WL 4494444, at *4 (E.D. Cal. Aug. 25, 2016) (citation omitted)). This court therefore declines to require a showing of likely prejudice as an absolute prerequisite.

III. ANALYSIS

The defendants all rely on the same thirteen affirmative defenses. The court considers these defenses together, as the analysis is the same for each defendant.

A. Qualified Immunity (Affirmative Defense No. 1)

The defendants first assert an affirmative defense based on qualified immunity:

For any claim under 42 U.S.C. section 1983, at all times mentioned in the First Amended Complaint, employees of Defendants were acting in good faith and are entitled to qualified immunity, which inures to the benefit of any public entity Defendant.

County Defs.' Answer at 6; see also Indiv. Defs.' Answer at 6. This defense gives adequate notice of the individual defendants' intent to argue they are entitled to qualified immunity against claims under § 1983, a commonly litigated and well-understood affirmative defense. See, e.g., Devermont v. City of San Diego, No. 12-01823, 2013 WL 2898342, at *8 (S.D. Cal. June 14, 2013) (denying motion to strike qualified immunity as affirmative defense because it is a familiar, well-established defense in civil rights actions that plaintiffs can “probe” as cases progress). The motion to strike this defense is denied.

B. Reasonable Diligence (Affirmative Defense No. 2)

The defendants next assert an affirmative defense based on their alleged exercise of “reasonable diligence”:

Defendants allege that in connection with any mandatory duty under state law imposed upon them or employee thereof, by enactment to protect against any particular risk of injury, they or employees thereof exercised reasonable diligence to discharge such duty.

County Defs.' Answer at 6; see also Indiv. Defs.' Answer at 6. This defense targets the complaint's negligence and professional negligence claims. See First Am. Compl. ¶¶ 109-19; see also County Opp'n at 7 (confirming this defense applies to these claims). The defense also is redundant of the elements of those claims, which require a plaintiff to prove the defendant had a duty and breached that duty. See Paul v. Patton, 235 Cal.App.4th 1088, 1095 (2015) (professional negligence); Ladd v. Cty. of San Mateo, 12 Cal.4th 913, 917 (1996) (ordinary negligence). A defense that attempts to prove a plaintiff has not carried its burden is not an affirmative defense. Zivkovic v. S. Cal. Edison Co., 302 F.3d 1080, 1088 (9th Cir. 2002); L.F. 2018 WL 3817558, at *4. The motion to strike this defense is granted.

Ordinarily, courts freely grant leave to amend stricken pleadings. Wyshak, 607 F.2d at 826; Butcher v. City of Marysville, 398 F.Supp.3d 715, 728-31 (E.D. Cal. 2019); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2). But courts may deny leave to amend if “any amendment would be futile.” Leadsinger, Inc. v. BMG Music Pub., 512 F.3d 522, 532 (9th Cir. 2008) (quotation marks omitted). Here, no amendment would address the problem described in the previous paragraph; nor is any amendment necessary. The defendants may argue and attempt to prove that they did not violate a duty of care without asserting an affirmative defense. Leave to amend is denied.

C. California Government Code sections 815 et seq. and 900 et seq. (Affirmative Defenses Nos. 3 and 4)

The defendants' third affirmative defense cites California Government Code sections 815 and other sections that follow:

All acts and omissions alleged in the First Amended Complaint, where based in state law, fall within the immunities and defenses described in §§ 815 et seq. of the California Government Code.

County Defs.' Answer at 6; see also Indiv. Defs.' Answer at 6-7. Under section 815, “Except as otherwise provided by statute[, ] . . . [a] public entity is not liable for an injury, whether such injury arises out of an act or omission of the public entity or a public employee or any other person.” Cal. Gov't Code § 815(a). The sections following section 815 define or limit various immunities. See, e.g., id. § 815.2(a) (“A public entity is liable for injury proximately caused by an act or omission of an employee of the public entity within the scope of his employment if the act or omission would, apart from this section, have given rise to a cause of action against that employee or his personal representative.”).

The defendants' fourth affirmative defense mirrors the third; it cites California Government Code sections 900 and others that follow:

All acts and omissions alleged in the First Amended Complaint, where based in state law, fall within the immunities and defenses described in §§ 900 et seq. of the California Government Code.

County Defs.' Answer at 7; see also Indiv. Defs.' Answer at 7. Among other provisions, these sections impose various requirements on plaintiffs who assert claims against public entities. See, e.g., Cal. Gov't Code §§ 910-913.2 (describing an administrative claims process).

These defenses are too vague to give fair notice of which immunities which defendants intend to assert against which claims and on the basis of what statutes. See, e.g. Butcher, 398 F.Supp.3d at 730 (granting motion to strike an affirmative defense asserting that plaintiffs' claims fell “within the immunities and defenses described in section 815, et seq., and 900, et seq., of the Government Code”). To give fair notice, a defense based on a statutory provision must normally...