Perez v. City of Fresno

98 F.4th 919

Anthony PEREZ; Cecilia Perez;Terralee Perez, individually and as successor in interest to Joseph Perez;Joseph Perez, Jr., individually and as successor in interest to Joseph Perez;Michelle Perez, individually and as successor in interest to Joseph Perez, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CITY OF FRESNO; County of Fresno;James Rossetti; Sean Calvert; Chris Martinez;Braithan Stoltenberg; Robert McEwen; Karlson Manasan; Jimmy Robnett;American Ambulance; Morgan Anderson, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 22-15546

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit

Argued and Submitted September 11, 2023 San Francisco, California

Filed April 15, 2024

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California Anthony W. Ishii, District Judge, Presiding, D.C. No. 1:18-cv-00127-AWI-EPG

Thomas C. Seabaugh (argued), The Law Office of Thomas C. Seabaugh, Los Angeles, California; John C. Taylor and Neil K. Gehlawat, Taylor & Ring LLP, Manhattan Beach, California; David M. Shapiro, Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, Chicago, Illinois; Easha Anand, Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center, San Francisco, California; for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

James D. Weakley (argued) and Brande L. Gustafson, Weakley & Arendt PC, Fresno, California; for Defendants-Appellees County of Fresno, Robert McEwen, Karlson Mansan, Jimmy Robnett, and Braithan Stoltenberg.

Steven J. Renick (argued), Mildred K. O'Linn, Scott W. Davenport, and Lynn Carpenter; Manning & Kass Ellrod Ramirez Trester LLP, Los Angeles, California; for Defendants-Appellees City of Fresno, Officer James Rossetti, Officer Sean Calvert, and Officer Chris Martinez.

Justin R. Sarno (argued), DLA Piper US LLP, Los Angeles, California; Madeline A. Cordray, DLA Piper US LLP, Phoenix., Arizona; Richard J. Ryan and Aaron J. Weissman, R.J. Ryan Law APC, Glendale, California; for Defendants-Appellees American Ambulance and Morgan Anderson.

Before: Danny J. Boggs,^* Sidney R. Thomas, and Danielle J. Forrest, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Forrest;

Partial Concurrence and Partial Dissent by Judge S.R. Thomas

OPINION

FORREST, Circuit Judge:

In 2017, at the direction of a paramedic, law-enforcement officers used their body weight to hold down and restrain Joseph Perez while he was prone in order to strap him to a backboard so he could be transported to a hospital for mental-health treatment. Perez asphyxiated and died. Plaintiffs—Perez's surviving family members—appeal the district court's grant of summary judgment on various 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claims in favor of the City of Fresno (the City), which oversees the Fresno Police Department (FPD); the County of Fresno (the County), which oversees the Fresno County Sheriff's Office (FCSO); a number of FPD and FCSO law-enforcement officers (collectively, the officers); and an American Ambulance paramedic. Plaintiffs contend that the officers and paramedic are not entitled to qualified immunity and that the City and the County are liable for failing to properly train their law-enforcement officers.

We affirm the district court. At the time of Perez's death, the law did not clearly establish, nor was it otherwise obvious, that the officers' actions, directed by medical personnel, would violate Perez's constitutional rights. Likewise, the paramedic involved was acting in a medical capacity during the incident, and the law did not clearly establish that medical personnel are liable for constitutional torts for actions taken to provide medical care or medical transport. Thus, the officers and the paramedic are entitled to qualified immunity. We also conclude that Plaintiffs produced insufficient evidence to support their municipal-liability claim against the City and the County based on a failure-to-train theory.

I. BACKGROUND

In May 2017, FCSO received a call for assistance regarding a man—later identified as Perez—who was acting erratically, sprinting through the street, screaming, and hiding in bushes. Before FCSO could respond to the call, three FPD officers encountered Perez without being dispatched. The FPD officers observed Perez standing in the roadway, waving his arms, and yelling what sounded like "help" in their direction. When the officers approached Perez, he was talking to himself, stating that people were chasing and hitting him. Based on Perez's behavior, the officers believed that he was under the influence of a controlled substance. According to the officers, to prevent Perez from darting into traffic on the four-lane roadway or charging at the officers near the roadway, they seated Perez on the curb and placed him in handcuffs. When the dispatched FCSO deputies arrived, they found Perez seated, handcuffed, and surrounded by the FPD officers.

Five minutes after encountering Perez, one of the FPD officers called emergency medical services (EMS) to facilitate an involuntary psychiatric detention under California Welf. & Inst. Code § 5150. Initially, the officer requested a "code two" because he believed that Perez was a danger to himself and others. A minute and a half later, the officer elevated the request to a "code three." The ambulance took approximately 14 minutes to arrive on scene because it was originally sent to the wrong location.

While awaiting the ambulance, Perez stood up from the curb and refused to comply with the officers' instructions to sit back down. In response, several of the officers took Perez to the ground to prevent him from running into traffic. While on the ground, one officer struck Perez's left side three times with his knee and then applied a wrist lock. At the same time, another officer reported that Perez was being combative. Two additional FCSO deputies responded to the scene and waited in their patrol vehicle on standby. While the officers on the ground attempted to restrain Perez, his face repeatedly hit the ground, causing him to bleed. One officer placed a towel underneath Perez's chin and face and lifted Perez's head off the ground while holding one end of the towel in each hand. Another officer asked Perez if he could breathe, and Perez responded that he could. According to the officers, at this point, Perez was lying on his stomach, but he continued to kick his legs. The officers applied a RIPP restraint to Perez's ankles and looped it around his handcuffs to control his leg movement. The officers unlooped the restraint from Perez's handcuffs when EMS arrived—approximately thirty seconds to a minute after they applied this restraint.

When EMS arrived, the paramedics retrieved a backboard. Paramedic Morgan Anderson stated that they were going to attach Perez to the board while he was prone so that he could be medically transported. The officers removed the towel holding Perez's head and assisted the paramedics in applying the backboard. As this was happening, Perez yelled that he could not breathe. Anderson nevertheless told one of the officers to sit on the backboard. The officer complied and sat on the board for one minute and thirteen seconds while other officers applied pressure and worked with Anderson to secure the backboard. After the seated officer stood up, the paramedics continued securing Perez to the backboard for another two minutes before turning him over. Once Perez was placed on his back, the paramedics discovered that he did not have a pulse.¹ The paramedics then transported Perez to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The coroner attributed Perez's death to compression asphyxia during restraint with methamphetamine toxicity as another significant contributor.² The coroner classified Perez's death as a homicide.

Perez's family members sued the officers and Anderson under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violations of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments and the City and County for municipal liability under Monell v. Department of Social Services of the City of New York, 436 U.S. 658, 690, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978), based on a failure-to-train theory. Plaintiffs also asserted various state law claims. Defendants moved for summary judgment asserting qualified immunity, which the district court granted. While the district court determined that a reasonable jury could find that the officers violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment by applying pressure to the backboard while Perez was prone,³ it nonetheless concluded that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity because at the time of the incident the law did not clearly establish, nor was it obvious, that the officers' actions were unconstitutional. The district court likewise granted Anderson qualified immunity because existing law did not clearly establish, nor was it obvious, that Anderson's conduct in providing medical care was unconstitutional. Finally, the district court determined that Plaintiffs presented insufficient evidence that either the City or the County were deliberately indifferent to their duty to train their officers on restraint asphyxia. Having dismissed all of Plaintiffs' federal claims, the district court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over their remaining state-law claims. Plaintiffs timely appealed.

II. DISCUSSION

Plaintiffs present three issues on appeal: (1) whether the law-enforcement officers are entitled to qualified immunity; (2) whether the paramedic is entitled to qualified immunity; and (3) whether Plaintiffs presented sufficient evidence to support their Monell claim against the City and the County based on a failure-to-train theory. We review a district court's grant of summary judgment and decision on qualified immunity de novo. C.V. v. City of Anaheim, 823 F.3d 1252, 1255 (9th Cir. 2016). "[V]iew[ing] the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party," we must "determine whether there are any genuine issues of material fact, and decide whether the district court correctly applied the relevant substantive law." Johnson v. Barr, 79 F.4th 996, 1003 (9th Cir. 2023) (quoting Animal Legal Def. ...