J. v. City and County of San Francisco

Background

The case concerns the alleged mass arrest or detention of people following the Dolores Hill Bomb, an unsanctioned skateboarding event, in 2023. Plaintiffs J.T., L.R., and C.L. are minors who were detained. They allege that the City and County of San Francisco and three police officials violated their Fourth Amendment rights by conducting a mass arrest without the necessary justification. The order addressed three joint letters concerning discovery disputes. A related case involving R.P. was included for purposes of some of the discovery issues.

The court noted that a central issue in the underlying case may be whether officers reasonably believed that the group detained had a connection to people who allegedly damaged property earlier that evening. The court did not decide that issue in this order.

Smartphone and Other Electronic Evidence

The parties disagreed about how the named plaintiffs’ smartphones should be preserved. Plaintiffs reported that two children had replaced and discarded their phones before the lawsuit, while relevant communications and images had been preserved. They stated that L.R.’s phone was backed up to iCloud and that location data from her rented electric scooter had been preserved. Defendants requested immediate forensic imaging of the devices, passwords and access codes, vendor reports about deleted data, carrier records, and social-media information.

The court found neither side’s proposal reasonable. Plaintiffs had not proposed a sufficient preservation process, but defendants had not shown that broad forensic imaging was necessary, that less intrusive methods would not preserve relevant evidence, or that plaintiffs had intentionally destroyed evidence. The court also emphasized the significant privacy interests in smartphone contents.

The court ordered all plaintiffs, no later than August 21, 2024, to choose one of these preservation methods: turn their smartphones over to their attorneys for safekeeping during the litigation; create a complete backup image retained by the plaintiffs or their attorneys; or begin a targeted backup after starting a meet-and-confer process by August 19, 2024. A targeted backup must cover sources of photographs, videos, communications, and location data that might concern the events. Plaintiffs also had to provide defendants by August 19 with each relevant device’s model number, operating-system version, and current applications.

The court declined to decide whether the loss of the two earlier phones or other information might constitute spoliation, which means wrongful loss or destruction of evidence. The court found that question premature because it was not yet clear whether relevant information concerning a disputed issue had actually been lost. The court also found the issue of gaming devices resolved because plaintiffs represented that the J.T. plaintiffs did not use those devices for communication and that relevant gaming messages in the related case would be preserved.

Defendants also asked the court to require about 40 other juveniles who might later become class members to turn over their devices for forensic preservation or confirm that they declined representation. The court denied that request, finding that those individuals were not parties and that the requested measures were not proportional to the needs of the case.

Juvenile Records

The parties disputed whether plaintiffs could obtain their juvenile detention or arrest records from the San Francisco Police Department. Defendants relied on California restrictions concerning juvenile records. The court concluded that it had authority under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to order disclosure despite state-law protections when warranted by the needs of the case.

The court found disclosure warranted because the records were highly relevant to plaintiffs’ claims, plaintiffs sought their own records, plaintiffs did not object at that stage to redaction of identifying information about other minors, and defendants did not object to plaintiffs obtaining their own records. The court rejected defendants’ proposed stipulation to the extent it would require broad waivers or make production conditional on plaintiffs providing unrelated discovery.

The court ordered the parties to meet and confer and file a stipulation by August 21, 2024. The stipulation had to authorize production to plaintiffs and their attorneys, waive plaintiffs’ claims under state law concerning that production, and permit defendants to use and file the records in the litigation under the protective order. After the stipulation was entered, defendants were ordered to produce records previously withheld because of state-law privacy protections and to treat those records as confidential. Defendants were also ordered not to disclose them except as permitted by the protective order. The court denied defendants’ request for additional briefing on this issue.

Body-Camera Video

Plaintiffs requested police body-worn-camera video from the event and ensuing detentions. Defendants sought to limit production to video showing the named plaintiffs and argued that California law and privacy concerns barred broader production. They also argued that reviewing approximately 450 hours of video would take more than six months.

The court ordered defendants to produce the body-camera video without limiting production to footage showing the named plaintiffs. Defendants could not redact, blur, or withhold video merely because it showed non-party minors being detained. The court found the video relevant both to possible class certification and to plaintiffs’ individual claims, including whether the mass detention was justified by probable cause to believe that a group behaving as a unit had violated the law.

The protective order remained in effect. Defendants could designate video as confidential, and plaintiffs and their attorneys could not disclose the fact that a non-party minor was detained if they learned it from confidential video except as allowed by that protective order. Defendants could withhold video showing a non-party minor in a more private setting, such as an individual interview after detention, if they notified plaintiffs; the court did not decide the proper treatment of such footage.

Disposition

Magistrate Judge Harry J. Cisneros resolved the discovery disputes by ordering smartphone preservation, requiring a stipulation followed by production of the plaintiffs’ juvenile records, and requiring broad production of body-camera video subject to the protective order. The order did not decide the merits of plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment claims or whether the alleged mass arrest was lawful.