Harrell v. California State University

Background

Joshua Harrell, proceeding without a lawyer, sued California State University (CSU), San Jose State University (SJSU), and eight individual CSU employees. Harrell’s claims arose from two incidents.

First, after Harrell completed a midterm exam at SJSU’s Alternative Testing Center because of their disability, several defendants took Harrell’s exam notes. The notes were returned about an hour later at the professor’s request. The same defendants later filed an incident report, and the university’s Student Conduct and Ethical Development office contacted Harrell. Harrell separately filed a university discrimination complaint. The matter ended without a disciplinary hearing and with Harrell receiving a warning.

Second, defendants Lee and Zonsius arrested Harrell for trespass after Harrell remained in a campus building after it had closed and refused to leave. Harrell alleged that the defendants handcuffed them, locked them in a police vehicle, and searched their pockets and belongings without consent. Harrell was released after about an hour. The university later held a disciplinary hearing, found Harrell responsible for violating parts of the student conduct code, and issued a warning. The criminal misdemeanor charges were dropped.

Harrell asserted 14 claims: conversion; deprivation of property without due process; disability discrimination under the Fourteenth Amendment and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act; First Amendment retaliation; retaliation under 42 U.S.C. § 12203(a); wrongful use of administrative proceedings; unlawful arrest; unreasonable search and seizure; two claims under the California Constitution concerning education and campus safety; discrimination based on student status; breach of contract; intentional infliction of emotional distress; and arbitrary discrimination under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Motion to Remand

Harrell asked the court to remand, or return, the lawsuit to state court. The court denied that motion. It held that the federal constitutional and statutory claims gave it federal-question jurisdiction. It also held that it could hear the state-law claims because they arose from the same incidents as the federal claims. The court rejected Harrell’s argument that the Tenth Amendment made certain state-law claims nonremovable and declined to split particular remedies from the claims themselves. The court also exercised its discretion to retain the state-law claims because of their close relationship to the federal claims.

Motion to Dismiss: Exhaustion and Claim Preclusion

Defendants argued that Harrell had to first seek a state court order reviewing the university’s disciplinary proceedings. The court rejected that argument. It found disputed factual questions about whether the proceedings had sufficient judicial safeguards, including whether Harrell received a hearing, could cross-examine witnesses, and received written reasons. Those questions could not be resolved on a motion to dismiss and would instead need to be addressed at summary judgment or trial.

The court also denied defendants’ motion to dismiss based on claim preclusion, which is a rule that can prevent a party from relitigating matters resolved in an earlier proceeding. The court stated that constitutional claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 were not barred because nothing showed that the university proceedings could decide those constitutional issues. The court also could not determine on the record whether the state-law and nonconstitutional federal claims could have been presented in the disciplinary proceedings.

Qualified Immunity

Qualified immunity generally protects government officials from damages claims unless their conduct violated a constitutional right that was clearly established at the time. The court held that Harrell had not alleged a clearly established constitutional violation arising from the taking of the exam notes or the related disciplinary proceedings. It therefore dismissed claims (2) through (4) against Sanchez-Ortega, Khanaka, Bravo, and Villavelasquez-Hill. The court did not dismiss claim (5) on qualified-immunity grounds because that claim was brought under 42 U.S.C. § 12203 rather than as a constitutional claim.

As to the arrest and search claims against Lee and Zonsius, the court held that the allegations showed at least an arguable basis for probable cause because Harrell remained in a closed campus building after being asked to leave. The court dismissed claims (7) and (8) against those individual defendants on qualified-immunity grounds.

Immunity Under California Law

The court declined at this stage to find that the defendants had discretionary immunity because defendants had not provided evidence establishing the individual defendants’ job duties. But the court held that Hutton and Day were entitled to prosecutorial or quasi-judicial immunity for state-law claims involving the initiation and prosecution of Harrell’s disciplinary proceedings. Because CSU and SJSU could share that immunity for those acts, the court dismissed those state-law claims against Hutton, Day, CSU, and SJSU.

Claims Concerning the Exam Notes

The court dismissed the conversion and due-process property claims. Harrell did not adequately allege that taking the notes was wrongful because the taking was alleged to follow testing-center policies. Harrell also did not adequately plead concrete damages from the roughly one-hour loss of the notes.

The court further held that Harrell had not shown a due-process violation. The university’s interest in preventing cheating justified taking the notes before a hearing, and Harrell later had an opportunity to discuss the incident with Hutton and quickly received the notes back. The court concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment required no more under the alleged circumstances.

Disability Discrimination and Retaliation

The court dismissed Harrell’s disability-discrimination claims under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Fourteenth Amendment. Harrell did not adequately allege that the notes were taken because of their disability, that they were denied a university service or program because of the disability, or that they suffered adequately pleaded harm.

The court also dismissed the First Amendment retaliation claim and the statutory retaliation claim under 42 U.S.C. § 12203(a). The alleged chronology showed that the disciplinary process began before Harrell filed the university discrimination complaint. The court therefore found that Harrell had not adequately alleged that the complaint motivated the disciplinary action.

Other Claims

The court dismissed the wrongful-use-of-administrative-proceedings claim because the incident report provided grounds to begin the proceeding, Harrell received a warning rather than a result clearly in their favor, and Harrell did not allege facts showing an improper purpose.

The court dismissed the California education claim because Harrell cited no authority requiring a public university to allow students to enter campus buildings at all hours. It dismissed the campus-safety claim because the cited California constitutional provision does not create a private damages action.

The court dismissed the equal-protection claims based on student status and alleged arbitrary discrimination because Harrell did not show that the university’s different treatment of students and staff or faculty lacked a rational relationship to a legitimate government purpose.

The court dismissed the breach-of-contract claim because Harrell did not establish that the university’s executive orders and policies were contracts supported by consideration. Finally, it dismissed the intentional-infliction-of-emotional-distress claim because the alleged conduct did not meet the required standard of extreme and outrageous conduct and Harrell did not adequately allege that defendants intended to cause emotional distress.

Disposition

The court denied Harrell’s motion to remand and granted defendants’ motion to dismiss all of Harrell’s claims.