Valdez v. Naderi

Background

Stephen Charles Valdez sued the City and County of San Francisco, Officer Salar Naderi, and Officer Marc Jimenez. He alleged that, during a January 1, 2023 detention in San Francisco, Naderi and Jimenez used excessive force, including forcing him to the ground and restraining him while he was injured and having difficulty breathing. Valdez alleged that he suffered spinal injuries, underwent multiple surgeries, and continued to experience physical and emotional impairments.

Valdez’s Third Amended Complaint asserted ten causes of action: excessive force; failure to intervene; failure to train and supervise; municipal liability for an unconstitutional custom or policy; violation of California’s Bane Act; intentional infliction of emotional distress; battery; negligent hiring, training, and retention; negligence; and false arrest and false imprisonment. The federal claims were brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which provides a way to seek relief for violations of federal rights by persons acting under state law.

Request for Judicial Notice

The court granted Valdez’s request for judicial notice. It recognized as public-record facts that Valdez submitted a complaint to the San Francisco Department of Police Accountability on February 14, 2023; the complaint received a specified case number; an investigator was assigned; and the department issued findings on January 14, 2025.

Rule 12(b)(6) Standard

The defendants moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which tests whether a complaint states a legally sufficient claim. At this stage, the court accepts well-pleaded factual allegations as true and views them favorably to the plaintiff, but it does not accept bare legal conclusions as facts.

Failure to Intervene Against Naderi

The defendants initially argued that Valdez’s failure-to-intervene claim against Naderi was barred by the statute of limitations because Valdez added it in the Third Amended Complaint. They later conceded that the claim could relate back to an earlier pleading under Rule 15. The court agreed that the claim related back and denied the motion to dismiss Claim 2 against Naderi.

Claims Against the City Under Section 1983

The court dismissed Claim 3, Valdez’s failure-to-train-and-supervise claim against the City. The complaint did not identify an individual supervisor or allege facts supporting supervisory action in the incident. The court held that a municipality cannot be held liable under section 1983 merely because it employs an alleged wrongdoer. The court granted dismissal and denied Valdez leave to amend.

The court also dismissed Claim 4, the Monell claim alleging an unconstitutional municipal custom or policy. Valdez relied primarily on the alleged single incident of excessive force and conclusory allegations about training. The court held that, although deliberate indifference may sometimes be inferred from one incident, an inadequate training policy itself cannot be inferred from one incident without facts about the policy or training. The court granted dismissal and denied leave to amend.

California State-Law Claims

The defendants argued that Valdez’s state-law claims were barred because he did not timely comply with the California Government Claims Act. Valdez acknowledged that his lawsuit was filed after the statutory deadline but argued that equitable estoppel excused the delay. Equitable estoppel can prevent a public entity from relying on a filing deadline when its agents’ violence or intimidation deterred a timely claim.

The court held that Valdez plausibly alleged facts supporting equitable estoppel. It relied on his allegations that Naderi harassed and threatened him after the incident, that Valdez feared for his safety, that he left his job and later moved to Washington, and that he waited to file the lawsuit until after leaving San Francisco. The court therefore denied dismissal of the Bane Act claim (Claim 5), intentional-infliction-of-emotional-distress claim (Claim 6), battery claim (Claim 7), negligence claim (Claim 9), and false-arrest-and-false-imprisonment claim (Claim 10) on the Government Claims Act ground.

The court separately considered the intentional-infliction-of-emotional-distress claim against Jimenez. It held that Valdez plausibly alleged that Jimenez continued to pin and restrain him while he was injured and having difficulty breathing, and that the conduct could qualify as extreme and outrageous. The court denied the motion to dismiss Claim 6 against Jimenez.

The court dismissed Claim 8, the negligent-hiring, training, and retention claim against the City, because Valdez did not respond to the defendants’ arguments concerning that claim and therefore abandoned it. The court denied leave to amend Claim 8.

Disposition

The court granted in part and denied in part the defendants’ Rule 12(b)(6) motion. It granted dismissal of Claims 3, 4, and 8 and denied dismissal of Claims 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, and 10. It did not describe the dismissals as being with or without prejudice. Judge Thomas S. Hixson issued the order on August 18, 2025.