Casenas v. Milpitas Police Department

Background

Pro se plaintiff Erlindo Casenas sued nine defendants: the City of Milpitas; the Milpitas Police Department; the Milpitas Police Officers Association; 24 Hour Fitness; Sgt. Matison Mednick; Officers Vivian Ngyuen, Maung Thiha Zaw, Melissa Pizzo Medieros, and Max Fontes; and Does 1 through 10. The City of Milpitas, the Milpitas Police Department, Sgt. Mednick, and Officers Ngyuen, Zaw, Medieros, and Fontes—the “City Defendants”—moved to dismiss the claims against them.

Casenas’s claims arose from an incident at a 24 Hour Fitness gym. He alleged that he contacted the Milpitas Police Department for help with harassment by another gym-goer, but that officers instead targeted him. He alleged violations involving the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, the First Amendment, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and California law, including intentional infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy, and civil conspiracy.

Legal standard

The court considered the motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which permits dismissal when a complaint does not allege enough facts to state a legally valid claim. The court accepted well-pleaded factual allegations as true and construed the pro se complaint liberally, but it did not accept unsupported legal conclusions or allegations contradicted by exhibits attached to the complaint.

Fourth Amendment claims

Casenas alleged that Officers Ngyuen and Zaw unlawfully arrested him and used excessive force by handcuffing him and making him stand or sit on the pavement. The court held that he did not allege enough facts showing that the handcuffing or the short period of standing or sitting was unjustified. Casenas told the officers that he had attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, anxiety, and hypertension, but the court stated that these conditions did not by themselves make the handcuffing excessive. He did not allege that he told the officers about his knee brace.

Casenas also alleged that Officer Ngyuen arrested him for being under the influence of a controlled substance without probable cause. The court found that he did not provide specific facts supporting that assertion. It also noted that his allegation that he passed field-sobriety tests was contradicted by the incident report attached to his amended complaint. The court granted dismissal of the Fourth Amendment claims with leave to amend.

Fourteenth Amendment claims

The court dismissed the due-process claim with leave to amend because Casenas did not identify the due-process right allegedly violated or provide specific facts supporting a violation.

The court also dismissed the equal-protection claim with leave to amend. Casenas alleged discrimination based on a mental disability, but the court found that his allegation that an officer verbally abused him because of his mental-health condition was conclusory and did not plausibly allege discriminatory intent.

First Amendment claim

The court dismissed the First Amendment retaliation and censorship claim with leave to amend. Casenas did not adequately allege that the defendants intended to silence protected speech. The court said his allegations instead asserted that the defendants did not adequately respond to his complaints or blocked everyone, rather than Casenas specifically, from commenting on social-media posts.

Americans with Disabilities Act claim

For Casenas’s Title II Americans with Disabilities Act claim against the public-entity City Defendants, the court found that he had not adequately alleged that he was discriminated against because of a disability. The court dismissed that claim with leave to amend.

The court separately held that a plaintiff cannot use 42 U.S.C. § 1983—the civil-rights statute—to enforce Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act against a state official in the official’s individual capacity. That claim was dismissed without leave to amend.

California-law claims

The court dismissed Casenas’s state-law claims against the City of Milpitas and the Milpitas Police Department with leave to amend because he did not allege that he had first filed the claim for damages required by the California Tort Claims Act.

The court dismissed the intentional-infliction-of-emotional-distress claim with leave to amend. Although Casenas alleged severe emotional distress caused by public humiliation, misinformation in police reports, and retaliation, the court found those allegations conclusory and lacking facts showing the required intent or reckless disregard.

The court dismissed the invasion-of-privacy claim with leave to amend because Casenas did not allege facts showing the required privacy-interest, reasonable-expectation-of-privacy, and serious-invasion elements.

The court dismissed the civil-conspiracy claim with leave to amend because Casenas did not identify the underlying tort that the alleged conspiracy was intended to accomplish.

Disposition

The court granted the City Defendants’ motion to dismiss. The dismissal was with leave to amend, except for the Title II Americans with Disabilities Act claim asserted through 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against an individual state official, which was dismissed without leave to amend. Any amended complaint had to be filed within 35 days of the order. If no amended complaint was filed, Casenas’s claims against the City Defendants would be dismissed with prejudice.

Judge P. Casey Pit signed the order.