Richter v. Ausmus

Background

Julia Richter, an officer with the Oakland Police Department, sued department employees Lisa Ausmus, Todd Mork, Sekou Millington, Anne Kirkpatrick, Damon Gilbert, and Bryan Hubbard. She represented herself. Her amended complaint asserted claims under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983, 1985, and 1986, California law, and a request for punitive damages.

Richter alleged that Gilbert failed to provide adequate defensive-tactics training, used unauthorized techniques, and encouraged conduct that injured officers. She alleged that she was seriously injured on February 14, 2018, when Allen Nunley, who was not a defendant, lifted her and smashed her against the ground during a training examination. She also alleged that, after she filed a workers’ compensation claim and pursued disability retirement benefits, several defendants investigated her, placed her on administrative leave, referred her to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and later brought internal charges related to perjury and “reverse money laundering.” The Federal Bureau of Investigation declined the referral. The opinion stated that it was unclear whether Richter had been terminated, whether she had received a required pre-termination hearing, and whether a decision had been made on her disability-retirement claim.

Court’s analysis

The court applied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which requires dismissal when a complaint does not allege enough facts to plausibly support a legally recognized claim. The court accepted factual allegations as true for purposes of the motion but did not accept conclusory statements or unreasonable inferences.

For Richter’s constitutional claims under Section 1983, the court found that she adequately alleged that the defendants acted under state law because they were employees of the Oakland Police Department. However:

- The Fifth Amendment claims failed because the Fifth Amendment’s due-process protection applies to federal, not state, officials. - The substantive due-process claims failed because Richter did not identify a protected right that defendants violated and did not allege conduct sufficiently extreme to “shock the conscience.” - The procedural due-process claims failed because she did not adequately allege that she had been deprived of employment or disability benefits, or that she lacked required notice and an opportunity to be heard. She also did not adequately allege a protected liberty interest in continued employment or publicly disclosed stigmatizing charges connected to a termination. - The excessive-force claims alleged facts that plausibly described Gilbert’s promotion of excessive force, but Richter did not identify a constitutional basis for those claims. The court explained that the Fourth Amendment generally concerns searches and seizures, which were not alleged here, and that the pleaded Fourteenth Amendment theories were insufficient. Her equal-protection theory also failed because she did not allege intentional discrimination against an identifiable class. - Claims based on fabricated evidence, a violation of the duty to disclose favorable criminal-case evidence, malicious prosecution, and false public statements failed because Richter was not criminally charged or prosecuted. - The First Amendment retaliation claim based on her federal-court testimony was inadequately pleaded because she did not describe the testimony or allege that it was truthful, and she offered only a conclusory statement that the testimony motivated the defendants’ actions. Her claim based on exercising the Fifth Amendment right to remain silent failed because she did not allege that she invoked that right or that defendants retaliated because of the invocation. Her workers’ compensation retaliation theory did not identify a constitutional right supporting a Section 1983 claim. - The claims against supervisors failed because Richter did not provide facts showing each supervisor’s personal involvement, the required causal connection, the supervisory relationships, or how the supervisors set in motion or knowingly allowed conduct causing a constitutional violation.

The Section 1985 and 1986 claims also failed. Richter did not specify which subsection of Section 1985 she relied on. The court concluded that her allegations did not provide facts showing when or how the defendants agreed to a conspiracy, what acts advanced it, or how it related to her federal-court testimony. Because the Section 1985 claims were not adequately pleaded, the related Section 1986 claim for failing to prevent those violations also failed.

Richter’s California claims for negligent infliction of emotional distress, battery, and negligence concerned injuries arising from workplace training. The court held that California workers’ compensation law barred those claims as pleaded because Richter alleged recklessness and inadequate training and supervision, rather than alleging that the defendants intended the conduct to harm her. The court also held that punitive damages were a form of requested relief rather than a separate cause of action.

The defendants requested qualified immunity, which can protect government officials from civil damages unless they violated clearly established law. The court did not decide qualified immunity because it dismissed the pleaded claims and stated that Richter would need to provide additional facts if she amended her complaint.

Disposition

The court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss. It dismissed Richter’s first, second, fourth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth causes of action without prejudice and granted her 30 days to amend those claims. Her third, fifth, tenth, seventeenth, and twenty-first claims were dismissed with prejudice. The court stated that Richter could include punitive damages as part of a request for relief in an amended complaint, but dismissed punitive damages as a separate cause of action with prejudice.