Simon v. City of Berkeley, Berkeley Mental Health Mobil Crisis Team

Background

Pro se plaintiff Jona Simon brought an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a federal law allowing claims for constitutional violations by persons acting under state authority. He alleged that the City of Berkeley Mental Health Mobil Crisis Team, Alta Bates Summit Medical Center (ABSMC), and Alameda Health System (AHS), sued as John George Psychiatric Hospital, violated rights protected by the Fourth, Fourteenth, and Second Amendments. The court considered dismissal motions filed by ABSMC and AHS.

Simon’s claims arose from events between March 20 and March 22, 2018, when he was detained under California Welfare and Institutions Code § 5150. He filed the complaint on March 19, 2020. The court held that the claims were not barred by California’s two-year limitations period for personal-injury claims used for § 1983 actions.

Pleading deficiencies

The court held that Simon had not adequately alleged that ABSMC and AHS acted under color of state law. For a private party to be treated as a state actor under § 1983, additional facts must connect the private conduct to government action. The court identified four possible approaches: public function, joint action, government compulsion or coercion, and a close relationship between the government and the challenged conduct. Simon relied on joint action and a government relationship, but the court found his allegations conclusory and lacking facts showing that the hospitals acted jointly with the state or that their conduct had a sufficiently close connection to the state.

The court also found that Simon needed to provide facts making his constitutional claims plausible. Regarding the Fourth Amendment, the court said the attached medical records appeared to show probable cause for ABSMC and AHS to certify and continue the § 5150 detention. Simon would need to explain why those defendants lacked probable cause to continue the detention.

Regarding the Fourteenth Amendment, Simon did not specify whether he was asserting procedural due process, substantive due process, or both. The court stated that a claim based solely on not receiving a hearing or other review before or during the 72-hour detention was not legally cognizable. If Simon intended to assert a substantive due process claim, he needed to provide sufficient facts, including facts explaining what serious medical needs existed and how the hospitals acted with deliberate indifference to them.

The court further stated that any claim based on hospital policies or customs needed facts identifying a specific policy or custom that was the moving force behind a constitutional violation. Simon also had not alleged facts showing what ABSMC or AHS did to violate his right to bear arms. His argument that the hospitals found a weapon license and registered him in a system did not appear in the complaint, and the court stated that the hospitals had a mandatory duty to report that information to the Department of Justice under California law.

Disposition

Judge William Orrick ordered that ABSMC’s and AHS’s motions to dismiss were denied in part and granted in part, with leave to amend. The court gave Simon 20 days from the order to amend his complaint to address the identified issues. The opinion does not specify in the quoted disposition which individual claims corresponded to each portion of the motions.