Richter v. Ausmus

Background

Julia Richter, a former Oakland Police Department employee representing herself, sought permission to file a proposed Fourth Amended Complaint. The proposed complaint added 24 new claims and several defendants. Richter alleged, among other things, that improper defensive-tactics training injured her and that defendants wrongfully investigated and terminated her to prevent her from receiving disability-retirement benefits.

The court had previously dismissed or limited claims in earlier versions of Richter’s complaint. The court had also struck a later complaint and newly added defendants because Richter had not obtained permission before adding them. In this motion, the existing defendants argued that many proposed claims were legally futile, meaning they could not succeed even if their factual allegations were accepted.

Legal standard

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15, courts generally should freely allow amendments when justice requires, but leave is not automatic. The court considered bad faith, unreasonable delay, prejudice to the opposing party, whether the amendment would be futile, and Richter’s prior amendments. The court found that Richter acted in good faith and with reasonable diligence and that the amendment would not prejudice the defendants. Because she was representing herself, the court also interpreted her allegations liberally.

Claim-by-claim rulings

The court granted leave to amend as to claim one, which alleged a civil-rights violation based on denial of procedural protections for Richter’s disability-benefits application. The court found plausible Richter’s allegations that she had a property interest in the benefits and was denied a hearing after her application was rejected because she had been terminated for cause.

The court granted leave to amend claim three only to the extent it alleged unequal treatment because of disability. The court found that allegations about a city employee’s statement and different treatment of Richter’s co-officer supported a plausible disability-discrimination theory. The court denied leave as to claim three’s gender- and national-origin-discrimination theories because the alleged facts were insufficient.

The court granted leave to amend claim four, which alleged that denying Richter’s disability-retirement benefits violated the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause. The court found that she had plausibly alleged a property interest and a taking, while noting that the claim might face further legal problems at a later stage.

The court granted leave to amend claim twenty-six under California Government Code section 1094.5. The court explained that Richter could assert this claim to exhaust judicial remedies when challenging relevant California administrative actions, but limited it to administrative actions connected to her other potentially viable claims.

The court denied leave to amend claim two, a civil-rights conspiracy claim, because Richter had not adequately alleged an underlying constitutional violation. The court also denied leave as to claims five and fourteen, for promissory estoppel; claim six, under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act; claim seven, concerning due process and public employment; claims eight and nine, concerning state-created danger and bodily integrity; claims ten, twelve, eighteen, nineteen, twenty-two, twenty-three, and twenty-four, under California’s Bane Act and related statutes; claim eleven, concerning disability benefits, mandatory duties, and contract; claim thirteen, under the California and federal Administrative Procedure Acts; claim fifteen, for fraudulent inducement; claim sixteen, for breach of fiduciary duty; claim seventeen, under the California Disabled Persons Act and Unruh Civil Rights Act; claim twenty, under federal statutes of limitation; claim twenty-one, concerning criminal procedures and jurisdiction; and claim twenty-five, under the Peace Officer’s Bill of Rights.

For claims eight and nine, the court noted that the state-created-danger claim had previously been dismissed with prejudice and that the bodily-integrity claim relied on the same theory. For the other denied claims, the court concluded that the proposed allegations were legally unavailable, insufficiently pleaded, or otherwise futile. The court did not decide whether the four permitted theories would ultimately succeed; it only found that they could be pleaded under the standard governing amendment.

Order

Judge William H. Orrick granted Richter’s motion for leave to amend as to claims one, four, twenty-six, and claim three’s disability-discrimination theory. He denied the motion as to all other claims, including claim three’s gender- and national-origin-discrimination theories.

Richter was ordered to file a revised complaint by March 3, 2021, limited to the permitted claims and the defendants named in those claims. The court stated that no further amendments would be permitted. It also ordered that all other defendants or proposed defendants were dismissed with prejudice and directed Richter to ensure that the remaining defendants were properly served by March 31, 2021.