Zhang v. County of Monterey

Background

Jacqueline Zhang’s proposed jury instructions included an instruction concerning vicarious responsibility. Zhang argued that vicarious liability and respondeat superior—legal theories that can sometimes make one party responsible for another person’s conduct—applied because of statements and actions by Mark Mariscal that Nick Chiulos allegedly approved.

Zhang offered two proposed uses for those theories. First, she sought to use them to establish liability for the County of Monterey, the Monterey County Resource Management Agency, and the Monterey County Parks Department under Section 1983, the federal civil-rights law that allows claims for certain constitutional violations. Second, she argued that vicarious liability could help show that she had an implied-in-fact employment contract with the county that created a protected property right in her position.

Court’s Analysis

The court explained that a municipality is liable under Section 1983 only when the municipality itself caused the constitutional injury through an official policy or custom. Local governments are not automatically liable under Section 1983 for their employees’ actions. Zhang therefore had to establish the municipalities’ liability directly, rather than through vicarious liability or respondeat superior.

The court also rejected Zhang’s proposed contract theory. A public employee has a due-process property interest in a position only if the employee has a “legitimate claim of entitlement.” That entitlement must come from state law or another independent legal source. Under California law, county charters, rules, and regulations generally determine whether such an entitlement exists. The court stated that oral statements by supervisors, employment history, and positive evaluations are not enough by themselves to create a property interest in public employment.

Zhang argued that Mariscal was an “Appointing Authority” under Monterey County policies and procedures and therefore had authority to make her a permanent employee through his statements and actions. The court found that, beyond quoting one sentence from those policies and procedures, Zhang had not produced evidence that Mariscal had authority to change her employment status. She also had not identified state law, another statute, or a regulation giving Mariscal’s or Chiulos’s actions legal force sufficient to create a legitimate claim of entitlement.

Ruling

The court ruled that vicarious and respondeat-superior liability did not apply. Zhang could not use an implied-in-fact contract claim to establish a property right in her position, and she could not offer either vicarious-liability theory at trial. The opinion addressed the proposed trial theories and did not state the overall disposition of the case.