Gomez v. Fachko

Background

The court addressed six pretrial evidence motions: three filed by Omar Gomez and three filed by Jordan Fachko and the City of Santa Clara. The order concerned evidence for the parties’ upcoming trial. The court applied the Federal Rules of Evidence, including rules concerning relevance, unfair prejudice, character evidence, and the reliability and relevance of expert testimony.

The opinion identifies Gomez’s remaining claims as a Fourth Amendment excessive-force claim against Fachko, state-law battery and negligence claims against both defendants, and a claim under California’s Bane Civil Rights Act against both defendants. The court also noted that Gomez’s municipal-liability claims against the City had previously been dismissed with prejudice after Gomez did not oppose summary judgment on those claims. The court stated that a separate claim against Fachko for denial of medical care under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 had also previously been dismissed.

Gomez’s Motions

1. Evidence about Gomez’s background — denied without prejudice. Gomez sought to exclude evidence about his drug use, criminal history, lack of sleep, and prior emotional trauma, including an expert’s opinion that he had “antisocial personality disorder.” Gomez argued that the evidence was irrelevant because Fachko did not know about it during the incident, unfairly prejudicial, and improper character evidence. The defendants argued that some of the evidence could help the jury assess the credibility of Gomez’s and Fachko’s accounts and could be relevant to Gomez’s damages.

The court denied the motion without prejudice. It explained that evidence about the events leading up to the shooting and Gomez’s condition could be relevant to evaluating the credibility of the competing accounts and whether Fachko’s actions were objectively reasonable. The parties had agreed to confer and file a joint statement identifying the evidence and theories that remained disputed.

2. Agency findings — granted in part and denied in part. The court ruled that the defendants could not present the conclusions or decisions of the City of Santa Clara or the Santa Clara County District Attorney concerning Fachko’s conduct or the shooting incident. But the ruling did not exclude the mere existence of the City’s investigation or witness statements taken during it. The court also addressed the defendants’ request to present evidence that a thorough investigation occurred or that a district attorney investigator participated if Gomez suggested that police investigations were routinely approved or were unusually favorable to Fachko. The motion was therefore granted in part and denied in part.

3. Defense expert opinions — granted in part and denied in part. The court granted Gomez’s request to exclude Alexander Jason’s opinion that the wheels of Gomez’s car were turned left during the incident. The court found that this opinion was not based on scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge because it relied on reviewing deposition testimony and a video—materials the court said did not require specialized expertise to interpret.

The court denied without prejudice Gomez’s request to exclude Laura Davies’s opinions about Gomez’s drug use, criminal history, and emotional trauma. The court referred to its ruling on Gomez’s first motion for the reasons for that decision.

Defendants’ Motions

1. Forensic animation — granted. The court excluded an animation prepared by Jason Fries and excluded Fries’s expert opinion testimony in its entirety. The defendants argued that Fries had given inconsistent accounts of the software or method used to prepare the animation, had not provided the underlying animation file, and had produced an animation with at least one detail inconsistent with a photograph. Gomez argued that these issues affected the evidence’s weight rather than its admissibility.

The court found that Fries’s inconsistent statements and failure to provide the file seriously undermined the reliability of the method used to create the animation. Because the animation was the only part of Fries’s proposed testimony based on specialized knowledge, the court excluded his expert opinion testimony in its entirety.

2. Medical bill — denied without prejudice. The defendants sought to exclude a medical bill showing that Santa Clara Valley Medical Center charged Gomez $256,174.63 for treatment related to the shooting. They argued that the bill did not show Gomez’s actual damages because the bill indicated that charges had been adjusted under an insurance plan or written off. They acknowledged that the County of Santa Clara had asserted a lien on any final judgment awarded to Gomez.

The court denied the motion without prejudice. At the pretrial conference, Gomez’s counsel said he was investigating whether any part of the bill had been paid, whether anyone remained responsible for written-off amounts, and whether the County had to pay adjusted amounts. The parties planned to discuss a possible stipulation after that investigation.

3. Evidence of other police shootings — granted in part and denied in part. The court agreed that evidence of other shootings by Santa Clara police officers was irrelevant to Gomez’s remaining claims, which depended on the specific shooting incident rather than an alleged pattern of misconduct by the City. The court therefore would not allow Gomez to introduce such evidence merely to support his claims or to impeach witnesses.

However, the court would not allow the defendants to introduce evidence that Santa Clara police officers generally had clean records or that Fachko or other officers had a “gentle and benevolent character” unless Gomez first opened the door by presenting related evidence. If the defendants opened the door in that way, Gomez could present rebuttal evidence. The defendants’ motion was therefore granted in part and denied in part.

Disposition and Significance

This was a pretrial evidence order, not a decision on whether either side ultimately prevailed on the underlying claims. The court ruled on the admissibility of particular evidence and expert testimony, using the Federal Rules of Evidence and the standards governing expert reliability and relevance.