Pumphrey v. Contra Costa County

Background

Tyrone Pumphrey alleged that on June 8, 2019, he was arrested and beaten by Pittsburg police officers, taken to Martinez Jail, and beaten there by County deputies. He originally sued seven named Pittsburg officers, 25 unnamed Pittsburg officers, 25 unnamed Contra Costa County deputies, and Contra Costa County. The claims against the Pittsburg defendants were later dismissed. The remaining claim against Contra Costa County and its unnamed deputies alleged excessive force in violation of Pumphrey’s Fourteenth Amendment rights as a pretrial detainee.

The court’s pretrial order set September 2, 2021, as the deadline to move to amend pleadings. On October 4, 2021, Pumphrey moved for permission to amend to name Deputy Brandon Battles and to allow later amendments identifying other County deputies who had been listed as unnamed defendants.

Motion for Leave to Amend

The court held that both Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16(b) and Rule 15 applied. Because Pumphrey filed after the scheduling-order deadline, he first had to show “good cause” under Rule 16(b) to modify the schedule. If he had made that showing, he would then have had to satisfy Rule 15’s standard for amending a complaint. The court rejected Pumphrey’s argument that naming previously unnamed defendants was not an amendment, reasoning that naming them would add parties and change the case.

The court found that Pumphrey had not been diligent. A June 13, 2019 recorded interview connected to his citizen complaint identified Deputy Battles. Contra Costa County’s May 17, 2021 initial disclosures also identified Battles as a witness who would testify about the June 8, 2019 events. Pumphrey did not seek to add Battles, conduct discovery concerning the unnamed defendants, or otherwise investigate their identities before the amendment deadline. The court also noted that he had not served his own initial disclosures as of the November 5, 2021 case-management statement.

The court rejected Pumphrey’s explanation that the County’s disclosure did not describe Battles’s involvement in enough detail. It held that the disclosure identified Battles as a County sheriff’s deputy with information about what happened to Pumphrey at the jail, and that Pumphrey could have followed up through discovery or an informal inquiry. The court also considered arguments about counsel’s medical issues and Pumphrey’s difficulty recalling information after the traumatic incident, but concluded that Pumphrey still could have sought the citizen-complaint materials or served discovery.

Because Pumphrey did not satisfy Rule 16(b), the court did not conduct the separate Rule 15 analysis. The court denied Pumphrey’s motion for leave to amend.

Administrative Motion to File Under Seal

Contra Costa County separately asked to file under seal Pumphrey’s June 13, 2019 written complaint to the County Sheriff’s Office and the audio recording and transcript of his June 13, 2019 interview. The motion was unopposed.

The court explained that a party must consider reasonable alternatives to sealing, limit the documents sealed, and avoid sealing entire documents when redaction can protect sensitive information. It found that the request did not satisfy that requirement because Pumphrey’s written complaint did not identify officers and the transcript identified officers only in a few places.

The court granted the sealing motion only in part. It permitted the interview audio to be filed under seal and permitted the officer names at the specified transcript locations—Docket No. 51-6 at 5:54, 5:55, 18:634, and 18:645—to be filed under seal. It denied the motion as to Docket No. 51-4 and all other portions of Docket No. 51-6.

Other Orders and Disposition

The court ordered Pumphrey to provide Contra Costa County with his initial disclosures by November 18, 2021. It continued the November 10, 2021 case management conference to January 20, 2022, at 1:30 p.m. The order disposed of Docket Nos. 50 and 51.