Bell v. Williams

Background

Vincent Keith Bell was a pretrial detainee at San Francisco County Jail. His right leg was amputated above the knee, and he used a wheelchair or prosthetic device. The lawsuit concerned events in January 2018.

Bell alleged that Deputy Leung sexually harassed him by asking to see his penis. Bell said he would file a grievance, and Leung later issued a disciplinary request accusing Bell of being disruptive and refusing a direct order. Sergeant Yvette Williams sustained the disciplinary request and imposed 10 days of restricted housing, 10 days without commissary, and 10 days without visits.

On January 18, 2018, Williams ordered Bell to move from one isolation cell to another. The parties disputed whether Bell had said he would comply before an extraction team entered his cell. The team handcuffed Bell, made him hop on one leg to a safety cell, and carried him part of the way after he said he could not hop further. Bell was placed in the safety cell for about 20 hours. He said his request to use his prosthetic device to use the bathroom was denied, requiring him to use a grate on the floor.

Bell’s fifth amended complaint asserted claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, including Fourteenth Amendment excessive force, due process, retaliation, and municipal liability; claims under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act; and claims under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. Bell moved for partial summary judgment on the disability claims. Defendants moved for summary judgment on all claims.

Rulings on the Cell Extraction and Safety-Cell Claims

The court denied summary judgment to Sergeant Williams on Bell’s Fourteenth Amendment excessive-force claim. Summary judgment is appropriate only when no genuine dispute about an important fact exists and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. The court found factual disputes about whether Bell agreed to move, whether he posed a danger, whether the cell was barricaded, whether assistive equipment was available, and whether using a nine-member extraction team and transporting Bell without a wheelchair or other device was objectively unreasonable.

The court also found that these factual disputes prevented resolving Williams’s qualified-immunity defense. Qualified immunity can protect a government official from liability when the official’s conduct did not violate a clearly established legal right. The court concluded that the other extraction-team members were entitled to qualified immunity because they were acting under Williams’s direction and a reasonable officer in their position would not have understood that carrying out the extraction instructions potentially violated Bell’s right to be free from excessive force.

The court denied summary judgment to Williams on Bell’s claim that placement in the safety cell was punishment violating due process. It granted summary judgment to the other defendants on that claim. The court found factual disputes about whether Williams placed Bell in the safety cell for legitimate security reasons or as punishment. It concluded that Bell had not shown a triable factual issue concerning whether Captain Fisher had reason to believe Bell was not a danger to others.

Retaliation Claims

The court granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment on Bell’s retaliation claim against Deputy Leung because Bell did not exhaust the required jail grievance process for that claim. Bell’s January 20 grievance complained about the extraction and safety-cell placement and referred to Leung’s earlier disciplinary request, but it did not allege that Leung issued that request in retaliation for Bell’s sexual-harassment complaint. The earlier grievance addressed the alleged sexual harassment, not retaliation through the disciplinary request.

The court denied defendants’ motion for summary judgment on Bell’s retaliation claim against Williams. It found factual disputes about whether Williams knew about Bell’s grievance, whether she acted with a retaliatory motive, and whether her decisions were justified by Bell’s conduct or complied with jail policies.

The court granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment on Bell’s retaliation claim against Fisher. The evidence showed that Williams made the decisions about the discipline, extraction-team use, and safety-cell placement, and Bell identified no evidence suggesting that Fisher acted because of Bell’s grievance.

Municipal Liability

Bell pursued municipal liability against the City and County of San Francisco under the rule commonly called Monell liability. He argued that the county had a pattern or practice of misusing safety cells, failed to train staff properly, and that Williams or Fisher acted as final policymakers.

The court granted summary judgment to defendants on the pattern-and-practice theory. It found that newspaper articles were hearsay, Bell provided limited information about his own prior safety-cell placements, and declarations from four other detainees described different situations without showing that their placements had been found improper. The evidence did not create a triable issue about a widespread county custom or policy.

The court denied defendants’ motion for summary judgment on Bell’s failure-to-train theory. Bell raised factual issues about whether staff were inadequately trained regarding extraction and safety-cell placement of people with disabilities, whether that training deficiency resulted in constitutional violations, and whether the extraction and placement complied with jail policies.

The court granted summary judgment to defendants on the final-policymaker or ratification theory. Although Williams had discretion to order an extraction and Fisher had discretion to approve it, Bell did not show that either had final authority to establish the county’s policy concerning the extraction procedure.

The opinion states that defendants did not move for summary judgment on Bell’s separate supervisory-liability claims against Fisher and Williams; the ruling therefore does not resolve those claims.

Disability Claims

The court denied both sides’ motions for summary judgment on Bell’s claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act. The court held that Bell’s claims included both the alleged failure to use a wheelchair or other assistive device during transport and the alleged failure to provide a prosthetic device, toileting assistance, or a safety cell with a raised toilet.

The parties agreed that Bell was disabled and that defendants knew of his disability and medical clearance to use a wheelchair and prosthetic device. They disputed whether security concerns required the manner of transport and safety-cell placement used, whether assistive devices were available, and whether Bell should have received a prosthetic device or toileting assistance. The court concluded that these factual disputes could not be resolved on summary judgment.

Disposition

Judge Susan Illston ordered that defendants’ motion for summary judgment was granted in part and denied in part, and Bell’s motion for partial summary judgment was denied.