Montoya Carranza v. City of San Pablo

Background

Luis Montoya Carranza sued the City of San Pablo and San Pablo police officers Matt Wong, Tyler Nelson, Melvin Smith, Gilbert Troche, Joshua Hearn, Monica Louis, and Roberto Arguello. He alleges that officers stopped him while he was test driving a customer vehicle, pointed firearms at him, ordered him out, placed him in a chokehold, handcuffed him, and told him they had the wrong person. He alleges that the force caused bruising, other physical injuries, emotional distress, pain, suffering, and humiliation.

Carranza’s original claims included excessive force, unlawful seizure, a claim under California Civil Code section 52.1, battery, negligence, and false arrest. After identifying additional officers through disclosures, he filed a first amended complaint naming them. He later deposed Officers Hearn and Arguello. Based on information from those depositions, he moved to modify the scheduling order so he could file a second amended complaint adding a claim against the City under Monell v. Department of Social Services.

The proposed Monell claim alleged that the City and the San Pablo Police Department failed to train officers about the dangers of compression, positional, and restraint asphyxiation, including the use of body weight on a prone person’s upper back and neck. Carranza alleged that officers used those techniques against him, that he nearly blacked out and suffered injuries, and that the City approved, ratified, condoned, encouraged, or tacitly authorized the alleged failure to train.

Legal standard

Because the deadline to amend the pleadings in the scheduling order had passed, the court applied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16(b)(4), which permits changing a scheduling order for “good cause” and with the judge’s consent. Good cause focuses mainly on whether the moving party acted diligently. If good cause exists, the court then considers whether amendment is appropriate under Rule 15(a), which generally calls for freely granting leave to amend when justice requires.

The court considered undue delay, bad faith or a dilatory motive, prejudice to the opposing party, futility, and whether earlier amendments had failed to cure deficiencies. Futility means that no set of facts under the proposed amendment could support a valid claim. The court evaluated futility under the standard used for a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, asking whether the proposed pleading contained enough factual matter to make the claim plausible.

Court’s analysis

The court found good cause under Rule 16(b)(4). Carranza asserted that he did not know about the alleged training failure before the depositions. The record showed that he moved promptly after the depositions and before the original fact-discovery deadline. The defendants did not show that Carranza could have obtained the information earlier from other available evidence, and their opposition did not address his good-cause argument.

The court rejected the defendants’ futility arguments. A municipality cannot be held liable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 merely because it employs a person who violated the Constitution. But a municipality may face liability for a policy or failure to train when the failure reflects deliberate indifference to a constitutional right and is the moving force behind the violation. The court explained that, in limited circumstances, the obviousness of the consequences of failing to train can substitute for evidence of a pattern of earlier violations.

Assuming the proposed allegations were true, the court concluded that the alleged failure to train about dangerous compression and neck restraint techniques could fall within those limited circumstances. The court noted that Carranza did not need to allege that he died or lost consciousness to state an excessive-force claim. Although he had not expressly used the word “obviousness” in the proposed complaint, the court said that deficiency could easily be cured and would not justify denying leave to amend.

The court also rejected the defendants’ argument that Carranza had not alleged a sufficiently close connection between the training deficiency and his injuries. Carranza alleged that the City failed to train officers to avoid the techniques allegedly used against him and that those techniques caused him to nearly black out and suffer physical injuries. The court stated that nothing more was required at this stage.

Finally, the court found no undue prejudice or undue delay. The proposed amendment was based largely on the same underlying facts, the City was already defending the case, and adding the training claim would not greatly change the nature of the litigation or substantially expand ongoing discovery. The defendants did not explain how body-camera footage or unidentified policies would have given Carranza evidence of the alleged training failure earlier.

Disposition

Judge Beeler granted Carranza’s motion for leave to amend the case schedule to file a second amended complaint. The court ordered him to file that complaint within seven days of the order. The order allowed the proposed claim to be added; it did not decide whether Carranza would ultimately prove the claim.