Allums v. City of San Francisco
- James Donato
- 3:22-cv-00976
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Dennis Bruce Allums v. City and County of San Francisco, Judge Donato dismissed Allums’s Section 1983 complaint with prejudice under Rule 12(b)(6).
Dennis Bruce Allums’s claim against the City and County of San Francisco was dismissed with prejudice, the case was closed, and further filings require prior court approval.
What happened
Dennis Bruce Allums v. City and County of San Francisco concerned Allums’s claim that a San Francisco police officer refused to investigate his concern about a child and acted because of discrimination against him as an African American.
The court granted the City and County’s request to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6). It ruled that one alleged incident did not plausibly show the city was responsible under the civil-rights statute, and that an attached police report further weakened the claim. The court found that changing the complaint would be futile and dismissed it with prejudice.
Judge James Donato ordered the case closed and said no further filings would be accepted without the court’s prior approval.
The detailed version
- Allums v. City of San Francisco · No. 3:22-cv-00976
- James Donato
- May 26, 2022
Background
Dennis Bruce Allums, representing himself, brought one claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the City and County of San Francisco. He alleged that, in January 2020, he tried to report a concern about the endangerment of a Black child to a San Francisco police officer. According to the complaint, the officer was dismissive and declined to open an investigation. Allums believed the officer’s conduct was motivated by discrimination against him as an African American.
San Francisco asked the court to dismiss the complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which allows dismissal when a complaint does not state a legally sufficient claim.
Court’s Analysis
The court said that, although complaints filed by people without lawyers receive a liberal reading, they still must meet the basic pleading requirements and allege facts supporting a plausible claim. The court concluded that the complaint described only one incident of unconstitutional conduct. That was not enough to plausibly state a § 1983 claim against San Francisco.
The court also considered an incident report attached to the complaint. The report said that Allums told the officer he had seen “darkness and then light” coming from the child and that the child was “flirtatious” with him. The court said this record further undermined the plausibility of the § 1983 claim.
Disposition
The court stated that it often allows amendment, particularly in cases filed by people without lawyers, but found amendment unwarranted here. Allums had filed the complaint about two years after the January 2020 incident and had not alleged facts showing a pattern, policy, or practice required for the claim against San Francisco. The court also found that the incident report provided additional grounds for concluding that amendment would be futile.
The court granted the dismissal request, dismissed the complaint with prejudice, ordered the case closed, and directed that no further filings be accepted without prior court approval.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.