Wills v. City of Monterey

Background

Cynthia S. Wills sued the City of Monterey, the Monterey Police Department, and Monterey Harbor Patrol Health, which the opinion collectively calls the “City.” She alleged that the defendants violated the Eighth Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and right to travel, and the Fourteenth Amendment’s substantive due-process protection. She also asserted California claims for negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent infliction of emotional distress.

Wills alleged that she lived out of her car after being unable to find accommodation. She said Monterey police repeatedly threatened her with citations or arrest for illegal camping, directed her to leave areas where she was sleeping, and gave her an eviction notice. She also alleged that police did not enforce a restraining order against a man who threatened and stalked her. In a separate incident, she alleged that an officer yelled at her, spit on her face, threatened to arrest her, and threatened to place her dog in a pound.

The City moved to dismiss all claims under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which permits dismissal when a complaint does not adequately state a legally recognized claim. The City also moved to strike allegations from Wills’s complaint. The court evaluated the factual allegations as true for purposes of the dismissal motion and viewed them in the light most favorable to Wills.

Eighth Amendment claim

Wills alleged that Monterey’s city codes collectively criminalized homelessness by leaving her no lawful place to sleep. The City argued that she lacked standing, that the rule from Heck v. Humphrey barred her claim, and that people could still sleep lawfully in some public places or at some times.

The court rejected the standing argument as to retrospective relief, meaning relief for past conduct. Wills alleged that officers repeatedly harassed her, threatened her with citations, gave her an eviction notice, and forced her to move. The court held that these allegations plausibly showed an injury connected to the challenged city codes. The court also concluded that the Heck rule did not bar her damages claim because the complaint did not plausibly allege that she had received a conviction whose validity would be undermined by a judgment in this case.

On the merits, the court relied on Martin v. City of Boise, which held that the Eighth Amendment bars criminal punishment for sleeping outside on public property when homeless people cannot obtain shelter. The court concluded that Wills plausibly alleged that Monterey’s codes, taken together, could prohibit sleeping outside throughout the City, particularly at night. The court rejected the City’s argument that daytime locations were enough because most people sleep at night. The court also found that the complaint plausibly alleged that other code provisions could prohibit sleeping on sidewalks at night. The court therefore denied the City’s motion to dismiss the Eighth Amendment claim.

The court noted that the complaint did not clearly show that Wills faced an imminent future injury or that she remained homeless or continued to live in Monterey. Thus, the court’s standing analysis supported retrospective relief, but did not establish standing for prospective relief such as an injunction based on the allegations then before the court.

Fourteenth Amendment claims

Wills alleged that the City violated equal protection and the constitutional right to travel. The court held that the challenged codes did not classify people by race, national origin, or another classification receiving heightened constitutional protection. Applying rational-basis review, the court concluded that Wills had not alleged that the codes lacked a rational relationship to a legitimate governmental purpose. Because she had already received an opportunity to amend this claim and still had not supplied the required allegations, the court dismissed with prejudice the right-to-travel claim.

Wills also alleged a substantive due-process claim under the state-created-danger doctrine. That doctrine can apply when government officers affirmatively place a person in a particular danger that the person would not otherwise have faced, the resulting injury was foreseeable, and the officers deliberately disregarded a known danger.

The court rejected Wills’s theory that police enforcement of the anti-camping codes created a danger from other homeless people. The complaint did not connect the officers’ conduct to a danger Wills would not otherwise have faced. The court dismissed with prejudice that state-created-danger theory.

The court treated Wills’s separate theory concerning the restraining order differently. A failure to enforce a restraining order, by itself, generally is not affirmative conduct. But the court explained that additional conduct encouraging or condoning an assailant’s behavior could potentially support a state-created-danger claim. The court found that Wills’s allegations about an officer’s refusal to act after measuring the man’s distance from her might support that theory if she supplied sufficient factual detail showing the officer, Wills, and the man were together in time and place. The court dismissed this part of the claim but gave Wills leave to amend it by September 12, 2022.

State-law claims

Wills sought damages for negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent infliction of emotional distress. California’s Government Claims Act requires a person seeking money damages from a public entity to present a claim to that entity within specified deadlines and to allege facts showing compliance or an excuse for noncompliance.

Wills alleged only that she mailed written claims to the City and stated her intent to bring a civil action. She did not provide sufficient facts about when the claim was submitted, to whom it was submitted, or what it contained. Because she had previously been given leave to amend and still had not adequately alleged compliance, the court dismissed with prejudice the state-law claims.

Motion to strike and disposition

The City sought to strike allegations concerning an alleged duty to enforce restraining orders and protect Wills from other people. Because the court had dismissed every claim except the Eighth Amendment claim, it denied the motion to strike as moot.

The court’s final order granted in part and denied in part the City’s motion to dismiss: it granted dismissal of the Fourteenth Amendment and state-law claims, denied dismissal of the Eighth Amendment claim, and allowed amendment of the restraining-order-based substantive due-process theory. The court denied the motion to strike as moot.