NAACP of San Jose/ Silicon Valley v. City Of San Jose

Background

This civil-rights case arose from protests in May 2020 in response to the killing of George Floyd by police. The original complaint asserted 16 causes of action against the City of San Jose, nine individual defendants, and 100 fictitious Doe defendants. The Doe defendants included police officers whom plaintiffs alleged used force against them, as well as officers’ supervisors whose identities plaintiffs said they could not initially determine.

The plaintiffs moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15 to amend the complaint by replacing certain Doe defendants with identified individuals. They argued that the new allegations related back to the original complaint’s filing date. Relation back is a rule that can allow an amended claim naming a previously unidentified defendant to be treated as though it had been filed with the original pleading. The court applied the standard requiring the amended allegations to arise from the same general facts, the original complaint to state a valid claim against the Doe defendant, and the plaintiffs to have been genuinely ignorant of the defendant’s identity or liability-related facts when they filed the original complaint.

The court also addressed two discovery disputes. In one, the plaintiffs objected to interrogatories seeking the factual bases for denials of requests for admission. In the other, the plaintiffs sought permission to take a deposition after the close of fact discovery.

Amendment ruling

The court found that the original complaint was unclear about which claims were asserted against which plaintiffs, defendants, and Doe defendants. The proposed amended complaint repeated some of that lack of clarity. The court therefore required the revised pleading to identify the plaintiff and defendant for every cause of action.

For category (1), the court granted the motion as to the allegations involving Asuelo. Asuelo could be substituted for a Doe defendant on the third cause of action for violation of First Amendment rights, the fourth cause of action for excessive force, and the fifth and twelfth causes of action for wrongful arrest under federal law and false arrest under state law. The court concluded that these allegations concerned the same general facts as the original complaint and that the original complaint could be read to assert the relevant claims against Doe defendants.

For category (2), the court granted the motion as to Erbes and Weber, allowing their substitution for Doe defendants on the fifth and twelfth causes of action for wrongful arrest under federal law and false arrest under state law. The court denied as moot the motion as to Bird because the plaintiffs conceded that Bird had been incorrectly named and should be removed. The court separately denied the plaintiffs’ attempt to substitute Brian Fee, explaining that the request was first raised in a reply brief and that plaintiffs did not support their claim that they could not have learned Fee’s identity earlier.

For category (3), the court granted the motion as to Knopf, Matchett, Lagorio, Lynch, and Erbes. They could be substituted for Doe defendants on the third cause of action for alleged First Amendment violations involving supervisory-type allegations about suppression at the demonstrations.

For category (4), the court granted the motion as to Simonini, Gaona, Adgar, Moran, Nguyen, and Grodin. The court determined that the original complaint adequately asserted a failure-to-intervene claim against Doe defendants. In its final summary of the ruling, the court identified this as the sixth cause of action. The opinion’s earlier discussion refers to the failure-to-intervene claim as the eighth cause of action, creating an internal numbering inconsistency.

For category (5), the court denied the motion as to Preuss. It found that the timely proposed amended complaint contained only a conclusory statement about Preuss and therefore did not provide allegations that could relate back. The court struck and disregarded the “corrected” proposed amended complaint filed with the plaintiffs’ reply because defendants had not had an opportunity to respond.

The court directed the plaintiffs to remove Bird, Morris, and Rouede, whom plaintiffs acknowledged had been incorrectly named. It also directed that the revised complaint contain no Doe defendants; all as-yet-unnamed Doe defendants were dismissed. The plaintiffs were not permitted to add new plaintiffs or defendants beyond the substitutions expressly approved by the order or left unchallenged by defendants.

Discovery ruling and disposition

The court overruled the plaintiffs’ objection to the compound interrogatories in the October 27 discovery letter brief. It found no basis to conclude that the interrogatories were excessive given the number of defendants, including because each defendant could serve interrogatories and any excess could be attributed among defendants under the approach discussed by the court.

The court denied the plaintiffs’ request in the November 21 discovery letter brief to take a deposition after fact discovery had closed on November 14.

In conclusion, the court stated that the plaintiffs’ motion to amend the complaint was granted in part and denied in part, their interrogatory objections were overruled, and their discovery letter brief was denied. Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton ordered the revised proposed amended complaint to be filed by December 22, 2022.