McQuarters v. Borgna

Background

Orlando McQuarters alleged that on December 26, 2019, Oakland Police Officers Giovanna Borgna and Lamphiear pursued him while he was riding a bicycle. McQuarters alleged that Borgna intentionally steered a police vehicle toward him, causing him to collide with a parked car and severely injure his back. He further alleged that officers searched his pocket, saw identification showing that he did not match the person wanted for arrest, nevertheless handcuffed and detained him for about 20 minutes, and then released him and arranged transportation to a hospital.

McQuarters’s first amended complaint asserted a Fourth Amendment claim against Borgna, a false-arrest claim against Borgna, Lamphiear, Yamashita, and Molina, and a claim against the City of Oakland under Monell. A Monell claim seeks to hold a municipality liable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for its own policy, custom, or deliberately indifferent failure to train, rather than merely for an employee’s actions.

Legal standard

The defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which tests whether a complaint alleges enough facts to state a legally plausible claim. At this stage, the court generally accepts the complaint’s factual allegations as true and views them favorably to the plaintiff, but it does not accept unsupported legal conclusions.

Officers Yamashita and Molina

Yamashita and Molina argued that McQuarters did not plausibly allege that they were sufficiently involved in the alleged false arrest. McQuarters alleged that both officers observed his identification and saw that his name, date of birth, height, weight, and address did not match those of the wanted person.

The court granted both officers’ motions to dismiss to the extent McQuarters relied on an “integral participation” theory. Under that theory, an officer may be liable for another officer’s constitutional violation only when the officer knew about and acquiesced in the unlawful conduct as part of a common plan, or set in motion acts that the officer knew or reasonably should have known would cause the constitutional injury. The court found no allegations of a common plan and no allegations that either officer set in motion the acts causing the alleged false arrest.

The court denied both officers’ motions to dismiss to the extent McQuarters relied on a duty to intervene. The court held that the complaint adequately alleged that Yamashita and Molina learned, while McQuarters remained handcuffed in the police vehicle, that he was not the wanted person and had an opportunity to stop the ongoing detention. The court stated that their absence when McQuarters was initially handcuffed did not by itself defeat this theory.

City of Oakland

The City moved to dismiss McQuarters’s Monell claim based on alleged failure to train officers about when and how they could use patrol vehicles to “channel” or alter the paths of bicyclists. McQuarters argued that using a vehicle in this way could endanger bicyclists and that the City acted with deliberate indifference by failing to provide training or adopt policies.

The court granted the City’s motion to dismiss. It found that the complaint did not allege a pattern of officers using vehicle “channeling” in a way that caused unconstitutional excessive force. Although the complaint alleged that policy recommendations were made after McQuarters’s incident, the court found no suggestion of earlier incidents that would have put the City on notice of similar unconstitutional conduct. The court also found that the complaint did not allege facts showing that the need for training on “channeling” was so obvious that the City’s failure to provide it amounted to deliberate indifference.

Disposition

Judge Thomas S. Hixson granted in part and denied in part the motions to dismiss. He granted Yamashita’s and Molina’s motions as to the integral-participation theory, denied them as to the failure-to-intervene theory, and granted the City of Oakland’s motion to dismiss the Monell failure-to-train claim. The court granted McQuarters leave to amend all claims by August 17, 2023.