Mills v. City of Palo Alto
- Jeffrey White
- 4:23-cv-03330
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 4
In Mills v. City of Palo Alto, Judge White dismissed Stanislaus County claims without prejudice and ordered service and deadlines for the remaining claims.
Eric David Mills; the Stanislaus County defendants whose claims were dismissed without prejudice; and the remaining and newly added Palo Alto and Santa Clara County defendants, who were ordered to be served, answer, and follow the dispositive-motion schedule.
What happened
Mills v. City of Palo Alto is a civil-rights case brought by Eric David Mills, a California prisoner representing himself, under a federal civil-rights law and state law. He amended his complaint to add defendants from Santa Clara and Stanislaus Counties.
The court dismissed the claims against the Stanislaus County defendants without prejudice because those claims involved a different prosecution, charges, and facts. The court said those claims could be filed in a separate case in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California. It ordered service of the amended complaint on several new Palo Alto and Santa Clara County defendants.
Judge Jeffrey S. White also ordered the defendants to answer and set deadlines for a summary-judgment or other case-ending motion, Mills’s opposition, and the defendants’ reply. The order did not decide the merits of the remaining claims.
The detailed version
- Mills v. City of Palo Alto · No. 4:23-cv-03330
- Jeffrey White
- Oct. 6, 2023
Background
Eric David Mills, a California prisoner proceeding without a lawyer, brought this civil-rights case under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the City of Palo Alto, the Palo Alto Police Department, and five Palo Alto police officers. Those defendants had appeared. Mills then filed an amended complaint adding Palo Alto Police Officers Webber, Sullivan, and Stephens; the County of Santa Clara; the Santa Clara County District Attorney; and several Stanislaus County defendants.
The court reviewed the amended complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A, a screening process for complaints filed by prisoners. The court found that the amended complaint, when read broadly, stated claims under § 1983 and state law against the defendants who had already appeared and against Palo Alto Officer Webber, Palo Alto Officer Sullivan, Palo Alto Officer Stephens, the County of Santa Clara, and the Santa Clara County District Attorney.
Rulings
The court dismissed the claims against Stanislaus County, the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department, department employee Dalton Gonzales, and the Stanislaus County District Attorney without prejudice to filing those claims in a separate case in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California. The court ruled that those claims were not properly joined because they arose from a different prosecution, different charges, and different facts from the matters involving the Palo Alto and Santa Clara County defendants.
The court directed the Clerk to issue summonses and the United States Marshal to serve the amended complaint, its attachments, and the order on Palo Alto Police Officers Webber, Sullivan, and Stephens; the County of Santa Clara; and the Santa Clara County District Attorney, without requiring advance payment of service fees. The Clerk was also directed to send a courtesy copy to the Santa Clara County Counsel’s Office and to the attorney for defendants who had already appeared.
Schedule
The court ordered the defendants to file answers under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. No later than 91 days after the order was issued, the defendants had to file a motion for summary judgment or another dispositive motion, or inform the court if the case could not be resolved by summary judgment. Mills’s opposition, if any, was due 28 days after the motion was filed, and the defendants’ reply was due 14 days after the opposition. The court stated that no hearing would be held unless it later ordered one. Judge Jeffrey S. White did not decide the merits of the remaining claims in this order.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.