Coalition on Homelessness v. City and County of San Francisco

Background

The plaintiffs are current and formerly homeless residents of San Francisco and the Coalition on Homelessness, a nonprofit advocacy organization. They brought a civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and state law against the City and County of San Francisco and five San Francisco agencies.

The operative complaint asserts 13 claims. They include claims under the Eighth Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, and the Fourteenth Amendment; parallel claims under the California Constitution; disability-discrimination claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act and California Government Code section 11135; and a conspiracy claim. The plaintiffs challenge alleged enforcement practices involving citations, fines, arrests, and threats against unsheltered people, as well as the alleged seizure and destruction of personal property and survival belongings.

The court previously issued a preliminary injunction concerning the Eighth Amendment claim and San Francisco’s “bag and tag” policy for storing personal property. The Ninth Circuit later affirmed part of that order and vacated and remanded part for clarification that the injunction applies only to involuntarily homeless people. The preliminary injunction remained in place while the case continued.

Motion to Stay

The defendants moved to stay the case until 30 days after the Supreme Court issued its opinion in City of Grants Pass v. Gloria Johnson, which concerned whether generally applicable laws regulating camping on public property violate the Eighth Amendment. The defendants argued that the decision could affect the governing legal standard and the scope of discovery, expert testimony, dispositive motions, trial evidence, and requested relief.

The plaintiffs opposed a complete stay. They argued that only the Eighth Amendment claim would be affected by Johnson and that discovery for the other claims substantially overlapped with discovery for that claim. They proposed allowing discovery to continue with deadlines extended by 90 days. They also argued that a stay could impair their ability to monitor compliance with the preliminary injunction and could lead to lost evidence or unavailable witnesses.

The court applied the three factors used for a stay under the court’s inherent case-management authority: possible harm from the stay, hardship to the party required to continue litigating, and whether a stay would promote the orderly handling of the case by simplifying issues, evidence, or legal questions. The party seeking the stay had the burden to justify it.

Court’s Analysis

The court found that the orderly-course-of-justice factor favored a stay. It concluded that the Supreme Court’s decision could significantly affect discovery related to the Eighth Amendment claim and that the plaintiffs had not clearly shown that the other claims required substantially the same breadth of discovery. The court also found that proceeding with discovery could require duplicative depositions because the Fourth Amendment property claims and the Eighth Amendment claim involved overlapping allegations and witnesses.

The court found that the potential harm to the plaintiffs weighed slightly against a stay. It agreed that a stay could make monitoring the preliminary injunction more difficult and could create risks involving lost evidence or unavailable witnesses. But the court concluded that those concerns could be mitigated by requiring the defendants to continue all disclosures previously ordered, including disclosures concerning encampment closures, police records, dispatch records, and property-handling logs. The court also stated that a new case schedule could help address potential loss of evidence.

The court found that the defendants would face hardship if required to continue costly discovery and other litigation while the Supreme Court considered a decision that could substantially change the case. This factor favored a stay. After weighing the factors, the court concluded that the defendants had satisfied their burden, subject to measures addressing the plaintiffs’ monitoring concerns.

Disposition

The court granted in part the defendants’ motion to stay. The case was stayed until 30 days after the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Johnson. During the stay, the defendants were required to continue providing all disclosures ordered in the court’s May 25, 2023 order. If the plaintiffs believed they needed additional discovery to monitor compliance with the preliminary injunction, the parties were directed to meet and confer and present disputes through the joint discovery-letter process.

The court also stated that it would rule on the pending motion to enforce the preliminary injunction concerning the Fourth Amendment claim and would determine whether further litigation activity was warranted on that part of the case during the stay. The court scheduled a further case-management conference for August 7, 2024, and required an updated joint case-management statement by July 31, 2024.