R.P. v. City and County of San Francisco

Background

The court addressed discovery issues in two related cases at issue in the parties’ case-management statements and an April 30, 2024, case-management conference. The court stated that discovery was open in both cases. The defendants’ motions to dismiss and motion to strike remained under submission and would be addressed in later orders.

Arrest records

Plaintiffs in both cases sought police records concerning their arrests. The defendants objected that state law protected the records because the plaintiffs were minors and that state-law procedures were available to seek disclosure.

The court stated that the arrest records were highly relevant and noted that the named plaintiffs were represented by counsel and guardians ad litem and sought their own records. The court allowed further briefing if the defendants continued to object. It ordered the parties to meet and confer about whether the court should allow discovery of records concerning the named plaintiffs without withholding documents in full when they also contained information about other minors. Information about other minors could be redacted. The parties were also required to address whether each plaintiff consented to disclosure of the records to the other plaintiffs within or across the two cases.

Records of other potential class members

Plaintiffs in the J.T. case also sought police records concerning other members of the proposed class, many of whom were minors. The court was inclined to defer that class-related discovery until after, or closer to, a decision on class certification. If the court denied the defendants’ motion to strike the class allegations and the plaintiffs believed earlier production was necessary, they could serve a document request and use the court’s procedures for presenting a discovery dispute.

Preservation of evidence

The parties agreed that they had to preserve relevant evidence but disagreed about the scope of that duty. The plaintiffs claimed that the defendants had failed to preserve relevant Microsoft Teams chat logs. The court found that Teams records could be relevant to discussions by named defendants or other San Francisco Police Department employees about the intended or actual police response to the 2023 Dolores Hill Bomb. The parties were ordered to meet and confer about preserving or attempting to recover relevant messages and to file either a joint statement or a discovery letter brief by May 10, 2024.

The court rejected the plaintiffs’ apparent position that only the defendants’ evidence was relevant. It found that some method of backing up each named plaintiff’s phone was reasonable and proportionate because phone data could bear on claims involving arrests without probable cause, confinement conditions, or excessive force. The court did not decide whether forensic imaging or commercial backup software was required. The parties were ordered to meet and confer about a specific process and submit a joint statement or discovery letter brief by May 10, 2024.

The plaintiffs’ counsel also had to ask the individual plaintiffs whether they had communicated about the events using gaming consoles or related platforms. If so, the plaintiffs had to preserve relevant messages. Complete backup imaging of gaming devices was not required if another reliable method could preserve the messages. The court stated that the parties could later address possible sanctions for destruction of evidence if relevant evidence had been irrevocably lost while a party had a preservation duty.

Identifying and serving the Doe defendants in R.P.

R.P.’s federal claims were asserted against unidentified and unserved individual defendants. The court allowed R.P. to conduct discovery to identify the people he wished to sue because it did not find clear grounds at that time to dismiss all claims against those defendants.

The court extended the service deadline through July 29, 2024, and allowed R.P. to amend the complaint before that deadline to name the defendants he intended to serve. The court also stated that R.P. could seek another extension through an administrative motion if he believed good cause required one.

Ruling

Pending identification and service of the Doe defendants, the court declined to rule on the defendants’ motion to dismiss in the R.P. case. The court explained that the motion concerned state-law claims against the City and County of San Francisco that might ultimately fall outside federal subject-matter jurisdiction if R.P. could not identify and serve a defendant against whom he could state a viable federal claim. Judge A. J. Cisneros entered the order on May 2, 2024.