J. v. City and County of San Francisco

Background

This putative class action concerns arrests following the 2023 “Dolores Hill Bomb,” an unsanctioned skateboarding event in San Francisco. Plaintiffs J.T., L.R., and C.L. are minors who were among approximately 113 people arrested on July 8, 2023. Through their parents, who had previously been appointed guardians ad litem, they asserted claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for alleged violations of the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments, along with related state-law claims, against the City and County of San Francisco, Chief William Scott, Captain Thomas Harvey, and Lieutenant Matt Sullivan.

The amended complaint alleged that police surrounded and arrested the group, held people on the street for hours, transported minors to a police station, and released them with citations after taking their fingerprints. It also alleged that arrestees lacked water, food, warm clothing, and regular bathroom access, and that no charges were filed. The plaintiffs alleged that police lacked probable cause to arrest them and asserted related theories concerning detention conditions, racial discrimination, First Amendment retaliation, and fundamental liberty rights. The court stated that it dismissed the racial-discrimination, First Amendment, and fundamental-liberty claims in a concurrent order.

The proposed class was defined as all people arrested in the 3500 block of 17th Street in San Francisco on July 8, 2023, in the mass arrest that occurred at approximately 8:40 p.m.

Motion and legal standard

The defendants moved under Rule 12(f) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to strike the class allegations. A motion to strike asks the court to remove material from a pleading. Courts may consider class-certification issues before discovery when the complaint makes clear that a class action cannot be maintained, but that procedure is generally reserved for obvious deficiencies apparent from the pleadings.

The court described Rule 23(a) as requiring numerosity, commonality, typicality, and adequacy, along with an identifiable and ascertainable class. Rule 23(b)(3) also requires that common questions predominate over individual questions. The defendants disputed ascertainability and typicality and addressed commonality in their reply.

Ascertainability

The defendants argued that the proposed class was not ascertainable because it did not exclude people who participated in violence, vandalism, a riot, or intentional defiance of police orders. They maintained that determining which arrestees had been arrested with probable cause would require difficult individual inquiries.

The court rejected that argument at the pleading stage. It held that the proposed class was readily ascertainable because it covered people arrested at a specified place and time. The defendants could not redefine the class to focus on issues they considered important and then challenge that new definition as unascertainable.

The court also noted that the complaint did not establish that any arrestee had participated in a riot, engaged in violence, or intentionally disobeyed orders to disperse. The allegations instead suggested that defendants may have ordered a mass arrest to identify people responsible for earlier property damage without probable cause to believe that the people in the group were responsible. If the arrests were made without regard to probable cause, the court stated, individual inquiries might not be necessary. Conversely, if the group had acted as a unit in unlawful conduct, the police might have had probable cause to arrest the group as a whole. The court concluded that these issues were better addressed later on a factual record.

Predominance and commonality

Predominance asks whether common questions are sufficiently important compared with individual issues to justify resolving the dispute through a class action. The court found that the complaint sufficiently alleged common questions about whether the police used common lines and tactics, whether officers were properly trained about individualized probable cause at a crowd event, whether police gave adequate dispersal directions and opportunities, and whether the City had a relevant policy or custom.

The court stated that individualized probable cause was not necessarily required for a mass arrest, which could make probable-cause questions suitable for classwide resolution. Even if individualized probable cause were required, the complaint did not show that defendants had probable cause to arrest any proposed class member or that any arrestee had disobeyed police. The court therefore found that the plaintiffs had sufficiently alleged common issues concerning probable cause for a mass arrest that predominated over individual questions.

Commonality requires questions capable of producing common answers that help resolve the litigation. The court found that the complaint met this requirement based on allegations about tactics applied generally to the group, officer training, dispersal announcements, treatment of the arrestees, possible City policies or customs, qualified immunity, liability, and damages.

Typicality

Typicality requires the named plaintiffs’ claims to be reasonably aligned with those of absent class members. The defendants argued that the minors were not typical because they were not engaged in arguably expressive activity and could not represent racial groups to which they did not belong. The court stated that those arguments were no longer relevant to the class motion because it had dismissed the related First Amendment and equal-protection claims.

The defendants also argued that the class was overbroad because it might include people who had not been injured, such as people who incited a riot or intentionally disobeyed police orders. The court found that nothing in the amended complaint indicated that proposed class members met those descriptions, making the issue unsuitable for resolution on a motion to strike. The defendants also raised differences among girls, boys, and adults concerning detention conditions, but the court stated that it was unclear whether the plaintiffs sought class treatment for that theory.

Disposition

Judge J. Cisneros denied the defendants’ Motion to Strike Plaintiffs’ class allegations, without prejudice to arguments the defendants might raise on a factual record. The order did not grant class certification or finally resolve whether the proposed class satisfies Rule 23.