Doris Knox v. City of Fresno, 708 F. App'x 321

Plaintiffs sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claiming excessive force by officers and a jury trial was held.
The district court set an early deadline under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 51(a)(1) for submitting proposed jury instructions; Plaintiffs timely submitted proposals then later sought to amend one just before closing arguments.
Plaintiffs argued the district court’s instruction was erroneous because it told jurors to consider only the circumstances "known to [the officers] on the scene," whereas Plaintiffs urged the jury should consider what the officers "knew or should have known."
The district court denied Plaintiffs’ late amendment request; Plaintiffs did not obtain the court’s permission to file the untimely change and the Rule 51(a)(2) exceptions did not apply.
The Ninth Circuit reviewed the district court’s denial for plain error under Rule 51(d) and C.B. v. City of Sonora because Plaintiffs’ request was untimely.
The panel concluded there was no error in the instruction: excessive-force claims are judged by objective reasonableness based on the officers’ contemporaneous knowledge, not on what they should have known or prior unrelated mistakes.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether plaintiffs could amend jury instructions after the court-ordered deadline under Rule 51	Plaintiffs sought to amend a previously submitted instruction just before closing to add "or should have known"	Defendants argued plaintiffs missed the Rule 51(a)(1) deadline and did not meet exceptions in Rule 51(a)(2) nor obtain permission	Denial of amendment affirmed; no Rule 51(a)(2) exception or permission shown; review for plain error applies
Whether the instruction misstated excessive-force law by excluding "should have known" standard	Plaintiffs contended jury must consider facts officers knew or should have known	Defendants maintained law asks for objective reasonableness based on officers' actual, contemporaneous knowledge	Instruction upheld; law assesses objective reasonableness from officers' contemporaneous knowledge, not what they should have known

County of Los Angeles v. Mendez, 137 S. Ct. 1539 (2017) (excessive-force claims evaluated by officers' information when conduct occurred)
Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194 (2001) (objective reasonableness test for use-of-force claims)
Deorle v. Rutherford, 272 F.3d 1272 (9th Cir. 2001) (force judged by officer's contemporaneous knowledge)
City & County of San Francisco v. Sheehan, 135 S. Ct. 1765 (2015) (Fourth Amendment not shown by mere bad tactics leading to confrontation)
C.B. v. City of Sonora, 769 F.3d 1005 (9th Cir. en banc) (plain-error standard for civil jury-instruction review)
Billington v. Smith, 292 F.3d 1177 (9th Cir. 2002) (discussing limits on establishing Fourth Amendment violations based on tactics)