DAVID SCOTT, аs guardian ad litem for his minor daughter, S.S.; ANGELICA SANTANA, as guardian ad litem for her minor daughter, L.R.; DEJAH HALL, as guardian ad litem for her minor daughter, R.H. v. COUNTY OF SAN BERNARDINO; LUIS ORTIZ; ANTHONY THOMAS
No. 16-55518
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
September 10, 2018
D.C. No. 5:14-cv-02490-VAP-KK; Argued and Submitted November 13, 2017 Pasadena, California
FOR PUBLICATION
Plaintiffs-Appellees,
v.
Defendants-Appellants,
ANDREW GARCIA,
Defendant,
ETIWANDA SCHOOL DISTRICT; BALBINA KENDALL; JANELLA CANTU-MYRICKS,
Cross-Defendants.
OPINION
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Virginia A. Phillips, Chief Judge, Presiding
Filed September 10, 2018
Before: Jacqueline H. Nguyen and Andrew D. Hurwitz, Circuit Judges, and Richard K. Eaton,* Judge.
Opinion by Judge Nguyen
SUMMARY**
Civil Rights
The panel affirmed the district court‘s summary judgment in an action brought by three middle school girls who alleged that a Sheriff‘s deputy arrested them on campus without probable cause, in violation of their Fourth Amendment rights and state law.
The middle school‘s assistant school principal had asked the Sheriff‘s deputy, a school resource officer, to counsel a group of girls who had been involved in ongoing incidents of bullying and fighting. After concluding that the girls were unresponsive and disrespectful, the deputy arrested the girls “to prove a point” and “make [them] mature a lot faster.”
Applying the two-part reasonableness test set forth in New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 333 (1985), the panel held that the arrests were unreasonable because they were not justified at their inception nor reasonably related in scope to the circumstances. The panel held that the summary arrest, handcuffing, and police transport to the station of the middle school girls was a disproportionate response to the school‘s need, which was dissipation of what the school officials characterized as an “ongoing feud” and “continuous argument” between the students. The panel further held that police officers were not entitled to qualified immunity because no reasonable officer could have reasonably believed that the law authorizes the arrest of a group of middle schoolers in order to teach them a lesson or to prove a point.
The panel held that the evidence was insufficient to create probable cause to arrest the students for violating
COUNSEL
Laura L. Crane (argued), Deputy County Counsel; Jean-Rene Basle, County Counsel; San Bernardino County Counsel, San Bernardino, California; for Defendants-Appellants.
Brenton Whitney Aitken Hands (argued), Law Office of Jerry L. Steering, Newport Beach, California, for Plaintiffs-Appellees.
NGUYEN, Circuit Judge:
On October 8, 2013, a group of seventh grade girls (twelve and thirteen year-olds)
Three of the girls sued the arresting officers and the County of San Bernardino for unlawful arrest in violation of state laws and the Fourth Amendment. The district court denied the defendants qualified immunity and granted summary judgment in favor of the students. We affirm.
I.
Factual Background
A. Events Leading to the Arrests
In September and October of 2013, seventh-grade student L.V. harassed and bullied several classmates, including Plaintiffs L.R. and S.S., at the Etiwanda Intermediate Middle School (“EIS“) in Rancho Cucamonga, California. On September 6, 2013, L.V. assaulted L.R. on the school‘s playground. L.V. approached L.R. during a classroom break, grabbed her hair, and punched her in the face. R.H., the third plaintiff in this case, tried to pull L.V. off L.R. L.R. did not hit L.V. back, but the school suspended both girls. According to L.R.‘s mother, Angelica Santana, the Assistant Principal, Balbina Kendall, told L.R. and Santana that it was school policy to suspend any student involved in a fight, regardless of who was at fault.
After the incident, Santana asked school officials for help in filing a police report with the San Bernardino County Sheriff‘s Department. Deputy Anthony Thomas, a school resource officer, met with L.R. and Santana about the altercation. Santana asked Deputy Thomas abоut filing a restraining order against L.V. to protect her daughter L.R., but he replied that it would not be “practical” since the girls attended school together.1 Deputy Thomas also told his colleague, Deputy Ortiz, that he had taken a report regarding a fight on campus, but did not share any further details.
A few weeks later, L.V. told other students that she was going to assault S.S. On October 2, 2013, S.S. confronted L.V. and said “[i]f you‘re going to beat me up, get it over with,” and “hit me, bitch.” L.V. made good on her threat by punching S.S., who did not hit L.V. back. S.S. later successfully asked the school to change her schedule to separate her from L.V. Over the following weekend, L.V. and another student, A.J., attempted to assault L.R. and S.S. in a local park. The victims fled, seeking assistance at the home of a stranger, who allowed them to call their parents to pick them up.
B. The Arrests
On the morning of October 8, 2013, Santana notified the school that L.V. had attacked
Assistant Principal Kendall had asked Deputy Ortiz to come to school in order to speak to the students. Kendall, Deputy Ortiz, and the school‘s principal, Janella Cantu-Myricks, were present at the meeting. Kendall told Deputy Ortiz that she had gathered a group of female students who had been involved in an “ongoing feud.” Kendall had previously told Deputy Ortiz that EIS had made multiple unsuccessful attempts to stop the conflict and that the problem was escalating. Deputy Ortiz had responded to an “unusually high” number of physical fights between students since the start of the school year.
Kendall addressed the students first, stating that “the threats, the fights after school, the threats [to] fight [at] school... this needs to end.” She told them “[s]o far as I know, all five ... all seven of you are, have been part of this continuous argument, on campus and off campus. And that is why the officer, Officer Ortiz, is here today. We are going to put an end to this.” Deputy Ortiz then spoke to the students, in an “attempt[] to mediate the problems between the two factions of students and verify[] the information provided” to him by Kendall. Deputy Ortiz quickly formed the view that the students werе unresponsive to his efforts and were behaving disrespectfully, based on their “body language and continued whispering.” An audio tape of the incident, however, reflects mostly silence in response to Deputy Ortiz‘s questioning; no student is captured on the audio as speaking loudly or being verbally aggressive.2
Within minutes after his arrival, Deputy Ortiz threatened to take all of the students to jail to “prove a point.” He told the students, “And for the one lady laughing that thinks it‘s funny, I am not playing around. I am dead serious that we are taking you guys to jail. That might [be], it might be-is, the most easiest thing to do... to wanting to prove a point that I am not playing around. . . . Eventually, maybe, you guys will make it into high school, then I will have to deal with you even more. Here is a good opportunity for me to prove a point and make you guys mature a lot faster.” Deputy Ortiz also said that he did not care “who is at fault, who did what.... To me, it is the same, same ticket, same pair of handcuffs.”
Deputy Ortiz then announced that he was arresting all of the students fоr unlawful fighting in violation of
The school took no disciplinary action against any of the seven students, and no criminal charges were filed.
C. The Present Lawsuit
The parents of L.R., S.S., and R.H. sued Deputy Ortiz, Deputy Thomas,3 and the County of San Bernardino. The district court granted partial summary judgment to Defendants on several claims, but set the case for trial on the students’ Fourth Amendment claims, as well as their state law false arrest and imprisonment claims. On the day trial was to begin, the court allowed Plaintiffs to move for summary judgment on the remaining claims based on newly-discovered authority regarding the scope of
II.
Standard of Review
We review de novo both the district court‘s grant of summary judgment and its decision on qualified immunity. Davis v. City of Las Vegas, 478 F.3d 1048, 1053 (9th Cir. 2007).
III.
Discussion
In determining whether a police officer is entitled to qualified immunity, we ask (1) whether he violated a constitutional right, and (2) whether the right was “clearly established” at the time of the violation. See Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 200 (2001). “These two prongs of the analysis need not be considered in any particular order, and both prongs must be satisfied for a plaintiff to overcome a qualified immunity defense.” Shafer v. Cty. of Santa Barbara, 868 F.3d 1110, 1115 (9th Cir. 2017).
A.
The Fourth Amendment Violation
We begin our analysis with New Jersey v. T.L.O., in which the Supreme Court held that the Fоurth Amendment‘s “prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures applies to searches conducted by public school officials.” 469 U.S. 325, 333 (1985). The Court recognized, however, that “the school setting requires some easing of the restrictions to which searches by public authorities are ordinarily subject,” and thus school officials may, under certain circumstances, conduct warrantless searches of students “under their authority.” Id. at 340. Whether such a search is permissible “depend[s] simply on the reasonableness, under all the circumstances, of the search.” Id. at 341. A determination of reasonableness requires “a twofold inquiry: first, one must consider ‘whether the action was justified at its inception;’ second, one must determine whether the search as actually conducted ‘was reasonably related in scope
Though T.L.O. dealt with searches, not seizures, we have specifically extended its special needs test to seizures conducted by school officiаls in the school setting. For example, in Doe ex rel. Doe v. Hawaii Department of Education, we applied T.L.O. and asked whether a teacher acted unreasonably by taping a student‘s head to a tree for five minutes. 334 F.3d 906, 909–10 (9th Cir. 2003). Similarly, in C.B. v. City of Sonora, we assumed that T.L.O.‘s reasonableness standard applied to a law enforcement arrest on school grounds. 769 F.3d 1005, 1034 (9th Cir. 2014) (en banc).
Applying the T.L.O. two-part reasonableness test,4 we agree with the district court that the arrests of L.R., S.S., and R.H. were unreasonable because they were not “justified at [their] inception.” T.L.O., 469 U.S. at 341. The deputies were given only generalized allegations of group bickering and fighting, not specific infоrmation about L.R., S.S., or R.H. At most, Deputy Thomas knew that L.R. had been in a fight on campus one month prior. See Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85, 93–95 (1979) (emphasizing that the Fourth Amendment requires particularized suspicion); United States v. I.E.V., 705 F.3d 430, 433, 435–37 (9th Cir. 2012) (same); see also Terry, 392 U.S. at 21 n.18 (“This demand for specificity in the information upon which police action is predicated is the central teaching of this Court‘s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.“). Moreover, while the traditional Fourth Amendment analysis “is predominantly an objective inquiry,” the “actual motivations” of officers may be considered when applying the special needs doctrine. Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 736 (2011) (citations omitted). And, here, Deputy Ortiz‘s actual motivations are clear—he explicitly told the students that he was arresting
them to prove a point and to “teach them a lesson.” Deputy Ortiz told them:
And for the one lady laughing that thinks it‘s funny, I am not playing around. I am dead serious that we are taking you guys to jail. That might be... the most easiest thing to do to wanting to prove a point... that I am not playing around... Here is a good opportunity for me to prove a point and make you guys mature a lot faster. Then, unfortunate [sic] for you guys, you guys will probably now be in the system. You will have a criminal record. Just because you guys can‘t figure something out here.
He continued:
[H]ere is the thing right now... I don‘t care who is at fault, who did what. You hear that? I don‘t care who did what, who is saying what, and whose fault it is. To me it is the same, same ticket, same pair of handcuffs.
Moreover, even if the arrests had been justified at their inception, we would find that they failed T.L.O.‘s second prong, as they were not “reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.” T.L.O., 469 U.S. at 341 (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 20). T.L.O. held that a search “will be permissible in its scope when the measures adopted are reasonably related to the objectives of the search and not excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction.” Id. at 342. The summary arrest, handcuffing, and pоlice transport to the station of middle school girls was a disproportionate response to the school‘s need, which was dissipation of what Vice Principal Kendall characterized as an “ongoing feud” and “continuous argument” between the students.
We do not diminish the seriousness of potential violence between students, or the need for conflict resolution in the educational setting. But “[s]ociety expects that children will make mistakes in school—and yes, even occasionally fight.” E.W. by and through T.W. v. Dolgos, 884 F.3d 172, 183 (4th Cir. 2018). Deputy Ortiz faced a room of seven seated, mostly quiet middle school girls, and only generalized allegations of fighting and conflict amongst them. Even accounting for what Deputy Ortiz perceived to be non-responsiveness to his questioning, the full-scale arrests of all seven students, without further inquiry, was both excessively intrusive in light of the girls’ young ages and not reasonably related to the school‘s expressed need. Ironically, the primary instigator of the conflicts, L.V., was the only one released to a parent at the school campus.
The foundation of T.L.O.‘s special needs standard is reasonableness. T.L.O., 469 U.S. at 337; Doe ex rel. Doe, 334 F.3d at 909. An arrest meant only to “teach a lesson” and arbitrarily punish perceived disrespect is clearly unreasonable under T.L.O. Under the circumstances of this case, we hold that the arrests of the students were unreasonable and in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
B.
The Officers Are Not Entitled to Qualified Immunity
“Qualified immunity insulates the officers from liability unless ‘existing precedent ... ha[s] placed the statutory or constitutional question beyond debate.‘” C.B., 769 F.3d at 1034 (alterations in original) (quoting al-Kidd, 563 U.S. at 741). Though the constitutional right must be сlearly established such that “a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right,” Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 739 (2002) (citation omitted), “[t]here need not be a case dealing with these particular facts to find [the officer]‘s conduct unreasonable,” Doe ex rel. Doe, 334 F.3d at 910.
At the time of the students’ arrest, it was clearly established that a police seizure at the behest of school officials must, at a minimum, be “reasonably related to its purpose, and must not be ‘excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student аnd the nature of the infraction.‘” Doe ex rel. Doe, 334 F.3d at 909 (quoting T.L.O., 469 U.S. at 342). Defendants do not—and indeed, cannot—meaningfully contest Deputy Ortiz‘s motivation for the arrests, which he stated multiple times. No reasonable officer could have reasonably believed that the law authorizes the arrest of a group of middle schoolers in order to prove a point. See T.L.O., 469 U.S. at 342; al-Kidd, 563 U.S. at 737; see also Gray ex rel. Alexander, 458 F.3d at 1306.
Defendants cite C.B. v. City of Sonora, in which a divided en banc panel of our court found that a reasonable officer, facing “a juvenile who (a) was reportedly a ‘runner,’ (b) was ‘out of control,’ (c) ignored the officer‘s questions, and (d) had not taken his medication, would not have known that taking such a juvenile into temporary custody in order to transport him safely to his uncle was an ‘obvious’ violation of his constitutional rights.”5 769 F.3d at 1034. Defendants argue that they could have reasonably interpreted C.B. to permit their arrests of the students in this case. But nothing in C.B. suggests that an officer may arrest an entire group of students to teach them a lesson or to “prove a point.” While the officеrs in C.B. took the troubled student into custody in order to safely transport him into the care of a relative, here, in contrast, Deputy Ortiz admitted that he “did not care” who was at fault in the alleged fighting and arrested all of the students in order to teach them a lesson. Under any standard, the arrests here were
unreasonable, and the district court properly denied Deputies Ortiz and Thomas qualified immunity.
C.
The Officers Lacked Probable Cause to Arrest under State Law
Defendants alternatively argue that Deputy Ortiz had probable cause to arrest the students for violating
Defendants’ reliance on
Second, even if
Defendants also claim that the students’ behavior in the classroom justified the arrest because there was reason to believe the students would engage in imminent fights. That assertion is belied by the audio record of the encounter, which “quite clearly contradicts the version of the story told by” the officers. Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 378 (2007). The students were mostly silent, only speaking to respond to the questions posed to them. But even taking at face value Deputy Ortiz‘s claim that the girls were being disrespectful to him, and whispering among themselves, this conduct in no way rose to the lеvel of probable cause that could have justified their arrests.8 In short, the evidence available to Deputy Ortiz was wholly insufficient to create probable cause to believe that any one of the three Plaintiff students violated
Finally, Defendants briefly argue that Deputy Ortiz had probable cause to arrest the students for violating
Because the arrests of L.R., S.S., and R.H. were unjustified, we also affirm the grant of summary judgment in their favor on the state false arrest claim. A law enforcement officer cannot be civilly liable for false arrest when “[t]he arrest was lawful, or the peace officer, at the time of the arrest, had reasonable cause to believe the arrest was lawful.”
AFFIRMED.