ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE RE: DISMISSAL 

 

Date: 12/19/24 (1:30 PM) 

Case: Community Coalition et al. v. City of Los Angeles et al. (23STCP04543) 

 

 

TENTATIVE RULING: 

 

On 10/10/24, the Court issued an Order to Show Cause (“OSC”) regarding why the instant case should not be dismissed based on the memorandum, dated 8/16/24, issued by the Office of the Chief of Police (“OCOP Notice”), of which the Court took judicial notice. Given the judicially noticed OCOP Notice and the concessions about its meaning and effect petitioners made in their Opposition to the City’s Motion for Judgment on the Pleading, the Court explained the following when issuing the Order to Show Cause: 

 

“It appears that the judicially noticed OCOP Notice constitutes the very same relief petitioners seek in their three causes of action. The Chief of Police has explicitly and in no uncertain terms declared the department’s policy that police officers may not conduct high risk traffic stops based only on a suspicion that a vehicle is stolen and where the occupants do not pose an immediate threat or risk to officer safety. Indeed, in the opposition, petitioners state: ‘These instructions to LAPD officers [set forth in the OCOP Notice] essentially acknowledge that the policy alleged in the FAP is unconstitutional and provide the exact type of prospective relief Petitioners are seeking in this lawsuit.’ (Opp. at 2:13-20, emphasis added.) Petitioners state that the OCOP Notice constitutes LAPD’s ‘abandonment of its policy’ and a ‘recent change in its policy.’ (Opp. at¿2:2022.)”   

 

(10/10/24 Minute Order at 2.)  The Court set a briefing schedule concerning the Order to Show Cause.  (10/10/24 Minute Order at 3.) The parties have timely served and filed their respective briefs.  

 

As a threshold matter, petitioners argue that respondents bear the burden to prove that the case is moot and that respondents assumed this burden by asserting the potential mootness of this case in a footnote in their briefing on the Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings. (See Reply to Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings at 8, fn. 2.) It is not altogether clear who bears the burden of demonstrating mootness, where, as here, the Court issued the instant OSC on its own motion.  Arguably, it may be petitioners who bear the burden to show cause why this Court should not dismiss the action because it is not moot.  Regardless, “[t]he duty of every court is to decide actual controversies by a judgment which can be carried into effect, and not to give opinions upon moot questions or abstract propositions, or to declare principles or rules of law which cannot affect the matter in issue in the case before it.” (Association of Irritated Residents v. Department of Conservation (2017) 11 Cal.App.5th 1202, 1223.) In connection with this duty, the Court issued the OSC and allowed the parties the opportunity to be heard regarding whether the case should be dismissed on the ground of mootness. To ensure that it would not be ruling on a moot question, the Court asked for supplemental briefing. (Waller v. Truck Ins. Exchange, Inc. (1995) 11 Cal.4th 1, 24 [“supplemental briefing is proper when a court wishes to consider a point of law following the regular briefing of a case on appeal”].)  In considering whether this case is moot and should accordingly be dismissed, the Court has considered the allegations in the Verified First Amended Petition (“FAP”), as well as the OCOP Notice, which has been judicially noticed.  Whether it is petitioners who must demonstrate the case is not moot or respondents who must demonstrate that it is, the result is the same.  For the reasons set forth below, the Court finds the matter should be dismissed as moot. 

 

“[A] moot case is one in which there may have been an actual or ripe controversy at the outset, but due to intervening events, the case has lost that essential character and, thus, no longer presents a viable context in which the court can grant effectual relief to resolve the matter.” (Association of Irritated Residents v. Department of Conservation (2017) 11 Cal.App.5th 1202, 1222.) Moot cases must be dismissed for lack of “an existing controversy before it upon which effectual relief may be granted.” (Id. at 1223.)  

 

The OCOP Notice states the following:  

 

“As a reminder, officers shall not conduct high risk vehicle stops based solely on a suspicion that a vehicle is stolen or cold-plated. High risk stops shall not routinely be used for every stop of a suspected stolen or cold-plated vehicle. Instead, officers need specific articulation of the occupants posing an immediate threat or risk to officer safety to justify the need for high-risk tactics (e.g., yelling threats of violence, stop conducted after a vehicle pursuit, visible weapons, refusing to follow commands, etc.). The generic dangers posed by stopping a suspected stolen or cold-plated vehicle are insufficient to justify the use of high-risk tactics.”  

 

(Pet. RJN Ex. A at 1.) 

 

After the FAP was filed on 3/6/24, the Los Angeles Police Department (“LAPD”) issued a policy whereby police officers may not conduct high-risk traffic stops in the absence of an immediate threat or risk to officer safety to justify high-risk tactics. In their Prayer for Relief, petitioners ask for a peremptory writ of mandate directing respondents to “cease to enforce the policy, practice, custom, and/or training of conducting high-risk traffic stops without probable cause and where the only basis of reasonable suspicion is that the vehicle may be stolen vehicle, and without any of the special circumstances required by the Ninth Circuit in Green, 751 F.3d at 1047, such as: 1)¿the suspect is uncooperative or takes action at the scene that raises a reasonable possibility of danger or flight; 2) the police have information that the suspect is currently armed; 3) the stop closely follows a violent crime; or 4) the police have information that a crime that may involve violence is about to occur.” (FAP ¶ 55.) The OCOP Notice squarely answers petitioners’ prayer to end high-risk traffic stops based solely on a belief that the vehicle is stolen.  

 

Nonetheless, petitioners argue that the OCOP Notice does not by itself moot the instant case, claiming there is a difference between an LAPD “policy,” which is addressed by the OCOP Notice on the one hand, and the LAPD’s “practice, custom and/or training,” which is supposedly not cured by the OCOP Notice, on the other hand.  Relatedly, petitioners claim they have no assurance the LAPD will adhere to its stated policy in the OCOP Notice.  (See Pet. Brief at 2:17-3:2 [asking “what has the City done to make this paper [i.e., the OCOP Notice] a reality on the streets”]; see also Pet. Brief at 3:3-4 [“Another consideration is whether the City is making any efforts to oversee compliance by LAPD personnel with the OCOP Notice”].)  These arguments ignore petitioners’ own theory of the case and the verified allegations they have made in support thereof.   

 

As alleged in the FAP, deponents from LAPD testified that it was LAPD’s policy and training to conduct high-risk traffic stops based only on suspicion of a stolen vehicle. (FAP ¶ 16, emphasis added.)  Indeed, the FAP notably alleges: “At all times material herein, LAPD’s custom and practice is to follow LAPD’s policy and training, and conduct a high-risk traffic stop whenever LAPD officers encounter a vehicle they suspect may be stolen.” (FAP ¶ 19, emphasis added.) Thus, per the verified allegations of the FAP, it is clear that the complained of LAPD custom, practice, and training was in furtherance of and pursuant to the purportedly unconstitutional policy of conducting high-risk stops in the absence of immediate threat or risk to officer safety.  Put another way, as verified under penalty of perjury, petitioners contend LAPD’s customs and practices (as well as training for such) match LAPD’s policy.  Having now issued an explicit policy “provid[ing] the exact type of prospective relief Petitioners are seeking in this lawsuit” (MJOP Opp. Br. at 2), there is no further relief this Court can afford petitioners beyond what the OCOP Notice now provides.  

 

“The voluntary cessation of allegedly wrongful conduct destroys the justiciability of a controversy and renders an action moot unless there is a reasonable expectation the allegedly wrongful conduct will be repeated.” (Cetner for Local Government Accountability v. City of San Diego (2016) 247 Cal.App.4th 1146, 1157.)  There is nothing before this Court to suggest the LAPD’s purportedly wrongful conduct will be repeated.  Petitioners point to allegations in the First Amended Petition indicating that LAPD officers have admitted in depositions that they were trained to conduct high-risk traffic stops based on the sole suspicion that the vehicle is stolen. (FAP ¶¶ 19, 21, fns. 9-12.)  These depositions and the conduct they describe, however, occurred before 8/16/24, the date of the OCOP Notice. (See FAP ¶ 19, fn. 11 [depositions in Augustus v. City of Los Angeles took place in December 2022]; see also FAP ¶ 9 [Sen v. City of Los Angeles lawsuit settled in July 2022].)  They are all instances of custom, practice, and training consistent with the allegedly unlawful pre-OCOP Notice policy and thus demonstrate, if anything, that LAPD officers are trained to and will follow the policy in effect, not defy it. 

 

Petitioners lastly contend that the instant issue presents an issue of broad public interest that the Court has discretion to resolve despite a finding of mootness. “[A] reviewing court has ‘inherent discretion’ to resolve an issue of broad public interest that is likely to recur, even though an event occurring during the pendency of the case would normally render the matter moot.” (Medina v. Superior Court (2000) 79 Cal.App.4th 1280, 1286.) While the lawfulness of certain arrest tactics of police officers may be of broad public interest, there is no indication that LAPD intends to rescind the OCOP Notice or otherwise allow and/or train its officers to conduct high-risk traffic stops in violation of the policy set forth in the OCOP Notice.  As such, petitioners seek a purely advisory opinion or declaration, which this Court declines to issue.  (Center for Local Government Accountability, 247 Cal.App.4th at 1157 [“The policy behind a mootness dismissal is that courts decide justiciable controversies and will normally not render advisory opinions”].)  

 

For the foregoing reasons, the instant proceeding is hereby DISMISSED as MOOT. No later than five (5) court days hereof, respondents shall submit a proposed judgment of dismissal.