Judge: Nathan R. Scott, Case: Nguyen v. City of Anaheim, Date: 2022-08-19 Tentative Ruling

Defendants City of Anaheim and Anaheim Police Department’s motion for summary judgment is denied. (See Code Civ. Proc. § 437c.)

Defendants fail to meet their initial burden to show the action has no merit.  (See Code Civ. Proc., § 437c, subds. (a), (p)(2) [burden]; Aguilar v. Atlantic Richfield Co. (2001) 25 Cal.4th 826, 850-851 [same].)

They fail to show the entire negligence cause of action is barred by Heck v. Humphrey (1994) 512 U.S. 477.  (See Not. of Mot. at p. 2:6-7.)

Plaintiff alleges defendants used excessive force by (a) deploying a service dog and (2) firing rubber bullets.

(See Compl. ¶¶ 8, 14.)

On one hand, the excessive force allegation regarding the service dog would negate an element of his convictions for obstructing the dog’s handler and causing injury to a police animal.  In pleading guilty to those charges, plaintiff admitted he “obstructed the investigation by Officer Mullen and unlawfully harmed a police animal by striking it.”  (Def. RFJN Ex. C ¶ 15; accord Compl. ¶ 8 [alleging defendants “sent a police service dog under the supervision of Officer Brandon Mullens”].)

The dispute over whether the handler’s name is Mullin, Mullen, Mullens, or McGlade is immaterial.  Whatever the proper name, defendant could not be convicted of these charges if deploying the service dog was unreasonable or constituted excessive force.  (See Heck, supra, 512 U.S. at pp. 486-487 & fn. 6; accord Fetters v. County of Los Angeles (2016) 243 Cal.App.4th 825, 834-835.)

On the other hand, it is not clear that the excessive force allegation regarding the rubber bullets negates an element of the resisting an officer conviction. 

Pleading guilty to “obstruct[ing] the investigation by Officer Mullen,” who the complaint alleges is the dog’s handler,  does not show the other officers reasonably fired rubber bullets.  Defendant did not plead guilty to resisting or obstructing those officers.  (Cf. Yount v. City of Sacramento (2008) 43 Cal.4th 885, 891 [the plaintiff pleaded guilty to resisting four officers].)

This analysis does not reward “artful pleading” (Yount, supra, 43 Cal.4th at p. 896) or require “temporal hair-splitting” (Fetters, supra, 243 Cal.App.4th at p. 840)  regarding when plaintiff started and stopped obstructing the dog’s handler. 

It simply recognizes that plaintiff’s guilty plea was limited to obstructing one specific officer who deployed a service dog -- not the officers who shot him with rubber bullets – and that the two uses of force are not necessarily equivalent. 

“[I]n some instances a Section 1983 claim does not contradict the events that resulted in a plaintiff's convictions,’” including “‘an officer’s unjustified imposition of excessive force in an overreaction to an arrestee’s assault.’”  (Yount, supra, 43 Cal.4th at p. 899.)

In this case, triable issues exist as to whether “‘[t]hough occurring in one continuous chain of events, two isolated factual contexts . . . exist, the first giving rise to criminal liability on the part of criminal defendant [for attacking the reasonably deployed service dog], and the second giving rise to civil liability on the part of the . . . officer [firing rubber bullets].’”  (Yount, supra, 43 Cal.4th at p. 899; see also Pl. Resp. to Def. SSUF ¶¶ 6, 8; Pl. Add’l SSUF ¶¶ 23-28, 30, 38, 40.)

Defendants’ request for judicial notice is granted as to the exhibits, not the bracketed insertion at page 2 ¶ C.

Defendants shall give notice.