Judge Ronald F. Frank, Case 22TRCV05507 2022-12-16 Tentative Ruling

Judge: Ronald F. Frank, Case: 22TRCV05507, Date: 2022-12-16 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 22TRCV05507 Hearing Date: December 16, 2022 Dept: 8

Tentative Ruling

HEARING DATE: December 16, 2022¿

CASE NUMBER: 22STCV05507

CASE NAME: Manuela Sahagun v. Long Beach Unified School District

MOVING PARTY: Plaintiff, Manuela Sahagun

RESPONDING PARTY: Defendant, City of Los Alamitos

TRIAL DATE: None set

MOTION:¿ (1) Motion to Direct the City of Sierra Madre to Produce Documents Relating to Eddie Gonzalez Pursuant to California Evidence Code Sections 1043 and 1045

(2) Motion to Direct the City of Los Alamitos to Produce Documents Relating to Eddie Gonzalez Pursuant to California Evidence Code Sections 1043 and 1045

(3) Further hearing as to the Motion to direct LBUSD to produce the peace officer personnel records

Tentative Rulings: (1), (2) ARGUE. The Court will take oral argument as to whether Officer Gonzalez’ personnel file from Los Alamitos or Sierra Madre meets the “materiality” standard for a Pitchess motion as to those agencies’ personnel records LBUSD did not obtain from the two predecessor agencies before completing its background check. Perhaps the Pitchess process should be done in two stages, first for the Court’s review of LBUSD records and ordering disclosure of relevant records under a protective order first, and then second, after Plaintiff’s counsel’s reviews LBUSD records a further stage if additional Los Alamitos or Sierra Madre records are needed

(3) After review of the 26-second bystander video, the Court’s 12/12/22 Tentative Ruling stands. The Court is not persuaded that the brief bystander video presents the same type of circumstances as those in People v. Mackreth (2020) 58 Cal.App.5th 317 where a comprehensive series of videos from both officers’ body-cam videos, a dash-cam video, and in the 7-Eleven store of a resisting arrest fact pattern avoided the need for information about the incident that were contained in personnel files. The single video in this case is not comprehensive, does not show the series of events leading up to the actual shooting, and the discoverable need here for a negligent hiring claim is distinguishable from the discoverable need in Mackreth.

I. BACKGROUND

This case is a wrongful death action by Plaintiff Manuela Sahagun, successor in Interest of Manuela Rodriguez (“Plaintiff”) against Defendant Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD”), and DOES 1 through 10. Details on the case background were outlined in the Court’s Tentative Ruling a few days ago for the December 12 hearing on the Pitchess Motion as to LBUSD’s records.

On November 2, 2022, Plaintiff filed a Pitchess motion to Direct the Long Beach Unified School District to Produce Documents Relating to Eddie Gonzalez pursuant to California Evidence Code Sections 1043 and 1045. On November 15, 2022, Defendant, Long Beach Unified filed its opposition brief.

On November 10, 2022, Plaintiff filed a Pitchess motion to Direct the City of Sierra Madre to Produce Documents Relating to Eddie Gonzalez pursuant to California Evidence Code Sections 1043 and 1045. On December 12, 2022, Plaintiff filed a notice of non-opposition to Plaintiff’s Notice of Motion and Pitchess Motion Directed at The City of Sierra Madre to Produce Documents Relating to Eddie Gonzalez. The Court has not received written opposition form Sierra Madre as of December 15, 2022.

On November 14, 2022, Plaintiff filed a Pitchess motion to Direct the City of Los Alamitos to Produce Documents Relating to Eddie Gonzalez pursuant to California Evidence Code Sections 1043 and 1045. On December 6, 2022, City of Los Alamitos filed an opposition. On December 9, 2022, Plaintiff filed a reply brief.

On December 14, counsel for LBUSD lodged a digital memory device containing a 26-second bystander video of the incident. The Court has reviewed the video multiple times.

II. LEGAL STANDARD

Official police records are subject to a privilege against disclosure that is held by both the officer and the department. Davis v. City of Sacramento (1994) 24 Cal.App.4th 393, 401.

A Pitchess motion provides a discovery procedure by which plaintiffs may compel the discovery of information contained in a police officer’s confidential personnel files if the plaintiff can make "general allegations which establish some cause for discovery" thereof. Pitchess v. Superior Court (1974) 11 Cal.3d 531, 536-37 (Pitchess). The so-called Pitchess statutes, however, restrict lawyers and parties in their ability to learn of and disclose certain information regarding law enforcement officers. (Id.; see People v. Superior Court (2015) 61 Cal.4th 696, 712-14.) Most notably, Penal Code section 832.7 renders confidential certain personnel records and records of citizens’ complaints, as well as information “obtained from” those records. (Pen. Code, § 832.7, subd. (a) (section 832.7(a)).) “Upon a motion showing good cause, a litigant may obtain a court's in camera inspection of the confidential information and, possibly, win the information's disclosure. But the less reason there is to believe that an officer has engaged in misconduct, the harder it is to show good cause.” (Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs v. Superior Court (2019) 8 Cal.5th 28, 36.)

As to civil proceedings, this procedure has been codified in Evidence Code sections 1043 and 1046. (See also Haggerty v. Superior Court (2004) 117 Cal.App.4th 1079, 1085 (statutory scheme for obtaining confidential personnel records applies to civil and criminal cases).)

More detailed discussion of the law pertaining to Pitchess motions was outlined in the Court’s prior tentative ruling.

III. DISCUSSION

A. Plaintiff identifies types of records sought.

Plaintiffs seek discovery and disclosure of LAPD Officer Gonzalez’s personnel records by way of this Pitchess motion. Plaintiffs allege for purposes of these two motions that the records are in the possession of Defendants City of Sierra Madre or the City of Los Alamitos. Plaintiffs provide that the records sought can be categorized as follows. (P&A, p. 2:20-3:11.)

1. Application for employment;

2. Background check documents;

3. All investigative reports or documents, pertaining to any City of Los Alamitos and City of Sierra Madre investigations concerning Officer Gonzalez;

4. All City of Los Alamitos and City of Sierra Madre Internal Affairs investigations in which Officer Gonzalez was the subject of, during his employment with the City of Los Alamitos and City of Sierra Madre;

5. All citizens’ complaints, whether sustained or not, made against Officer Gonzalez while employed by the City of Los Alamitos and City of Sierra Madre, alleging excessive force, false imprisonment, fabricating probable cause, dishonesty, perjury, false arrest and detention.

6. All writings, supervisor notes, memorandums, letters, commendations, and “Performance Evaluations” of Officer Gonzalez during all of his employment with the City of Los Alamitos and City of Sierra Madre.

7. All records of the City of Los Alamitos and City of Sierra Madre regarding discipline imposed against Officer Gonzalez, particularly for excessive force, false statements, perjury, and false or inaccurate police reports, during his employment with the City of Los Alamitos and City of Sierra Madre.

8. All records of the City of Los Alamitos and City of Sierra Madre regarding any discipline related to the use force while in the employment of the City of Los Alamitos and City of Sierra Madre.

9. All training records for Officer Gonzalez related to the use of force while in the employment of the City of Los Alamitos and City of Sierra Madre.

10. The complete personnel file of Officer Gonzalez while at the City of Los Alamitos and City of Sierra Madre

The foregoing information is enough for Plaintiffs to have met their burden under Evidence Code section 1043. The Court proceeds with its good cause analysis for the personnel records sought.

B. Plaintiff’s Showing of Good Cause

A party moving for discovery of personnel files must file a motion supported by a declaration showing good cause for the discovery. "Good cause" will be found where (1) the records are material to the subject matter of the pending litigation, and (2) Plaintiffs show their "reasonable belief" that the City of Sierra Madre, the City of Los Alamitos and/or LBUSD have the records sought. Evidence Code, § 1043 (b) (3); see also City of Santa Cruz, supra, 49 Cal.3d at p. 84.

1. The Declarant’s Account of the Shooting

Plaintiff submits the declaration of its counsel Michael S. Carrillo, in which Mr. Carrillo states facts of which he has personal knowledge or are stated on information and belief. Mr. Carrillo’s declaration includes sets forth the following fact scenario outlined above.

2. The Declarant’s Allegations as to Types of Records

In addition to Plaintiff’s version of events leading up to and during the shooting, Mr. Carrillo’s declaration outlines his belief as to what types of records the City of Sierra Madre and LBUSD keep in personnel files. (See Evidence Code § 1043 (b) (3).) In paragraph 5 of Mr. Carrillo’s declaration, Mr. Carrillo identifies the ten categories outlined above. The specification of types of documents sought by Plaintiff’s Pitchess motion is sufficient to satisfy the first prong of good cause requirement under Evidence Code section 1043 (b) (3). (See Santa Cruz, supra, 49 Cal.3d at pp. 90—91.) The separate motion as to records from the City of Los Alamitos seeks the same ten categories as to the officer’s prior employment there.

3. Materiality

On a Pitchess motion, the materiality of evidence is supported by showing that it “is admissible or may lead to discovery of admissible evidence.” Riske, supra, 6 Cal.App.5th at p. 658. As to the issue of the materiality of, Mr. Carrillo correctly identifies that Officer Gonzalez’s records are material to Plaintiff’s claims where they tend to prove or disprove “that Officer Gonzalez has previously engaged in episodes of dishonestly with regard to prior incidents of the use of force.” (Carrillo Decl. ¶ 17.) The same is true about the categories of evidence sought by Plaintiff in regards to Mr. Carrillo’s allegation that “Long Beach Unified School District was negligent in the hiring, training, supervision, and disciplining of Officer Gonzalez.” (Carrillo Decl. ¶ 19.)

In opposition, Defendant, City of Los Alamitos asserts that Plaintiff does little to explain how the various categories of documents requested are material to the claims raised by Plaintiff in this case. For example, Defendant notes that Plaintiff states that one reason she needs Officer Gonzalez's entire personnel file is because the Long Beach Unified School District issued a statement indicating that "Officer Gonzalez's background was checked and that 'nothing in those checks was disqualifying"' and that "Plaintiff needs to verify this for herself in this litigation." (Plaintiff's Motion at p. 1:27-28) Given the scope of Plaintiff's claims, Defendant argues that it is unclear why she needs access to Officer Gonzalez's entire personnel file for this purpose, as opposed to disclosure of only those materials that were provided by the City of Los Alamitos to the Long Beach Unified School District.

In Plaintiff’s reply brief, Plaintiff asserts that she has established good cause for the discovery that is material to her lawsuit because such personnel records are allegedly crucial to Plaintiff’s negligent hiring claim. Further, Plaintiff believes that Officer Gonzalez only worked four months for the City of Los Alamitos, which is alleged to be a very short time period for a peace officer) However, Plaintiff also argues that these requests are made because Defendant LBUSD has stated that Officer Gonzalez had no background issues. But it is not clear how documents requested and obtained from the prior employing agencies that are NOT in LBUSD’s files meet the materiality standard. For example, if LBUSD made a standard request of Sierra Madre and Los Alamitos for records relating to Officer’s Gonzalez’ character, history of honesty or dishonesty, and any uses of force and the prior agencies responded that they had no records bearing on dishonesty or uses of force, of what materiality to a negligent hiring claim are other records in the Sierra Madre or Los Alamitos files?

The Court will take oral argument as to whether the Pitchess process might more properly proceed in two stages, the first stage of which would be the Court’s in camera review of the records from the prior agencies contained within the LBUSD files, and an order of production re relevant records identified by the Court, to be potentially followed by a second stage where Plaintiff could argue the need and materiality of any additional documents that the prior employing agencies did not produce to LBUSD during its background investigation of Officer Gonzalez.

C. The Bystander Video and Mackreth.

At the December 12, 2022 hearing on the LBUSD Pitchess motion, the District requested that the Court defer ruling until the Court could review the bystander video of the subject incident. In People v. Mackreth (2020) 58 Cal.App.5th 317, a Pitchess issue was presented on appeal where the criminal case defendant claimed that the arresting officers’ personnel files could have supported his excessive force claim because, he sought to present a “plausible scenario” of officer misconduct. The trial court had denied the Pitchess motion because there was a comprehensive series of video form four different sources that covered the entirely of the incident. “Because everything was recorded, there was no dispute about what had occurred, and the defense did not dispute what had occurred but only whether the level of force used was justified and whether the mental state element had been satisfied.” (Id at p. 341.) Affirming the ruling of the trial court to deny the Pitchess discovery, the Sixth District noted: “Evidence that any of the officers had lied on prior occasions or used excessive force in the past would not assist defendant in presenting a defense since the undisputed video evidence demonstrated precisely the force the officers had used on defendant and how he had acted.” (Id. at pp. 341-42.) The moving party there thus failed to carry its materiality burden.

Here, the discoverable need for the requested personnel records is not to provide some other plausible explanation as to how the use of force occurred, but rather whether the LBUS knew or should have known that Officer Gonzalez had a predisposition to use disproportionate force or to discharge his weapon without justification. The Court thus finds Mackreth distinguishable not only as to materiality and discoverable reason for the requested records, but also because the facts of the subject incident are apparently not in dispute here. Further, the 26-second single-source video here sands in sharp contrast to the four independent sources of video in the Mackreth case.

IV. CONCLUSION

Based on the foregoing, Plaintiffs’ Pitchess Motion to Direct the City of Sierra Madre to Produce Documents relating to Eddie Gonzalez and Plaintiffs’ Pitchess Motion to Direct the City of Los Alamitos to Produce Documents relating to Eddie Gonzalez are to be argued. As to the LBUSD motion, the December 12, 2022 tentative ruling stands.