Antwon Jones v. City of Los Angeles

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: September 12, 2023
• Docket: 22-55612
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS SEP 12 2023 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

ANTWON JONES, an individual and No. 22-55612 California taxpayer, D.C. No. Plaintiff-Appellant, 2:20-cv-11502-VAP-JC

v. MEMORANDUM* CITY OF LOS ANGELES, a municipal,

Defendant-Appellee,

and

MICHAEL N. FEUER, in his individual/official capacity; et al.,

Defendants.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Virginia A. Phillips, Chief District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted August 14, 2023 Pasadena, California

Before: WARDLAW, CHRISTEN, and SUNG, Circuit Judges.

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. Antwon Jones (“Jones”) appeals the district court’s order granting summary

judgment to the City of Los Angeles (the “City”) in an action alleging the

deprivation of his constitutional right to access the courts under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.

1. The district court did not err by concluding that the City did not deprive

Jones of his right to sue Paul Paradis (“Paradis”) because Jones could have brought

an action against Paradis before the applicable statute of limitations had run. Jones

argues that the City’s cover-up of its conspiracy with Paradis resulted in Jones’s

inability to pursue state law causes of action against Paradis pursuant to California

Code of Civil Procedure § 340.6(a), which requires “[a]n action against an attorney

for a wrongful act or omission . . . be commenced within one year after the plaintiff

discovers . . . the facts constituting the wrongful act or omission, or four years from

the date of the wrongful act or omission, whichever occurs first.”

Jones concedes that he first learned of his claims against Paradis in June 2019.

Yet, instead of suing Paradis, Jones filed this action against the City on December

21, 2020, more than one year later. Because Jones could have sued Paradis “within

one year after [he] discover[ed], or through the use of reasonable diligence should

have discovered,” Paradis’s misconduct, the City’s actions did not deprive Jones of

his right to sue Paradis before the one-year limitation period expired. Cal. Code Civ.

Proc. § 340.6(a).

2 2. Nor did the district court err by concluding that the applicable four-year

statute of limitation was tolled until at least February 2019 because the undisputed

facts show that Paradis “willfully conceal[ed] the facts constituting [his] wrongful

act or omission.” Cal. Civ. Proc. § 340.6(a)(3). Section 340.6(a)(3)’s “willful

concealment” provision requires more than “[m]ere nondisclosure.” Nielsen v.

Stewart, No. C082925, 2017 WL 3124207, at *3 (Cal. Ct. App. July 24, 2017); see

also Koch v. Citadel Fin. Corp., Nos. A092239, A092473, 2002 WL 31677057, at

*4 (Cal. Ct. App. Nov. 27, 2002). However, we do not need to determine whether

this provision requires that an attorney make “affirmative misrepresentations” to his

client to toll the four-year limitation period because, even applying Jones’s

“affirmative misrepresentation” standard, the undisputed facts establish that Paradis

willfully concealed his misconduct from Jones.

As the district court found, Jones’s First Amended Complaint (“FAC”)

alleged that Paradis intentionally concealed his conflict of interest from Jones by not

including his name on the class action complaint, even though he was the one who

drafted it. The district court further looked to Jones’s allegation that in February

2019, Paradis affirmatively misrepresented the facts constituting his misconduct

when he insisted that Jones assert attorney work-product privilege to withhold

certain documents requested in a deposition subpoena because those documents

would have revealed Paradis’s conspiracy with the City. These affirmative acts of

3 misrepresentation, along with the numerous other examples of misconduct alleged

in Jones’s FAC, support the district court’s finding that the undisputed evidence

establishes that the four-year limitation period tolled until at least February 2019.

See Am. Title Ins. Co. v. Lacelaw Corp., 861 F.2d 224, 226 (9th Cir. 1988) (holding

that factual assertions in pleadings “are considered judicial admissions conclusively

binding on the party who made them”).

Therefore, because the four-year limitation period did not expire before the

one-year limitation period had run, Jones had until June 2020 to sue Paradis.

Because Jones decided not to sue Paradis and instead waited until December 2020

to file this action against the City, the City was not responsible for Jones losing his

ability to sue Paradis within the limitation period.

3. Because the district court did not err by concluding that the four-year

limitation period was tolled on account of Paradis’s willful concealment, we need

not and do not determine whether the four-year limitation was tolled under Section

340.6(a)(2)’s continuous representation provision.

AFFIRMED.