D'souza v. Guerrero

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: February 27, 2025
• Docket: 24-2537
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FEB 27 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

JASON D’SOUZA, et al., No. 24-2537 D.C. No. Plaintiffs - Appellants, 2:23-cv-08230-SVW-E v. MEMORANDUM*

Honorable PATRICIA GUERRERO, in her Honor’s Official Capacity as Council Chair for the Judicial Council of California,

Defendant - Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Stephen V. Wilson, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted February 12, 2025 Pasadena, California

Before: GRABER, HAMILTON, and BUMATAY, Circuit Judges.**

Jason D’Souza and co-plaintiffs appeal the dismissal of their lawsuit against

California Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero in her official capacity as Chair of the

Judicial Council of California (the “Judicial Council”). Plaintiffs allege that they

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable David F. Hamilton, United States Circuit Judge for the Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit, sitting by designation. are “fit parents” subject to California state court orders granting them no “actual

parenting time.” They allege that California courts exercise “arbitrary discretion”

by denying parents custody of their children without findings of “unfitness.”

Plaintiffs seek damages for “each day they and their children were subjected to

court orders that grant no ‘actual parenting time.’” They also seek an injunction

requiring the Judicial Council to “train its judicial officers, first, that ‘parenting’ is

a fundamental right, and second, that the Constitution forbids” custody orders that

deny “actual parenting time” without a finding of “unfitness.” The district court

dismissed the case.

We review de novo a dismissal for failure to state a claim and for lack of

jurisdiction. Rhoades v. Avon Prods., Inc., 504 F.3d 1151, 1156 (9th Cir. 2007).

We may affirm the district court’s dismissal on any ground supported by the

record, provided that the parties have had a fair opportunity to be heard on the

issue. Scholar v. Pacific Bell, 963 F.2d 264, 266 (9th Cir. 1992). We affirm.

1. Plaintiffs may not sue Chief Justice Guerrero in her official capacity

under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Only “persons” are subject to suit under § 1983. Peter-

Palican v. Gov’t of N. Mariana Islands, 695 F.3d 918, 919 n.1 (9th Cir. 2012).

“[A] State is not a person within the meaning of § 1983.” Will v. Michigan Dep’t of

State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 64 (1989). And because “a suit against a state official in

his or her official capacity is not a suit against the official but rather is a suit

2 24-2537 against the official’s office . . . it is no different from a suit against the State itself.”

Id. at 71 (internal citation omitted).

The Judicial Council is an arm of the State of California. Wolfe v.

Strankman, 392 F.3d 358, 364 (9th Cir. 2004) (“Given the role of the Judicial

Council, it is clearly a state agency.”).1 Plaintiffs invite us to overrule Wolfe, but

we reach the same conclusion we did in Wolfe by applying the factors outlined in

Kohn v. State Bar of California, 87 F.4th 1021, 1030 (9th Cir. 2023) (en banc).

The State’s intent in creating the Judicial Council and the State’s control

over the Judicial Council—two factors not mentioned by Plaintiffs—strongly

support our conclusion. See id. at 1030 (describing the three factors). The third

factor—the Judicial Council’s overall effects on the State treasury—also supports

our conclusion. Id. Plaintiffs focus almost entirely on the Supreme Court’s

decision in Hess v. Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corp., 513 U.S. 30 (1994), and

the State’s purported fiscal liability for a judgment, to the exclusion of all other

aspects of the Kohn test. But, in Kohn, we discussed Hess and squarely rejected

the argument that the state’s fiscal liability for a judgment is the only concern

relevant to whether an entity is part of a state. See Kohn, 87 F.4th at 1027 (“[T]he

1 In Munoz v. Superior Ct. of Los Angeles Cnty., 91 F.4th 977, 981 (9th Cir. 2024), we recognized that an intervening precedent had overruled Wolfe on a separate point, its holding that “the Ex parte Young exception allows injunctions against judges acting in their judicial capacity.” Our decision here is consistent with Young and its treatment in Munoz, as explained below.

3 24-2537 Supreme Court has clarified that ‘[t]he Eleventh Amendment does not exist solely

in order to preven[t] federal-court judgments that must be paid out of a [s]tate’s

treasury.’” (quoting Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44, 58 (1996)

(first alteration added; some internal quotation marks omitted)).

Plaintiffs next invoke Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658

(1978), but Monell held only that municipalities and local governments may be

sued under § 1983 when they maintain policies or practices that violate federal

law. See id. at 690. Plaintiffs brought this action against Chief Justice Guerrero’s

office, which is a state office, not a municipality or local government.

2. Nor can Plaintiffs obtain injunctive relief under the “judge-made cause of

action recognized in Ex parte Young.” Moore v. Urquhart, 899 F.3d 1094, 1103

(9th Cir. 2018). As a general rule, Young authorizes suits against state officials in

their official capacities for injunctive relief addressing ongoing violations of

federal law. E.g., Arizona Students’ Ass’n v. Arizona Bd. of Regents, 824 F.3d 858,

865 (9th Cir. 2016). In Young itself, however, the Supreme Court warned that “an

injunction against a state court would be a violation of the whole scheme of our

government.” Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 163 (1908); see also Whole

Woman’s Health v. Jackson, 595 U.S. 30, 39 (2021) (reaffirming that principle).

Plaintiffs point out that they seek an injunction not directly against state

courts but against the entity responsible for the continuing education and training

4 24-2537 of judges. This attempted bank shot does not avoid the instruction from Young and

Whole Woman’s Health. If the requested injunction achieved plaintiffs’ goals, it

would do so by effectively requiring state courts to adjudicate cases in specific

ways, contrary to Young and Whole Woman’s Health. If the requested injunction

did not require such adjudication, plaintiffs would lack standing because the relief

would not redress their alleged grievances.

Either way, injunctive relief is not available to these plaintiffs on these claims.

Instead, plaintiffs’ remedy for allegedly erroneous judicial decisions is an appeal,

not a federal-court injunction requiring training for state-court judges. Cf. Whole

Woman’s Health, 595 U.S. at 39 (“If a state court errs in its rulings, too, the

traditional remedy has been some form of appeal, including to [the Supreme

Court], not the entry of an ex ante injunction preventing the state court from

hearing cases.”).

AFFIRMED.

5 24-2537