John Filler v. Miren Unsworth

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: February 23, 2024
• Docket: 22-35719
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FEB 23 2024 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

JOHN FILLER and LESLIE FILLER, No. 22-35719

Plaintiff-Appellants, D.C. No. 1:21-cv-00391-DCN

v. MEMORANDUM* MIREN M. UNSWORTH, ET AL.,

Defendant-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Idaho David C. Nye, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted October 16, 2023 Portland, Oregon

Before: KOH and SUNG, Circuit Judges, and EZRA,** District Judge.

Appellants John Filler and Leslie Filler (“the Fillers” or “Appellants”)

appeal the district court’s decision to grant quasi-judicial immunity to the

individual Appellees. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we

review the district court’s dismissal of Appellants’ complaint for failure to state a

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable David A. Ezra, United States District Judge for the District of Hawaii, sitting by designation. claim under Rule 12(b)(6) de novo. Prodanova v. H.C. Wainwright & Co., 993

F.3d 1097, 1105 (9th Cir. 2021) (citing Lipton v. Pathogenesis Corp., 284 F.3d

1027, 1035 (9th Cir. 2002)). For the reasons stated below, we affirm.

1. The Fillers contend the district court erred in finding their due process rights

were not clearly established and Appellees were entitled to qualified immunity.

In determining whether an officer is entitled to qualified immunity, this

Court considers “(1) whether there has been a violation of a constitutional right;

and (2) whether that right was clearly established at the time of the officer’s

alleged misconduct.” Jessop v. City of Fresno, 936 F.3d 937, 940 (9th Cir. 2019)

(quoting Lal v. California, 746 F.3d 1112, 1116 (9th Cir. 2014)). The parties do

not dispute that the Fillers’ constitutional rights were violated. The only question

is whether the right was clearly established at the time of the alleged misconduct.

Id.

Appellants argue their constitutional right was clearly established because a

state court decision effectively found that the Department’s procedures for placing

individuals on the Central Registry was unconstitutional four months before the

Department placed the Fillers on the Central Registry using that procedure.

There are two issues with Appellants’ argument. There are no allegations in

the record that any of the Defendants knew of or were parties to the state court

case. More importantly, however, the state court decision by itself cannot create

2 “clearly established” federal law. See Evans v. Skolnik, 997 F.3d 1060, 1066–67

(9th Cir. 2021) (collecting cases in which intermediate state court decisions were

insufficient to settle constitutional standards). The state court decision here—

which was not even an intermediate-level court—alone did not clearly establish the

Appellants’ constitutional right.

This Court has also held that “‘an officer who acts in reliance on a

duly-enacted statute . . . is ordinarily entitled to qualified immunity[,]’ which is lost

only if it is ‘so obviously unconstitutional as to require a reasonable officer to

refuse to enforce it.’” Humphries v. Cnty. of Los Angeles, 554 F. 3d 1170, 1202

(9th Cir. 2008), as amended (Jan. 30, 2009), rev'd in part on other grounds, 562

U.S. 29 (2010) (quoting Grossman v. City of Portland, 33 F.3d 1200, 1209–10 (9th

Cir. 1994)).

We agree with the district court that the policy here was not so obviously

unconstitutional as to suggest to Appellees that they should not abide by the state

law provisions. Furthermore, the district court had to apply a complicated

procedural due process balancing test to decide this case. It would be unreasonable

to expect Appellees to correctly apply this test and determine that they should not

comply with the state policy. Because the right was not clearly established, the

district court properly found that Appellees are entitled to qualified immunity.

2. As we need not address the constitutionality of the underlying state policy to

3 decide this case, we do not reach this issue. Appellants did not file a suit seeking

to declare the Idaho policy facially unconstitutional. We find it inappropriate to

weigh in on the constitutional violation given this procedural posture. See, e.g.,

Evans, 997 F.3d at 1066 (quoting Camreta v. Greene, 563 U.S. 692, 707 (2011))

(“[C]ourts should think hard, and then think again, before turning small cases into

large ones by resolving a constitutional question despite the plaintiff’s inability to

establish a violation of a clearly established right.”) (cleaned up). Moreover,

because the Fillers did not ask for a broad constitutional ruling, the parties have not

adequately addressed some of the underlying case law on this matter.

The record does not make it precisely clear what the constitutional

deficiencies are in the policy. For example, the record does not establish how

public or private the Central Registry is—a critical question under Endy v. City of

Los Angeles, 975 F.3d 757 (9th Cir. 2020), which held that the “stigma-plus” test is

not satisfied where the registry is (1) not available to the public and (2) states that a

complaint is “unfounded.”

The Department has shown that they will continue to enforce the current

policy unless it is ruled on by a circuit court, the state supreme court, or the

Supreme Court. Despite concerns about potential due process violations, for the

above reasons, we find it inappropriate to rule on the constitutionality of the policy

here.

4 AFFIRMED.