Johnson v. City of Phoenix

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: December 17, 2025
• Docket: 24-6915
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS DEC 17 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

BEATRICE JOHNSON, surviving sister No. 24-6915 and statutory beneficiary of estate of D.C. No. Dorothy Dale-Chambers, 2:23-cv-00495-GMS Plaintiff - Appellant, MEMORANDUM*

v.

CITY OF PHOENIX; COUNTY OF MARICOPA; UNKNOWN PARTIES, named as John and Jane Doe Agents and Employees I-X; Black Corporations I-X; and White Public Entities I-X; PHOENIX POLICE DEPARTMENT, named City of Phoenix Police Department; ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION; TERRAN CAMPBELL; JENNIFER MALONE; ROBERT PITTS; MARICOPA COUNTY OFFICE OF THE MEDICAL EXAMINER,

Defendants - Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Arizona G. Murray Snow, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted November 20, 2025 Phoenix, Arizona

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. Before: HAWKINS, HURWITZ, and COLLINS, Circuit Judges.

Beatrice Johnson sued the City of Phoenix and Maricopa County

(“Defendants”) for allegedly failing to notify her of the death of her sister, Dorothy

Dale-Chambers, from an auto accident in a timely manner. The district court

dismissed Johnson’s 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claims with prejudice and declined to

exercise supplemental jurisdiction over her state-law claim. Reviewing de novo,

Olson v. California, 104 F.4th 66, 76 (9th Cir. 2024) (en banc), we affirm.

1. Count One of Johnson’s operative Third Amended Complaint asserts an

equal protection claim, alleging that the Defendants failed to notify Johnson of her

sister’s death “within a reasonable time frame” because she and her family are Black.

Johnson asserts she was treated differently pursuant to “official policy,” citing a

news article that “found that [the Defendants] had failed to notify relatives when

their family members who were experiencing homelessness died.”

Johnson has not plausibly alleged that the Defendants acted with the “racially

discriminatory intent or purpose [that] is required to show a violation of the Equal

Protection Clause.” Vill. of Arlington Heights v. Metro. Hous. Dev. Corp., 429 U.S.

252, 265 (1977). Johnson argues that “[o]thers not blacks received prompt

notification of the death of their family members,” such as the family of Dale-

Chambers’s Hispanic boyfriend who was killed in the same accident, but “showing

that different persons are treated differently is not enough, without more, to show a

2 24-6915 denial of equal protection.” Griffin v. Cnty. Sch. Bd. of Prince Edward Cnty., 377

U.S. 218, 230 (1964). Johnson also alleges that “the failure to notify family members

of homeless individuals has disparate impact on . . . black families” because “black

individuals make up nearly half of the homeless population in the country, despite

[comprising] only 13% of the total population.” This does not show the “gross

statistical disparities” that may “constitute prima facie proof of a pattern or practice

of discrimination.” Hazelwood Sch. Dist. v. United States, 433 U.S. 299, 307–08

(1977); see also Vill. of Arlington Heights, 429 U.S. at 266 (requiring a “stark”

pattern to establish a claim of intentional discrimination based on statistical

disparities).

2. Count Two of the operative complaint asserts a class-of-one equal

protection claim, alleging that Johnson was discriminated against as “the known

family member of a homeless person.” To state a class-of-one claim, a plaintiff must

plausibly allege that she was “intentionally treated differently from others similarly

situated and that there is no rational basis for the difference in treatment.” Vill. of

Willowbrook v. Olech, 528 U.S. 562, 564 (2000) (per curiam). Although Johnson

adequately alleges that the Defendants promptly established Dale-Chambers’s

identity, the operative complaint does not allege sufficient facts to raise a plausible

inference that the Defendants immediately knew that Johnson was Dale-Chambers’s

next of kin. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). Johnson does not

3 24-6915 plausibly allege that she was discriminated against once the Defendants learned she

was her sister’s next of kin. She admits that, after she made her identity known to

the Defendants, her sister’s body was promptly released to her.

3. Count Three of the operative complaint asserts that the Defendants denied

Johnson due process by interfering with her common-law right of sepulcher,1 which

she argues gave her a quasi-property right to possess her sister’s body.2 The district

court construed this as a Monell claim.

To plead a Monell claim against a municipality under § 1983, a plaintiff must

plausibly allege that: (1) she possessed a constitutional right of which she was

deprived; (2) the municipality had a policy; (3) this policy amounts to deliberate

indifference to the plaintiff’s constitutional right; and (4) the policy is the moving

force behind the constitutional violation. Plumeau v. Sch. Dist. No. 40 Cnty. of

Yamhill, 130 F.3d 432, 438 (9th Cir. 1997). Johnson failed to plausibly allege the

1 Although Johnson’s opening brief appears to instead assert a freestanding common-law sepulcher claim for the first time on appeal, Johnson conceded at oral argument that her only pendent state-law claim was her negligence claim. We therefore do not address any such freestanding state-law sepulcher claim. One Indus., LLC v. Jim O'Neal Distrib., Inc., 578 F.3d 1154, 1158 (9th Cir. 2009) (“A party normally may not press an argument on appeal that it failed to raise in the district court.”). 2 Johnson also alleges that the Defendants denied her procedural due process “by failing to comply with the requirements outlined in A.R.S. § 11-593 and A.R.S. § 11-597.01,” but acknowledges the right of sepulcher is the “essence” of her claim. In any event, neither statute requires the Defendants to notify family members or creates a property right in a relative’s remains.

4 24-6915 required municipal policy. Although her operative complaint states that the

Defendants acted pursuant to “an official policy, statement, ordinance, regulation,

or decision,” it provides no factual basis for this allegation other than a news article

that merely states that some families “learned weeks or months later that their loved

one had passed.” Attributing misconduct to official policy “in a conclusory fashion”

is “insufficient to state a viable claim.” Capp v. Cnty. of San Diego, 940 F.3d 1046,

1061 (9th Cir. 2019).

4. The district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to exercise

supplemental jurisdiction over Johnson’s state-law claim after it dismissed the

federal claim. See, e.g., Hill v. City of Fountain Valley, 70 F.4th 507, 519 (9th Cir.

2023). The district court’s order, however, dismisses Johnson’s entire Third

Amended Complaint with prejudice. We remand to the district court with

instructions to dismiss the state claim without prejudice. See Gini v. Las Vegas

Metro. Police Dep’t, 40 F.3d 1041, 1046 (9th Cir. 1994).

AFFIRMED in part and REMANDED in part. The parties shall bear

their own costs on appeal.

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