Koron Lekeith Lowe v. County of Riverside

CourtDistrict Court, C.D. California
DecidedMay 17, 2024
Docket5:24-cv-00169
StatusUnknown

This text of Koron Lekeith Lowe v. County of Riverside (Koron Lekeith Lowe v. County of Riverside) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, C.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Koron Lekeith Lowe v. County of Riverside, (C.D. Cal. 2024).

Opinion

Eugene P. Ramirez (State Bar No. 134865) 1 eugene.ramirez@manningkass.com Marisa Zarate (State Bar No. 140286) 2 marisa.zarate@manningkass.com Andrea Kornblau (State Bar No. 291613) 3 andrea.kornblau@manningkass.com MANNING & KASS 4 ELLROD, RAMIREZ, TRESTER LLP 801 S. Figueroa St, 15th Floor 5 Los Angeles, California 90017-3012 Telephone: (213) 624-6900; Facsimile: (213) 624-6999 6 Attorneys for Defendants, CITY OF HEMET and OFFICER DYLAN DETWILER 7 Nathan A. Oyster (SBN 225307) 8 E-mail: noyster@bwslaw.com Caylin W. Jones (SBN 327829) 9 E-mail: cjones@bwslaw.com BURKE, WILLIAMS & SORENSEN, LLP 10 444 South Flower Street, Suite 2400 Los Angeles, California 90071-2953 11 Tel: 213.236.0600 Fax: 213.236.2700 Attorneys for COUNTY OF RIVERSIDE 12 LAW OFFICES OF DALE K. GALIPO 13 Dale K. Galipo, Esq. (SBN 144074) dalekgalipo@yahoo.com 14 Marcel F. Sincich, Esq. (SBN 319508) msincich@galipolaw.com 15 21800 Burbank Boulevard, Suite 310, Woodland Hills, CA 91367 Phone: (818) 347-3333 | Fax: (818) 347-4118 16 LAW OFFICES OF GRECH & PACKER 17 Trenton C. Packer (SBN 241057) tpacker@grechpackerlaw.com 18 7095 Indiana Ave Ste 200, Riverside, CA 92506 Phone: (951) 682-9311 19 Attorneys for Plaintiff KORON LOWE

20 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 21

22 KORON LEKEITH LOWE, Case No.: 5:24-cv-00169-SSS (SHKx)

23 Plaintiff, [Honorable Sunshine S. Sykes] Hon Mag Judge Shashi H. Kewalramani 24 v. STIPULATED PROTECTIVE 25 COUNTY OF RIVERSIDE; CITY ORDER OF HEMET; DYLAN DETWILER; DISCOVERY MATTER 26 and DOES 1-10, inclusive, Trial: September 8, 2025 27 Defendants. Time: 09:00 a.m. Ctrm: 2 1 TO THE HONORABLE COURT: 2 By and through their counsel of record in this action, plaintiff KORON 3 LEKEITH LOWE, (hereinafter referred to as “Plaintiff”) and defendants CITY OF 4 HEMET and DYLAN DETWILER (hereinafter referred to collectively as 5 “Defendants”) – the parties – hereby stipulate for the purpose of jointly requesting 6 that the honorable Court enter a protective order re confidential documents in this 7 matter [and pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 5.2, 7, and 26, as well as U.S. Dist. Ct., C.D. 8 Cal., Local Rules 7-1 and 52-4.1; and any applicable Orders of the Court] – as 9 follows: 10 1. A. PURPOSES AND LIMITATIONS 11 Discovery in this action is likely to involve production of confidential, 12 proprietary, or private information for which special protection from public 13 disclosure and from use for any purpose other than prosecuting this litigation may 14 be warranted. Accordingly, the parties hereby stipulate to and petition the Court to 15 enter the following Stipulated Protective Order. The parties acknowledge that this 16 Order does not confer blanket protections on all disclosures or responses to 17 discovery and that the protection it affords from public disclosure and use extends 18 only to the limited information or items that are entitled to confidential treatment 19 under the applicable legal principles. The parties further acknowledge, as set forth 20 in Section 12.3, below, that this Stipulated Protective Order does not entitle them 21 to file confidential information under seal; Civil Local Rule 79-5 sets forth the 22 procedures that must be followed and the standards that will be applied when a party 23 seeks permission from the court to file material under seal. 24 Nothing in this Stipulation or associated Order shall be construed so as to 25 require or mandate that any Party disclose or produce privileged information or 26 records that could be designated as Confidential Documents/Protected Material 27 hereunder. 1 B. GOOD CAUSE STATEMENT 2 This action relates to the arrest and use of force against Plaintiff Koron Lowe. 3 Defendant County of Riverside contends, the relevant material in this case includes, 4 but is not limited to, body-worn camera footage, police reports, witness statements, 5 and information about individuals who are not parties to this litigation. Defendant 6 County submits that good cause exists to enter the proposed protective order to 7 balance Defendants’ concerns that the documents consist of police reports and 8 private information concerning the parties to this litigation, which is protected by 9 the official information privilege, law enforcement privilege and the right to 10 privacy, as protected by the California and United States Constitution, with 11 Plaintiff’s right to discovery in this litigation. 12 Defendant City of Hemet contends that there is good cause and a 13 particularized need for a protective order to preserve the interests of confidentiality 14 and privacy in peace officer personnel file records and associated investigative or 15 confidential records for the following reasons. 16 First, Defendants contend that peace officers have a federal privilege of 17 privacy in their personnel file records: a reasonable expectation of privacy therein 18 that is underscored, specified, and arguably heightened by the Pitchess protective 19 procedure of California law. See Sanchez v. Santa Ana Police Dept., 936 F.2d 1027, 20 1033-1034 (9th Cir. 1990); Hallon v. City of Stockton, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21 14665, *2-3, 12-13 (E.D. Cal. 2012) (concluding that “while “[f]ederal law applies 22 to privilege based discovery disputes involving federal claims,” the “state privilege 23 law which is consistent with its federal equivalent significantly assists in applying 24 [federal] privilege law to discovery disputes”); Soto v. City of Concord, 162 F.R.D. 25 603, 613 n. 4, 616 (N.D. Cal. 1995) (peace officers have constitutionally-based 26 “privacy rights [that] are not inconsequential” in their police personnel records); cf. 27 Cal. Penal Code §§ 832.7, 832.8; Cal. Evid. Code §§ 1040-1047. Defendants 1 threaten the safety of non-party witnesses, officers, and their 2 families/associates. 3 Second, Defendants contend that municipalities and law enforcement 4 agencies have federal deliberative-executive process privilege, federal official 5 information privilege, federal law enforcement privilege, and federal attorney-client 6 privilege (and/or attorney work product protection) interests in the personnel files 7 of their peace officers – particularly as to those portions of peace officer personnel 8 files that contain critical self-analysis, internal deliberation/decision-making or 9 evaluation/analysis, or communications for the purposes of obtaining or rendering 10 legal advice or analysis – potentially including but not limited to 11 evaluative/analytical portions of Internal Affairs type records or reports, 12 evaluative/analytical portions of supervisory records or reports, and/or reports 13 prepared at the direction of counsel, or for the purpose of obtaining or rendering 14 legal advice. See Sanchez, 936 F.2d at 1033-1034; Maricopa Audubon Soc’y v. 15 United States Forest Serv., 108 F.3d 1089, 1092-1095 (9th Cir. 1997); Soto, 162 16 F.R.D. at 613, 613 n. 4; Kelly v. City of San Jose, 114 F.R.D. 654, 668-671 (N.D. 17 Cal. 1987); Tuite v. Henry, 181 F.R.D. 175, 176-177 (D. D.C. 1998); Hamstreet v. 18 Duncan, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 89702 (D. Or. 2007); Admiral Ins. Co. v. United 19 States Dist. Ct., 881 F.2d 1486, 1492, 1495 (9th Cir. 1988).

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Related

Building Industry Assn. v. City of Oxnard
706 P.2d 285 (California Supreme Court, 1985)
Sanchez v. City of Santa Ana
936 F.2d 1027 (Ninth Circuit, 1990)
Tuite v. Henry
181 F.R.D. 175 (District of Columbia, 1998)

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Koron Lekeith Lowe v. County of Riverside, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/koron-lekeith-lowe-v-county-of-riverside-cacd-2024.