Matthews v. City of Los Angeles

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: August 11, 2025
• Docket: 23-3874
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS AUG 11 2025

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

GARRY MATTHEWS; DOMINIC ROSS No. 23-3874 HUNN; JAMAR HEARNS, individually and as class representatives, D.C. No. 2:22-cv-02944-FLA-PD Plaintiffs - Appellants, v. MEMORANDUM*

CITY OF LOS ANGELES; LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT; LOS ANGELES BOARD OF POLICE COMMISSIONERS,

Defendants - Appellees.

*

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California

Fernando L. Aenlle-Rocha, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted June 9, 2025 Pasadena, California

Before: CLIFTON, IKUTA, and FORREST, Circuit Judges. Partial Concurrence by Judge FORREST.

Plaintiffs Garry Matthews, Dominic Ross Hunn, and Jamar Hearns

(collectively, appellants) sued the City of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Police

Department, and the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners (collectively, *

This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. Los Angeles). Appellants brought two causes of action pursuant to 42 U.S.C.

§ 1983 and Monell v. Department of Social Services of the City of New York, 436

U.S. 658 (1978), alleging Second Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment

violations as a result of Los Angeles’s policy for issuing licenses to carry

concealed weapons (CCW licenses). See L.A. Mun. Code § 55.01. The district

court granted Los Angeles’s motion to dismiss, and appellants appealed. We have

jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review de novo the order granting a

motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. Palm v. L.A. Dep’t of Water &

Power, 889 F.3d 1081, 1085 (9th Cir. 2018). We affirm in part, reverse in part,

and remand.

Appellants have standing pursuant to Article III of the United States

Constitution. They plausibly allege that they suffered a concrete injury when they

were arrested and detained, that the cause of their injuries was Los Angeles’s

licensing policy and its enforcement of state law, and that their injuries can be

redressed through the requested relief. See Desert Outdoors Advert., Inc. v. City of

Moreno Valley, 103 F.3d 814, 818 (9th Cir. 1996). Moreover, a plaintiff need not

apply for a benefit before filing suit if doing so would be futile. Taniguchi v.

Schultz, 303 F.3d 950, 957 (9th Cir. 2002). Therefore, appellants have Article III

standing.

California and Los Angeles amended the applicable state and local rules

2 23-3874 regarding CCW licenses following New York State Rifle and Pistol Association,

Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022). However, because appellants were arrested prior

to these amendments, we consider the then-existing, pre-Bruen rules in assessing

their claims.1 Cf. Desert Outdoor Advert., Inc. v. City of Oakland, 506 F.3d 798,

807–08 (9th Cir. 2007) (considering, in evaluating an as-applied constitutional

challenge, the constitutionality of an ordinance as effective at the time the city

applied the ordinance to the plaintiff, where the ordinance was amended after the

alleged constitutional violation and before the court issued its decision).

The district court erred in dismissing the Second Amendment claims brought

by Hunn and Hearns. Hunn and Hearns plausibly allege that when they were

arrested, Los Angeles issued CCW licenses only to judges and law enforcement

officers (referred to herein as a “no-issue” policy). Under Bruen, Los Angeles’s

no-issue policy is unconstitutional. See 597 U.S. at 70. The operative complaint

plausibly alleges that Hunn and Hearns would have obtained CCW licenses if Los

Angeles had a constitutional policy. If Hunn and Hearns had CCW licenses, they

would not have been liable under the California criminal statutes which were the

1 We reject Los Angeles’s reliance on People v. Mosqueda, a post-Bruen state case regarding the severability of the “good cause” and “good moral character” requirements of California’s may-issue licensing regime. 97 Cal. App. 5th 399, 414 (2023). Severing an unconstitutional provision of a statute is a means of remedying a constitutional defect. See Seila L. LLC v. Consumer Fin. Prot. Bureau, 591 U.S. 197, 234 (2020). But whether an unconstitutional provision can be severed is irrelevant to the question whether that provision was enforced in an unconstitutional manner during the relevant time period.

3 23-3874 bases for their arrest. Cal. Penal Code §§ 25655, 26010. In other words, the

complaint plausibly alleges that if Los Angeles had a constitutional shall-issue

licensing regime, under which persons could obtain CCW licenses for the purpose

of general self-defense, Hunn and Hearns would have had such licenses, and the

officers would have lacked probable cause to arrest them. Accordingly, Hunn and

Hearns adequately allege that Los Angeles’s no-issue policy caused their arrests.

The district court properly dismissed Matthews’s Second and Fourteenth

Amendment claims, which are barred by the applicable two-year limitations

period. Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 335.1; see Kimes v. Stone, 84 F.3d 1121, 1128 (9th

Cir. 1996). Matthews’s claims accrued when he was arrested on September 27,

2019, and he did not sue until May 3, 2022, more than two and half years after his

claims accrued. Contrary to Matthews’s argument, his claims were not tolled until

the dismissal of his criminal prosecution under the continuing tort doctrine,

because a single incident, i.e., Matthews’s arrest, was the cause of the relevant

harm. See Flowers v. Carville, 310 F.3d 1118, 1126 (9th Cir. 2002). Because

Matthews is the only plaintiff who asserts a Fourteenth Amendment claim, and the

statute of limitations has run on his claim, we need not reach the merits of the

Fourteenth Amendment cause of action.

AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART, and REMANDED.2

2 Each party will bear its own costs on appeal.

4 23-3874 FILED AUG 11 2025 Matthews, et. al v. City of Los Angeles, et. al, No. 23-3874 FORREST, J., concurring in part. MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

I concur in the court’s standing analysis only to the extent it holds that

Appellants establish causation through the futility doctrine. I otherwise concur in the

court’s analysis in full.