(PC) Gustard v. McCauley

District Court, E.D. California·Decided October 29, 2019·No. 2:17-cv-00012·Unknown

Opinion

CHRISTOPHER GUSTARD, No. 2:17-cv-0012-TLN-EFB P Plaintiff, v. FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS KAMALA HARRIS, et al., Defendants. Plaintiff is a federal inmate proceeding without counsel in this action brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Following screening, the filing of an amended complaint, and a substitution, claims against four defendants remain in the action: Morazzini, McKinney, Zuniga, and McCauley. ECF No. 34. Morazzini, McKinney, and McCauley move to dismiss the claims against them. ECF Nos. 51, 52. For the reasons that follow, Morazzini’s motion should be granted. The motion filed by McKinney and McCauley should be granted in part and denied in part. I. Plaintiff’s Allegations Plaintiff had a license to practice as a landscape architect in California. ECF No. 30 at 14. During the process of renewing the license, he informed the California Architects Board’s Landscape Architecture Technical Committee (“the Board” or “the LATC”) that he had recently pleaded guilty to a federal felony charge of distribution of images of children engaged in sexually explicit conduct. Id. at 30. This notification was required by California law. Id. Following the Board’s filing of an accusation against plaintiff and a subsequent administrative hearing, the Board found that the conviction called for the revocation of plaintiff’s license pursuant to California Business and Professions Code § 490(a) and California Code of Regulations, Title 16, § 2655.1 Id. at 60-67. It also imposed a bill of over $7,000 in costs of enforcement on plaintiff, under California Business and Professions Code § 125.3. Id. At the time, defendant McCauley was the Executive Officer of the LATC. Id. at 8. McKinney was the LATC’s “Enforcement Officer” or “Enforcement Analyst.” Id. at 9. Morazzini was the Director of California’s Office of Administrative Hearings (“OAH”), which performs administrative hearings for state agencies. Id. at 10. McCauley has since left the agency and been replaced with Zuniga. ECF No. 70. Plaintiff believes that his license should not have been revoked because he disagrees with the Board’s decision that his crime had a sufficient nexus with his profession to justify revocation. Id. at 13. He challenges that decision, and a number of other aspects of the administrative proceeding, as violative of due process. He also challenges the statutes on which the decision rested. Plaintiff’s unnecessarily long and convoluted amended complaint (over 50 pages, exclusive of exhibits), alleges eleven “counts”; i.e., claims for relief. These claims fall into two categories: (1) claims that plaintiff’s procedural due process rights were violated in various ways during the administrative process that ended in revocation of his license and (2) claims that

1 These laws provide: In addition to any other action that a board is permitted to take against a licensee, a board may suspend or revoke a license on the ground that the licensee has been convicted of a crime, if the crime is substantially related to the qualifications, functions, or duties of the business or profession for which the license was issued.

Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 490(a). For the purpose of denial, suspension, or revocation of the license of a landscape architect pursuant to Division 1.5 (commencing with Section 475) of the Business and Professions Code, a crime or act shall be considered substantially related to the qualifications, functions, and duties of a landscape architect if to a substantial degree it evidences present or potential unfitness of a landscape architect to perform the functions authorized by his or her license in a manner consistent with the public health, safety, or welfare.

Cal. Code Regs. tit. 16, § 2655. the statutes through which his license was revoked are unconstitutionally void, overbroad, or vague as applied to him. a. Procedural Due Process Claims Plaintiff claims that the following actions deprived him of his procedural due process rights: (1) McCauley (in his official capacity) and the Board wrongfully used the requirement that plaintiff register as a sex offender to determine that his crime was substantially related to the practice of landscape architecture because such use was not authorized by § 490(a) or § 2655 (Count 1); (2) McKinney (in his individual capacity), McCauley (in his official capacity), and the Board deprived plaintiff of adequate notice of its intent to impose costs of enforcement on him, failed to provide plaintiff with an adequate opportunity to present evidence that he could not afford to pay costs, and did not provide a reasoned determination that plaintiff could pay (Counts 5, 6); (3) McKinney (in his individual capacity), McCauley (in his official capacity), and the Board failed to provide plaintiff with notice of the time for seeking court review of the Board’s decision via administrative writ petition (Count 6); (4) McKinney (in his individual capacity) wrongly determined that plaintiff filed his motion for reconsideration too late, and McCauley (in his individual and official capacities) did not correct the error (Count 7); (5) The Board failed to provide him with a revocation hearing within statutory deadlines (Counts 8, 9); (6) McCauley and McKinney (in their individual capacities) and the Board imposed a renewal fee on plaintiff (prior to deciding to revoke his license) without giving notice to plaintiff and providing him with an opportunity to present evidence of his inability to pay the renewal fee (Counts 8, 9); (7) McKinney (in his individual capacity), McCauley (in his official capacity), and/or the Board did not serve the accusation on plaintiff properly, did not provide a reasoned decision in denying his motion to dismiss the accusation for improper service, and did not consider his motion for reconsideration on the service issue because it was never delivered to them (Counts 9, 10); (8) The Board provided plaintiff with its exhibits less than 24 hours prior to the hearing (Count 9); (9) Morazzini failed to respond to plaintiff’s letter informing him that plaintiff believed that his mail to the Office of Administrative Hearings was being tampered with or obstructed (Counts 10, 11). b. Void-for-Vagueness Claims Plaintiff challenges the following statutes as applied to him: (1) §§ 490(a), 2655, and 2656(b)(1) 2 for failing to define sexual conduct that is substantially related to the practice of landscape architecture, for failing to define “loitering,” for failing to provide notice to the plaintiff the that Board may consider sex offender registration in making its revocation decision, and for allowing the Board to consider the egregious nature of his crime rather than his efforts at rehabilitation in

2 Section 2656(b)(1) provides:

When considering the suspension or revocation of the license of a landscape architect on the grounds that the person licensed has been convicted of a crime, the Board, in evaluating the rehabilitation of such person and his or her present eligibility for a license will consider the following criteria:

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(PC) Gustard v. McCauley, (E.D. Cal. 2019).

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