Rosas v. City of Santa Rosa

CourtDistrict Court, N.D. California
DecidedJune 15, 2022
Docket4:21-cv-06179
StatusUnknown

This text of Rosas v. City of Santa Rosa (Rosas v. City of Santa Rosa) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rosas v. City of Santa Rosa, (N.D. Cal. 2022).

Opinion

1 2 3 4 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 5 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 6 7 DAVID C. ROSAS, Case No. 21-cv-06179-JST

8 Plaintiff, ORDER GRANTING MOTIONS TO 9 v. DISMISS

10 CITY OF SANTA ROSA, et al., Re: ECF Nos. 9, 14, 34, 35 Defendants. 11

12 13 Plaintiff has filed the instant pro se action. The City of Santa Rosa,1 Santa Rosa Police 14 Detective Gavin Holzapfel, and Santa Rosa Police Department property evidence technician Lisa 15 Hansen (collectively, “Santa Rosa City Defendants”) have filed motions to dismiss the original 16 complaint and the amended complaints. ECF Nos. 9, 34. Sonoma County and Sonoma County 17 district attorneys Jill Ravitch, Jessica Washington, and Spencer Brady (collectively, “Sonoma 18 County Defendants”) have also filed motions to dismiss the original complaint and the amended 19 complaint. ECF No. 14, 35. For the reasons set forth above, the Court GRANTS the motion to 20 dismiss the original complaint, ECF Nos. 9, 14; DISMISSES the original complaint with leave to 21 amend; STRIKES the amended complaints, ECF Nos. 32, 39; and DENIES AS MOOT the 22 motions to dismiss the amended complaints, ECF Nos. 34, 35. 23

24 1 Rosas’s complaint names the Santa Rosa City Council and Sonoma County Board of Supervisors as defendants in this action, Compl. at 1-2, which is presumably an attempt to allege a municipal 25 liability claim against the City of Santa Rosa and Sonoma County, see Monell v. N.Y. City Dep’t. of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658 694 (1978) (municipal liability can result from the unconstitutional 26 actions or omissions of the municipality’s lawmakers). The City of Santa Rosa has appeared in place of Santa Rosa City Council, and Sonoma County has appeared in place of the Sonoma 27 County Board of Supervisors. Accordingly, the Court ORDERS the Clerk to terminate the Santa 1 I. BACKGROUND 2 A. Complaint 3 Pro se Plaintiff David Rosas brings this lawsuit against Defendants City of Santa Rosa; Jill 4 Ravitch, the Sonoma County District Attorney; Jessica Washington and Spencer Brady, deputy 5 district attorneys from the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office; Gavin Holzapfel, a Santa 6 Rosa Police Department Officer; Lisa Hansen, a Santa Rosa Police Department Property Evidence 7 Technician; and Gavin Newsom, the Governor of California.2 Rosas’s complaint alleges the 8 following: 9 A January 2016 fire at Rosas’s Santa Rosa duplex led to Rosas’s detention in a 5150 hold3 10 and the Santa Rosa Police Department to charge Rosas with felony property charges in October 11 2016. ECF No. 1 (“Compl.”) at 4, 7. During the ensuing proceedings, Officer Holzapfel 12 committed perjury during his testimony and Washington, the deputy district attorney prosecuting 13 the case, knew or should have known Officer Holzapfel was lying. Id. at 5-6. Further, neither the 14 Santa Rosa Police nor the Sonoma County District Attorney provided a reasonable 15 accommodation or mental health advocate to protect Rosas’s mental health during these 16 proceedings. Id. at 6. Rosas’s criminal case was dismissed in February 2020, but not before 17 Rosas incurred $500,000 in property loss and $60,000 in lost wages to cover his attorneys’ and 18 counselor’s fees. Id. Also resulting from Rosas’s case are insurance benefits from State Farm that 19 were never provided and lost ammunition that was never returned to Rosas with the firearms that 20 the Santa Rosa Police Department confiscated in connection with his criminal case. Id. at 7-8. 21 Rosas’s complaint does not identify causes of action. Instead, the document makes 22 references throughout to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (“ADA”), the Racketeer 23

24 2 The Court dismissed Governor Newsom without prejudice from this action for failure to serve under Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(m). ECF No. 49. 25

3 “The phrase ‘5150 hold’ derives from California Welfare & Institution Code § 5150, which 26 provides that an individual may be placed in an approved mental health facility for up to 72 hours for evaluation and treatment if the individual is ‘a danger to others, or to himself or herself, or 27 gravely disabled’ as a result of a mental health disorder.” Townsend through Townsend v. Cty. of 1 Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (“RICO”) Act, the Second and Fourteenth Amendments, 2 malicious prosecution, and California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act. 3 In September 2021, Defendants Santa Rosa, Officer Holzapfel, and Hansen (the “City 4 Defendants”) and Defendants Sonoma County, Ravitch, Washington, and Brady (the “County 5 Defendants”) filed separate motions to dismiss Rosas’s complaint under Rule 12(b)(6). ECF Nos. 6 9, 14. 7 B. Amended Complaints 8 Rosas filed amended complaints on February 15, 2022, ECF No. 32, and March 15, 2022, 9 ECF No. 39. Rosas did not obtain leave of court or consent from Defendants to file these 10 amended complaints. See ECF Nos. 34, 35. 11 II. LEGAL STANDARD 12 A. Rule 12(b)(6) 13 Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) requires that a complaint contain “a short and plain 14 statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” While a complaint need not 15 contain detailed factual allegations, facts pleaded by a plaintiff must be “enough to raise a right to 16 relief above the speculative level.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007). To 17 survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter that, 18 when accepted as true, states a claim that is plausible on its face. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 19 678 (2009). “A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows 20 the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” 21 Id. While this standard is not a probability requirement, “[w]here a complaint pleads facts that are 22 merely consistent with a defendant’s liability, it stops short of the line between possibility and 23 plausibility of entitlement to relief.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). In 24 determining whether a plaintiff has met this plausibility standard, the Court must “accept all 25 factual allegations in the complaint as true and construe the pleadings in the light most favorable” 26 to the plaintiff. Knievel v. ESPN, 393 F.3d 1068, 1072 (9th Cir. 2005). 27 When a plaintiff is suing multiple defendants, the “complaint must specify exactly what 1 Caltrans, No. 13-CV-03801-WHO, 2014 WL 644008, at *5 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 19, 2014) (citation 2 omitted); see also Gauvin v. Trombatore, 682 F. Supp. 1067, 1071 (N.D. Cal. 1988) (a plaintiff 3 “must allege the basis of his claim against each defendant to satisfy Federal Rule of Civil 4 Procedure 8(a)(2), which requires a short and plain statement of the claim to put defendants on 5 sufficient notice of the allegations against them”). 6 B. Leave to Amend 7 Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a), a plaintiff has a right as a matter of course to 8 amend the complaint within 21 days from the date that a Rule 12(b) motion is filed. Fed. R. Civ. 9 P. 15(a)(1). If this time period has passed, then a plaintiff may only amend the complaint with the 10 opposing party’s written consent or the Court’s leave. Fed. R. Civ. P.

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Bluebook (online)
Rosas v. City of Santa Rosa, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rosas-v-city-of-santa-rosa-cand-2022.