Saxton v. County of Sonoma

Opinion

1 2 3 4 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 5 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 6 7 KATRINA MCGINNIS, Case No. 22-cv-06632-SI Related Case No. 21-cv-09499 SI 8 Plaintiff, ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND 9 v. DENYING IN PART DEFENDANTS’ MOTION TO DISMISS FIRST 10 COUNTY OF SONOMA, et al., AMENDED COMPLAINT 11 Defendants. Re: Dkt. No. 18

13 Defendants’ motion to dismiss the amended complaint is scheduled for a hearing on March 14 31, 2023. Pursuant to Civil Local Rule 7-1(b), the Court determines that a hearing is unnecessary 15 and that the motion can be resolved on the briefing. For the reasons set forth below, the motion is 16 GRANTED. The Court dismisses the claims against Sheriff Essick and the Sheriff’s Department 17 WITHOUT LEAVE TO AMEND. The Court dismisses the first and second causes of action WITH 18 LEAVE TO AMEND. The amended complaint shall be filed by April 4, 2023. The case 19 management conference scheduled for April 7, 2023 in this case and the Saxton case is 20 rescheduled to April 14, 2023 at 3:00 p.m. 21 22 DISCUSSION 23 On October 27, 2022, plaintiff Katrina McGinnis filed this lawsuit against the County of 24 Sonoma, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department, Sheriff Mark Essick, and Does 1-50, alleging 25 claims arising from the death of her daughter, Amber Marcotte, while Marcotte was detained at the 26 Sonoma County Jail.1 The amended complaint asserts two causes of action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 27 1 § 1983: (1) Violation of McGinnis’s Fourteenth Amendment right to familial association, brought 2 against the County and the other defendants; and (2) Unconstitutional Custom, Practice, or Policy, 3 brought against the County and the other defendants. 4 5 I. Sheriff Essick and Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department 6 Defendants have moved to dismiss the official capacity claims against Sheriff Essick and 7 the Sheriff’s Department as duplicative of the claims against the County and, to the extent McGinnis 8 seeks to hold Sheriff Essick individually liable (which is unclear from the amended complaint), 9 defendants contend the complaint is insufficiently pled and barred by qualified immunity. McGinnis 10 does not oppose defendants’ motion on these grounds and her opposition states that she voluntarily 11 dismisses Sheriff Essick and the Sheriff’s Department. The Court GRANTS defendants’ motion to 12 dismiss these defendants WITHOUT LEAVE TO AMEND. 13 14 II. Standing to Assert Monell Claims 15 Defendants contend that McGinnis lacks standing to pursue the second cause of action under 16 Monell.2 Defendants argue that McGinnis’s Monell claim is a “claim for the death of her daughter,” 17 and that under California law, the only person who has standing to bring a wrongful death action is 18 Marcotte’s daughter, citing California Code of Civil Procedure § 377.60. Mtn. at 6. 19 “Under § 1983, a decedent’s survivors may bring a claim for the violation of their substantive 20 constitutional rights or those of the decedent.” Cotta v. Cnty of Kings, 79 F. Supp. 3d 1148, 1158 21 (E.D. Cal. 2015), rev’d in part on other grounds, 686 Fed. App’x. 467 (9th Cir. Apr. 6, 2017). 22

23 Case No. 21-cv-09499 SI, and have been related to this case. In Saxton, the Court dismissed claims brought by Marcotte’s brother, and permitted Monell claims and some state law claims to proceed 24 on behalf of Michelle Saxton as guardian ad litem for M.J., Marcotte’s surviving daughter. The facts surrounding Marcotte’s death are detailed in the Saxton orders and are not repeated here. 25

2 The Court notes that while defendants refer to the second cause of action as the “Monell 26 claim,” the first cause of action is also brought against the County pursuant to Monell v. Dep’t of Social Servs., 436 U.S. 658 (1978), see First Amend. Compl. (“FAC”) at ¶ 66. Further, with the 27 dismissal of the Sheriff and the Sheriff’s Department, the only remaining defendants are the County 1 Courts have recognized that a decedent’s survivor, including a parent, can bring a Monell claim 2 based on the parent’s Fourteenth Amendment right to familial association; such claims are not 3 survivorship claims. See K.C.A. by and through Purvis v. Cnty. of San Diego, Case No.: 20-CV- 4 2504 W (BLM), 2021 WL 3370790, at *7 (S.D. Cal. Aug. 3, 2021) (denying motion to dismiss 5 Monell claim brought by mother and child of decedent for lack of survivorship standing because 6 “Plaintiffs also have individual Fourteenth Amendment rights which would not have been violated 7 had Decedent not died. The County can be held liable under Monell for a violation of the Fourteenth 8 Amendment right to substantive due process.”); Schwartz v. Lassen Cnty. ex rel. Lassen Cnty. Jail 9 (Det. Facility), 838 F. Supp. 2d 1045, 1058 (E.D. Cal. 2012) (denying motion to dismiss Monell 10 claim brought by decedent’s mother where “the court can reasonably infer that, based on the 11 particular circumstances as alleged, the facility’s employees so obviously lacked training in 12 providing proper medical care that it resulted in Decedent’s death and, consequently, Plaintiff's loss 13 of her son’s companionship.”); see also Shelley v. Cnty. of San Joaquin, 996 F. Supp. 2d 921, 932 14 (E.D. Cal. 2014) (denying motion to dismiss Monell claim brought by decedent’s sisters and mother 15 and framing claim as one of substantive due process). 16 The amended complaint does not allege whether the second cause of action is brought as a 17 claim for a violation of McGinnis’s constitutional rights or as a survival claim based on the violation 18 of Marcotte’s rights. McGinnis’s opposition suggests that she is bringing that claim pursuant to the 19 Fourteenth Amendment to assert a violation of her own right to familial association. The Court 20 GRANTS leave to amend so McGinnis can clarify the constitutional basis of the Monell claim and 21 the capacity in which that claim is asserted.3 Further, because the first cause of action asserts Monell 22 3 If McGinnis seeks to bring a survival action, she “bears the burden of demonstrating that a 23 particular state’s law authorizes a survival action and that the plaintiff meets that state’s requirements for bringing a survival action.” Moreland v. Las Vegas Metro. Police Dep’t, 159 F.3d 24 365, 369 (9th Cir.1998) (citation omitted). However, contrary to defendants’ assertion that the wrongful death statute determines who can bring a survivor action, “section 377.60 relates to 25 wrongful death actions that are based on personal injuries resulting from the death of another, not survival actions that are based on injuries incurred by the decedent.” Hayes v. Cnty. of San Diego, 26 736 F.3d 1223, 1229 (9th Cir. 2013); see also see also Davis v. Bender Shipbuilding & Repair Co., 27 F.3d 426, 429 (9th Cir.1994) (“In a survival action, a decedent's estate may recover damages on 27 behalf of the decedent for injuries that the decedent has sustained. In a wrongful death action, by 1 liability based on policies and practices and is brought pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment 2 alleging a violation of McGinnis’s rights to familial association, if the second cause of action is also 3 brought pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment based on a deprivation of familial association, it is 4 not clear to the Court that there is a meaningful difference between the first and second causes of 5 action as they relate to the County. If in fact the first and second causes of action are duplicative, 6 McGinnis should consolidate those allegations into one cause of action. 7 8 III. Failure to State a Claim 9 Finally, defendants contend that the Monell allegations are conclusory and that no Ninth 10 Circuit or Supreme Court case has held that “criminal smuggling of drugs and voluntary ingest of 11 drugs creates municipal liability.” Mtn. at 7. Defendants also cite a recent Sixth Circuit case, 12 Zakora v. Chrisman, 44 F.4th 452 (6th Cir. 2022), to argue that courts rarely allow claims arising 13 from fatal drug overdoses by inmates to proceed against prison officials, emphasizing language in 14 Zakora about how that case was not “simply a run-of-the-mill drug-overdose case” because the 15 decedent’s survivors alleged that the prison official defendants knew about the decedent’s heavy 16 drug use and of specific facts that placed the decedent at risk of overdose. Id. at 473-74 (reversing 17 district court’s dismissal of several § 1983 claims brought by survivors of inmate who died of drug 18 overdose in prison). 19 In response, McGinnis argues that this Court has already held in Saxton that the plaintiffs 20 in that case stated a claim for Monell liability, and McGinnis notes that the second cause of action 21 “is a carbon copy of the Saxton plaintiff’s second cause of action.” Opp’n at 8. 22 Municipal liability requires a showing that the local government’s policy amounts to 23 deliberate indifference to the plaintiff’s constitutional rights. Plumeau v. School Dist. #40 County 24 of Yamhill, 130 F.3d 432, 438 (9th Cir. 1997). While it is true that McGinnis’s allegations of the 25 unconstitutional policies, practices and customs in the second cause of action are the same as those 26

27 action are set forth in California Code of Civil Procedure § 377.30. See Hayes, 736 F.3d at 1229; 1 alleged in Saxton, the factual allegations underpinning those allegations are not. As relevant to the 2 Monell claims here, the Court dismissed the first amended complaint in Saxton because the plaintiffs 3 had not alleged specific facts showing a custom or practice. In response, the Saxton plaintiffs added 4 a considerable amount of new detail, including specific allegations about the passage of drugs 5 through the jail’s booking area and the failure of jail staff to follow written security and safety 6 policies and procedures, including with regard to Marcotte’s cell mate Pimentel who worked as a 7 “trustee” in the booking area and who provided Marcotte with the fatal drugs. See, e.g., Saxton 8 Second Amend. Compl. ¶¶ 84-90. The McGinnis complaint does not contain these allegations. 9 These allegations were critical to the Court’s conclusion that the second amended Saxton complaint 10 stated a Monell claim that the County had been deliberately indifferent to Marcotte’s constitutional 11 rights.4 Similarly, the second amended Saxton complaint contains more detailed allegations about 12 the County’s “Critical Incident Protocol” and the County’s failure to follow that protocol than the 13 amended complaint in this case, as well as allegations about inadequacies of other internal 14 investigations conducted by the Sheriff’s Department. Compare, e.g., Saxton SAC ¶¶ 47-50, 72-73 15 with Amend. Compl. ¶¶ 39-40. 16 The Court is mindful that “[d]rug smuggling and drug use in prison are intractable 17 problems,” Overton v. Bazzetta, 539 U.S. 126, 134 (2003), and the Court agrees with the sentiments 18 expressed in Zakora that “simple exposure to drugs, without more, does not violate contemporary 19 standards of decency” and “[p]rison officials are not required to show that they have prevented all 20 drugs from entering their facility in order to be protected from liability.” Zakora, 44 F.4th at 472. 21 However, where a plaintiff alleges specific facts such as those mentioned above, combined with 22 other allegations about the County’s knowledge of Marcotte’s substance abuse issues; that on the 23 night/early morning of the overdose, Pimentel was found outside of her cell at 4:30 a.m.; the jail 24 was on COVID lockdown; the number of drug-related incidents at the jail; and the “direct 25 4 Defendants also argue that McGinnis’s claims should be evaluated under the Eighth 26 Amendment because Marcotte had been convicted and was detained while awaiting sentencing, and that this Court did not consider the Eighth Amendment’s “deliberate indifference” standard when 27 assessing the Saxton claims. However, while the Court – and the parties – did not invoke the Eighth 1 supervision” model of the pod in which Marcotte and Pimentel were housed, it is the Court’s view 2 || that this is not a “run-of-the-mill drug-overdose-case.” 3 Because the Court is granting leave to amend to clarify the Monell claims, the Court also 4 || grants McGinnis leave to amend to supplement the factual allegations in support of those claims. 5 As the complaints in the two cases are not consolidated, the Court agrees with defendants that each 6 || complaint must stand on its own. 7 8 CONCLUSION 9 The Court GRANTS defendants’ motion as follows: (1) the claims against Sheriff Essick 10 || and the Sheriff's Department are DISMISSED WITHOUT LEAVE TO AMEND; (2) the first and 11 second causes of action are DISMISSED WITH LEAVE TO AMEND. When amending, McGinnis 12 shall (1) consolidate the two causes of action as appropriate; (2) clarify whether the Monell claims 5 13 are brought based on a violation of McGinnis’s Fourteenth Amendment rights and/or as a survivor 14 action (and if as a survivor action, a showing that McGinnis meets the requirements to bring such 3 15 an action); and (3) add specific factual allegations in support of the alleged customs, practices and a 16 || policies, as was done in the operative Saxton complaint. 3 17 The amended complaint shall be filed by April 4, 2023. The case management 18 conference scheduled for April 7, 2023 in this case and the Saxton case is rescheduled to April 19 14, 2023 at 3:00 p.m. 20 21 IT IS SO ORDERED. 22 ( 23 Dated: March 30, 2023 SUSAN ILLSTON 24 United States District Judge 25 26 27 28