Youth Justice Coalition v. City of Los Angeles

264 F. Supp. 3d 1057
CourtDistrict Court, C.D. California
DecidedSeptember 7, 2017
DocketCV 16-7932-VAP (RAOx)
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 264 F. Supp. 3d 1057 (Youth Justice Coalition v. City of Los Angeles) 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
Youth Justice Coalition v. City of Los Angeles, 264 F. Supp. 3d 1057 (C.D. Cal. 2017).

Opinion

Order GRANTING Plaintiff PeterArellano’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction

Virginia A. Phillips, Chief United States District Judge

On October 31, .2016, Plaintiff Peter Ar-ellano filed a motion for a preliminary [1060]*1060injunction “to stop police and prosecutors from enforcing against him a restrictive civil ‘gang injunction.’ ” Doc. No. 13 at 7. On December 16, 2016, Defendant City of Los Angeles (“the City”) filed an opposition to that motion. Doc. No. 40. On January 9, 2017, Plaintiff filed a reply. Doc. No. 59.

On January 27, 2017, this Court stayed proceedings to allow the Parties to resolve the matter via mediation. Doc. No. 69. On July 3, 2017, this Court lifted the stay after the Parties submitted a report informing the Court that they were unable to reach a settlement. Doc. No. 86.

The Court now considers the pending motion for a preliminary injunction. Having considered the papers filed in support of and in opposition to the motion, the Court GRANTS the motion.

I. Background

Over the past three decades, prosecutors in Southern California' have used public nuisance law to obtain civil injunctions prohibiting suspected gang members from participating in a variety of activities. Matthew. Mickle Werdegar, Note, Enjoining the Constitution: The Use of Public Nuisance Abatement Injunctions Against Urban Street Gangs, 51 Stan. L. Rev. 409, 411 (1999). The injunctions are often broad in scope and can include activities such as “fighting, trespassing, and spraying graffiti,” as well as “otherwise legal activities such as appearing in public together or carrying pagers or cellular telephones.” Id.

At issue in the present action is an injunction obtained by the City against six alleged gang entities, including the “Echo Park Locos” (hereinafter referred to as “Echo Park Injunction”). Doc, No. 21-2 at 13. To obtain the Echo Park Injunction, the Los Angeles City Attorney filed á public nuisance action in the California Superi- or Court for the County of Los Angeles. Instead of naming as defendants the persons who police and prosecutors suspected were active participants in the gang at the time, the City sued the six alleged gang entities. Id. The gang entities were not represented during the public nuisance proceedings, and the City obtained the Echo Park Injunction by default judgment on September 24, 2013. Doc. Nos. 21-2 at 1; 46 at 114.

On October 2, 2013, Plaintiff filed a motion to intervene in the state court action to oppose the Echo Park Injunction. Doc. No. 45 at 64. In the motion, Plaintiff contended that he had “an interest in the subject of [the] action” and “an interest in the ‘property' that is the subject of [the] litigation” because the injunction would restrict his personal freedom. Id. at 68-71. He also argued that, if the court denied his request to intervene, the injunction would curtail his civil liberties without due process. Id at 71.

On October 7, 2013, Plaintiff filed an ex parte application for an order staying enforcement of the Echo Park Injunction. Id at 25. The application argued that the injunction “abridges the Constitutional rights of those who fall within its ambit under the [F]irst, [S]econd, [F]ourth, and [Fourteenth [A]mendments” and that the “deprivation of rights will occur without procedural due process” because “no one who will be served with the injunction was named as a party to the case.” Id. at 28. The superior court denied Plaintiffs ex parte application as untimely on October 8, 2013. Id. at 56-57. The court noted that “individuals need not be named parties [to an] action for a judgment of injunction to apply to them.” See Doc. No. 45 at 56.

Likewise, the superior court denied the motion to intervene on November 13,2013. Doc. No. 46 at 19-22. In its order, the superior court held that the City “took steps reasonably calculated ... to provide notice,” the motion to intervene was un[1061]*1061timely, and the reasons for intervention were insufficient. Id. at 19. The court determined that “the [permanent injunction] judgment already provides for exceptions, exemptions and means to further avoid its application, ... and no person at this time is so situated that the disposition may as a practical matter impair or impede that person’s ability to protect that interest.” Id. at 19-20.

On November 22, 2013, Plaintiff filed a motion for reconsideration arguing that the Ninth Circuit’s holding in Vasquez v. Rackauckas, 734 F.3d 1025 (9th Cir. 2013), established that the “Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution requires individuals have the right to defend against the imposition of a permanent gang injunction before such an injunction is issued” and “post-deprivation remedies are no substitute for pre-deprivation procedural safeguards.”1 Doc. No. 47 at 7, 9 (emphasis in original). The superior court denied the motion for reconsideration on July 30, 2014. Doc. No. 47 at 162. In its order, the superior court incorporated by reference an earlier ruling that determined Vasquez was inapplicable because Vasquez merely “enjoined county prosecutors from enforcing a gang injunction” against a set of specific persons that had been denied due process, rather than ruling the terms of the injunction order were invalid. Id. at 44-45, 162. The superior court stated that the Vasquez opinion “uniquely addressed how Orange County enforcement aggressively prosecuted” and “enforce[d]” an injunction order after it had been obtained, and the court noted “its expectation that Los Angeles authorities will implement the injunction [at issue in this case] only lawfully and fairly.” Id. at 45 (emphasis added). The court also distinguished Vasquez on the ground that the injunction it dealt with lacked exceptions for law-abiding citizens and noted that federal case law is not binding upon California courts. Id.

II. Evidentiary Issues

Plaintiff and Defendant request the Court take judicial notice of several facts contained in exhibits filed in conjunction with the briefings in this matter. Doc. Nos. 21, 55, 60. Neither Party disputes any of the requests, and the Court finds good cause appears to approve them. The Court, therefore, GRANTS the Parties’ requests for judicial notice.

Plaintiff also submitted several evi-dentiary objections in response to the City’s opposition to his motion for a preliminary injunction. Doc. No. 61. “In assessing the evidence with respect to irreparable harm,” the district court need not “rely only on admissible evidence to support its finding of irreparable harm.” Herb Reed Enterprises, LLC v. Florida Entm’t Mgmt., Inc., 736 F.3d 1239, 1250 n.5 (9th Cir. 2013). Rather, “[d]ue to the urgency of obtaining a preliminary injunction at a point when there has been limited factual development, the rules of evidence do not apply strictly to preliminary injunction proceedings.” Id.; see also Republic of the Philippines v. Marcos, 862 F.2d 1355, 1363 (9th Cir. 1988) (“It was within the discretion of the district court to accept ... hearsay for purposes of deciding whether to issue the preliminary injunction.”).

The Court, therefore, OVERRULES Plaintiff’s Objection No. 33 as to the portion of the objected-to paragraph that describes Plaintiffs December 2013 arrest and subsequent conviction and Plaintiffs Objection No. 77 as to the portion of the objected-to paragraph that describes Plaintiffs January 2016 arrest.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
264 F. Supp. 3d 1057, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/youth-justice-coalition-v-city-of-los-angeles-cacd-2017.