Civil rights litigation is procedurally complex. These cases involve overlapping layers of state and federal law, tricky issues around forum selection and what sorts of claims can be presented, and various kinds of administrative requirements that must be satisfied before a case can even begin. The following are some common procedural issues in this litigation:
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Administrative Exhaustion: cases that originate from jails and prison need to be “administratively exhausted” before they can be brought to court. The requirement comes both from the Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”) in federal law and from California’s own independent requirement of exhaustion. Plantier v. Ramona Municipal Water Dist. 12 Cal.App.5th 856, 865 (2017) (“when an applicable statute, ordinance, or regulation provides an adequate administrative remedy, a party must exhaust it before seeking judicial relief”). Administrative exhaustion requirements may also apply in cases arising from other contexts where administrative remedies are possible.
California Government Claims Act Compliance: cases that seek to raise causes of action under California law (as opposed to purely federal claims) must have been presented first via government tort claim to the relevant agency and must have received a turndown from that agency. That tort claim normally needs to be filed within six months of the underlying incident although the statute also provides for an opportunity to file late within one year of the underlying incident. Note that the tort claim deadline is not tolled while administrative exhaustion is pending, which creates a procedural trap for the unwarry.
Eleventh Amendment Bars: Because of sovereign immunity created by the Eleventh Amendment, federal courts do not have power to hear suits against a “state or its agencies.” Romano v. Bible, 169 F.3d 1182, 1185 (9th Cir.1999) (citing Pennhurst v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 100, 104 S.Ct. 900, 79 L.Ed.2d 67 (1984)). This immunity protects the state of California, and it also protects state agencies such as the California Highway Patrol. Sims v. Lee, 651 F. App'x 570, 571 (9th Cir. 2016) ("The district court properly dismissed as barred by the Eleventh Amendment Sims' claims against . . . the California Highway Patrol"). It applies to CDCR. Brown v. California Dep't. of Corr., 554 F.3d 747, 752 (9th Cir.2009). It applies to CalTrans. Nat'l Res. Def. Council v. Cal. Dep't of Transp., 96 F.3d 420, 421 (9th Cir. 1996) It applies to school districts in California. Belanger v. Madera Unified Sch. Dist., 963 F.2d 248, 254 (9th Cir. 1992) and Cole v. Oroville Union High Sch. Dist., 228 F.3d 1092, 254 (9th Cir. 2000). A California county, however, is not a “state agency” for purposes of this immunity. Ray v. County of Los Angeles, 935 F.3d 703, 713 (9th Cir. 2019); but see Contreras v. City of Compton, CV 17-8834-R (C.D.Cal. July 12, 2018) 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 225752 at * 13. A District Attorney acting in the capacity of prosecuting criminal violations of state law is a state actor and is entitled to Eleventh Amendment protections. Contreras, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 225752 at * 13.
Other PLRA Hurdles in Jail and Prison Cases: In addition to the administration exhaustion requirement noted above, cases brought by incarcerated persons about jail conditions and seeking money damages on the basis of federal law must contend with several other limitations imposed by the Prison Litigation Reform Act. One such limitation is that compensation for emotional damages can not be recovered without a showing of some non-trivial physical injury or sexual assault. The Ninth Circuit, which is among the circuits that take a somewhat more lenient approach to this “injury” requirement than other federal circuits, has held that the lack of an injury does not bar recovery for “compensatory, nominal or punitive damages are premised on alleged [constitutional] violations, and not on emotional or mental distress suffered as a result of those violations.” Oliver v. Keller, 289 F.3d 623, 630 (9th Cir. 2002). The PLRA further creates screening requirements on suits filed by prisoners, in which the courts apply an additional filter on inmate-filed suits to weed out frivolous claims, and puts limits on the attorney fees that are recoverable in cases to which the PLRA applies.
Qualified Immunity: An entire treatise could be written purely about the judicially invented doctrine of qualified immunity, but in a nutshell qualified immunity is a barrier to suits under federal law for money damages unless the underlying legal principle was “clearly established” at the time of the alleged violation. The contours of what constitutes a “clearly established” precedent are murky: some courts insist that there needs to have been a prior case decided with factually very similar circumstances in order for government actors to have fair notice of the illegality of their conduct, whereas other courts may take a more common-sense approach or even may forgive the need for clearly established precedent where the illegality of the conduct is “obvious.” See, e.g., Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730 (2002). A lot of strategic thinking on the plaintiff side goes into to seeking ways to avoid qualified immunity, either through the use of state-law causes of action or through Monell claims, neither of which are subject to qualified immunity.
Standing: “Standing,” put simply, is the right to act as a plaintiff in a case, which typically only exists if an individual has been impacted in some way by the actions of the defendant. Although standing is uncontroversial where the plaintiff was directly harmed by the defendant, civil rights cases are often brought by family members on behalf of a decedent. Standing to pursue a wrongful death action in California is governed by Code of Civil Procedure Section 377.60, which, in particular, permits parents to bring a wrongful death case on behalf of a deceased child only if “they were dependent on the decedent.”