Alaska Employment Law

Los Angeles City police officers sued their employer for various constitutional violations arising from internal investigations into missing drug evidence.  After a jury acquitted the officers on criminal charges, they sued the City under Section 1983.  The City appealed the civil jury’s verdicts in the officers’ favor.

Police Chief as policymaker:   The 9th Circuit panel held that the City was bound by the Police Chief’s actions not only before and during the constitutional violations, but also after the criminal jury acquitted the officers.

The [civil] jury also could have supported their determination of an official policy from the failure of [Police Chief] Parks to take any remedial steps after the officers were acquitted on all charges related to the Lobos arrest and it became clear that the Task Force investigation was flawed. See McRorie v. Shimoda, 795 F.2d 780, 784 (9th Cir. 1986) (“Policy or custom may be inferred if, after [constitutional violations occurred], . . . officials took no steps to reprimand or discharge the[ir subordinates], or if they otherwise failed to admit the [subordinates’] conduct was in error.”). In this case, after the Officers were acquitted, but before the court ordered a new trial on the charges stemming from the alley incident, the LAPD issued a statement quoting Chief Parks’ praise for the Task Force’s “exhaustive” investigation and thanking Tyndall, Barling, and Skaggs for their “arduous investigative efforts in this onerous matter.” Parks also testified that he believed that the Task Force had done an excellent job, stating, “In total, the investigation, in my judgment, was an outstanding investigation.” From these statements, the jury could have reasonably concluded that the City and Chief Parks approved of the Task Force’s tactics, even after the Officers were acquitted of the Lobos-related charges and there were indications that the investigation was flawed. On the basis of this evidence, the jury could have reasonably concluded that this was not a case where Task Force investigators deviated from the official policy, but rather one in which the policy was effectively carried out.

Causation after intervening criminal prosecution: The City argued that the DA’s prosecution broke the chain of proximate cause started by the faulty investigation and false arrest. 

It is a well-settled principle that the “[f]iling of a criminal complaint immunizes investigating officers . . . from damages suffered thereafter because it is presumed that the prosecutor filing the complaint exercised independent judgment in determining that probable cause for an accused’s arrest exists at that time.” Smiddy v. Varney, 665 F.2d 261, 266 (9th Cir. 1981).

The officers sought to rebut this presumption, and succeeded. 

A § 1983 plaintiff may rebut this presumption, however, by “showing that the district attorney was pressured or caused by the investigating officers to act contrary to his independent judgment.”

Harper v. City of Los Angeles, 2008 WL _______ (9th Cir. July 14, 2008)