FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
JUAN CARLOS VALADEZ-LOPEZ,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
MICHAEL CHERTOFF; ALBERTO R.
GONZALES; JERRY J. ENOMOTO; JOHN
MCGINNESS; MACK WIMBISH; No. 09-16375
YAKOV GRINBERG, in his individual D.C. No.
capacity; DONALD LOWN, in his 2:07-cv-01566-LEW
individual and official capacities,
Defendants,
and
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Defendant-Appellee.
16385
16386 VALADEZ-LOPEZ v. UNITED STATES
JUAN CARLOS VALADEZ-LOPEZ,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
MICHAEL CHERTOFF; ALBERTO R.
GONZALES; JERRY J. ENOMOTO; No. 09-17479
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, D.C. No.
Defendants, 2:07-cv-01566-LEW
and
DONALD LOWN, in his official
capacities,
Defendant-Appellee.
JUAN CARLOS VALADEZ-LOPEZ,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
MICHAEL CHERTOFF; ALBERTO R. No. 09-17481
GONZALES; JERRY J. ENOMOTO;
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, D.C. No.
2:07-cv-01566-LEW
Defendants,
OPINION
and
YAKOV GRINBERG, in his individual
capacity,
Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of California
Ronald S.W. Lew, Senior District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted
November 30, 2010—San Francisco, California
VALADEZ-LOPEZ v. UNITED STATES 16387
Filed August 26, 2011
Before: Mary M. Schroeder, Sidney R. Thomas, and
Ronald M. Gould, Circuit Judges.
Opinion by Judge Thomas
16390 VALADEZ-LOPEZ v. UNITED STATES
COUNSEL
Carter C. White, Lorin Kline (certified law student), and Eliz-
abeth Liang (certified law student); University of California
VALADEZ-LOPEZ v. UNITED STATES 16391
Davis School of Law (King Hall) Civil Rights Clinic, Davis,
California; Laurence O. Masson, Berkeley, California, for the
plaintiff/appellant.
J. Scott Smith, Angelo, Kilday & Kilduff, Sacramento, Cali-
fornia, for defendants/appellees Donald Lown and Richard
Van Zandt.
Tony West, Assistant Attorney General, Benjamin B. Wag-
ner, United States Attorney General, Thomas M. Bondy and
Kelsi Brown Corkran, United States Department of Justice,
Washington, DC, for the federal defendants/appellees.
OPINION
THOMAS, Circuit Judge:
In this appeal, we consider whether the plaintiff properly
exhausted his administrative remedies under the Federal Tort
Claims Act (“FTCA” or the “Act”), 28 U.S.C. §§ 1346,
2671-80, see id. § 2675(a), where the federal agencies denied
the plaintiff’s administrative tort claims before he amended
his complaint in an ongoing civil action to name the United
States as a party and allege a new cause of action under the
Act. We conclude that the claims were properly exhausted,
but affirm the district court’s dismissal on the alternate
ground that Valadez-Lopez stated FTCA claims that fall out-
side the Act’s waiver of sovereign immunity. We also affirm
the grant of summary judgment on Valadez-Lopez’s ineffec-
tive assistance of counsel claims, premised on 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983 and Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S.
658 (1978).
I
This case has a complicated procedural and factual history.
Distilled to its essence, the salient facts are as follows: Juan
16392 VALADEZ-LOPEZ v. UNITED STATES
Carlos Valadez-Lopez’s public defender knew that Valadez-
Lopez was an undocumented immigrant, yet nonetheless
advised him to plead no contest to attempted burglary in the
first degree on charges that he jiggled the door knob of a
house that was not his own. Based on Valadez-Lopez’s con-
viction, the government detained him for a year pending his
removal proceedings in local jails on contract with the federal
government. Valadez-Lopez was ultimately permitted to with-
draw his plea and eventually prevailed on his applications for
asylum and cancellation of removal. He claims that various
authorities unconstitutionally deprived him of medication for
his schizophrenia during his immigration detention, and that
that detention resulted from the insufficient training that Yolo
County, California, provided to its public defenders regarding
the immigration consequences of criminal pleas.
He initially filed suit against local officials under § 1983
and federal officials under Bivens v. Six Unknown Agents, 403
U.S. 388 (1971). He separately filed administrative tort claims
with the appropriate federal agencies, pursuant to the FTCA’s
exhaustion requirement. See 28 U.S.C. § 2675(a). In his
administrative tort claims, Valadez-Lopez alleged that federal
authorities negligently deprived him of medication he needed
to control his schizophrenia during his immigration detention.
After six months, having received no response from the agen-
cies as to his administrative claims, he considered the requests
to have been deemed denied, see id., and amended his com-
plaint to name the United States as a defendant and allege lia-
bility under the FTCA. Subsequently, he received notification
from the agencies that his administrative claims had been
denied. The notice contained the form language stating that if
he were dissatisfied with the denial of his claims, he could file
suit in federal district court within six months after the denial
notification was mailed.
The district court granted the United States’ motion to dis-
miss the FTCA claims for lack of administrative exhaustion
VALADEZ-LOPEZ v. UNITED STATES 16393
and granted the local defendants’ motion for summary judg-
ment on the § 1983 claims. Valadez-Lopez timely appealed.
II
The district court erred in concluding that Valadez-Lopez
had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies, and that it
therefore lacked subject matter jurisdiction over his FTCA
claims.
[1] The FTCA “waives the sovereign immunity of the
United States for actions in tort” and “vests the federal district
courts with exclusive jurisdiction over suits arising from the
negligence of Government employees.” Jerves v. United
States, 966 F.2d 517, 518 (9th Cir. 1992). “However, the Act
further provides that before an individual can file an action
against the United States in district court, [he] must seek an
administrative resolution of [his] claim.” Id. (emphasis added)
(citing 28 U.S.C. § 2675(a)). Specifically, the FTCA provides
that:
An action shall not be instituted upon a claim
against the United States for money damages . . .
unless the claimant shall have first presented the
claim to the appropriate Federal agency and his
claim shall have been finally denied by the agency
in writing and sent by certified or registered mail.
The failure of an agency to make final disposition of
a claim within six months after it is filed shall, at the
option of the claimant any time thereafter, be
deemed a final denial of the claim for purposes of
this section.
28 U.S.C. § 2675(a) (emphasis added). “The requirement of
an administrative claim is jurisdictional.” Brady v. United
States, 211 F.3d 499, 502 (9th Cir. 2000) (citing Cadwalder
v. United States, 45 F.3d 297, 300 (9th Cir. 1995)). “Because
the requirement is jurisdictional, it ‘must be strictly adhered
16394 VALADEZ-LOPEZ v. UNITED STATES
to. This is particularly so since the FTCA waives sovereign
immunity. Any such waiver must be strictly construed in
favor of the United States.’ ” Id. (quoting Jerves, 966 F.2d at
521). Indeed, the Supreme Court has described the FTCA’s
exhaustion requirement as a “clear statutory command.”
McNeil v. United States, 508 U.S. 106, 113 (1993).
[2] As applied to these facts, the plain text of the FTCA’s
“clear statutory command” in 28 U.S.C. § 2675(a) establishes
that Valadez-Lopez properly exhausted his administrative
remedies under the Act. Valadez-Lopez’s original complaint
neither named the United States as a defendant nor stated a
claim under the Act. He only amended his complaint to name
the United States and include an FTCA cause of action after
the government had failed to respond to his administrative
claims within six months. The statute provides that “[t]he fail-
ure of an agency to make final disposition of a claim within
six months after it is filed shall, at the option of the claimant
any time thereafter, be deemed a final denial of the claim for
purposes of this section.” 28 U.S.C. § 2675(a). As we noted
in Jerves, “[a] tort claimant may not commence proceedings
in court against the United States without first filing her claim
with an appropriate federal agency and either receiving a con-
clusive denial of the claim from the agency or waiting for six
months to elapse without a final disposition of the claim being
made.” 966 F.2d at 519 (emphasis added) (citing Caton v.
United States, 495 F.2d 635, 638 (9th Cir. 1974)). Here,
Valadez-Lopez exhausted his administrative remedies before
“institut[ing] . . . a claim against the United States” under the
FTCA. 28 U.S.C. § 2675(a). The government subsequently
acknowledged that his FTCA claim was administratively
exhausted by notifying Valadez-Lopez that the claim was
denied and that he had six months from that date in which to
file an FTCA lawsuit. Under these facts, there is no doubt that
the FTCA claims were administratively exhausted, and that
the district court had jurisdiction over his FTCA claim.
[3] Although it portrays its argument to the contrary as one
founded on failure to exhaust administrative remedies, the
VALADEZ-LOPEZ v. UNITED STATES 16395
government’s central thesis is that “[t]he filing of an amended
complaint is not the equivalent to instituting an action follow-
ing the exhaustion of administrative remedies.” (Emphasis
added.) The government reasons that the court is required to
dismiss the FTCA claim in the amended complaint and to
require the plaintiff to file an entirely new lawsuit founded on
the same nucleus of facts. The government concedes, how-
ever, that if the plaintiff had filed a new lawsuit as it suggests,
the second suit could be—and probably should be—
consolidated with the prior pending action.
[4] The government’s position finds support in neither the
plain language of the statute nor in the law of our circuit. In
Ibrahim v. Department of Homeland Security, 538 F.3d 1250
(9th Cir. 2008), for example, we stated that where a plaintiff
filed suit before exhausting administrative remedies, she
might have saved her FTCA claim by “ask[ing] the district
court to stay the litigation so she could attempt to [exhaust]
while the litigation was pending.” Id. at 1258 (citing McNeil,
508 U.S. at 113). There is nothing in the statute or our case
law that would prevent a plaintiff from amending an existing
complaint asserting non-FTCA claims to name the United
States as a defendant and include FTCA claims once those
claims have been administratively exhausted.
[5] The cases cited by the government are inapposite,
because they involve the circumstance in which a plaintiff
filed an FTCA lawsuit before exhausting his or her FTCA
administrative remedies. For example, in McNeil, the
Supreme Court considered whether a plaintiff’s FTCA claim
was properly brought where the claimant filed an FTCA suit,
“invok[ing] the federal court’s jurisdiction under the FTCA,”
four months before he submitted an administrative tort claim
to the federal agency. 508 U.S. at 108 (emphasis added).
McNeil argued that his claim was proper because “no sub-
stantial progress ha[d] been made in the litigation by the time
[he had] exhausted his administrative remedies.” Id. at 111.
The Supreme Court rejected McNeil’s argument, holding that
16396 VALADEZ-LOPEZ v. UNITED STATES
“[t]he most natural reading of the statute indicates that Con-
gress intended to require complete exhaustion of Executive
remedies before invocation of the judicial process” because
“[e]very premature filing of an action under the FTCA
imposes some burden on the judicial system.” Id. at 112
(emphasis added) (footnote omitted).
McNeil does not control the outcome here, where Valadez-
Lopez “invoked the federal court’s jurisdiction under the
FTCA” in his amended complaint after he exhausted his
administrative remedies. Id. at 108.1
[6] Furthermore, McNeil ought not be read as preventing a
plaintiff who wishes to state a number of federal and state law
claims against an array of defendants from filing a complaint
alleging common facts and amending it after exhaustion to
state an additional claim under the FTCA. Such a reading
would require undue acrobatics of such a plaintiff, given the
1
The government is incorrect to rely on Barrett ex rel. Estate of Barrett
v. United States, 462 F.3d 28 (1st Cir. 2006); Edwards v. District of
Columbia, 616 F. Supp. 2d 112 (D.D.C. 2009); Ortiz-Romany v. United
States, 497 F. Supp. 2d 285 (D.P.R. 2007); Schneider v. Kissinger, 310 F.
Supp. 2d 251 (D.D.C. 2004); and Estate of Przysiecki v. Eifert, No.
07cv0039-WQH, 2007 WL 3306074 (S.D. Cal. Nov. 2, 2007). In each of
these cases, the plaintiff’s original complaint, filed before administrative
remedies were exhausted, sought “redress from the government pursuant
to the FTCA.” Barrett, 462 F.3d at 31 (emphasis added); see Edwards,
616 F. Supp. 2d at 115 (plaintiff conceding that the claims in her original
complaint, filed prior to exhaustion, were “cognizable only under the
FTCA”); Ortiz-Romany, 497 F. Supp. 2d at 287 (pre-exhaustion suit filed
“under . . . the Federal Tort Claim[s] Act”); Schneider, 310 F. Supp. 2d
at 269-70 (pre-exhaustion complaint “sued the United States for damages”
and therefore “met the definition of the FTCA for ‘a claim against the
United States’ under § 2675(a)”); Przysiecki, 2007 WL 3306074, at *1
(pre-exhaustion complaint “allege[d] causes of action . . . pursuant to the
Federal Tort Claims Act”). Even while citing Sparrow v. U.S. Postal Ser-
vice, 825 F. Supp. 252 (E.D. Cal. 1993), in support of its argument, the
government concedes that there the plaintiff had attempted to assert FTCA
claims against the United States in his original complaint, which was filed
prior to administrative exhaustion.
VALADEZ-LOPEZ v. UNITED STATES 16397
different statutes of limitations at play. For example, in his
original and amended complaints, Valadez-Lopez stated
Bivens claims against various federal actors alleging that they
unlawfully deprived him of medication during his immigra-
tion detention. “Although federal law determines when a
Bivens claim accrues, the law of the forum state determines
the statute of limitations for such a claim. In California, the
statute of limitations is one year.” Papa v. United States, 281
F.3d 1004, 1009 (9th Cir. 2002) (footnotes omitted) (citing
Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 340(3)); W. Ctr. for Journalism v.
Cederquist, 235 F.3d 1153, 1156 (9th Cir. 2000) (per curiam)
(noting that the personal injury statute of limitations of the
state applies in Bivens actions). By contrast, under the FTCA,
administrative tort claims can be filed with the federal agency
up to two years after they accrue, 28 U.S.C. § 2401(b), and,
unless the agency acts more swiftly, such claims are only
deemed denied after six months of agency inaction, id.
§ 2675(a). Accordingly, reading § 2675(a) and McNeil as the
government urges would effectively overrule § 2401(b)’s
two-year statute of limitations for administrative claims made
pursuant to the FTCA for those plaintiffs wishing to also
allege Bivens theories in states where the latter claims are
governed by shorter limits. Assuming he filed administrative
tort claims immediately upon his release from immigration
detention, and assuming that the agencies did not act on his
claims within six months, Valadez-Lopez would be left with
only an additional six months in which to file a combined
Bivens and FTCA action—well short of the time allowed by
the Act for filing administrative claims. 28 U.S.C. § 2401(b).
[7] A requirement to file a new separate lawsuit and then
consolidate it with a prior pending action would undermine
the objectives of the exhaustion requirement as recognized by
the Supreme Court and ours: saving judicial resources and
promoting settlement. See McNeil, 508 U.S. at 111-12 & nn.
7-8; Brady, 211 F.3d at 503 (“[t]he purpose of the FTCA’s
administrative claim procedure is ‘to encourage administra-
tive settlement of claims against the United States and thereby
16398 VALADEZ-LOPEZ v. UNITED STATES
to prevent an unnecessary burdening of the courts’ ” (quoting
Jerves, 966 F.2d at 520)); accord Cadwalder, 45 F.3d at 302.
[8] Alternatively, the government cites Federal Rule of
Civil Procedure 15(c) for the proposition that Valadez-
Lopez’s amended complaint asserting the FTCA claim “re-
lates back” to the date of the filing of his original complaint,
at which point he had not yet exhausted administrative reme-
dies. Rule 15(c) states that “[a]n amendment to a pleading
relates back to the date of the original pleading when . . . the
amendment asserts a claim or defense that arose out of the
conduct, transaction, or occurrence set out—or attempted to
be set out—in the original pleading.” Fed. R. Civ. P.
15(c)(1)(B). However, it is well-established that an
“ ‘amended complaint supersedes the original, the latter being
treated thereafter as non-existent.’ ” Forsyth v. Humana, Inc.,
114 F.3d 1467, 1474 (9th Cir. 1997) (quoting Loux v. Rhay,
375 F.2d 55, 57 (9th Cir. 1967)). Furthermore, Rule 15(c) “is
addressed primarily to statute of limitations problems,” Lewis
v. Lewis, 358 F.2d 495, 502 (9th Cir. 1966), which are not
presented by these facts. See also Rural Fire Prot. Co. v.
Hepp, 366 F.2d 355, 362 (9th Cir. 1966) (“[T]he purpose of
Rule 15(c) is to defeat the bar of statutes of limitations . . . .”
). The government’s argument fails. The district court’s exer-
cise of subject matter jurisdiction over Valadez-Lopez’s
FTCA claim was not precluded by the Act’s exhaustion
requirement, and the district court was incorrect to dismiss the
claim based on that ground.
III
[9] Although we disagree with the government’s assertion
that dismissal was proper for failure to exhaust administrative
remedies, we agree with the government’s alternative argu-
ment that the claims were properly dismissed because
Valadez-Lopez did not state a claim within the FTCA’s
waiver of sovereign immunity. The FTCA waives sovereign
immunity only for claims alleging “the negligent or wrongful
VALADEZ-LOPEZ v. UNITED STATES 16399
act or omission of any employee of the Government while act-
ing within the scope of his office or employment.” 28 U.S.C.
§ 1346(b)(1) (emphasis added). The Act defines “employee of
the government” to include, as relevant here,
officers or employees of any federal agency . . . and
persons acting on behalf of a federal agency in an
official capacity, temporarily or permanently in the
service of the United States, whether with or without
compensation[.]
Id. § 2671. The Act further specifies that
the term “Federal agency” includes the executive
departments, the judicial and legislative branches,
the military departments, independent establishments
of the United States, and corporations primarily act-
ing as instrumentalities or agencies of the United
States, but does not include any contractor with the
United States.
Id. (emphasis added). The government may be sued under the
Act “for the actions of a government contractor and its
employees” only if the contractor is acting as an agent of the
government, i.e. “if the government has the authority ‘to con-
trol the detailed physical performance of the contractor’ and
supervise its ‘day-to-day operations.’ ” Letnes v. United
States, 820 F.2d 1517, 1518 (9th Cir. 1987) (quoting United
States v. Orleans, 425 U.S. 807, 814-15 (1976)).
[10] Accordingly, in order to state a claim within the
FTCA’s waiver of sovereign immunity, Valadez-Lopez must
allege negligence (1) by “officers or employees of a[ ] federal
agency,” which includes executive departments such as ICE
and the Department of Homeland Security but which does not
include contractors, 28 U.S.C. § 2671; (2) by “persons acting
on behalf of a federal agency in an official capacity,” id.; or
(3) by a government contractor over whose “day-to-day oper-
16400 VALADEZ-LOPEZ v. UNITED STATES
ations” the government maintains “substantial supervision,”
Letnes, 820 F.2d at 1519 (citing Ducey v. United States, 713
F.2d 504, 516 (9th Cir. 1983)). The district court below
denied the government’s initial motion to dismiss to the
extent it argued that Valadez-Lopez’s medication claim did
not fall within any of these three categories, and therefore was
not encompassed by the FTCA’s waiver of sovereign immu-
nity. It stated without elaboration that the allegations in
Valadez-Lopez’s complaint were “sufficient to state a claim
under the Federal Tort Claims Act.” We disagree.
A complaint “must contain a ‘short and plain statement of
the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.’ ” Ash-
croft v. Iqbal, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 129 S. Ct. 1937, 1949
(2009) (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2)). It need not state “de-
tailed factual allegations,” Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly,
550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007), but it must aver “sufficient factual
matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plau-
sible on its face.’ ” Iqbal, ___ U.S. at ___, 129 S. Ct. at 1949
(quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570). A complaint does not
suffice “if it tenders ‘naked assertion[s]’ devoid of ‘further
factual enhancement.’ ” Id. (alteration in the original) (quot-
ing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 557).
[11] Valadez-Lopez was detained in local jails, by all
accounts staffed by local officials, that maintain contracts
with the federal government to house immigration detainees.
In his complaint, Valadez-Lopez does not identify how any
federal government employee negligently caused or contrib-
uted to his being deprived of his schizophrenia medication,
nor does he state that any other defendants acted on behalf of
a federal agency in an official capacity, see 28 U.S.C. § 2671,
or that they qualified as government contractors for whose
conduct the United States is liable under the FTCA, see Let-
nes, 820 F.2d at 1518-19. Rather, the complaint makes vague
and somewhat incomprehensible assertions concerning the
federal employees. To conclude that such a complaint stated
claims sufficient to invoke the waiver of sovereign immunity
VALADEZ-LOPEZ v. UNITED STATES 16401
would unreasonably require trial courts and defendants to
piece together a theory of liability from a string of unrelated
and incoherent assertions. See Ove v. Gwinn, 264 F.3d 817,
821, 824-25 (9th Cir. 2001). Therefore, we affirm the district
court’s dismissal of Valadez-Lopez’s FTCA claim because it
does not fall within the Act’s waiver of sovereign immunity.
IV
[12] The district court properly granted summary judgment
on Valadez-Lopez’s § 1983 claims. The sole individual claim
remaining on appeal is plaintiff’s complaint against Yolo
County Deputy Public Defender Donald Lown.2 Valadez-
Lopez asserted that Lown was liable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983
for his conduct in training and supervising Van Zandt,
Valadez-Lopez’s defense attorney. The district court con-
cluded that Valadez-Lopez had not shown that Lown trained
or supervised Van Zandt at the relevant times. On appeal,
Valadez-Lopez concedes this argument: he points to no evi-
dence in the record that would establish a triable issue of fact
regarding Lown’s alleged training of Van Zandt when Van
Zandt was advising Valadez-Lopez. Therefore, the district
court correctly granted summary judgment on this claim.
[13] The district court also properly granted summary
judgment on Valadez-Lopez’s Monell claim. Valadez-Lopez
never named Yolo County as a defendant.3 His pleadings did
2
On appeal, Valadez-Lopez also argues that the district court erred in
granting Yolo County Deputy Public Defender Richard Van Zandt sum-
mary judgment on his § 1983 claim. This argument is not properly before
us, however, as the relevant notice of appeal only specified “the district
court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendant Donald Lown.”
The Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure provide “that the notice of
appeal must ‘designate the judgment, order, or part thereof being
appealed.’ ” Lolli v. Cnty. of Orange, 351 F.3d 410, 414 (9th Cir. 2003)
(quoting Fed. R. App. P. 3(c)(1)(B)).
3
We acknowledge that § 1983 claims “against government officials in
their official capacities are really suits against the governmental employer
because the employer must pay any damages awarded.” Butler v. Elle, 281
F.3d 1014, 1023 n.8 (9th Cir. 2002) (citing Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U.S
159, 165-66 (1985)); see Monell, 436 U.S. at 690 n.55. In his briefing
before us, however, Valadez-Lopez concedes that “the better practice is to
name the employing public entity as a defendant at the outset of the case.”
16402 VALADEZ-LOPEZ v. UNITED STATES
not reference Monell, City of Canton,4 or related cases. Sim-
ply put, his suit did not put Yolo County on notice of his the-
ory of liability.
[14] The Supreme Court has emphasized that, particularly
when a plaintiff’s claim “turns on a failure to train” and there-
fore when “[a] municipality’s culpability for a deprivation of
rights is at its most tenuous,” proper notice is imperative.
Connick v. Thompson, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 131 S. Ct. 1350,
1359 (2011); see id. at 1359-60; Board of Cty. Comm’rs of
Bryan Cty. v. Brown, 520 U.S. 397, 407-10 (1997); Graham,
473 U.S. at 166 (“As long as the government entity receives
notice and an opportunity to respond, an official-capacity suit
is, in all respects other than name, to be treated as a suit
against the entity.” (emphasis added) (citation omitted)).
While the Court’s emphasis is primarily on whether, prior to
a plaintiff’s lawsuit, a pattern of constitutional violations has
put the municipality on notice that its training regimen is
insufficient, see, e.g., Bryan, 520 U.S. at 407, it is equally
applicable where successive pleadings leave the municipality
to guess as to the plaintiff’s theory. Faced with Valadez-
Lopez’s many amended complaints, none of which cited
Monell or related cases and only the last of which introduced
language referencing them, Yolo County cannot be blamed
for being caught unaware as to Valadez-Lopez’s claims. Nor
can it be held liable under them. The district court’s order
granting summary judgment was proper.
V
If the allegations of his complaint are true, Valadez-Lopez
suffered needless harm. He was apparently wrongfully
detained and then denied medication while in custody. How-
ever, as presented, his legal claims are not viable, and the dis-
trict court afforded him multiple opportunities to amend his
complaint. We affirm the dismissal of the FTCA claim and
4
City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378 (1989).
VALADEZ-LOPEZ v. UNITED STATES 16403
the grant of summary judgment on the § 1983 claims. We
have reviewed Valadez-Lopez’s remaining contentions and
have determined that they are without merit.5
AFFIRMED.
5
We acknowledge and thank the University of California Davis School
of Law (King Hall) Civil Rights Clinic for its excellent pro bono represen-
tation of Valadez-Lopez on appeal.