NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS APR 23 2024
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
JUAN GARCIA, Deceased, through his Co- No. 23-15056
Successors In Interest, AG and EG; et al.,
D.C. No. 4:21-cv-03519-HSG
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v. MEMORANDUM*
COUNTY OF NAPA; DAVID ACKMAN,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of California
Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr., District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted April 3, 2024
San Francisco, California
Before: M. SMITH, HURWITZ, and JOHNSTONE, Circuit Judges.
This action arises out of the fatal shooting of Juan Garcia by Sergeant David
Ackman of the Napa County Sheriff’s Office after a traffic stop. The district court
dismissed the claim against the County under Monell v. Department of Social
Services of City of New York, 436 U.S. 658 (1978), pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
Procedure 12(b)(6), granted summary judgment to Ackman on the remaining federal
claims, and declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the pendant state
claims. We affirm.
1. The Supreme Court has instructed that police officers “are entitled to
qualified immunity under § 1983 unless (1) they violated a federal statutory or
constitutional right, and (2) the unlawfulness of their conduct was clearly established
at the time.” District of Columbia v. Wesby, 583 U.S. 48, 62–63 (2018) (cleaned
up). “To be clearly established, a right must be sufficiently clear that every
reasonable official would have understood that what he is doing violates that right.”
Reichle v. Howards, 566 U.S. 658, 664 (2012) (cleaned up). “Plaintiffs must point
to prior case law that articulates a constitutional rule specific enough to alert these
deputies in this case that their particular conduct was unlawful.” Sharp v. Cnty. of
Orange, 871 F.3d 901, 911 (9th Cir. 2017). A court has the “discretion to resolve a
case only on the second ground.” O’Doan v. Sanford, 991 F.3d 1027, 1036 (9th Cir.
2021).
We agree with the district court that plaintiffs failed to identify a prior case
that meets the Supreme Court’s requirements. S.R. Nehad v. Browder, 929 F.3d
1125 (9th Cir. 2019), on which plaintiffs primarily rely, although involving a
shooting after an investigatory stop, is not such a case. See id. at 1130. In Nehad,
the shooting occurred only five seconds after the officer exited his car. Id. Here,
2
during a longer incident, Garcia ignored commands to return to his car after the
traffic stop, and then advanced on Sergeant Ackman with one hand behind his back,
ignoring repeated commands to stop. Garcia continued to advance even after
Ackman retreated around his patrol car to avoid an encounter. Moreover, there was
a factual dispute in Nehad about whether the officer reasonably perceived a pen in
the suspect’s hand to be a knife. Id. at 1131. In Nehad, the officer could see the
hand holding the pen, but here, the officer could not see Garcia’s right hand, and
feared that he was reaching for a weapon behind his back. Given these factual
differences, Nehad does not “articulate[] a constitutional rule specific enough to
alert” Ackman that his conduct was unlawful, Sharp, 871 F.3d at 911, and plaintiffs
cite no other case that meets this standard. The district court did not err in granting
summary judgment on the excessive force against Ackman.
2. Official conduct must “shock the conscience” to create a First and
Fourteenth Amendment claim for loss of familial association. Porter v. Osborn, 546
F.3d 1131, 1142 (9th Cir. 2008). If an officer “makes a snap judgment because of
an escalating situation, his conduct may be found to shock the conscience only if he
acts with a purpose to harm unrelated to legitimate law enforcement objectives.”
Hayes v. Cnty. of San Diego, 736 F.3d 1223, 1230 (9th Cir. 2013) (citing Wilkinson
v. Torres, 610 F.3d 546, 554 (9th Cir. 2010)). Because no evidence established that
Ackman shot Garcia “for any other purpose than” a “(possibly mistaken) perception
3
of the need for self-defense,” Peck v. Montoya, 51 F.4th 877, 894 (9th Cir. 2022),
the district court also did not err in rejecting the familial association claim.
3. The district court originally dismissed the plaintiffs’ Monell claim against
the County, for failure to state a claim, but granted leave to amend by a specified
date. The plaintiffs did not move to amend by that date or by the deadline in the
court’s scheduling order for amendment of pleadings.
The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the plaintiffs’
subsequent untimely motion for leave to amend. After the deadline in a scheduling
order, one seeking amendment of a pleading must establish “good cause.” Fed. R.
Civ. P. 16(b)(4). The district court reasonably found this standard unsatisfied
because plaintiffs should have been aware of the facts alleged in the proposed
amended complaint well before they filed their motion.
4. Because we affirm the district court’s dismissal of the federal claims, we
hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to address the
pendant state claims. See Sanford v. MemberWorks, Inc., 625 F.3d 550, 561 (9th
Cir. 2010) (citing 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3)).
AFFIRMED.
4