Summary Judgment Affirmed in Federal Civil Rights Lawsuit
October 27, 2017Plaintiff filed causes of action for violation of his Due Process rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against a law enforcement agency and its personnel claiming that his property was wrongfully dispersed before he was convicted of criminal charges. Our motion for summary judgment was granted and the plaintiff filed an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which affirmed our summary judgment. The Ninth Circuit found that the District Court properly granted summary judgment as plaintiff failed to raise a triable issue of fact regarding whether any policy of the agency as the “moving force” behind his alleged violation of his due process rights. The Court also agreed that summary judgment was properly granted in favor of the supervisory personnel because plaintiff failed to show they were either personally involved in or sufficiently causally connected to any violation of the plaintiff’s rights. Finally, summary judgment was properly granted on behalf of the remaining individual defendants based upon qualified immunity, as the plaintiff failed to show that it was “clearly established” that the circumstances violated his Due Process rights.