## Facts

- Pomona Police Officer Dennis Cooper observed George Hernandez driving without headlights before dawn and stopping abruptly at a curb with the engine running.
- Cooper activated overhead lights, stopped about 10 feet from the vehicle, and ordered the occupants out.
- Hernandez initially exited but then fled, leading officers on a high-speed vehicle pursuit and then a foot chase after a crash.
- Officers released a police dog, which bit Hernandez during the foot pursuit.
- Officers reported that Hernandez reached toward his waistband and yelled “I got a gun” or “gun”; officers fired 37 shots, 22 of which struck and killed him.
- Hernandez was unarmed; toxicology later showed methamphetamine in his system.
- Hernandez’s survivors alleged wrongful death based on excessive deadly force and on officers’ preshooting conduct that allegedly created the circumstances leading to the shooting.
- In a prior federal action, plaintiffs litigated § 1983 excessive-force claims; the jury (instructed to assess the “totality of the circumstances”) found for three officers, and the court entered judgment for the fourth as a matter of law.
- The federal court then declined supplemental jurisdiction over the related state wrongful-death claims and dismissed them without prejudice.
- Plaintiffs refiled wrongful-death and negligence claims in California state court; the trial court sustained a demurrer on preclusion grounds, the Court of Appeal reversed in part as to preshooting negligence, and the California Supreme Court granted review.

## Issues

1. What preclusive effect does a final federal judgment for police officers on a § 1983 excessive-force claim have on a later California wrongful-death action arising from the same shooting?
2. Does issue preclusion bar state-law negligence and wrongful-death theories based on alleged preshooting conduct when the federal jury found the officers’ use of deadly force objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment?
3. Are the issues decided by the federal “objective reasonableness” verdict identical, for preclusion purposes, to the issues required to prove state-law negligence/wrongful death under the same circumstances?

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeal and reinstated the trial court’s judgment for defendants.
- The Court held that the federal judgment collaterally estopped plaintiffs from pursuing the state wrongful-death action.
- The preclusion applied not only to claims challenging the moment of the shooting, but also to theories that officers’ preshooting conduct was negligent and created the conditions for the shooting.
- The Court resolved the case on issue-preclusion grounds and did not need to rest its outcome on claim preclusion or the rule against splitting a cause of action.

## Legal Principles

- Issue preclusion applies when: (1) the issue is identical to that decided previously; (2) it was actually litigated; (3) it was necessarily decided; (4) the prior decision is final and on the merits; and (5) the party against whom preclusion is asserted is the same or in privity.
- A federal judgment can have issue-preclusive effect in subsequent state litigation between the same parties.
- A federal jury’s determination that officers acted with “objective reasonableness” under the Fourth Amendment—when the jury is instructed to evaluate the “totality of the circumstances”—can encompass officers’ conduct leading up to the shooting.
- Where state wrongful-death/negligence liability depends on whether officers acted reasonably under the circumstances, a prior federal verdict finding the same conduct reasonable may satisfy the “identity of issues” requirement and bar relitigation under alternative state-law labels, including preshooting negligence.

## Conclusion

Because the prior federal verdict necessarily determined, under a totality-of-the-circumstances instruction, that the officers acted reasonably in the events culminating in the shooting, plaintiffs were barred from relitigating those same events as state-law wrongful death and negligence based on preshooting conduct.


Hernandez v. City of Pomona, 46 Cal. 4th 501 (Cal. 2009)