## Facts

- In 2014, Cindy Raygoza called the Fresno Police Department after her boyfriend assaulted her.
- Pamela Motley called the department multiple times to report that her estranged husband was violating a restraining order she had obtained; the husband was allegedly unaware of the order.
- Raygoza and Motley alleged that responding officers made sexist remarks and did not provide meaningful assistance.
- The officers allegedly failed to give Raygoza and Motley information about their right to seek a citizen’s arrest, which plaintiffs alleged was required by California Penal Code § 836(b).
- Plaintiffs also alleged failures to provide domestic-violence-related information and assistance required by California Penal Code § 679.05.
- On April 12, 2014, Motley was shot by her estranged husband; she survived with severe injuries, including quadriplegia and partial blindness.
- On July 14, 2014, Raygoza was stabbed to death by her boyfriend.
- Motley and the representative of Raygoza’s estate sued the City of Fresno and multiple officers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and state law, alleging unconstitutional, gender-biased police services and negligence.
- After the court dismissed an earlier amended complaint for inadequate pleading, plaintiffs filed a Second Amended Complaint asserting (among other theories) gender-based equal protection violations, failure to arrest, failure to protect, and failure to provide required information.

## Issues

1. Whether the Second Amended Complaint plausibly alleged intentional gender discrimination in police services to domestic-violence victims, sufficient to state an Equal Protection claim under § 1983.
2. Whether plaintiffs stated a substantive due process claim for failure to protect against private violence under any recognized exception (including a state-created danger theory).
3. Whether alleged violations of California Penal Code §§ 836(b) and 679.05, standing alone, stated a federal claim under § 1983.
4. Whether plaintiffs plausibly alleged municipal liability against the City of Fresno under Monell based on a policy, custom, or failure to train causing any surviving constitutional violation.
5. Whether plaintiffs stated viable state-law claims (including negligence-based theories) in light of pleading requirements and California governmental immunities and limitations.

## Decision

- The court granted in part and denied in part defendants’ Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss the Second Amended Complaint.
- The court permitted plaintiffs to proceed on at least part of their Equal Protection theory based on allegations that officers treated female domestic-violence complainants differently and made sexist remarks, supporting an inference of discriminatory intent at the pleading stage.
- The court dismissed plaintiffs’ substantive due process failure-to-protect theories to the extent they relied on police inaction or non-enforcement rather than affirmative conduct that created or increased danger in a manner recognized by controlling precedent.
- The court rejected § 1983 theories premised solely on officers’ alleged failure to provide state-law advisements (including citizen’s-arrest information), absent an independent federal constitutional violation.
- The court permitted Monell claims to proceed only to the extent they were tied to a plausible underlying constitutional violation (including the surviving Equal Protection theory), and dismissed municipal-liability theories that were not connected to a viable federal claim or were too conclusory.
- The court narrowed the state-law causes of action, allowing some negligence-based theories to proceed while dismissing others based on immunities, lack of a private right of action under the cited Penal Code provisions, or insufficient factual allegations.

## Legal Principles

- An Equal Protection claim based on discriminatory police protection requires plausible allegations of intentional discrimination; disparate outcomes alone are not enough.
- Under DeShaney, the Due Process Clause generally does not impose an affirmative duty on government actors to protect individuals from private violence; exceptions are limited.
- A state-created danger theory requires affirmative conduct by state actors that places a plaintiff in a worse position than if the state had not acted; omission or failure to act generally does not satisfy that requirement.
- Violations of state statutes (including duties to provide domestic-violence notices or citizen’s-arrest information) do not automatically create federal rights enforceable through § 1983 without an independent constitutional basis.
- Municipal liability under Monell requires facts supporting that a municipal policy, custom, or failure to train was the moving force behind a constitutional violation; the municipality is not liable on a respondeat superior theory.
- State-law tort claims against public entities and employees may be limited or barred by statutory immunities and related pleading and causation requirements.

## Conclusion

Motley v. Smith is a mixed Rule 12(b)(6) ruling on a second amended complaint arising from two domestic-violence incidents in which plaintiffs alleged Fresno police officers made sexist remarks and failed to provide required assistance and information before Motley was shot and Raygoza was killed. The court allowed portions of the gender-based Equal Protection claim (and related Monell theories) to go forward, but largely dismissed substantive due process failure-to-protect theories and rejected § 1983 claims resting only on alleged violations of California’s domestic-violence advisement statutes, while also narrowing the state-law claims based on statutory limits and pleading defects.


Motley v. Smith, 2016 WL 6988597 (2016)