Johnny Lee Jackson v. Daryl Gates City of Los Angeles

975 F.2d 648 61 USLW 2189 , 7 IER Cases 1249 , 8 IER Cases 192 Johnny Lee JACKSON, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Daryl GATES; City of Los Angeles, Defendants-Appellants. No. 90-55728. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Argued and Submitted Dec. 3, 1991. Decided Sept. 17, 1992. As Amended Nov. 27, 1992. Arthur B. Walsh, Deputy City Atty., Los Angeles, Cal., for defendants-appellants. Michael P. Stone, Stone, Feeley & DePasquale, Los Angeles, Cal., for plaintiff-appellee. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California. Before: PREGERSON, CANBY and RYMER, Circuit Judges. PREGERSON, Circuit Judge: 1 The City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles Police Chief Gates (collectively "appellants") appeal the denial of their motions for summary judgment, directed verdict, new trial, and judgment notwithstanding the verdict, and the jury award in favor of Los Angeles Police Officer Johnny Lee Jackson. Jackson brought this action after being discharged for refusing to comply with an order to provide a urine sample for drug testing. We hold that appellants' termination of Jackson because he refused to comply with the order violated his Fourth Amendment…

The City of Los Angeles and Los Ange-les Police Chief Gates (collectively “appellants”) appeal the denial of their motions for summary judgment, directed verdict, new trial, and judgment notwithstanding the verdict, and the jury award in favor of Los Angeles Police Officer Johnny Lee Jackson. Jackson brought this action after being discharged for refusing to comply with an order to provide a urine sample for drug testing. We hold that appellants’ termination of Jackson because he refused to comply with the order violated his Fourth Amendment rights. Further, we hold that the jury was properly instructed on the applicable Fourth Amendment standard, which required the police to demonstrate an articulable reasonable basis for suspecting Jackson of drug use before ordering him to submit to the urinalysis.

BACKGROUND

Los Angeles Police Department (“LAPD”) Officers Leach and Jackson were assigned to the same police station. Sometime before February 1986, the Internal Affairs Division of the LAPD (“IAD”) began conducting undercover surveillance of Officer John Leach, whom they suspected of illegal drug use. IAD undercover officers saw Jackson and Leach together on two separate…

dissenting:

I dissent, because I believe we are bound by Los Angeles Police Protective League v. Gates, 907 F.2d 879 (9th Cir.1990), to ask whether the City or the LAPD ever adopted a policy of carrying out unconstitutional searches of police officers, 907 F.2d at 890 . Because there is no evidence that it did, there is no basis for municipal liability.