Jonathan Knotts v. Ray Carreira

MEMORANDUM

Jonathan Knotts appeals from the district court’s summary judgment on his claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and California law arising out of the search of his vehicle and his arrest for possessing an illegal weapon. The district court concluded that qualified and state statutory immunities protected the police officers and the City of Santa Clara. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and we affirm.

I. Claims under § 1983

Qualified immunity must be decided “as a matter of law when the material, historical facts are not in dispute, and the only disputes involve what inferences properly may be drawn from those historical facts.” Conner v. Heiman, 672 F.3d 1126,1130-31 (9th Cir.2012) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). The question is “whether the agents acted reasonably under settled law in the circumstances, not whether another reasonable, or more reasonable, interpretation of the events can be constructed.” Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U.S. 224, 228 , 112 S.Ct. 534 , 116 L.Ed.2d 589 (1991) (per curiam).

The material, historical facts of Knotts’s encounter with police are not in dispute; because the parties are familiar with the facts, we do not repeat them…