Santos ex rel. Santos v. City of Culver City

MEMORANDUM **

Bonifasio Santos appeals several of the district court’s discovery-related decisions and its grant of partial summary judgment in favor of Defendants in this § 1983 case against the City of Culver City and several members of the Culver City Police Department in their individual and official capacities. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and we affirm in part and reverse in part.

Santos first contends that the district court erred when it affirmed the magistrate judge’s denial of his request for discovery of a large quantity of Culver City Police Department records. We review this decision for an abuse of discretion. Hallett v. Morgan, 296 F.3d 732, 751 (9th Cir.2002). As we have made clear, “broad discretion is vested in the trial court to permit or deny discovery, and its decision to deny discovery will not be disturbed except upon the clearest showing that denial of discovery results in actual and substantial prejudice to the complaining litigant.” Id. (quoting Goehring v. Brophy, 94 F.3d 1294, 1305 (9th Cir.1996)). The magistrate judge found that Santos’ request for all complaints and arrest reports reflecting an improper use of force by any…

concurring in part and dissenting in part:

I concur in the majority’s resolution of all claims with the exception of its conclusions that (1) the district court did not err when it affirmed the magistrate judge’s denial of Santos’s request for records related to prior incidents of alleged use of excessive force by Culver City police officers and (2) the district court properly granted summary judgment to defendants with respect to Santos’s Monell claim. See Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658 , 98 S.Ct. 2018 , 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978).

Although a district court is vested with broad discretion to permit or deny discovery, it may not deprive a plaintiff of access to the information necessary to prove a claim absent just cause to do so. Here, Santos claimed that defendants maintained a policy of inadequately investigating ex *660 cessive force allegations, and that their failure to investigate such allegations and to punish officers who used excessive force led to the alleged violation of Santos’s rights. See Henry v. County of Shasta, 132 F.3d 512, 520 (9th Cir.1997) (“[A] municipal defendant’s failure to fire or reprimand officers evidences a policy of deliberate…