The opinion
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FILED
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
MAR 14 2025
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
BRET SMITH, No. 23-2142
Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No.
3:21-CV-08009-MTL-JZB
v.
TOWN OF CHINO VALLEY, a MEMORANDUM*
municipal corporation; TOWN OF CHINO
VALLEY POLICE DEPARTMENT, a
municipal corporation incorporated in the
State of Arizona; UNKNOWN BROWN,
named as RO Brown (CV21), individually
and as husband; UNKNOWN BROWN 2,
named as Jane Doe Brown, individually,
and as wife; JOHNSON, named as Sargent
Co. Johnson (CV07), individually and as
husband; UNKNOWN JOHNSON 2,
named as Jane Doe Johnson, individually,
and as wife; B BURNS, named as Officer
B Burns (CV31), individually and as
husband; UNKNOWN BURNS, named as
Jane Doe Burns, individually and as wife;
C SHAFER, named as Sargent C Shafer
(CV09), individually and as husband;
UNKNOWN SHAFER, named as Jane
Doe Shafer, individually, and as wife; MI
GARCIA, named as Mi Garcia (CV27),
individually, and as husband; UNKNOWN
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
GARCIA, named as Jane Doe Garcia,
individually, and as wife; UNKNOWN
HUBBLE, named as Deputy Hubble,
individually, and as husband; UNKNOWN
HUBBLE 2, named as Jane Doe Hubble,
individually, and as wife.
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Arizona
Michael T. Liburdi, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted September 12, 2024
Phoenix, Arizona
Before: RAWLINSON and COLLINS, Circuit Judges, and FITZWATER,** District
Judge.
Plaintiff-Appellant Brett Smith (“Smith”) appeals a summary judgment
dismissing his excessive force claims brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the
Town of Chino Valley (“Town”), five Town police officers, and one deputy from the
Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office (“YCSO”). We have jurisdiction, 28 U.S.C. § 1291,
and, reviewing the summary judgment de novo, L.F. v. Lake Washington Sch. Dist.
#414, 947 F.3d 621, 625 (9th Cir. 2020), we affirm.
**
The Honorable Sidney A. Fitzwater, United States District Judge for the
Northern District of Texas, sitting by designation.
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1. Viewed in the light most favorable to Smith, the summary judgment record
shows the following. On January 22, 2020, Smith had been drinking, and he called
911 to report that he had a loaded firearm and was feeling suicidal. Officers from the
Chino Valley Police Department and the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office responded.
Id. Smith informed the officers that he had left his gun on the porch, which was an
enclosed vestibule not visible to the officers. The officers cleared the house of
weapons and advised Smith to submit voluntarily to a mental and physical evaluation.
They then decided to take him into custody for an involuntary evaluation. The
officers advised Smith to submit voluntarily to a mental and physical evaluation, and
they then decided to take him into custody for an involuntary evaluation. Smith
complied with one officer’s request that he stand up and turn around, but when
instructed to put his hands behind his back, he refused. Five officers then surrounded
him, grabbed his hands, and forced him to the ground, injuring his knee in the process.
Because Smith could not walk, officers dragged him to the police vehicle. At the
time, Smith was approximately 6 feet tall and weighed 260 pounds. The officers
ranged in size from 5’3” to 6’2” in height and 180 to 240 pounds in weight.
2. The district court did not err in granting summary judgment dismissing
Smith’s claims against the individual officers because they were entitled to qualified
immunity. “Qualified immunity attaches when an official’s conduct does not violate
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clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person
would have known.” Kisela v. Hughes, 584 U.S. 100, 104 (2018) (per curiam)
(citation omitted). “Use of excessive force is an area of the law in which the result
depends very much on the facts of each case, and thus police officers are entitled to
qualified immunity unless existing precedent squarely governs the specific facts at
issue.” Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). While acknowledging that
“there can be the rare obvious case, where the unlawfulness of the officer’s conduct
is sufficiently clear even though existing precedent does not address similar
circumstances,” the Supreme Court has generally “stressed the need to identify a case
where an officer acting under similar circumstances was held to have violated the
Fourth Amendment.” City of Escondido v. Emmons, 586 U.S. 38, 43-44 (2019) (per
curiam) (citation omitted). Because this is not an “obvious” case, Smith was required
to identify a precedent that “squarely governs” these facts. Kisela, 584 U.S. at 104
(citation omitted). He has failed to do so.
Smith points to Hansen v. Black, 885 F.2d 642 (9th Cir. 1989), Palmer v.
Sanderson, 9 F.3d 1433 (9th Cir. 1993), and Meredith v. Erath, 342 F.3d 1057 (9th
Cir. 2003). But Palmer involved excessive use of force in the form of an officer
injuring the plaintiff by tightly handcuffing him and ignoring his pleas to loosen the
handcuffs. By contrast, Smith did not suffer from overly tight handcuffs, and his knee
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was injured as he resisted officers attempting to restrain him. Although Hansen and
Meredith involved alleged injuries during handcuffing beyond tight handcuffs, the
arrestees in those cases did not actively resist handcuffing in the way that Smith
indisputably did. The summary judgment record reflects that officers confronted a
mentally ill and drunk individual (Smith) who informed them that he had left a gun
in an area of the home that was outside of the officers’ immediate view and refused
to submit to a mental and physical health evaluation. Smith has failed to identify a
case where an officer acting under similar circumstances was held to have violated the
Fourth Amendment. Because Smith has not cited any cases establishing that the
officers’ use of force under these circumstances was excessive, he has failed to carry
his burden to place the constitutional question beyond debate such that it was “clear
to a reasonable officer that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted.”
Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 202 (2001), overruled in part on other grounds by
Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223 (2009). Accordingly, the district court did not err
in granting summary judgment in favor of the individual officers based on qualified
immunity.
3. Smith’s counsel acknowledged at oral argument that he could not establish
Monell liability against the Town. We therefore affirm the grant of summary
judgment in the Town’s favor.
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4. The district court did not commit reversible error in granting summary
judgment in favor of the officers and the Town on Smith’s excessive force claim.
AFFIRMED.
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