Peavy

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4 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

5 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

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7 JIBRI PEAVY, Case No. 25-cv-10218-WHO

8 Plaintiff,

ORDER DENYING PLAINTIFF'S

9 v. MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION

10 ALLISON HALEY, et al., Re: Dkt. No. 62

Defendants.

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13 Plaintiff Jibri Peavy moves to alter or amend the judgment entered in this case pursuant to

14 Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e). Peavy argues that, in dismissing her amended complaint

15 without leave to amend, I made “five independent manifest errors of law.” Motion for

16 Reconsideration (“Mot.”) [Dkt. No. 62] at 1. For the reasons set forth below, Peavy’s motion for

17 reconsideration is DENIED.

18 BACKGROUND

19 The background of this matter is thoroughly set out in my previous order dismissing

20 Peavy’s amended complaint with prejudice and I will only briefly summarize it here. Order

21 Dismissing Amended Complaint (“Order”) [Dkt. No. 58] at 1–3. Peavy alleges that Napa County

22 District Attorney Allison Haley and the Napa County District Attorney’s Office began criminal

23 proceedings against her in early 2025. Amended Complaint (“Compl.”) [Dkt. No. 38] at 6. She

24 asserts that “[d]espite possessing Plaintiff’s verified address, Defendant Haley personally

25 authorized the use of a fictitious address [for the Notice to Appear] in sworn affidavits to the

26 court.” Id. at 6. When Peavy did not appear for the hearing, a bench warrant was issued against

27 her. Id. at 5–6. She eventually appeared in court where she was granted a diversion. Id. at 5. She

1 Id.

2 On February 25, 2026, Peavy filed an amended complaint, alleging three causes of action

3 under 42 U.S.C. § 1983: (1) violation of her Fourteenth Amendment right to Due Process for

4 failure to mail her Notice to Appear to the correct address; (2) violation of her Sixth Amendment

5 right to counsel and a speedy trial for “maintaining a ‘secret’ docket through defective service”;

6 and (3) a Monell claim based on prosecutorial misconduct for the “use of unreliable information

7 and the failure to verify addresses . . . .” Compl. at 11. On April 29, 2026, I dismissed this

8 complaint for failure to state a claim and entered judgment. Peavy now moves for reconsideration

9 of this judgment.

10 LEGAL STANDARD

11 Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e), a party may move to “alter or amend a

12 judgment” within 28 days of its entry. The Ninth Circuit has cautioned that this is an

13 “extraordinary remedy, to be used sparingly in the interests of finality and conservation of judicial

14 resources.” Carroll v. Nakatani, 342 F.3d 934, 945 (9th Cir. 2003) (citation omitted). A district

15 court may grant a motion brought under Rule 59(e): “(1) if such motion is necessary to correct

16 manifest errors of law or fact upon which the judgment rests; (2) if such motion is necessary to

17 present newly discovered or previously unavailable evidence; (3) if such motion is necessary to

18 prevent manifest injustice; or (4) if the amendment is justified by an intervening change in

19 controlling law.” Allstate Ins. Co. v. Herron, 634 F.3d 1101, 1111 (9th Cir. 2011). Rule 59(e)

20 may not, however, “be used to relitigate old matters, or to raise arguments or present evidence that

21 could have been raised prior to the entry of judgment.” Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker, 554 U.S.

22 471, 485 n.5 (2008) (citation omitted).

23 “While courts within the Ninth Circuit have not strictly defined what constitutes clear error

24 for Rule 59(e) motions, courts have generally found that mere doubts or disagreement about the

25 wisdom of a prior decision of the court will not suffice.” Bey v. Malec, No. 18-cv-02626-SI, 2020

26 WL 3058336, at *2 (N.D. Cal. June 9, 2020) (citations and internal modifications

27 omitted). “Rather, for there to be clear error, the previous decision must strike a court as more

1 DISCUSSION

2 In her motion for reconsideration, Peavy does not raise any new evidence or suggest that

3 there has been an intervening change in law to justify a different outcome. Instead, Peavy argues

4 that my prior order “contains clear errors of law on five independent grounds”: (1) it “cites

5 Botello v. Gammick [413 F.3d 971 (9th Cir. 2005)] and then fails to apply it”; (2) it “ignores”

6 another case’s (Kalina v. Fletcher, 522 U.S. 118 (1997)) “direct application to Haley’s personal

7 certification of a fictious address in sworn documents”; (3) it “applies an incorrect pleading

8 standard to a due process claim supported by documentary exhibits already in the record”; (4) it

9 “treats completion of a diverted criminal proceeding as extinguishing independent Section 1983

10 claims”; and (5) it “denies leave to amend where amendment could cure the identified deficiencies

11 under Foman v. Davis [371 U.S. 178 (1962)].” Mot. at 2, 5. I address each of these points in turn.

12 Peavy’s first and second contentions address the application of prosecutorial immunity to

13 Haley’s actions. In my prior order, I concluded that Haley’s actions were subject to prosecutorial

14 immunity because they were “the work of an advocate . . . integral to the initiation of the

15 prosecution.” Order at 6 (quoting Kalina, 522 U.S. at 130). Peavy argues in her first contention

16 that I failed to consider cases—specifically, Botello and a U.S. Supreme Court case, Buckley v.

17 Fitzsimmons, 509 U.S. 259 (1993)—that establish that “[t]he decision to identify a mailing address

18 for a defendant and certify that address as correct in sworn affidavits submitted to the court is an

19 administrative function” and should not enjoy the protection of prosecutorial immunity. Mot. at 2.

20 To determine whether absolute immunity applies to a prosecutor’s actions, a court must

21 conduct a fact-based inquiry into the “nature of the function at issue.” Botello, 413 F.3d at 975–

22 76. Prosecutorial immunity is not absolute and does not extend to conduct by prosecutors that is

23 administrative, investigative, and/or untethered to judicial proceedings. Id. Absolute immunity is

24 appropriately applied to “acts undertaken by a prosecutor in preparing for the initiation of judicial

25 proceedings or for trial.” Buckley, 509 U.S. at 273; see also Botello, 413 F.3d at 976 (quoting

26 Burns v. Reed, 500 U.S. 478, 494 (1991)) (“[I]t is clear that absolute prosecutorial immunity is

27 justified ‘only for actions that are connected with the prosecutor's role in judicial proceedings, not

1 While Buckley and Botello are instructive on the general rule for prosecutorial immunity,

2 neither speaks directly to the facts at issue. In Buckley, the court declined to extend absolute

3 immunity to prosecutors who had fabricated evidence. 509 U.S.at 274–76. The court found that

4 the prosecutors were behaving as investigators, not advocates, during the time that they allegedly

5 fabricated the evidence and thus were only entitled to qualified immunity. Id. at 274–75. The

6 court noted that “[w]hen the functions of prosecutors and detectives are the same, as they were

7 here, the immunity that protects them is also the same.” Id. at 276.

8 Similarly, in Botello, the court rejected the prosecutors’ attempt to assert absolute

9 immunity for their conduct telephoning a potential employer of a former colleague to attempt to

10 stop him from being hired. 413 F.3d at 977. The court further declined to apply absolute

11 immunity to prosecutors’ actions “insisting that [their colleague] be barred from any aspect of the

12 investigative process, even from the earliest stages of preliminary investigations” because this was

13 “in essence dictating to local law enforcement authorities how future criminal investigations

14 should be conducted and staffed—an administrative function.” Id. However, the court determined

15 that the prosecutors’ decision not to prosecute any cases where this colleague had “participated in

16 any phase of the investigative process” was protected by absolute immunity because it was a

17 decision “intimately tied to the judicial process.” Id. 1 The activities at issue in these two cases do

18 not bear a resemblance to Haley’s alleged misconduct in using a fictitious address for the notice.

19 More relevant to the question of prosecutorial immunity is the case Peavy cites in support

20 of her second challenge. Peavy argues that I misapplied the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Kalina by

21 failing to recognize that Haley was acting as a witness, not an advocate, when she offered sworn

22 statements regarding Peavy’s address. Mot. at 3. In Kalina, the court determined that a

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1 Later in her motion, Peavy also raises Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 343 (1986), stating that it

provides “an additional and independent basis for denying absolute immunity.” Mot. at 4. Malley

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addressed an officer applying for an arrest warrant. 475 U.S. at 342. The Court specifically

differentiated this action from a prosecutor seeking an indictment. Id. at 342–43 (“We intend no

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disrespect to the officer applying for a warrant by observing that his action, while a vital part of

the administration of criminal justice, is further removed from the judicial phase of criminal

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proceedings than the act of a prosecutor in seeking an indictment.”). Malley is inapplicable here.

1 prosecutor was not protected by absolute immunity when she provided a sworn certification of the

2 facts to support issuance of an arrest warrant. 522 U.S. at 129–31. The court noted that “her

3 drafting of the certification, her determination that the evidence was sufficiently strong to justify a

4 probable-cause finding, her decision to file charges, and her presentation of the information and

5 the motion to the court” would all be activity protected by absolute prosecutorial immunity. Id. at

6 130. However, personally certifying that the facts submitted in the affidavit were true was “an act

7 that any competent witness might have performed” and therefore, not entitled to prosecutorial

8 immunity. Id. at 129–30.

9 Peavy argues that this is what Haley did here, “personally certified as true . . . that the

10 fictitious address was Plaintiff’s correct address.” Mot. at 3. While Peavy’s allegations are

11 conclusory, they bear some resemblance to the situation addressed in Kalina. But even if there

12 was error in my application of prosecutorial immunity, it would be immaterial because my Order

13 also addressed the merits of each of Peavy’s claims and determined that they independently

14 warranted dismissal for failure to state a claim. The outcome of the Order did not depend solely

15 on the application of prosecutorial immunity.

16 Under her third contention, Peavy asserts that I erred in dismissing her Fourteenth

17 Amendment Due Process claim because her allegations against defendants were not conclusory

18 and were supported by “documentary evidence” that she submitted. Mot. at 3–4. As an initial

19 matter, it is not clear what documentary evidence she is referring to, the documents attached to her

20 amended complaint or some other “evidence.” Furthermore, in my prior order, I explained:

Although Ms. Peavy has alleged in a conclusory statement that

21 “[d]espite possessing Plaintiff’s verified address, Defendant Haley

personally authorized the use of a fictitious address in sworn

22 affidavits to the court,” she has not sufficiently alleged facts that

demonstrate that the Government (1) learned that its attempt to

23 provide notice was unsuccessful, or that (2) it failed to take reasonable

steps to effect practicable notice. She thus fails to state a claim for

24 violation of due process as it relates to her address allegations.

25 Order at 4.

26 Peavy argues that under the Supreme Court’s decision in Mullane v. Central Hanover

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1 Bank and Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306 (1950),2 “the deliberate submission of a known fictious address

2 in sworn affidavits [does not] constitute[] notice reasonably calculated to inform the intended

3 recipient.” Mot. at 4. The issue here is not whether such conduct would constitute improper

4 notice; it is that Peavy has failed to allege sufficient facts showing that this is what took place.

5 Under Supreme Court precedent, a plaintiff must allege “enough facts to state a claim to relief that

6 is plausible on its face.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007); see also Ashcroft

7 v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (citation omitted) (plaintiff must plead facts that “allow[] the

8 court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged”).

9 Peavy’s complaint does not meet this standard on her Fourteenth Amendment claim. For

10 example, she does not describe how Haley knew the address was incorrect or from where the

11 address was obtained. She does not explain how she did find out about the case against her and

12 appeared in court. The bare allegation that Haley knew the correct address but simply used a

13 different one is not sufficient. There was no error regarding dismissal of this claim.

14 In her fourth contention, Peavy argues that I incorrectly dismissed her constitutional claims

15 because she was involved in a court-ordered diversion program. Mot. at 4. In my prior Order, I

16 referenced the diversion program in the context of my analysis of her claim based on violation of

17 her Sixth Amendment rights. I stated that:

In her complaint, Ms. Peavy alleges that her case was moved to the

18 Napa County Court’s Diversion program. It is unclear whether Ms.

Peavy was ever charged for a crime, whether she entered Diversion

19 as a condition of or prior to accepting a plea, whether she ever sought

the assistance of counsel, or whether she was ever informed of her

20 right to counsel. She merely states, again in a conclusory fashion, that

“Defendants prevented Plaintiff from exercising her right to an

21 attorney and a prompt resolution of the charges” because they

“maintain[ed] a ‘secret’ docket through defective service.” This

22 conclusory allegation does not state a claim for violation of her Sixth

Amendment rights.

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Order at 4–5. My determination only pertains to Peavy’s Sixth Amendment claim, not all her

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constitutional claims. And I did not conclude that the fact she was in a diversion program

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2 Mullane stands for the general proposition that due process requires “notice reasonably

calculated, under all the circumstances, to apprise interested parties of the pendency of the action

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and afford them an opportunity to present their objections.” 339 U.S. at 314. Its facts, however,

] invalidates the Sixth Amendment claim; I found that she had not pleaded facts sufficient to

2 || establish a Sixth Amendment claim. As discussed above, Peavy’s pleading did not meet the

3 standard set by the Supreme Court in /gbal and Twombly. A complaint that does not meet these

4 || standards cannot proceed.

5 Finally, in her fifth contention Peavy contests my determination that further leave to

6 || amend would be futile. She argues that she has additional facts which could be added upon

7 || amendment, particularly for the Monell claim. As I stated in my prior Order, she has been given

8 || numerous opportunities to plead causes of action in this case and offers no reason why she has

9 || been unable to “incorporate[] .. . specific facts with greater particularly” until this point. See Dkt.

10 Nos. 1, 5, 14, 26, 28, 38. It was not clear error to refuse to grant her leave to try once more.

11 CONCLUSION

12 For the foregoing reasons, Peavy’s motion for reconsideration under Federal Rule of Civil

13 Procedure 59(e) is DENIED.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

3 15 || Dated: August 18, 2026

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imiam H. Orrick

18 United States District Judge

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