Amicus Curiae Brief — Los Angeles County, California, et al., Petitioners v. Peter Woods Nyarecha, et al.

No. 24-956

In the

Supreme Court of the United States

LOS ANGELES COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, et al.,

Petitioners,

v.

PETER WOODS NYARECHA, et al.,

Respondents.

On Petition for a Writ of Certiorari to the

United States Court of A ppeals for the Ninth Circuit

BRIEF OF AMICI CURIAE THE INTERNATIONAL

MUNICIPAL LAWYERS ASSOCIATION AND THE

CALIFORNIA STATE ASSOCIATION OF COUNTIES,

IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONERS

A manda K arras

Erich Eiselt

International Municipal

Lawyers Association

51 Monroe Street, Suite 404

Rockville, Maryland 20850

Jennifer Henning

California State

Association Of Counties

1100 K Street, Suite 101

Sacramento, California 95814

T. Peter Pierce

Counsel of Record

Sose Tezyan

Richards, Watson & Gershon

A Professional Corporation

350 S. Grand Avenue, 37th Floor

Los Angeles, California 90071

(213) 626-8484

ppierce@rwglaw.com

Counsel for Amici Curiae

379310

A

(800) 274-3321 • (800) 359-6859

i

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

TABLE OF CONTENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

TABLE OF CITED AUTHORITIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY OF THE

ARGUMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

ARGUMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

I.

Allowing courts to infer a policy based on a few

officers’ actions in one night stretches Monell

liability back to respondeat superior . . . . . . . . . 4

II. The Ninth Circuit’s decision conflicts with the

requirements in other circuits that a custom

claim provide numerous other specific

instances of similar conduct . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

III. Establishing a more lenient test will impact

Monell liability in countless contexts . . . . . . . . 11

CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

ii

TABLE OF CITED AUTHORITIES

Page

CASES

Bidwell v. County of San Diego,

607 F. Supp. 3d 1084 (S.D. Cal. 2022) . . . . . . . . . . 9, 10

City of Oklahoma City v. Tuttle,

471 U.S. 808 (1985) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

City of St. Louis v. Praprotnik,

485 U.S. 112 (1988) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3, 13

Flores v. City of South Bend,

997 F.3d 725 (7th Cir. 2021) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7, 8

Gable v. City of Chicago,

296 F.3d 531 (7th Cir. 2002) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Hall v. Higgins,

77 F.4th 1171 (8th Cir. 2023) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8, 9

Lien v. City of San Diego,

No. 21-CV-224-MMA (WVG)

2021 WL 20172385 (S.D. Cal. 2021) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Meehan v. Los Angeles County,

856 F.2d 102 (9th Cir. 1988) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Monell v. Dept. of Soc. Serv.,

436 U.S. 658 (1978) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-7, 10-13

iii

Cited Authorities

Page

Reynolds v. Wood Cnty., Texas,

No. 22-40381, 2023 WL 3175467 (5th Cir. 2023) . . . . 6

Sanderlin v. City of San Jose,

No. 20-CV_04824-BLF 2022 WL 913055

(N.D. Cal. 2022) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10, 11

STATUTES

42 U.S.C. § 1983 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3, 5

1

INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE1

The International Municipal Lawyers Association

(IMLA) is a non-profit, nonpartisan professional

organization consisting of more than 2,500 members. The

membership is comprised of local government entities,

including cities, counties and subdivisions thereof, as

represented by their chief legal officers, state municipal

leagues, and individual attorneys. Established in 1935,

IMLA’s mission is to advance the responsible development

of municipal law through education and advocacy by

providing the collective viewpoint of local governments

around the country on legal issues before the United

States Supreme Court, the United States Courts of

Appeals, and in state supreme and appellate courts.

The California State Association of Counties (CSAC)

represents county governments in California. CSAC

provides essential services to California’s 58 counties

through advocacy, education, and research.

This case presents an important question: under what

circumstances may a local government be found liable for

a federal pattern and practice claim under Section 1983.

Amici have an interest in preserving local autonomy

and control without unwarranted federal oversight. This

Court should grant certiorari to provide clarity on the

legal standard for interpreting Monell liability based on

pattern and practice claims. The Ninth Circuit’s decision

1. This brief was not authored in whole or in part by counsel for

any party and no person or entity other than amici or their counsel

has made a monetary contribution toward the brief’s preparation or

submission. Counsel of record for all parties received timely notice

of the intent of amici to file this brief.

2

expands Monell to the breaking point, introducing federal

oversight of local government’s affairs in contravention

of Monell’s admonition that there is no respondeat

superior liability. Given the importance of preserving

the Constitution’s federalist structure, the Court should

intervene and grant certiorari to address this issue.

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY

OF THE ARGUMENT

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD)

is the largest in the United States, numbering more than

18,000 sworn and professional staff.2 It operates one of

the larger jail systems in the world, housing more than

11,000 inmates at seven facilities spread across a 4,000

square mile territory. 3 Against those facts, an inference

that video from a single cellblock of a single jail on a single

night constitutes an LASD “policy or custom” is beyond

illogical. More damaging, that inference--which imputes

responsibility to the County for isolated acts by six rank

and file employees in contravention of LASD official policy

and training--contravenes nearly fifty years of Supreme

Court precedent rejecting respondeat superior liability

for America’s local governments. If allowed to stand, the

Ninth Circuit’s holding will eviscerate that principle and

open localities to potentially unlimited attack.

2. https.lasd.org; nearly 30% of this total is deployed in the

LASD jail system. Los Angeles County Jail System by the NumbersUpdate for 2024, Los Angeles Almanac, https://www.laalmanac.com/

crime/cr25b.php (last accessed Mar. 30, 2025).

3. Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, Correctional Services

Daily Briefing, https://lasd.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/

Transparency_Custody_Division_Daily_Briefing_032825.pdf (last

accessed Mar. 29, 2025).

3

At the heart of this Court’s refusal to subject local

governments to respondeat superior liability is a

recognition that not every miscue by governmental actors

amounts to a Constitutional issue requiring resolution

before the federal judiciary. Principles of federalism

require that states and localities must be allowed to

apply their own laws where appropriate. To ensure the

Constitution’s federalist structure remains intact, local

governments can be held liable for constitutional violations

under 42 U.S.C. §1983 only when they themselves inflict

such violations; they cannot be held liable for the isolated

acts of their employees on a respondeat superior theory.

See Monell v. Dept. of Soc. Serv., 436 U.S. 658, 691-95

(1978). This Court’s review of the Ninth Circuit’s opinion

below is critically needed to reaffirm these principles,

avoid a split among the circuits, and preserve that

essential federalist structure.

It is textbook law that to establish a Monell claim

based on an unwritten practice or policy, a plaintiff must

establish that the alleged practice is so widespread and

“so permanent and well settled as to constitute a custom

or usage’ with the force of law.” City of St. Louis v.

Praprotnik, 485 U.S. 112, 127 (1988). Diverting from this

fundamental principle, the Ninth Circuit found that six

LASD deputies’ actions in one night, in one cell block of

one jail, established a widespread and permanent custom

sufficient to hold the County liable under Monell. That

finding is based on “an inference that the safety checks

that occurred in the hours preceding Nyarecha’s death

represent a practice or custom capable of satisfying the

standard for Monell liability.” App. 4a-5a.

The Ninth Circuit’s reasoning gives courts discretion

to assume that a massive governmental entity, comprising

4

thousands of employees across multiple facilities, has

adopted a widespread pattern and practice based solely

on the actions of a handful of actors in a very compressed

timeframe. That decision deviates from the application

of Monell in other circuits, ignoring obvious statistical

and temporal incongruities and providing no analysis as

to which circumstances might justify a court inferring a

widespread policy under such insubstantial evidence. Left

unchecked, the decision’s implications for local government

liability are unlimited. This Court’s review is urgently

required to clarify whether the inference of a custom or

policy is cognizable under the Monell standard, and if

so, what quantum of factual support is required to allow

such an inference. Amici curiae also urge the Court to

consider the obvious implications of the Ninth Circuit’s

holding: the inference of an actionable custom or policy

based on threadbare facts will necessarily lead lower

courts in the Ninth Circuit’s jurisdiction and sister Circuit

courts to build upon the decision and dramatically expand

municipal liability.

ARGUMENT

I.

Allowing courts to infer a policy based on a few

officers’ actions in one night stretches Monell

liability back to respondeat superior.

The Ninth Circuit’s decision (“the Opinion”) allows a

court to hold public entities liable under Monell when a

plaintiff focuses on a few events reflected in the record,

and asks the court to infer numerous additional events

sufficient to conclude a cognizable custom or practice

exists under Monell. But one swallow does not a summer

make. The Opinion allows courts to make dangerous

5

generalizations about the existence of a widespread

custom or policy when the evidence shows the actions of

only a few employees in a short time period. Holding public

entities liable for the actions of a few employees reverts

Monell liability back to respondeat superior.

This Court has already rejected this type of leap in

the context of a failure to train Monell claim:

We think this inference unwarranted; first,

in its assumption that the act at issue arose

from inadequate training, and second, in

its further assumption concerning the state

of mind of the municipal policymakers. But

more importantly, the inference allows a §

1983 plaintiff to establish municipal liability

without submitting proof of a single action taken

by a municipal policymaker. The foregoing

discussion of the origins of Monell ‘s “policy or

custom” requirement should make clear that,

at the least, that requirement was intended to

prevent the imposition of municipal liability

under circumstances where no wrong could

be ascribed to municipal decisionmakers.

Presumably, here the jury could draw the stated

inference even in the face of uncontradicted

evidence that the municipality scrutinized each

police applicant and met the highest training

standards imaginable. To impose liability

under those circumstances would be to impose

it simply because the municipality hired one

“bad apple.”

City of Oklahoma City v. Tuttle, 471 U.S. 808, 821 (1985).

6

The Court should grant certiorari to close the door

to the use of inferences in the custom and practice

setting as well. The published reports are replete with

cases faithfully applying Monell, but the decision below

risks injecting uncertainty into this area of the law and

undermining important federalism principles.

II. The Ninth Circuit’s decision conflicts with the

requirements in other circuits that a custom

claim provide numerous other specific instances

of similar conduct.

The Opinion’s conclusion that courts may infer a

widespread practice based on a single incident sharply

contrasts with the approach other circuits take to custom

and practice liability under Monell. For example, the

Fifth Circuit recently held that a pretrial detainee failed

to establish Monell liability by use of “[m]ere improbable

inferences and unsupported speculation” when he

submitted a log sheet from the jail facility showing the

use of a restraint chair, but the log sheet failed to provide

any context for why the chair was used. See Reynolds v.

Wood Cnty., Texas, No. 22-40381, 2023 WL 3175467, at

*6–7 (5th Cir. May 1, 2023). The Fifth Circuit explained

that proving a custom and practice claim under Monell

“requires sufficiently numerous prior incidents, as

opposed to isolated instances” and those “[p]rior incidents

must be similar and specific.” Id. at *6. Here by contrast,

the Ninth Circuit not only did not require any other

prior incidents, but its use of inferences directly conflicts

with the Fifth Circuit’s requirement that the incidents

be specific. When there are no other incidents, they are

certainly not sufficiently similar or specific under the

Fifth Circuit’s test.

7

In the Seventh Circuit, plaintiffs brought a class action

suit against the City of Chicago based on their vehicles

being towed to and impounded at “Lot 6.” Gable v. City

of Chicago, 296 F.3d 531 (7th Cir. 2002). Based on three

prior incidents in the last four years, the plaintiffs claimed

that the city had a “custom of erroneously denying to

vehicle owners that their vehicles were at Lot 6.” Id. at

538. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the lower court’s grant

of summary judgment in favor of the city. The court held,

“we have no problem concluding that of the 181,911 vehicles

that were towed to Lot 6, the three incidents where vehicle

owners were erroneously told that their vehicles were not

at Lot 6 do not amount to a persistent and widespread

practice.’” Id. at 538.

The number of jail cell safety checks at issue here

are minute in proportion to those that regularly occur

among the more than 11,000 inmates housed in LASD

facilities. Yet the Ninth Circuit determined that the six

officers’ bed checks in a single night were sufficient to

infer a widespread and pervasive policy such that Monell

liability could attach to the county. The court should grant

certiorari to emphasize that such a limited number of

alleged infractions is insufficient to establish a pattern

and practice under Monell.

Similarly, in Flores v. City of South Bend, the plaintiff

brought a Monell claim against the city alleging a policy of

encouraging police officers to drive excessively fast after

a police officer killed someone while speeding through a

red light. 997 F.3d 725 (7th Cir. 2021). The Seventh Circuit

found that plaintiff could not establish a Monell claim

based on a de facto policy of encouraging reckless driving.

The court held “[a]llegations that officers sometimes drive

8

at high rates of speed do not show a sufficiently specific

pattern of conduct to ‘support the general allegation of a

custom or policy.’ [citation omitted]. Finding otherwise

would stretch the law too far, opening municipalities to

liability for noncodified customs in all but the rarest of

occasions, as long as a plaintiff can find a few sporadic

examples of an improper behavior.” Id. at 733.

And, in the Eighth Circuit, a pretrial detainee at the

Pulaski County Regional Detention Facility in Arkansas

sued for municipal liability under Section 1983 claiming

that the County had an unofficial custom of refusing to

help him with his medical needs on a daily basis. Hall v.

Higgins, 77 F.4th 1171, 1176 (8th Cir. 2023). During his five

weeks of confinement at the jail, he had daily difficulties

accessing his bed, showering, using the restroom and

getting clean afterwards due to his bowel incontinence

and paralysis from the waist down. Id. at 1176-77. While

the jail’s medical professionals offered him care during

medical examinations, plaintiff claimed that multiple jail

staff members refused to help him on a daily basis with

bathing and cleaning himself. Id.

The Eighth Circuit affirmed summary judgment

on the 1983 claim in favor of the county. Even though

plaintiff claimed that multiple jail staff members refused

to help him on a daily basis, the court found Hall could not

establish that his “experience was the consequence of a

‘pervasive and widespread’ custom or practice at the Jail,

and his bare assertions of such a custom are insufficient

to impose municipal liability on Pulaski County.” Id. at

1180. Had the Eighth Circuit applied the Ninth Circuit’s

“inference” rule at issue here, it too may have conjectured

that a county policy was responsible for the multiple jail

9

staff members’ actions. The Hall plaintiff’s experience was

not based on one night, but on daily refusals of assistance

spanning five weeks, involving various staff members.

Still, the Eighth Circuit did not infer, and much less hold,

that these employees’ actions evidenced a widespread

policy of refusing personal care to inmates. Instead of

allowing an inference of a custom as the Ninth Circuit did,

the Eighth Circuit emphasized that the inmate’s “bare

assertions of such a custom are insufficient to impose

municipal liability” on the county. Id.

Prior to this decision, the Ninth Circuit has also held

that a few incidents are not enough to establish a custom.

See Meehan v. Los Angeles County, 856 F.2d 102 (9th

Cir.1988), holding two incidents not sufficient to establish

a custom. While this principle has been consistently

affirmed, as seen below, the Opinion invites courts to

reconsider whether a few incidents are sufficient to infer

that a widespread pattern or practice exists beyond the

evidence provided.

District courts within the Ninth Circuit also have

understood that a custom is not established based only

on a few incidents. Three examples follow, which would

have potentially different outcomes if they applied the

Opinion below.

After police shot Alfred Olango, an unarmed man, a

series of protests, rallies and vigils occurred in San Diego

and continued for several weeks. Bidwell v. County of San

Diego, 607 F. Supp. 3d 1084, 1089 (S.D. Cal. 2022), aff’d,

No. 22-55680, 2023 WL 7381462 (9th Cir. Nov. 8, 2023).

Officers declared one night’s protest of over 200 people an

unlawful assembly after hearing an agitated man state he

10

was going to get his gun. Id. Plaintiffs brought a Monell

claim against the City and County of San Diego, alleging

the entities had a “pattern and practice of declaring

peaceful assemblies to be unlawful based on their own

convenience.” Id. at 1103. As evidence of the custom,

they identified two other unrelated unlawful assembly

declarations which occurred in the subsequent days. Id. at

1103-04. The court granted the public entities’ motions for

summary judgment on the Monell claim, holding “the fact

that three unlawful assembly declarations occurred over

the span of a four-day time period during a weeks-long

demonstration of varying sizes and characteristics is not,

under Monell jurisprudence, ‘widespread,’ ‘permanent

and well-settled as to constitute a custom or usage with

the force of law,’ ‘standard operating procedure,’ or the

‘traditional method of carrying out policy.’” Id. at 1104.

In Lien v. City of San Diego, plaintiffs filed a Monell

claim against the City of San Diego alleging the city had

a policy of enforcing anti-Trump viewpoint discrimination

after the city declared an unlawful assembly and

dispersed the anti-Trump demonstrators but not the

pro-Trump group. No. 21-CV-224-MMA (WVG) 2021

WL 2072385 at *3 (S.D. Cal. May 24, 2021). To establish

the alleged discriminatory policy, plaintiffs also cited to

the city’s unlawful assembly declaration during a 2016

anti-Trump protest and an undated Women’s March. The

court dismissed the Section 1983 Monell claim, finding

“Plaintiffs’ proffered two prior incidents are insufficient

to state a plausible longstanding custom.” Id. at *5.

Similarly, in Sanderlin v. City of San Jose, plaintiffs

attempted to establish a Monell claim based on an alleged

City of San Jose policy of using excessive force against

protestors. No. 20-CV-04824-BLF 2022 WL 913055 (N.D.

11

Cal., Mar. 29, 2022). The plaintiffs had participated in

protests over several days following the killing of George

Floyd. Id. at *1. The court dismissed the Monell claim,

holding plaintiffs had “not established that the policies or

customs were ‘so persistent and widespread that [they]

constitute[ ] a permanent and well settled city policy’”

when the only evidence they provided came from the

protests which they participated in and not prior incidents.

Id. at *15.

These cases avoid trammeling on principles of

federalism by holding that alleging a few incidents is

insufficient to establish a widespread pattern and practice

such that Monell liability attaches. Yet in the wake of the

Opinion, any of these cases could have decided that the

few incidents in the record warranted an inference that an

unseen and widespread custom lurks beneath the surface.

The Opinion’s new rationale undermines the longstanding

rule that a few incidents cannot establish a widespread

custom, and sows uncertainty for localities within the

Ninth Circuit on how they can avoid custom and practice

liability. The Opinion also sharply contrasts with the

approach of the Fifth, Seventh, and Eighth Circuits and

certiorari is therefore warranted.

III. Establishing a more lenient test will impact Monell

liability in countless contexts.

The Ninth Circuit Opinion provides no parameters

as to the circumstances in which courts might infer a

widespread and permanent custom. This Court’s guidance

is needed as to when, if ever, a small amount of evidence

may be used to draw an inference of a longstanding

and widespread custom to establish Monell liability.

Otherwise, the Opinion allows courts to infer a custom

12

with limited evidence where they previously would not

have found one.

As the cases cited above indicate, that expansion of

liability will have profound effects across a wide array of

law enforcement functions. The danger is obvious in the

context of incarceration. Although the LASD jail system is

the largest in the United States, local governments operate

numerous massive jail complexes across the nation. These

include Rikers Island, New York City; Harris County,

Texas; Maricopa County, Arizona; Curran-Fromhold,

Philadelphia; Metro-West, Miami-Dade, Florida; Cook

County, Illinois; Orange County, California; and Dallas

County, Texas, each of which house many thousands

of inmates. 4 Applying the Ninth Circuit’s inferential

reasoning to actions by a minute fraction of the workforce

in a single night at these huge facilities will clearly lead to

open-ended Section 1983 litigation and liability.

The unwarranted expansion of governmental liability

in the context of jails and in the decisions cited above

are only a narrow glimpse of the types of cases that may

be set adrift from Monell’s moorings should this Court

leave intact the Ninth Circuit’s relaxation of the Monell

standard. Under the new lower standard, a court could

infer that a public entity has a widespread policy of

pushing fentanyl if a few of its “bad apple” personnel are

discovered dealing drugs. Or, courts could infer a public

entity has a custom of using excessive force against sports

fans if officers have to break up multiple riots one night

following a Super Bowl parade.

4. Doug Carlin, Top 12 Prisons in the US, USA by #umbers

(Jan. 12, 2023), https://usabynumbers.com/largest-prisons-in-theus/, (last accessed Mar. 30, 2025).

13

This Court has consistently held that plaintiffs must

establish that an alleged practice is so widespread and

“so permanent and well settled as to constitute a ‘custom

or usage’ with the force of law.” City of St. Louis v.

Praprotnik, 485 U.S. 112, 127 (1988). Leaving the Ninth

Circuit’s Opinion undisturbed would invite lower courts

to erode the “widespread policy” bedrock under Monell

to the point it crumbles entirely.

CONCLUSION

The Ninth Circuit’s decision expands municipal

liability under Monell, introducing uncertainty into the law

and undermining principles of federalism by expanding

federal oversight into local government operations. The

Court should grant certiorari and clarify this issue.

Respectfully submitted,

A manda K arras

Erich Eiselt

International Municipal

Lawyers Association

51 Monroe Street, Suite 404

Rockville, Maryland 20850

T. Peter Pierce

Counsel of Record

Sose Tezyan

Richards, Watson & Gershon

A Professional Corporation

350 S. Grand Avenue, 37th Floor

Los Angeles, California 90071

(213) 626-8484

ppierce@rwglaw.com

Jennifer Henning

California State

Association Of Counties

1100 K Street, Suite 101

Sacramento, California 95814

Counsel for Amici Curiae