In Cornell v. City and County of San Francisco, published November 16, 2017 and modified November 17, 2017, the First District Court of Appeal, Division 4, affirmed a jury verdict in favor of an off-duty trainee police officer who sued San Francisco and four police officers for the plaintiff's arrest and detention in jail, and the subsequent loss of the officer's job. While the plaintiff was jogging in a park during daylight hours, in plainclothes, officers approached him in a police car because the area was a high-crime one and the officer looked "clean cut" like a parolee. The plaintiff saw the car, decided not to get involved with the car, and continued his run. The officers pursued him. Eventually, an officer stood behind him, drew his gun, and made a disputed statement which included the phrase, "I will shoot you." The plaintiff believed that he was being attacked and ran. Eventually officers stopped him, arrested him, and brought him to a station for detention. They discovered that he was a trainee police officer. He complained of illness, and was taken for medical attention. Officers planted a recording device near his bed. After six hours in detention, he was released. An arresting officer issued him a citation for violation of Penal Code section 148(a), for resisting or delaying an officer. Due to the arrest and detention, the plaintiff was fired, effectively ending his law enforcement career. After receiving jury responses to factual questions, the trial court ruled that the defendant officers did not have reasonable suspicion to detain the plaintiff and that he was arrested without probable cause. The jury then returned a verdict in the plaintiff's favor on his causes of action for tortious interference with contract or economic advantage, and violation of Civil Code section 52.1 (the Bane Act).
The appellate court upheld the ruling that the officers lacked reasonable suspicion to detain the plaintiff. Because the officers were acting unlawfully in attempting to detain him, and Penal Code section 148(a) bars only interference with lawful police conduct, the officers lacked probable cause to arrest him.
The court rejected the defendants' theory (based upon legal scholars' commentary) that Penal Code section 847(b), which immunizes officers from false arrest/imprisonment liability if the arrest was lawful or the officer has reasonable cause to believe it is lawful, creates the state law equivalent of federal law qualified immunity for false arrest. Analyzing the statute and its history, the court concluded that the statute is phrased in the disjunctive to immunize officers for arrests for reasonable cause when the officers learn facts before arraignment that destroy the belief upon which the officer's reasonable cause was based.
The court also rejected an argument that the trial court should not have submitted the Bane Act claim to the jury, because the plaintiff had not proven that the officers committed an act of violence, intimidation, or coercion apart from the arrest itself. That interpretation of the Bane Act arose out the Shoyoye v. County of Los Angeles (2012) 203 Cal.App.4th 947 case, which dealt with an unlawful detention after an arrest with probable cause, and subsequent cases. The court held that Shoyoye's interpretation of the Bane Act does not apply when the initial arrest of the plaintiff lacks probable cause. Where an unlawful arrest is properly pleaded and proved, the egregiousness required by the Bane Act is present if the arresting officer had a specific intent to violate the arrestee's right to freedom from unreasonable seizure. That specific intent was shown here by evidence that once the officers discovered their error in arresting the plaintiff, they "doubled-down" by detaining him and issuing him the citation that ended his career.