Background
Azusa police officers responded to reports that Adrian Rios was acting erratically, referring to gunfire, and possibly armed. Although no officer saw him with a weapon, Rios did not comply with commands to get on the ground. While taking him into custody, officers used a Taser twice and punched, kicked, or otherwise struck him at least 24 times. Rios suffered severe brain damage and remains in a persistent vegetative state.
Rios and his two children sued the City of Azusa, Los Angeles County, seven officers, and a paramedic under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, state tort law, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. During discovery, plaintiffs disclosed apartment resident Michael Brown as a witness shortly before discovery closed. Brown declared that Rios appeared to obey the officers’ command to lie down, did not resist or threaten them, and was repeatedly kicked while defenseless.
The defendants moved to strike Brown’s declaration under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(c)(1), arguing that plaintiffs had disclosed him too late, and sought summary judgment based partly on qualified immunity. The district court declined to strike the declaration, finding that plaintiffs disclosed Brown promptly after learning he had witnessed the incident, and stated that it would extend the discovery deadline if defendants wished to depose him. The court then found factual disputes and denied summary judgment on the excessive-force claim and certain state-law and ADA claims.
The Court’s Holding
The Ninth Circuit dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction. Under Johnson v. Jones, an appellate court hearing an interlocutory qualified-immunity appeal may decide whether assumed facts establish a violation of clearly established law, but it may not review a district court’s determination that the pretrial evidence is sufficient to create a genuine factual dispute.
The defendants did not argue that they were entitled to qualified immunity if Brown’s declaration remained in the summary-judgment record. Their argument instead depended on excluding that declaration as a discovery sanction. The panel held that this presented an unreviewable evidence-sufficiency issue, while the underlying discovery ruling was itself nonfinal and not immediately appealable.
Pendent appellate jurisdiction did not supply jurisdiction. Because there was no properly appealable qualified-immunity ruling to review, no pendent claim could attach to it. The court therefore also lacked interlocutory jurisdiction over the district court’s denial of summary judgment on the remaining claims and dismissed the appeal in its entirety.
Key Takeaways
- An interlocutory qualified-immunity appeal cannot be used to challenge which evidence belongs in the summary-judgment record.
- A Rule 37 ruling declining to exclude a late-disclosed witness is not independently appealable as a final decision.
- Pendent appellate jurisdiction cannot attach when the court lacks jurisdiction over the asserted qualified-immunity appeal itself.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces the narrow scope of interlocutory appellate review in qualified-immunity cases. Officials may raise legal arguments based on the facts assumed by the district court, but they generally cannot obtain immediate review of disputes over evidentiary sufficiency or discovery sanctions.
For litigators, the framing of the appeal is critical: a challenge that requires removing evidence from the record remains a factual or evidentiary dispute, even when characterized as an abuse-of-discretion argument under Rule 37.