Adame v. Surprise, City of

1 WO [5] 6 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 7 FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA [8] 9 Maria Adame, et al., No. CV-17-03200-PHX-GMS 10 Plaintiffs, ORDER 11 v. 12 City of Surprise, et al., 13 Defendants. [15] 16 Pending before the Court is Defendant City of Surprise’s (“Defendant”) Motion for 17 Remand to State Court. (Doc. 133.) For the following reasons, the Motion to Remand is 18 denied. 19 BACKGROUND 20 This action concerns the death of Derek Adame, who was fatally shot by City of 21 Surprise Police Officer Joseph Gruver. Plaintiffs brought suit in state court on August 9, 22 2017, and Defendants removed the matter to this Court on September 15, 2017. (Doc-1-1); 23 (Doc. 1). On December 18, 2017, Plaintiffs filed their First Amended Complaint, which 24 included claims pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §1983 alleging Fourth Amendment unreasonable 25 seizure, excessive force, and violation of Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process 26 against Officer Gruver and the City of Surprise, a state law wrongful death claim against 27 the City of Surprise, and a § 1981 discrimination claim against Officer Gruver and the City. 28 (Doc. 26). Pursuant to the rulings of this Court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the 1 only remaining claim is a wrongful death claim against the City of Surprise based on an 2 intentional shooting of decedent Derek Adame. Defendant now moves to remand the 3 remaining state law claim to state court. 4 DISCUSSION 5 I. Legal Standard 6 “Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction.” Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. 7 Co. of Am., 511 U.S. 375, 377 (1994). “A district court’s decision whether to exercise 8 [supplemental] jurisdiction after dismissing every claim over which it had original 9 jurisdiction is purely discretionary.” Carlsbad Tech., Inc. v. HIF Bio, Inc., 556 U.S. 635 , 10 639 (2009). The relevant federal statute provides that: 11 The district courts may decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over a 12 claim under subsection (a) if— 13 (1) the claim raises a novel or complex issue of State law, 14 (2) the claim substantially predominates over the claim or claims over 15 which the district court has original jurisdiction, 16 (3) the district court has dismissed all claims over which it has original 17 jurisdiction, or 18 (4) in exceptional circumstances, there are other compelling reasons 19 for declining jurisdiction. [20] 28 U.S.C. § 1367 (c) (emphasis added). In evaluating these factors, courts are guided by 21 “considerations of judicial economy, convenience and fairness to litigants.” United Mine 22 Workers of Am. v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 726 (1966). “In the usual case in which all federal23 law claims are eliminated before trial, the balance of factors to be considered under the 24 pendent jurisdiction doctrine—judicial economy, convenience, fairness, and comity—will 25 point toward declining to exercise jurisdiction over the remaining state-law claims.” 26 Sanford v. MemberWorks, Inc., 625 F.3d 550, 561 (9th Cir. 2010) (alteration omitted). 27 II. Analysis 28 Here, the balance of the relevant factors weighs in favor of continuing to exercise 1 jurisdiction over this case. Although all claims over which the court had original 2 jurisdiction have been dismissed, judicial economy, convenience, and fairness weigh in 3 favor of the continued exercise of supplemental jurisdiction over the state law claim. The 4 case has been pending in this court since September 2017, (Doc. 1), and this Court has 5 ruled on motions to dismiss, (Doc. 55), and a motion for summary judgment, (Doc. 108). 6 Moreover, the parties completed discovery in 2018 and passed the dispositive motion 7 deadline in 2019. (Doc. 42.) Accordingly, judicial economy and convenience favor the 8 resolution of this case in this Court. See Gofron v. Picsel Techs., Inc., 804 F. Supp. 2d 9 1030, 1045 (N.D. Cal.2011) (holding convenience and judicial economy factors weighed 10 against remand when the case had reached the discovery deadlines); Wright v. Thrifty 11 Payless, Inc., No. 2:13-CV-01681-KJM, 2015 WL 128130 , at *2 (E.D. Cal. Jan. 8, 2015) 12 (continuing to exercise supplemental jurisdiction after the federal claim had been dismissed 13 where the court had already ruled on a motion to dismiss and the discovery deadlines set 14 by the court had expired). 15 Finally, there is no complex or novel issue of state law which weighs in favor of 16 remand. Defendants assert, based on the Arizona Supreme Court’s 2018 Ryan v. Napier 17 decision, that “[t]he novel or complex question of state law here is whether a municipality 18 can ever be held liable for an intentional, officer-involved-shooting where there is no 19 evidence of propensity for the officer to unlawfully use deadly force.” Ryan v. Napier, 245 20 Ariz. 54 , 425 P.3d 230 (2018); (Doc. 133 at 5). The holding in Ryan, however, directly 21 addresses Defendant’s proposed novel issue. The Arizona Supreme Court explained: “a 22 public entity, like the Pima County Sheriff's Office, is immune from liability for damages 23 caused by an employee’s felony act unless the entity knew of the employee's propensity to 24 commit such acts.” Ryan, 245 Ariz. at 61, 425 P.3d at 237 . As Defendant’s asserted 25 question has been answered, no novel issue of law weighs in favor or remand. 26 Judicial economy, convenience, and fairness thus weigh in favor of continuing to 27 exercise jurisdiction over this case. [28] 1 CONCLUSION 2 Accordingly, for the reasons stated above, the court declines to remand the case to 3 || state court. 4 IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Defendant’s Motion to Remand to State Court (Doc. 133) is DENIED. 6 Dated this 28th day of January, 2021. Wars ) A Whacrsay Sooo) 9 Chief United states District Judge [28] -4-