Silvia Fletes v. CITY OF SAN DIEGO, DBA San Diego Police Department;

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
SILVIA FLETES,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
CITY OF SAN DIEGO, DBA San Diego
Police Department; et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
No. 15-56622
D.C. No.
3:13-cv-02279-JAH-JMA
MEMORANDUM*
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of California
John A. Houston, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted April 7, 2017
Pasadena, California
Before: M. SMITH and N.R. SMITH, Circuit Judges, and FEINERMAN, District
Judge.**
Silvia Fletes sued the City of San Diego and several police officers for
violations of her Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights under 42 U.S.C.
FILED
APR 19 2017
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
** The Honorable Gary Feinerman for the Northern District of Illinois,
sitting by designation.

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§ 1983, and several state-law violations. The district court granted summary
judgment in favor of Defendants with respect to each of Fletes’s claims, and Fletes
now appeals. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.
1. The district court did not err in dismissing Fletes’s Fourth
Amendment claim, because Fletes was not seized. See U.S. Const. amend. IV. “In
the context of a police shooting, [a person] is seized if . . . she is the object of the
officer’s shot; that is, if the officer intentionally targeted the [person].” Arruda ex
rel. Arruda v. Cty. of Los Angeles, 373 F. App’x 798, 799 (9th Cir. 2010); United
States v. Lockett, 919 F.2d 585, 590 n.4 (9th Cir. 1990). The officers unequivocally
testified that the driver of the car—and not Fletes—was the intended object of their
shots, and there is no evidence in the record to the contrary. Moreover, even if the
officers had seized Fletes, the officers’ use of force was “objectively reasonable”
under the circumstances. See Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 397 (1989).
2. The district court properly granted the Defendants’ motion for
summary judgment on Fletes’s Fourteenth Amendment claim. Fletes failed to state
a viable claim under the Fourteenth Amendment, because she did not produce
evidence that the officers acted with a “purpose to cause harm unrelated to the
legitimate” law enforcement objective. Cty. of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833,
836 (1998); Bingue v. Prunchak, 512 F.3d 1169, 1177 (9th Cir. 2008).
2

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3. The district court properly dismissed Fletes’s state law assault and
battery claim, because the officers’ use of force in firing shots at the driver of the
car was reasonable under the circumstances.1 See Edson v. City of Anaheim, 74
Cal. Rptr. 2d 614, 615-16 (Cal. Ct. App. 1998) (holding a “plaintiff must prove
unreasonable force to make even a prima facie showing of battery”).
4. The district court properly dismissed Fletes’s state law false
imprisonment claim, because there is no evidence the officers acted with an intent
to confine Fletes. See Fermino v. Fedco, Inc., 872 P.2d 559, 567 (Cal. 1994) (In
Banc) (stating false imprisonment requires an “intent to confine, or to create a
similar intrusion”).
5. The district court properly dismissed Fletes’s state law intentional
infliction of emotional distress (“IIED”) claim, because the officers’ conduct was
not outrageous. See Wong v. Tai Jing, 117 Cal. Rptr. 3d 747, 768 n.7 (Cal. Ct. App.
2010) (noting that, to state a claim of IIED under California law, “a plaintiff must
prove, among other things, that the defendant’s alleged conduct was outrageous,
which means conduct so extreme and outrageous as to go beyond all possible
1 On appeal, Fletes also alleges battery on the ground that an officer dragged
her out of the car by her hair. The facts alleged in Fletes’s complaint do not support
this allegation. Thus, we consider only whether the district court properly
dismissed the claim of battery based on the officers’ shots.
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bounds of decency, and to be regarded as atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a
civilized community”) (quotation marks, alteration, and citation omitted).
6. The district court properly dismissed Fletes’s California Civil Code
section 52.1(b) claim, because she did not demonstrate that her state or federal
constitutional rights were violated. See Cal. Civ. Code § 52.1(b) (stating a person
whose state or constitutional rights “ha[ve] been interfered with, or attempted to be
interfered with,” can bring an action against the alleged perpetrator).
AFFIRMED.
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