Danny Lee Monts v. AARON BROWN, Dr.

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
DANNY LEE MONTS,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
AARON BROWN, Dr.; Chief Executive
Officer/Superintendent at Arizona State
Hospital; SHANDA SUE PAYNE,
Director/Manager of Facility at Arizona
Community Protection and Treatment
Center; DAVE YOUNG, Health Program
Manager at Arizona Community
Protection and Treatment Center;
ERNEST SUNJO, Resident Program
Manager at Arizona Community
Protection and Treatment Center,
Defendants,
ERIC DAVIS, Resident Program
Specialist at Arizona Community
Protection and Treatment Center,
Defendant,
MICHAEL WILEY, Resident Program
Specialist at Arizona Community
No. 20-16471
D.C. No.
2:18-cv-00754-DJH-CDB
MEMORANDUM*
FILED
JAN 5 2023
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.

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Protection and Treatment Center; PEGGY
JORGENSON, Nurse at Arizona
Community Protection and Treatment
Center,
Defendants,
UNKNOWN PARTY, named as John
Doe; Clinical Director at Arizona
Community Protection and Treatment
Center,
Defendant,
ARIZONA COMMUNITY
PROTECTION AND TREATMENT
CENTER,
Defendant,
and
SHAUN G. ANDERSON, Resident
Program Manager at Arizona Community
Protection and Treatment Center,
Defendant-Appellee,
ADAM Z. GRIFFITHS, Resident Program
Specialist at Arizona Community
Protection and Treatment Center,
Defendant-Appellee,
EDDIE DEL CASTILLO, Campus
Support/Security Tech at Arizona
Community Protection and Treatment
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Center,
Defendant-Appellee,
RODNEY WASHINGTON,
Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Arizona
Diane J. Humetewa, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted November 17, 2022
Phoenix, Arizona
Before: BYBEE, OWENS, and COLLINS, Circuit Judges.
Danny Lee Monts is a resident of the Arizona Community Protection and
Treatment Center (ACPTC); Appellees are ACPTC staff members. Monts appeals
the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Appellees on his
excessive force claim. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and review a
district court’s summary judgment rulings de novo. Planet Aid, Inc. v. Reveal, 44
F.4th 918, 923 (9th Cir. 2022). We reverse and remand.
1. In granting summary judgment on Monts’s excessive force claim, the
district court concluded that Monts had failed to provide sufficient evidence to
support his claim that Griffiths struck him while he was restrained. To survive a
summary judgment motion, “the non-moving party must come forth with evidence
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from which a jury could reasonably render a verdict in the non-moving party’s
favor.” In re Oracle Sec. Litig., 627 F.3d 376, 387 (9th Cir. 2010).
Monts supported his claim with declarations from three other ACPTC
residents. Two of those residents were eye witnesses to the alleged assault. The
district court gave no credit to these declarations or Monts’s own statements for
two reasons: (1) Monts’s evidence was internally contradictory and (2) Monts’s
evidence was contradicted by a forensic report prepared by Appellees’ expert
witness. Neither rationale supports rejection of Monts’s evidence at summary
judgment.
The contradictions between Monts’s accounts of the alleged assault and
those detailed in the residents’ declarations are immaterial. They do not render
Monts’s evidence unbelievable to a rational jury. See Dominguez-Curry v. Nev.
Transp. Dep’t, 424 F.3d 1027, 1035–36 (9th Cir. 2005) (discussing how credibility
determinations are “exclusively within the province of the factfinder at trial, not
the district court on summary judgment”). Although the evidence differs in some
specifics, Monts’s own testimony and that of his declarants are consistent on the
core issue: that Griffiths struck Monts two or more times after he was restrained.
Likewise, Appellees’ forensic report does not resolve the genuine disputes of
material fact raised by Monts’s evidence. A jury could reasonably choose to
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believe Monts’s evidence rather than the forensic report’s post-hoc analysis. See
United States v. Finley, 301 F.3d 1000, 1016 (9th Cir. 2002) (“[A] jury is free to
reject [an expert’s] testimony.”). Moreover, the report does not preclude the
possibility that Monts’s injuries were caused—at least in part—by punches to the
face. Thus, even if a jury chose to credit the forensic report, it would not be
obligated to find in Appellees’ favor.
2. Having concluded that Monts provided sufficient evidence to support
his claim that Griffiths struck him while he was restrained, we turn to whether such
conduct would violate Monts’s constitutional rights. Excessive force claims
brought by those who have been civilly committed are governed by the Fourteenth
Amendment. See Hydrick v. Hunter, 500 F.3d 978, 997 (9th Cir. 2007), vacated
and remanded on other grounds, 556 U.S. 1256 (2009). A state actor violates an
individual’s Fourteenth Amendment rights by “purposely or knowingly” using a
level of force that is “objectively unreasonable.” Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 576
U.S. 389, 397 (2015).
Crediting Monts’s telling of events, Griffiths used intermediate force against
him—multiple punches to the face—despite the fact that Monts was restrained by
several other staff members. Intermediate force “present[s] a significant intrusion
upon an individual’s liberty interests.” Coles v. Eagle, 704 F.3d 624, 628 (9th Cir.
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2012) (quoting Young v. Cnty. of L.A., 655 F.3d 1156, 1161–62 (9th Cir. 2011)).
Use of such force against an individual whose conduct “indicates no threat,
immediate or otherwise, to . . . others” is objectively unreasonable. Young, 655
F.3d at 1165. Based on the record before us, a jury could reasonably conclude that
whatever threat Monts presented to others was neutralized when staff apprehended
him, and that Griffiths’s conduct therefore constituted excessive force. See Smith
v. City of Hemet, 394 F.3d 689, 703 (9th Cir. 2005) (en banc) (denying summary
judgment on an excessive force claim where a reasonable jury could conclude that
the “totality of force used” unreasonably exceeded what was needed to overcome
the detainee’s resistance).
3. Appellees argue that qualified immunity protects Griffiths, but they
have tied their qualified immunity arguments on appeal to their telling of the facts.
In their answering brief, Appellees do not claim that qualified immunity would
apply if Griffiths did, in fact, punch Monts while he was restrained. Because we
find that a reasonable jury could believe Monts’s version of events, Appellees’
qualified immunity argument fails.
We REVERSE the district court’s grant of summary judgment on Monts’s
excessive force claim arising out of Griffiths’s alleged use of force against Monts
after Monts was restrained and REMAND for further proceedings.
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