PATEL v. CITY OF LONG BEACH (2019)

MEMORANDUM *

Plaintiffs-Appellants Jayantibhai Patel, et al. (“Plaintiffs”) filed suit in district court in 2008 alleging that Defendant-Respondent City of Long Beach violated their state law and constitutional rights in proceedings surrounding and including revocation of their business license. In 2009, the district court dismissed Plaintiffs’ federal claims and declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ state law claims. In the first appeal, our Court reversed as to Plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment claim, and asked the district court to consider the effect of this reversal on the state law claims. Patel v. City of Long Beach, 564 F. App'x 881, 881–82 (9th Cir. 2014). The district court then ruled that there was “no basis for reinstating” the state law claims in federal court. After the parties settled the Fourth Amendment claim, Plaintiffs appealed the district court’s refusal to reinstate the state law claim for writ of mandate.

We conclude that the district court had ample discretion to decline jurisdiction over the state law claim for writ of mandate. We affirm on the basis that, as of the time of the district court’s declination of supplemental jurisdiction, Plaintiffs’ state law claims substantially predominated over their only non-dismissed federal claim. See 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(2). The remaining Fourth Amendment claim was “a slender reed on which to base jurisdiction.” Patel v. Penman, 103 F.3d 868, 877–78 (9th Cir. 1996), overruled in part on other grounds as recognized by Nitco Holding Corp. v. Boujikian, 491 F.3d 1086 (9th Cir. 2007). There remained significant work to be done by the court and the parties to resolve Plaintiffs’ state law claims, that work would not overlap significantly with what was required to resolve the narrow Fourth Amendment damages issue, it was not unfair to the parties to require the state law claims to be litigated in state court, and comity weighed against exercise of supplemental jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ administrative review claim against a local government. See United Mine Workers of Am. v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 726, 86 S.Ct. 1130, 16 L.Ed.2d 218 (1966). Thus, the district court’s action was plainly appropriate under section (c)(2).

AFFIRMED.