United States Ninth Circuit

Summary judgment in favor of defendant-county in an action brought under 42 U.S.C. section 1983 and the Americans with Disabilities Act alleging police officers violated plaintiff’s rights when they entered her residence without a warrant and shot her after she threatened them with a knife, is: 1) affirmed in part, where the officers were justified in entering plaintiff's home initially under the emergency aid exception, and the district court properly rejected plaintiff's claims of municipal liability; but 2) reversed in part and remanded, where a jury could find that the officers acted unreasonably by forcing a second entry into plaintiff's residence and provoking a near-fatal confrontation, plaintiff presented a triable issue of the unreasonable use of deadly force under a provocation theory, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act applies to arrests and on the facts presented in this case, and there was a triable issue whether the officers failed to reasonably accommodate plaintiff's disability when they forced their way back into her room without taking her mental illness into account or employing generally accepted police practices for peaceably resolving a confrontation with a person with mental illness.

Appellate Information

• Decided 02/21/2014
• Published 02/21/2014

Judges

• FISHER

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel