United States Ninth Circuit

Summary judgment in favor of defendant police department and officers in a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 action alleging that defendant-officers violated plaintiffs' constitutional rights when they entered, without a warrant, plaintiffs' home looking for intruders, handcuffed and detained the teenage boys inside, and shot and killed the family dog, is: 1) reversed in part and remanded, where, taken in the light most favorable to plaintiffs, defendant-officers did not have probable cause to enter and search the residence for either evidence of burglary or the lesser offense of prowling, defendant Dunn was not entitled to qualified immunity because it was clearly established law as of 2009, that the warrantless search of a dwelling must be supported by either the exigency or the emergency aid exception, and defendant-officers were not entitled to qualified immunity on plaintiffs' excessive force claim and were not entitled to Nevada statutory immunity on certain state law claims for intentional infliction of emotional distress, assault and battery and false imprisonment; but 2) affirmed in part as to plaintiffs' claim for deprivation of familial association, where a separation between a father and his son for forty minutes did not shock the conscience and that the shooting of the family dog did not fall within the ambit of deprivation of a familial relationship, there was no evidence of an equal protection violation, and plaintiffs' bare-bones allegations of municipal liability were insufficient.

Appellate Information

• Decided 07/01/2014
• Published 07/01/2014

Judges

• McKEOWN

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel