This is great news for the people of San Fran. They are now able to sue government for incompetence, crime and corruption.
“A federal judge declined on Tuesday to dismiss a lawsuit over drug use and crime in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, finding that the city isn’t immune under state law to claims it fostered a nuisance in the notorious neighborhood.
The plaintiffs in the case are four unnamed residents of the neighborhood — along with the local Phoenix and Best Western Hotels — who claim the city is violating residents’ rights to equal protection and disability laws by allowing tents and people to crowd the sidewalks, creating a public nuisance. The residents first sued the city earlier in 2024, claiming the city treats the Tenderloin as a containment zone where it ignores drug use.
In his order Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar allowed a group of Tenderloin residents’ claims of public and private nuisance, along with those brought under the California Disabled Persons Act, to proceed, but dismissed their due process claims that the state created the drug and crowding issues plaguing the neighborhood.”
The issue is simple—government is the cause of the crime, drugs and corruption. If government was doing its job, the people would be safe. This could be a landmark case. Imagine suing government for inflation, bad roads, high cost of goods and services!!
Tenderloin residents can sue San Francisco over drug use proliferation, judge rules
A federal judge had previously ruled the city was immune to the nuisance claims by neighborhood residents.
Matt Simons, Courthousenews, 10/15/24 https://www.courthousenews.com/tenderloin-residents-can-sue-san-francisco-over-drug-use-proliferation-judge-rules/
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — A federal judge declined on Tuesday to dismiss a lawsuit over drug use and crime in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, finding that the city isn’t immune under state law to claims it fostered a nuisance in the notorious neighborhood.
The plaintiffs in the case are four unnamed residents of the neighborhood — along with the local Phoenix and Best Western Hotels — who claim the city is violating residents’ rights to equal protection and disability laws by allowing tents and people to crowd the sidewalks, creating a public nuisance. The residents first sued the city earlier in 2024, claiming the city treats the Tenderloin as a containment zone where it ignores drug use.
In his order Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar allowed a group of Tenderloin residents’ claims of public and private nuisance, along with those brought under the California Disabled Persons Act, to proceed, but dismissed their due process claims that the state created the drug and crowding issues plaguing the neighborhood.
The Barack Obama appointee said the plaintiff now properly claims city took affirmative action that created a danger for them, noting that this resolved the issues that prompted him to initially dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims in July when the residents merely claimed the city’s inaction led to the Tenderloin’s current condition.
Following the judge’s suggestions, the plaintiffs’ amended claims accuse the city of actively contributing to the Tenderloin’s drug problem, including distributing drug paraphernalia and fentanyl smoking kits to addicts living on the sidewalk. Additionally, the plaintiffs say that the city encouraged addicts to consume fentanyl at the Tenderloin Center, a temporary site in the neighborhood used to reduce overdose deaths, which led to increased narcotic use and sales in their neighborhood.
“Plaintiffs’ amended complaint, however, now alleges affirmative conduct on the part of the city,” Tigar wrote. “Thus, ‘if and when the court considers remedies, the appropriate relief may be as simple as ordering the city to cease engaging in certain activities.'”
Tigar also rejected the city’s argument that it was immune for actions taken in carrying out the Emergency Services Act because California Governor Gavin Newsom proclaimed a state emergency during the Covid-19 pandemic and San Francisco Mayor London Breed proclaimed a local emergency to address drug overdoses in the Tenderloin.
“However, as plaintiffs point out, it is not clear from the face of the complaint or the judicially noticed documents that any of the allegations which plaintiffs’ claims rest relate to either of the emergencies,” Tigar wrote.
The city had also argued in court on Thursday that providing housing, the drug paraphernalia and the street-based support in the Tenderloin could not be linked to the conditions in the neighborhood, but the judge disagreed.
Tigar determined that the plaintiffs stated a claim for private nuisance after affirming that the injuries they claimed could be related to the enjoyment of their property and the city’s actions could plausibly be a substantial factor in causing that harm. And, because the plaintiffs had enough for a private nuisance claim, the judge ruled they did not need to show any other injuries to maintain their public nuisance claim.
The plaintiffs had also brought their claims under California’s Disabled Persons Act, claiming the city denied disabled people full and equal access to the streets of the Tenderloin through their actions.
Tigar wrote that a claim under the state act may be premised on federal Americans with Disabilities Act violations — and since he had already denied the city’s previous motion to dismiss any ADA-related claims in a previous order, the residents had a sufficient claim for the state act as well.
However, Tigar sided with the city and dismissed the plaintiffs’ due process claim of a state-created danger.
“The Ninth Circuit has applied the state-created danger doctrine only in serious cases of assault, shootings, and death. Accordingly, the court agrees with the city that plaintiffs here have not alleged a harm severe enough to constitute danger,” wrote Tigar.
San Francisco has been unable to sweep the homeless encampments the residents have taken issue with without first offering immediately available shelter to the residents since December 2022, due to a federal injunction that the Ninth Circuit upheld in January.
However, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson in June, the city can resume sweeping encampments following the Ninth Circuit vacating part of the injunction.
