In Reed v. Lieurance, published July 24, 2017, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed summary judgment, dismissal, and judgment as a matter of law in the defendants' favor in a case alleging wrongful arrest in violation of the 4th and 1st Amendments. The plaintiff, a volunteer with an environmental group, was observing an interagency operation herding buffalo into Yellowstone National Park. Two weeks before, evidence the group had gathered had been used as evidence in a federal environmental lawsuit concerning the herding efforts. The plaintiff was in a vehicle parked on a highway adjacent to the park. A Montana state agent told the plaintiff to move. He moved the vehicle to another location. A defendant sheriff's deputy cited the plaintiff for obstructing a peace officer, a misdemeanor. The plaintiff and the deputy disagreed over whether the plaintiff had a right to park where he was. The deputy told the plaintiff he would be arrested if he did not move farther away. The plaintiff moved where instructed. Other members of the public were allowed to observe the herding from fifty yards away. There were multiple disputes of fact as to where the agent told the plaintiff to move, whether the plaintiff followed those instructions, and whether the plaintiff was in an area the buffalo might enter. The plaintiff sued under 42 U.S.C. section 1983, alleging violation of his 4th and 1st Amendment rights. The district court granted the defendants summary judgment on the plaintiff's unreasonable seizure claim, and sua sponte dismissed his failure-to-train claim. After a jury trial, the district court granted judgment as a matter of law on the 1st Amendment claims.
The 9th Circuit ruled that the district court had erred in granting summary judgment on the 4th Amendment unreasonable seizure claims and the 1st Amendment claims. In light of the multiple issues of fact on what occurred, and whether the plaintiff had the specific intent necessary to establish an interference offense, the district court could not rule that as a matter of law the officers had probable cause to arrest the plaintiff, or that the arrest did not unreasonably interfere with his 1st Amendment rights to observe the buffalo herding from a public place. The district court also erred in dismissing the failure-to-train claim sua sponte without providing the plaintiff with proper notice of its grounds for doing so.
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