John Wills, Plaintiff-appellant, v. Dean Hardy, an Individual, Defendant,andjohn Moran, Individual, Defendant-appellee, 81 F.3d 171 (9th Cir. 1996)

MEMORANDUM^** 

John Wills appeals pro se the district court's (1) dismissal pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b) (6) of his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action against his former attorney Dean Hardy, and (2) grant of summary judgment in favor of Clark County Sheriff John Moran. In his complaint, Wills asserted that his right to due process was violated when the sheriff's department improperly executed a state court judgment against Wills by serving it upon Wills's bank. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review de novo, Kruso v. International Tel. & Tel. Corp., 872 F.2d 1416, 1421 (9th Cir. 1989), cert. denied, 495 U.S. 937 (1990), and affirm.

The district court properly dismissed Wills's complaint against his former attorney Hardy because the complaint failed sufficiently to allege that Hardy either acted as a state actor, see Polk County v. Dodson, 454 U.S. 312, 319 n. 9, 325 (1981) (noting that a private attorney performing a lawyer's traditional function cannot be considered to act under color of state law), or that he engaged in a conspiracy with state actors to violate Wills's constitutional rights, see Ivey v. Board of Regents, 673 F.2d 266, 268 (9th Cir. 1982) (holding that vague and conclusory allegations are not sufficient to support a claim for civil rights violations based on conspiracy); Aldabe v. Aldabe, 616 F.2d 1089, 1092 (9th Cir. 1980) (per curiam).

The district court properly granted summary judgment in favor of defendant Moran because the undisputed evidence indicates that Moran was not personally involved in executing the state court judgment.¹  See Monell v. Dep't of Social Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 694 (1978) (holding that liability under section 1983 must be based on the personal involvement of the defendant and not on the doctrine of respondeat superior); Palmer v. Sanderson, 9 F.3d 1433, 1438 (9th Cir. 1993).² 

AFFIRMED.