Wige v. City of Los Angeles, No. 10-56515 (9th Cir. 2013)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff sued several police officers and their employer, the City of Los Angeles, for false arrest, false imprisonment, and malicious prosecution. Plaintiff was charged with attempted murder and was eventually acquitted. At issue was whether plaintiff's action was barred by the doctrine of issue preclusion. The court concluded that plaintiff raised a genuine dispute as to whether an officer fabricated evidence at the preliminary hearing by falsely testifying that the victim had identified plaintiff as the shooter. That alleged fabrication plainly met the materiality threshold for defeating summary judgment on the merits. In this case, the state court never purported to find either that the officer's testimony was credible or that the victim's testimony was not. Accordingly, plaintiff was not barred by the doctrine of issue preclusion and, therefore, the court reversed and remanded.
Court Description: Civil Rights. Reversing the district court’s summary judgment and remanding, the panel held that issue preclusion did not bar a plaintiff from bringing a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action for false arrest, false imprisonment, and malicious prosecution. The panel held that even though at a state court preliminary hearing, a magistrate had found probable cause to believe that plaintiff committed attempted murder, plaintiff raised a genuine dispute in his § 1983 action as to whether the lead detective on the case fabricated evidence by falsely testifying at the hearing that the victim had identified plaintiff as the shooter. The panel held that the identity-of-issues requirement for issue preclusion was not met because the evidence available and known to the detective was different from the evidence presented to the court at the preliminary hearing. At the preliminary hearing, the state court determined only that a reasonable person could have believed the detective. It did not (and did not have to) decide whether the detective should be believed. Because that was the issue that plaintiff sought to litigate in his § 1983 action, he was not barred by the doctrine of issue preclusion from doing so.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.