CRAIG v. PETROPULOS (2021)

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.2021-08-18No. No. 19-55324, No. 19-56188

Summary · law.co

Holding. The court affirmed the jury's $1.8 million damages award for loss of life, holding that such damages are recoverable under federal civil rights law and that the defendants' arguments had already been rejected in a controlling recent precedent.

Brandon Witt died while in the custody of the Orange County Sheriff's Department, and a jury awarded his estate $1.8 million in damages for loss of life. Defendants appealed, arguing that death itself cannot be experienced and therefore is not a compensable harm, that such awards are too speculative, and that federal civil rights law does not authorize them. The appellate court rejected these arguments, finding them foreclosed by its recent decision in Valenzuela v. City of Anaheim, which established that loss of life damages are consistent with federal civil rights law and that any conflicting state law prohibitions cannot override this conclusion.

Summary generated by law.co from the public-domain opinion. The opinion text itself is public domain.

Key issues

Whether loss of life damages are compensable in a federal civil rights action
Whether a person's inability to experience their own death defeats compensability
Whether loss of life awards are impermissibly speculative
The conflict between state law restrictions and federal civil rights remedies

Procedural posture

Defendants appealed from a jury verdict awarding compensatory damages for loss of life in a wrongful death case arising from a death in custody.

Authorities cited

No cited authorities resolved to law.co cases yet.

Opinion · public domain

MEMORANDUM ***

Nicholas Petropulos and the County of Orange (“Defendants”) appeal from a jury verdict awarding $1.8 million in “loss of life” damages to Brandon Witt, who died in the custody of the Orange County Sheriffs Department. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.

On appeal, the Defendants argue that the district court improperly awarded compensatory damages for “the loss of life experienced by” Witt. Specifically, the Defendants contend that death is not compensable because a person cannot “experience” his loss of life; such damages are inherently speculative; and loss of life awards are not authorized by Chaudhry v. City of Los Angeles, 751 F.3d 1096 (9th Cir. 2014). We recently rejected these arguments in Valenzuela v. City of Anaheim, 6 F.4th 1098, 1102–05 (9th Cir. 2021), when we upheld the jurys loss of life award and determined that California state law prohibiting such damages was “inconsistent with [42 U.S.C.] § 1983.” Valenzuela is indistinguishable from this case. As a result, we affirm the jurys $1.8 million damages award for Witts loss of life.

AFFIRMED.

I agree that the issue in this case is indistinguishable from our previous discussion of loss of life damages in Valenzuela v. City of Anaheim, 6 F.4th 1098 (9th Cir. 2021). Therefore, I respectfully dissent for the same reasons laid out in my dissent in Valenzuela.