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Shelton v. City of Manhattan Beach9/28/2004
nvestigation was explained by plaintiff's unavailability for an interview. At the time of trial, plaintiff's lengthy refusal to submit to an interview may be dispositive. But at the summary judgment stage, it is not dispositive. At present, there is a triable issue of material fact whether the investigation of plaintiff's internal complaint was prompt and appropriate under the circumstances.
Plaintiff's August 22, 2001, complaint was not assigned to a lieutenant for investigation until eight days after it was first submitted to Chief Klevesahl. No action was taken to stop Officers Eccles and Sellan from making harassing and discriminatory statements about plaintiff during that time. Moreover, close to a month elapsed before Officers Eccles and Sellan were advised of plaintiff's August 22, 2001, complaint and were ordered to cease their alleged offending conduct. Defendants were on notice during this time period that Officers Eccles and Sellan allegedly continued to comment inappropriately about plaintiff and his internal complaint. There is also evidence Officers Eccles and Sellan ignored the order to cease discussing plaintiff's sexual orientation and his internal complaint and that, moreover, no further steps were taken to compel their compliance. Chief Klevesahl reassigned the investigation to a second lieutenant on October 24, 2001, two months after the August 22, 2001, complaint was submitted. At the time of the reassignment to the second lieutenant, Chief Klevesahl admitted that the matter had already "hung on much too long . . . ." No witnesses were interviewed until November 27, 2001, more than three months after plaintiff submitted his August 22, 2001, internal complaint. Officers Eccles and Sellan were not interviewed until February 21, 2002, and March 7, 2002, respectively. No effort was made to interview plaintiff until April 2002, eight months after his internal complaint was filed. Captain Marshall could recall only one other investigation that had taken as long to complete. This is sufficient evidence of the city's failure to take reasonable steps necessary to prevent the misconduct from continuing and to conduct a prompt investigation appropriate under the circumstances to raise a triable issue.
C. Summary Adjudication of Issues
As noted above, the trial court, in addition to granting a summary judgment in favor of the defendants, also granted each of their 13 requests for summary adjudication. On appeal, the parties have not specifically addressed defendants' thirteen summary adjudication requests. We conclude, however, that the foregoing analysis disposes of those issues. Accordingly, the summary adjudication order will be reversed.
IV. DISPOSITION
The judgment in favor of defendants, the City of Manhattan Beach, Chief of Police Ernest M. Klevesahl, Jr., Eric Eccles, and Donovan Sellan, is reversed. The summary adjudication orders are reversed. Plaintiff,
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