Years of litigation and appeals have paid off for San Diego County, which has won a major victory in the case of a sheriff’s deputy who beat a handcuffed man and sicced a police dog on him as he complied with officers’ orders.
Related Articles
California school officials say video shows immigration agents urinating in public view; Homeland Security investigating
California city pays $1.2 million to settle another Police Department sexual misconduct lawsuit
Muslim women’s head coverings were forcibly removed by jailers after California protest, lawsuit alleges
In prison, ex-East Bay cop enjoyed coveted firefighter role. Now he can use it to dismiss his felony
What are the civil grand jury accusations against San Mateo County’s sheriff?
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the $5 million in damages that a San Diego federal jury awarded to Mickail Myles in 2022, saying the award for his injuries and emotional distress should instead be capped at $1.5 million.
“There was little evidence of lasting physical injury to Myles,” the appellate judges wrote in the ruling issued May 12. “He did not suffer any permanent impairment from the dog bite apart from some small scars.
“Myles does not have a reduced physical or intellectual capacity,” they added.
The three-judge panel also did away with a ruling that ordered the county to pay Myles’ legal team almost $6 million.
“Defendants argue that the district court abused its discretion by granting $5,837,820 in attorneys’ fees,” the ruling said. “Because we remand to the district court on the issue of Myles’ damages, we vacate the grant of attorneys’ fees as a matter of course.”
The 9th Circuit ruling marks a rare courtroom victory for San Diego County and its Sheriff’s Office, which have been plagued by negligence and misconduct claims that have cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in recent years.
The Sheriff’s Office also has a documented history of stopping and questioning people of color more often than White people. Myles is Black.
County officials said the ruling validated arguments made by their legal team.
“The 9th Circuit’s careful analysis of the issues in this matter found several prejudicial errors prevented the county from having a fair trial and also found these errors increased the damages awarded to plaintiff,” the statement said.
“The county continues working with the court and plaintiff to determine whether the case can be resolved or will be retried on the issue of damages,” it added.
Lawyers for Myles — who left San Diego County more than two years ago, after he said he was repeatedly pulled over and questioned by deputies — called the decision a win because it upheld the jury’s finding of misconduct.
Mickail Myles, who formerly taught preschool at Camp Pendleton, won a $5 million jury award after being beaten by a San Diego sheriff’s deputy and bitten by his dog. (Courtesy of Dicks & Workman Attorneys at Law)
“I don’t believe it was an adverse ruling; it was a huge victory for civil rights and public safety in San Diego County, holding a department accountable under the highest standards,” attorney Daniel Balaban said. “We are proud to shine a light on the county’s failure to investigate a known predatory deputy who had a long history of abusing minorities.”
Balaban said cases like this one were not all about the money.
“Would we have liked the jury’s award upheld? Absolutely,” he said. “But the main thing was holding that department to account, and we did that loud and clear.”
The ruling awards Myles the right to retry the case, but only as far as damages may be concerned. The jury finding in October 2022 that the county was responsible for Myles’ injuries is no longer in dispute.
Any damages must be capped at $1.5 million, the 9th Circuit ruling said.
“Because we lack objective evidence of Myles’ emotional damages, we set an upper limit to the district court’s remittitur amount,” the judges said a footnote in the 11-page decision.
Myles was a 26-year-old preschool teacher who had just picked up his brother from a roller rink when he was pulled over in Fallbrook in 2014 by deputies looking for a group of teens wanted for playing “doorbell ditch,” court records show.
He was cooperating with deputies — while handcuffed — when then-Deputy Jeremy Banks arrived at the scene. Banks clocked Myles in the head and sicced his dog on the restrained driver, according to trial evidence.
The Belgian Malinois named Bubo, which had a history of aggressive behavior, repeatedly bit Myles around the torso.
Witnesses told deputies that Myles was not one of the teenaged suspects, but Banks arrested him anyway on suspicion of resisting an officer. The District Attorney’s Office never filed criminal charges against Myles.
Myles sued the county and Banks in 2015, and the case finally went to trial in 2022.
Several deputies at the scene in 2014 provided sworn testimony that Myles had been cooperating with their demands at the time Banks struck him about the head and sent the dog after him.
Even so, the county argued that the use of force was appropriate.
Myles’ lawyer subsequently learned that Banks had racked up at least 17 accusations of excessive force and that his dog had previously been shown to be overly aggressive.
The trial judge concluded that lawyers for San Diego County failed to turn over evidence to the plaintiff, and that the improper withholding of records had “effectively hogtied” their efforts to defend motions filed by the defendants.
“The court finds that upon review of the record, it is clear that defendants have acted in bad faith in not producing discovery,” U.S. District Court Judge John Houston said from the bench.
The judge relied in part on that finding when he awarded the plaintiff’s lawyers nearly $6 million in fees.
But the appeals judges said the fees were too high, given the jury award was vacated. They also challenged some of Myles’ lawyers’ time calculations and hourly rates and said the trial judge wrongly applied a 1.3 multiplier due to county lawyers’ actions.
“The district court may have found defendants’ behavior objectionable, but the district court had other remedies at its disposal to deter inappropriate attorney conduct such as monetary and discovery sanctions,” the judges wrote.
After a hearing June 18, Judge Houston laid out a schedule for upcoming motions related to a pending remittitur — the legal term for a proceeding aimed at revising an excessive jury award.
The plaintiff’s lawyers must submit their motion by Aug. 1, with a response from the county due by Aug. 18. Legal fees will be debated once a damages award is reached.