Daniel Macias, et al. v. Raymond Nichols, et al.

A magistrate judge granted Riverside police officers qualified immunity on a § 1983 unlawful arrest claim, finding there was probable cause for the arrests. A divided Ninth Circuit panel reversed. The majority held that the officers lacked probable cause to believe that plaintiffs committed theft when they took a rental mattress from a rehabilitation center, because this was at most a dispute about what the rental contract allowed. The dissenting judge agreed with the magistrate that there was probable cause. On remand, a district court judge found that the lack of probable cause was clearly established and denied qualified immunity. The Ninth Circuit affirmed in a two-paragraph memorandum. It held that the law was clearly established because three prior Ninth Circuit decisions found that disputes over a bill or the right to possess “are civil in nature and ordinarily do not give rise to probable cause to arrest.” The questions presented are: 1. Whether the Ninth Circuit departed from this Court’s qualified immunity decisions by finding the officers violated a clearly-established right without acknowledging the governing standard, defining the right specifically, or identifying a case involving similar facts.