UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT ANTHONY PEREZ; CECILIA No. 22-15546 PEREZ; TERRALEE PEREZ, individually and as successor in D.C. No. interest to Joseph Perez; JOSEPH 1:18-cv-00127- PEREZ, Jr., individually and as AWI-EPG successor in interest to Joseph Perez; MICHELLE PEREZ, individually and as successor in interest to Joseph OPINION Perez,

Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CITY OF FRESNO; COUNTY OF FRESNO; JAMES ROSSETTI; SEAN CALVERT; CHRIS MARTINEZ; BRAITHAN STOLTENBERG; ROBERT MCEWEN; KARLSON MANASAN; JIMMY ROBNETT; AMERICAN AMBULANCE; MORGAN ANDERSON,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California Anthony W. Ishii, District Judge, Presiding 2 PEREZ V. CITY OF FRESNO

Argued and Submitted September 11, 2023 San Francisco, California

Filed April 15, 2024 Before: Danny J. Boggs, * Sidney R. Thomas, and Danielle J. Forrest, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Forrest; Partial Concurrence and Partial Dissent by Judge S.R. Thomas

SUMMARY **

Civil Rights/Deadly Force/Qualified Immunity

The panel affirmed the district court’s summary judgment for the City and County of Fresno, individual law- enforcement officers, and a paramedic in an action brought by the family of Joseph Perez, who asphyxiated and died after the officers, at the direction of the paramedic, used their body weight to restrain Perez while he was prone in order to strap him to a backboard for hospital transport. The panel held that the law-enforcement officers were entitled to qualified immunity. At the time of Perez’s death in 2017, the law did not clearly establish, nor was it * The Honorable Danny J. Boggs, United States Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, sitting by designation. ** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader. PEREZ V. CITY OF FRESNO 3

otherwise obvious, that the officers’ actions—pressing on a backboard on top of a prone individual being restrained for medical transport, at the direction of a paramedic working to provide medical care—would be unconstitutional. The panel next held that the paramedic involved was entitled to qualified immunity because the law did not clearly establish at the time that a paramedic acting in a medical capacity to restrain a person in order to secure the person for medical transport could be held liable for a constitutional violation under either the Fourth or Fourteenth Amendment. Finally, the panel held that the district court properly dismissed plaintiffs’ Monell claims because plaintiffs presented insufficient evidence that the City and the County were deliberately indifferent to their duty to properly train their law-enforcement officers. Concurring in part and dissenting in part, Judge S.R. Thomas concurred in the majority’s analysis of the paramedic liability and failure-to-train claims. However, he disagreed with the conclusion that the law governing the conduct of the individual law-enforcement defendants was not clearly established in 2017. Extensive federal case law, departmental guidance, and common sense gave the officers fair warning that applying continuous force to the back of a prone person who claims he cannot breathe is constitutionally excessive. 4 PEREZ V. CITY OF FRESNO

COUNSEL Thomas C. Seabaugh (argued), The Law Office of Thomas C. Seabaugh, Los Angeles, California; John C. Taylor and Neil K. Gehlawat, Taylor & Ring LLP, Manhattan Beach, California; David M. Shapiro, Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center, Northwe