Timothy T. Coates

Los Angeles

Practice: appellate

Specialty: government tort liability, constitutional law, health care, tort litigation, anti-SLAPP law

Coates has been blazing quite a trail to the U.S. Supreme Court with two influential victories under his belt and a third case expected to be argued within several months.

In December, he procured a unanimous decision for Los Angeles County involving enforcement of the state Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act. Los Angeles County v. Humphries (2010) 562 U.S. _ 131 S.Ct. 447.

In response to abuse allegations, a county officer had listed two parents on the state's child abuse control index. Later the parents were exonerated and sought unsuccessfully to have their names removed from the index.

The county responded that it was only following state law and had no authority to depart from it in removing individuals from the database, Coates said.

The high court ruled that a municipality can't be subjected to declaratory or injunctive relief in a civil rights action unless the plaintiff establishes that an injury was inflicted as a result of a policy, custom or practice of the local public agency, and not simply the involvement of a municipal employee.

"It raises the bar on what plaintiffs have to show," Coates said. "It's bringing injunctive relief in line with what a plaintiff had to prove to get damages and levels the playing field. It didn't make sense to have two separate standards."

- PAT BRODERICK