Michael Riportella, Michele Lansing v. County of Los Angeles
Published: Sep. 14, 2004 | Result Date: Jun. 14, 2004 | Filing Date: Jan. 1, 1900 |Case number: CV037071 Bench Decision – $0
Facts
On Oct. 1, 2003, the plaintiffs Riportella and Lansing filed a complaint seeking injunctive relief under 42 U.S.C. sections 1983 and 1985. The plaintiffs filed a complaint seeking injunctive relief against the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department for failure to enforce child custody proceedings. The plaintiffs argued that the sheriff's department had a policy of refusing to enforce such orders and that such policy violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment. The plaintiffs went on to argue that one of the reasons of refusing to enforce such orders was to manipulate crime statistics in the Santa Clarita Valley. On Feb. 9, 2004, the county filed a motion to dismiss the second amended complaint. The county moved to dismiss the complaint on the ground that since both plaintiffs had recovered their children, their claims were moot. The court found that Michael Riportella's claim was moot because his ex-spouse was incarcerated with an unknown release date and therefore the plaintiffs could not demonstrate that she had a reasonable expectation that she would violate the terms of the custody orders in the future. The court further noted that the defendant's conduct would not evade review if the situation were to ever happen again in that the plaintiffs have the option of seeking expedited injunctive relief through an application for a temporary restraining order.
Result
The court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss the plaintiffs' second amended complaint.
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