Court Upholds Constitutionality of California False Complaint Statute

Grievance Committee Article Selection

Court Upholds Constitutionality of California False Complaint Statute

From:

Dona Loshonkohl, a veteran police officer with the City of San Diego Police Department, was responsible for establishing good community relations as part of the Department's community oriented policing program.

Part of this program, called the "Problem Oriented Policy" (POP) program, focused on designing solutions to alleviate specific problems within a community.

James M. Kinder operated a car rental and several other businesses in San Diego. After a confrontation with Kinder on August 14, 1998, Loshonkohl obtained approval for a POP project to deal with problems near Kinder's businesses, including problems with abandoned vehicles, parking, creating a neighborhood eyesore and code violations. The POP project focused on Kinder's businesses and at least six other businesses in the area. During the course of the POP project, Kinder aggressively confronted Loshonkohl on a number of occasions and by the project's conclusion, officers impounded and towed a total of 41 vehicles, 16 of which belonged to Kinder.

Kinder filed 20 complaints with the Department regarding Loshonkohl's actions, which he stated were for the purpose of "revenge." The Department individually reviewed, evaluated and investigated 18 complaints; two were treated as "inquiries" because Kinder refused to respond to questions about the complaints. Except where Kinder refused to cooperate, the complaints were determined to be "unfounded," "not sustained" or Loshonkohl was "exonerated."

In September 1998, Loshonkohl filed a lawsuit against Kinder, contending the pattern of false complaints amounted to defamation of character. When a trial court ruled in Loshonkohl's favor, awarding damages of $350,000, Kinder appealed, contending that California's "false complaint" statute was an unconstitutional breach of his free speech rights.

The law in question allows peace officers to bring defamation claims against those who file complaints against them for "misconduct, criminal conduct, or incompetence" with their employers if the complaint is knowingly false and made with "spite, hatred, or ill will." The California Court of Appeals found that the law was constitutional.

Basing its decision in large measure on a recent decision from the California Supreme Court, the Appeals Court found ample justification for the law. The Court rejected the argument that the "false complaints" statute impermissibly applies to only a group of victims and that a realistic possibility exists that the law would suppress truthful citizen complaints. The Court reasoned that the "false complaints" statute "makes actionable only formal complaints against peace officers based on knowingly false statements of fact, speech that is constitutionally unprotected. The scienter requirement protects witnesses who honestly misperceive facts. Those who knowingly give false information to police officers should be discouraged from doing so."

The Court also found that the "false complaints" statute "provides an additional safeguard, that the speech must be made with spite, hatred, or ill will. This extra requirement exceeds the standards enunciated by the United States Supreme Court for the recovery of defamation damages by public officials. Thus, the potential for defamation liability under the statute creates no realistic possibility of the official suppression of ideas because the Legislature is not suppressing all complaints of police misconduct, only knowingly false ones."

Loshonkokl v. Kinder, 2003 WL 21295842 (Cal. App. 2003).

Comments about this article from the 2003 Grievance Committee Chairman, Richard Ozuna:

The California statute protects public servants from knowingly false statements and/or complaints. The constitutional issue is simple. Public service professionals have rights too. This is truly a novel idea. Why don’t we try something like this in San Antonio? How about a system where the person complaining must swear out a complaint before it is forwarded to a full investigation? How about a system where there is actual support of the public servant and not the assumption that we are all guilty until proven innocent? How about a system where the person doing the investigation actually knows how to do an investigation? These are truly revolutionary ideas.

Copyright © 2003 San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association. Copies or excerpts of this publication may be made and distributed in any medium, provided that "Local 624", the author's name, this Internet address remain intact. Separate permission must be obtained from the original author(s) for articles and objects used herein from outside sources.