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No. 10774994
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Coleman v. Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department
No. 10774994 · Decided January 15, 2026
No. 10774994·Ninth Circuit · 2026·
FlawFinder last updated this page Apr. 2, 2026
Case Details
Court
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Decided
January 15, 2026
Citation
No. 10774994
Disposition
See opinion text.
Full Opinion
NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JAN 15 2026
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
SOLOMON COLEMAN, No. 24-2939
D.C. No.
Plaintiff - Appellant, 2:20-cv-00739-JAD-BNW
v.
MEMORANDUM*
LAS VEGAS METROPOLITAN POLICE
DEPARTMENT; JOSEPH
LEPORE; CHERYL HOOTEN; BRIAN
SANTAROSSA; DONALD SHANE; R.
TENNANT; VICENTE RAMIREZ; LISA
LUZAICH,
Defendants - Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Nevada
Jennifer A. Dorsey, District Judge, Presiding
Submitted January 15, 2026**
Before: PAEZ, BENNETT, and SUNG, Circuit Judges.
This action arises from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
internal investigation of former officer Solomon Coleman (“Plaintiff”) that resulted
in his arrest and prosecution for sex-related crimes. After his acquittal on all but
one charge and the Nevada Supreme Court’s reversal of his conviction on the
remaining offense, Plaintiff brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging
that the officers and deputy district attorney involved in his investigation and
prosecution violated his constitutional rights. The district court denied Plaintiff’s
motion for summary judgment, dismissed the claims against Defendants Hooten
and Ramirez under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(m), and granted summary
judgment to the remaining Defendants on all other claims. Proceeding pro se,
Plaintiff timely appealed. We review the district court’s summary judgment de
novo, Burch v. City of Chubbuck, 146 F.4th 822, 832 (9th Cir. 2025), and affirm.
1. The district court properly dismissed the claims against Defendants
Hooten and Ramirez under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(m) because Plaintiff
did not serve them with process. Absent proper service of process, a district court
lacks personal jurisdiction over a defendant. See S.E.C. v. Ross, 504 F.3d 1130,
1138-39 (9th Cir. 2007). Accordingly, the court must dismiss claims against any
defendant not served with the summons and complaint within 90 days, unless the
plaintiff shows good cause for the failure. Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(m). Plaintiff did not
attempt to serve Hooten and Ramirez in the four years between the complaint’s
filing and the summary judgment order, and Plaintiff has not shown good cause.
2 24-2939
He argues that the initial error was his former attorneys’, and that, when he began
representing himself, he did not know that he needed to serve Hooten and Ramirez
or that he could request an extension of time to do so. But, in our system of
representative litigation, parties are bound by the acts of their lawyers. Garcia v.
I.N.S., 222 F.3d 1208, 1209 (9th Cir. 2000). Even if Plaintiff were not responsible
for his attorneys’ conduct, he did not move for an extension or attempt to serve
Hooten and Ramirez in the 18 months after opposing counsel informed him of the
requirement. And it is long-established that ignorance of Rule 4’s requirements
does not constitute “good cause” for failure to comply. Townsel v. Contra Costa
County, Cal., 820 F.2d 319, 320 (9th Cir. 1987).
2. The district court properly declined to reconsider its dismissal of
Plaintiff’s Monell claim against the Department. It is only when “execution of a
[local] government's policy or custom . . . inflicts the injury that the government as
an entity is responsible under § 1983.” Monell v. Dept. of Social Services of City of
N.Y., 436 U.S. 658, 694 (1978). Plaintiff is correct that a Monell claim may
withstand a motion to dismiss “even if the claim is based on nothing more than a
bare allegation that the individual officers’ conduct conformed to official policy,
custom, or practice.” Shah v. County of Los Angeles, 797 F.2d 743, 747 (9th
Cir.1986)). But Plaintiff’s theory of liability is that “Defendant(s) deliberately and
maliciously ignored policies, practices and procedures in an effort to violate
3 24-2939
Plaintiff’s” constitutional rights. He therefore has not made the requisite assertion
that Defendants’ allegedly violative conduct conformed to official Department
policies or practices.
Plaintiff also argues that the district court failed to provide a clear record for
appeal when it disposed of the claim during oral argument without issuing a
written order. This argument is unavailing. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 58(a),
which requires that courts set out every judgment in a written “separate document,”
applies only to final judgments, not a partial dismissal. Fed. R. Civ. P. 58(b)(C).
And the docket entry provided clear notice that the court granted the motion to
dismiss in part and that a written order would not issue.
3. The district court did not err when it determined that Defendants
Lepore and Shane were entitled to qualified immunity on the Fourth Amendment
claims arising from the search and seizure of Plaintiff’s phone because there is no
“clearly established right” to privacy in one’s personal cell phone used for work.
Summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds is improper if, viewing the
facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, the defendant violated a
constitutional right that was “clearly established” at the time of the alleged
violation. Rice v. Morehouse, 989 F.3d 1112, 1120 (9th Cir. 2021).
The Supreme Court recognized a right to privacy in one’s personal cell
phone the year after the internal investigation. See Riley v. California, 573 U.S.
4 24-2939
373, 403 (2014). Before Riley, the federal circuits were split on the issue. See
Elizabeth S. Myers, Containing Cell Phones? Restoring the Balance Between
Privacy and Government Interests in Fourth Amendment Cell Phone Searches and
Seizures, 48 SUFFOLK U. L. REV. 203, 215 (2015). Additionally, it is undisputed
that Plaintiff used his cell phone to conduct investigations as a public employee.
Under the workplace inspection exception to the Fourth Amendment, public
employees have a reduced expectation of privacy in their files, desks, and work-
issued electronic devices. O’Connor v. Ortega, 480 U.S. 709, 717 (1987)
(plurality); City of Ontario, Cal. v. Quon, 560 U.S. 746, 761 (2010). Although the
phone was Plaintiff’s personal property, he concedes that “no legal precedent
existed regarding [whether the] workplace inspection exception [applies to] an
employee’s personal device used at work.” Because the right to privacy in a
personal cell phone used for work was not clearly established at the time of the
internal investigation, the district court properly granted summary judgment to
Lepore and Shane on qualified immunity grounds.
4. The district court properly granted summary judgment to Defendants
on the judicial deception claim. For such a claim to survive summary judgment, the
plaintiff “must 1) make a substantial showing of [the officers’] deliberate falsehood
or reckless disregard for the truth and 2) establish that . . . the affidavit, once
corrected and supplemented, would not have provided a [judge] with a substantial
5 24-2939
basis for finding probable cause.” Chism v. Washington State, 661 F.3d 380, 386,
389 (9th Cir. 2011) (cleaned up). The witness’s testimony would have supplied a
sufficient basis for probable cause even if the affidavits had disclosed that she was
a former sex worker with a felony conviction. Her identification of Plaintiff and
detailed description of the incident were sufficiently reliable to establish a “fair
probability” that officers would discover evidence of the incident on his phone.
Probable cause requires nothing more. See United States v. Gourde, 440 F.3d 1065,
1069 (9th Cir. 2006). Neither the lack of additional witnesses or evidence, nor
Plaintiff’s conclusory allegation that the affidavits contained deceptive and false
statements, undermine this conclusion. See Ewing v. City of Stockton, 588 F.3d
1218, 1224-25 (9th Cir. 2009) (recognizing presumption that crime victims are
generally credible and noting that a crime victim’s testimony may be sufficient to
establish probable cause). Although Defendant Santarossa testified that, ten years
later, in light of subsequent developments, he was not certain of the witness’s
truthfulness, that testimony does not show that he doubted her truthfulness when he
sought the search warrants.
5. Our conclusion that the witness’s testimony was sufficient to establish
probable cause that Plaintiff committed a crime is also dispositive of Plaintiff’s
malicious prosecution claim against Santarossa. See Thompson v. Clark, 596 U.S.
36, 43 (2022) (“[T]he gravamen of the Fourth Amendment claim for malicious
6 24-2939
prosecution, as this Court has recognized it, is the wrongful initiation of charges
without probable cause.”).
6. The district court correctly granted summary judgment to Defendants
Lepore, Shane, Santarossa, and Tennant on Plaintiff’s claim that they violated his
due process rights by deliberately fabricating evidence. Where, as here, there is no
direct evidence of fabrication, a plaintiff must, “at a minimum, point to evidence
that . . . (1) Defendants continued their investigation of [the plaintiff] despite the
fact that they knew or should have known that he was innocent; or (2) Defendants
used investigative techniques that were so coercive and abusive that they knew or
should have known that those techniques would yield false information.”
Devereaux v. Abbey, 263 F.3d 1070, 1076 (9th Cir. 2001).
Because none of the relevant allegations relate to Lepore or Shane, they are
entitled to summary judgment on this claim. Moreover, the only purported
“coercive or abusive technique” is the search of Plaintiff’s phone, but he has not
shown that this was illegal or likely to generate false information. Additionally,
there is insufficient evidence to raise a genuine dispute that Tennant or Santarossa
believed Plaintiff was innocent at the time of the investigation. Plaintiff has not
shown that the search warrant affidavits contained material omissions or false
statements, nor does Santarossa’s recent testimony suggest that he believed the
witness’s statements were false at the time of the investigation. Even assuming
7 24-2939
Santarossa received Hooten’s email stating that the initial phone search did not
reveal evidence supporting the witness’s account, the email concerned only the
initial phone search and was sent after officers discovered evidence of other
misconduct on the phone.
AFFIRMED.
8 24-2939
Plain English Summary
NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JAN 15 2026 MOLLY C.
Key Points
01NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JAN 15 2026 MOLLY C.
02MEMORANDUM* LAS VEGAS METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPARTMENT; JOSEPH LEPORE; CHERYL HOOTEN; BRIAN SANTAROSSA; DONALD SHANE; R.
03TENNANT; VICENTE RAMIREZ; LISA LUZAICH, Defendants - Appellees.
04Dorsey, District Judge, Presiding Submitted January 15, 2026** Before: PAEZ, BENNETT, and SUNG, Circuit Judges.
Frequently Asked Questions
NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JAN 15 2026 MOLLY C.
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