Yury Kolesnikov and Geoffrey Plowden Defeat RICO Claim in California District Court

San Diego Partner Yury A. Kolesnikov and Los Angeles Partner Geoffrey R. Plowden recently secured a significant victory for the City of Santa Monica and its Deputy City Attorney in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. Plaintiff had previously unsuccessfully sued the City of Santa Monica in state and federal courts with regard to an alleged wrist injury that he sustained during his arrest for alleged domestic violence. He then commenced this federal court action, alleging several grievances stemming from the revocation of his medical license in 2017 and the aforementioned arrest in 2019.
 
In the present lawsuit, Plaintiff alleged that a number of governmental entities and officers, including multiple jurists on the state and federal benches, were part of a wide-ranging RICO conspiracy to deprive Plaintiff of his medical license and to retaliate against him. RICO, or the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, is a federal law which enhances criminal penalties and creates new causes of action to target organized criminal activity and racketeering. Defendants moved to dismiss all of Plaintiff’s claims.
 
The Magistrate Judge found that the complaint’s “fanciful allegations defy plausibility” and observed that prosecutorial immunity applied to bar any state-law claims against the City of Santa Monica, given that this is exactly the scenario envisioned by the relevant statute — “an aggrieved individual harassing public officials with a frivolous lawsuit.” The Magistrate Judge thus rejected all of Plaintiff’s allegations, recommending that the Court grant Defendants’ motion to dismiss in full. The District Court ultimately adopted the Magistrate Judge’s report and recommendation in its entirety, and dismissed with prejudice all of the claims asserted against the City of Santa Monica and its Deputy City Attorney. 

About Our Team

Yury A. Kolesnikov is a member of the Appellate Law (Strategy, Writs, & Appeals) team. He has substantial appellate experience in both federal and state courts. He has been the principal brief writer in more than 30 appeals, including before the Ninth Circuit, California Supreme Court, Delaware Supreme Court, and Missouri Supreme Court, and has argued 18 appeals, including in the Ninth Circuit (including before the court sitting en banc), Delaware Supreme Court, and multiple state intermediate appellate courts.
 
Geoffrey R. Plowden is a member of the Governmental Entity Liability team. Prior to joining Manning Kass, he worked for 22 years as senior trial counsel for the Los Angeles Police Department, serving as a deputy city attorney with the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office. Mr. Plowden has tried a large number of high-profile and complex cases in both the Los Angeles Superior Courts and the United States District Courts, and has lectured at seminars in the areas of law enforcement and municipal liability.