[00:00:01] Speaker 04:
The last case, the last case on our docket for today is American ground transportation.

[00:00:16] Speaker 04:
American ground transportation.

[00:00:19] Speaker 04:
And you're from a power.

[00:00:33] Speaker 03:
Yes, yes.

[00:00:45] Speaker 03:
Good afternoon, Your Honor.

[00:00:47] Speaker 03:
Mary Ann Cazelle on behalf of Appellant American Ground Transportation, or AGT.

[00:00:53] Speaker 03:
And I would like to reserve four minutes for about this.

[00:00:56] Speaker 04:
Yeah, please watch the clock and try to take care of that.

[00:01:03] Speaker 04:
But if you forget and we remember, we'll try to remind you.

[00:01:10] Speaker 03:
Thank you, Your Honor.

[00:01:11] Speaker 03:
Good afternoon and may it please the court.

[00:01:15] Speaker 03:
This is a case of justice delayed is justice denied.

[00:01:20] Speaker 03:
My client AGT has been trying since 2012 on successive what we call RFPs or request for production.

[00:01:29] Speaker 03:
I'm sorry request for ah anyway an RFP is a request to secure

[00:01:41] Speaker 03:
I'm sorry.

[00:01:43] Speaker 03:
And anyway, to be able to operate taxicabs in the city of Anaheim.

[00:01:49] Speaker 03:
And by the way, we've just said Anaheim here, but it's actually Anaheim and all the other individually named defendants.

[00:01:56] Speaker 03:
So

[00:01:57] Speaker 03:
I know the courts got plenty of timeline information, and I'll be glad to answer any questions about that.

[00:02:05] Speaker 03:
But I kind of wanted to fast forward to the timeline that's set forth in the answering brief.

[00:02:13] Speaker 03:
In particular, as to this one aspect, because it's very important, Anaheim has said that my client was denied leave to amend the complaint

[00:02:26] Speaker 03:
in the year 2021.

[00:02:28] Speaker 03:
And that's wrong.

[00:02:33] Speaker 03:
Procedurally, what happened was in 2017, my client was allowed to file a supplemental complaint in the underlying Orange County Superior Court case when Judge Schulte was presiding.

[00:02:45] Speaker 03:
And it did do that, adding the seventh cause of action, which was the 1983 claim.

[00:02:53] Speaker 03:
And then Judge Schulte dismissed that cause of action.

[00:02:58] Speaker 03:
However, the Court of Appeal resurrected it.

[00:03:02] Speaker 03:
It overturned the dismissal of that seventh cause of action.

[00:03:06] Speaker 03:
And that's what effectively is at issue here, that and the new one in the district court.

[00:03:14] Speaker 03:
So the reason this is so important is that Anaheim has argued repeatedly that my client didn't have the right to proceed in the 1983 action and therefore the Judge Salter decision in 2021

[00:03:32] Speaker 03:
dismissing the seventh cause of action as unwarranted or unauthorized was wrong.

[00:03:42] Speaker 03:
So it was not unauthorized.

[00:03:46] Speaker 03:
I'm sorry.

[00:03:46] Speaker 00:
That's okay.

[00:03:47] Speaker 00:
So Council, is part of your 1983 allegation

[00:03:53] Speaker 00:
that you were denied rights, your client was denied rights guaranteed to them by the federal constitution because the reason, the result in the 2020-ish RFP was what it was, was because the defendants discriminated against you based on anti-Greek bias.

[00:04:21] Speaker 00:
Is that part of your allegation?

[00:04:24] Speaker 03:
It's only directly, Your Honor.

[00:04:26] Speaker 03:
Those allegations were put there for background material.

[00:04:30] Speaker 00:
So are you saying you are not making a claim based on that you were discriminated against, your client was discriminated against based on national origin?

[00:04:43] Speaker 03:
No, I'm not saying that, so let me clarify.

[00:04:46] Speaker 03:
That is a claim, but it's only part of our 1983 claim.

[00:04:52] Speaker 00:
OK, so let me focus on that part of your 1983 claim.

[00:04:59] Speaker 00:
What admissible evidence of unconstitutional bias in the decision making did you present to the district court, and where is it in the record?

[00:05:14] Speaker 03:
In the record, we did introduce information about the successor company, which was South Coast Cab, which I understand is older.

[00:05:26] Speaker 03:
And then other than that,

[00:05:27] Speaker 03:
the introduction of the evidence really went to the violation of constitutional, the fifth and especially the 14th amendments, the due process clause, and especially the substantive due process clause.

[00:05:42] Speaker 00:
Well, with regard to the bias, which is what this question goes to, anti-Greek bias, bias allegedly based on national origin.

[00:05:52] Speaker 00:
Can you point me to anything in the record before the district court that is admissible evidence that shows a tribal issue of fact as to whether anything that was done in that last RFP was based on national origin bias?

[00:06:15] Speaker 03:
All right.

[00:06:16] Speaker 03:
The last RFP, Your Honor, I think you're referring to the one issued in 2020?

[00:06:21] Speaker 00:
Yes.

[00:06:22] Speaker 03:
Oh, OK, not directly as to the 2021.

[00:06:26] Speaker 03:
However, I disagree that the RFP at issue is only the 2021.

[00:06:32] Speaker 00:
OK, I understand that, but that's what I'm asking about.

[00:06:38] Speaker 03:
I see.

[00:06:38] Speaker 03:
In the 2021, no.

[00:06:40] Speaker 03:
It's just really the history.

[00:06:42] Speaker 00:
OK, thank you.

[00:06:44] Speaker 04:
Thank you, Your Honor.

[00:06:46] Speaker 04:
Counsel, I have a question for you.

[00:06:49] Speaker 04:
I know there was some evidence about discrimination decades ago against the predecessor company.

[00:07:01] Speaker 04:
But my question is, was there any evidence at all?

[00:07:08] Speaker 04:
And this may be similar to

[00:07:13] Speaker 04:
There's been this question that anti-Greek bias played a role in the evaluation of the RFP.

[00:07:27] Speaker 03:
It would only be circumstantial evidence, Your Honor, based on the fact that every time the application in response to the RFPs was scored, there were mistakes.

[00:07:40] Speaker 03:
I mean, my client was held

[00:07:43] Speaker 03:
was downgraded because of, for example, Cabco, a competitor company, the other one now operating in Anaheim, had a manager that was not qualified and then that would show up in the scoring for my client saying, oh, this guy wasn't qualified.

[00:08:01] Speaker 03:
Those kinds of things happened all the time and it's well known and I think that we did document and allege in the verified

[00:08:11] Speaker 03:
petition complaint in the 2020 case in the district court that was removed to the district court that this was apparent because it was an ongoing thing that they knew this is the same family.

[00:08:25] Speaker 03:
It's the same Rodita's family where the father Savas was told, you'll never get a license here, go back to Greece.

[00:08:33] Speaker 00:
Yeah, but Council, going to that, what the allegation is is that

[00:08:40] Speaker 00:
decades ago the father was approached by an unnamed Anaheim code enforcement officer and what is there any evidence that that who that person was that that person was still even employed by Anaheim in 2020 or that that person whoever it was played any role in the RFP?

[00:09:04] Speaker 03:
Yes, from the earlier cases, it was Richard La Rochelle and he was one of the code enforcement managers.

[00:09:12] Speaker 03:
He was still employed at the time of the trial with that South Coast Cab case.

[00:09:17] Speaker 03:
I do not believe that he's still employed with Anaheim now.

[00:09:21] Speaker 01:
Was he involved in the 2020 RFP process that he was decision maker?

[00:09:27] Speaker 03:
I don't believe so.

[00:09:30] Speaker 04:
So, and I don't- You say that there's circumstantial evidence of discrimination.

[00:09:38] Speaker 04:
Say for example, someone pointing out some minor error in your papers.

[00:09:48] Speaker 04:
What's the full range of circumstantial evidence you cite?

[00:09:53] Speaker 04:
Because I think the Supreme Court has told us that circumstantial evidence

[00:10:00] Speaker 04:
can have as much weight as direct evidence about discrimination.

[00:10:05] Speaker 04:
So I'd say take your best shot.

[00:10:08] Speaker 03:
OK.

[00:10:09] Speaker 03:
And thank you, Your Honor.

[00:10:10] Speaker 03:
And while doing so, I also want to tie this into the other violations of Section 1983.

[00:10:17] Speaker 03:
We think, in particular, substantive due process under the 14th Amendment.

[00:10:23] Speaker 03:
I don't believe that we have to establish

[00:10:26] Speaker 03:
racial bias in order to advance that claim.

[00:10:29] Speaker 03:
And anyway, yes, it's in an ongoing unfair and very hard-handed view of everything that AGT submitted in 2012.

[00:10:42] Speaker 03:
that the court in 2016 held that actually that RFP was not done correctly because there had been a request for a rehearing by CABCO.

[00:10:52] Speaker 03:
And then when reheard, no new evidence was allowed, and that was overturned in 2016.

[00:11:01] Speaker 03:
Also, Anaheim didn't grant American ground transportation's request for a rehearing, which was appropriate, timely, and so forth.

[00:11:08] Speaker 03:
CABCO's was not.

[00:11:10] Speaker 03:
And then in 2016,

[00:11:12] Speaker 03:
The court held that Anaheim had acted unconstitutionally and made certain orders.

[00:11:20] Speaker 03:
And then in 2016, Anaheim didn't do what it was supposed to do.

[00:11:24] Speaker 03:
It didn't issue a new RFP.

[00:11:27] Speaker 03:
And that was found to be illegal by the Court of Appeal in 2020.

[00:11:31] Speaker 03:
And then the Court of Appeal said, yes, please issue a new.

[00:11:35] Speaker 03:
I know I'm about to run out of time on direct here.

[00:11:39] Speaker 03:
and a new RFP for those 50 permits, and then Anaheim didn't do it.

[00:11:44] Speaker 03:
Instead, it waited.

[00:11:45] Speaker 03:
It waited until Yellow Cab went out of business, and it knew it was going to go out of business.

[00:11:50] Speaker 03:
And then it amalgamated all of these things.

[00:11:53] Speaker 03:
And then the 50 permits it eventually got were pretty useless.

[00:11:58] Speaker 03:
Also, I'm sorry, your judgment.

[00:12:00] Speaker 00:
No, no, go ahead, Chancellor.

[00:12:01] Speaker 00:
Please finish your answer.

[00:12:03] Speaker 03:
OK.

[00:12:05] Speaker 03:
By the time

[00:12:07] Speaker 03:
And as of 2012 through 2016, they were fairly useless because of the advent

[00:12:21] Speaker 03:
even 2018, you know, those were still very valuable, and my client lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[00:12:28] Speaker 03:
And I would like to go ahead.

[00:12:30] Speaker 00:
Council, with regard to your discussion today of substantive due process, your friend's answering brief says, on appeal, AGT raises new theories and claims, in particular, violations of procedural and substantive due process and equal protection, but these

[00:12:51] Speaker 00:
theories and claims should have been raised in the district court.

[00:12:57] Speaker 00:
Did you address in the district court claims for procedural and substantive due process and equal protection?

[00:13:05] Speaker 03:
Yes, yes.

[00:13:07] Speaker 03:
Though in a particular, in the verified petition slash complaint that was removed, there are all of the, there were four causes of action then because of the state court.

[00:13:19] Speaker 03:
And the fourth one was the one named the 1983 claim.

[00:13:24] Speaker 03:
And it incorporated all of the earlier causes of action.

[00:13:28] Speaker 03:
And that includes, of course, the cause of action for, let's see, I think it's the second one.

[00:13:37] Speaker 03:
In the declaratory relief cause of action, which was eventually dismissed as a pendant claim, there are also the constitutional violations referenced there.

[00:13:49] Speaker 03:
And that's incorporated into the fourth cause of action.

[00:13:52] Speaker 03:
And the entire petition incorporates that supplemental complaint from the 2017 Superior Court action.

[00:14:05] Speaker 00:
Thank you, counsel.

[00:14:06] Speaker 03:
Thank you.

[00:14:07] Speaker 03:
I have more to say, but I think I ought to reserve.

[00:14:09] Speaker 03:
Thank you.

[00:14:15] Speaker 02:
Your honors may please the court.

[00:14:17] Speaker 02:
First of all, I'd like to thank the court for carrying on with these hearings at a time that must be extremely difficult for all of you, including your court staff.

[00:14:24] Speaker 02:
I know this must be tough, and I wish all of you nothing but good news moving forward.

[00:14:29] Speaker 02:
My name is Robert Fabella, City Attorney for the City of Anaheim.

[00:14:32] Speaker 02:
I prepared for this argument with fresh eyes, as both my prior attorneys from my office who were handling this case have moved on.

[00:14:40] Speaker 02:
But in doing that, I've concluded that this is actually a pretty simple case that happens to have a very confusing history.

[00:14:51] Speaker 02:
What AGT is actually challenging is simple.

[00:14:54] Speaker 02:
I believe it was picked up by by Judge Bennett.

[00:14:57] Speaker 02:
The Anaheim City Council's decision in 2020 to issue AGT 50 taxicab franchise permits instead of the 100 it requested at the time.

[00:15:06] Speaker 02:
That's what is challenging.

[00:15:08] Speaker 02:
The legal issue is relatively simple.

[00:15:10] Speaker 02:
Is there anything in the record that could support AGT's position that there's a question of material fact?

[00:15:16] Speaker 00:
Before you get to that, Council,

[00:15:20] Speaker 00:
I took your answering brief as pretty forthright on the point I'm about to inquire about.

[00:15:27] Speaker 00:
But as I read the district court's order, the district court dismissed the entire complaint based on the statute of limitations.

[00:15:38] Speaker 00:
Would you agree with me that the statute of limitations could not be a valid basis for dismissing the portion of the complaint that challenges the 2020

[00:15:50] Speaker 00:
RFP process?

[00:15:55] Speaker 02:
Well, I mean, it's, first of all, it did not challenge the entire, it did not dismiss the entire complaint, just the section 1983 and asked the plaintiff to.

[00:16:04] Speaker 00:
Yes, I agree, for the part that it was dealing with, yes.

[00:16:08] Speaker 02:
So what it did is it looked at what the evidence was underlying their allegation.

[00:16:14] Speaker 02:
And the only thing that has been proposed, as the court has mentioned, is a statement made, allegedly made, in the late 1990s by a code enforcement officer.

[00:16:26] Speaker 02:
based on that evidence, not just the allegations, but based on the evidence, the court concluded that there's no way that this could withstand a challenge on a statute of limitations grounds.

[00:16:36] Speaker 00:
Well, but that, I mean, I don't see how that can be.

[00:16:39] Speaker 00:
I mean, the complaint could hypothetically be 100% meritless.

[00:16:46] Speaker 00:
But that can't mean that if someone is saying, I'm challenging the 2020

[00:16:52] Speaker 00:
RFP, but I'm relying on evidence that occurred in 2017 that the challenge to a 2020 act could be untimely if you file the complaint within two years.

[00:17:09] Speaker 00:
I can understand how it can be totally meritless, but I can't understand how the statute of limitations could bar something challenging a 2020 act if the suit is filed, say, in 2021.

[00:17:22] Speaker 02:
Yeah, I mean, I guess if that's the only evidence they have, and I believe the court can conclude that, then I think you can reasonably conclude that it's barred by the statute of limitations.

[00:17:35] Speaker 02:
But even if it's not, Your Honor, and I get where you're going with this, it still doesn't mean that they've met their burden to show that they have any evidence to support their Section 1983 claim, which is the alternative

[00:17:47] Speaker 02:
ground that the appellant, the appellee raised below.

[00:17:52] Speaker 00:
Whether you... It certainly is a ground I think you raised below.

[00:17:56] Speaker 00:
But I mean, and this, we're reviewing the record de novo, but I don't see that's the basis on which the district court ruled.

[00:18:07] Speaker 02:
I understand your position, Your Honor, and I don't think it's too much of a jump to say.

[00:18:12] Speaker 02:
Then what is the legal significance of the fact that they're only relying on this statement from the late 1990s and no really further other circumstantial or direct evidence from that?

[00:18:23] Speaker 02:
And I think it's fair to say that they have not therefore met their burden of showing that there's a material issue of fact.

[00:18:31] Speaker 02:
that requires further scrutiny in this case, because that's all they have, Your Honor.

[00:18:38] Speaker 02:
They have tried to paint this as a bigger, confusing picture where everything's interrelated, but that's just simply not the case.

[00:18:48] Speaker 02:
They haven't been able to show anything other than that statement, by the way, was never proven, but regardless, it was from the late 1990s, to show that this was a case that should move forward.

[00:19:00] Speaker 02:
And I should say, you know, I know the appellant is now currently saying that this case goes beyond just racial bias, but that's not what their complaint says.

[00:19:12] Speaker 02:
Their Section I can E3 claim is based on racial bias.

[00:19:17] Speaker 02:
That's what their moving papers or their opposing papers said below.

[00:19:20] Speaker 02:
And when we raise this in our answering brief,

[00:19:25] Speaker 02:
In their response, they did not really challenge the fact that they had raised it below.

[00:19:29] Speaker 02:
They basically glossed over that and went to determining whether or not they could raise new issues on this appeal.

[00:19:37] Speaker 02:
So that really is the basis of their Section 1983 claim.

[00:19:42] Speaker 02:
They didn't raise it with the district court.

[00:19:45] Speaker 02:
It's not part of their complaint.

[00:19:47] Speaker 02:
And frankly, regardless, even if this court were to consider it, the issue of procedural due process or substantive process has really been disposed of.

[00:19:59] Speaker 02:
This was disposed of in the earlier Superior Court case where the

[00:20:04] Speaker 02:
city's actions of combining this with the yellow cab franchises was challenged, and it was found to be appropriate for the city to have done it that way, not once, but twice.

[00:20:18] Speaker 02:
So yes, if the court feels it more necessary to look at this as sort of an evidentiary case rather than a statute of limitations, that's fine.

[00:20:26] Speaker 02:
I think either one of them disposes of this case.

[00:20:30] Speaker 02:
I do want to also point out, I'm not sure, I believe that the appellant has raised the question of some sort of issue preservation from the Orange County Superior Court's order from the prior case, where it essentially said that it recognized the appellant's pursuit of the Section 1983 claim in the current case, made it easier for the court to not allow them to amend that earlier Superior Court case, but it did not protect their 1983 claim from attack.

[00:21:00] Speaker 02:
I believe the line from the Superior Court was that because it appears that plaintiff has filed a separate cause of action for such damages in a separate complaint, it does not appear that the plaintiff is prejudiced by striking of the Section 1983 claim here.

[00:21:16] Speaker 02:
The court absolutely made no attempt to rule on the merits of the 1983 camp claim and I think

[00:21:21] Speaker 02:
We address it well.

[00:21:23] Speaker 02:
My predecessor, Mr. Maya, addresses it well in our brief.

[00:21:27] Speaker 02:
We deem it to be AGT mistakenly believing that one sentence preserves something like a guarantee that AGT's Section 1983 claim will proceed to trial unhindered by the usual mechanisms for ferreting out unmeritorious claims or the need to provide enough evidence in support of his claims to demonstrate the existence of a genuine issue of material fact.

[00:21:50] Speaker 02:
Your honors, I asked this court to reject Appellants New Section 19E33's on appeal.

[00:21:57] Speaker 02:
I asked that they deem their case to have not met its standard of proof at this stage of the litigation.

[00:22:04] Speaker 02:
And frankly, your honors, this is a case where I know Ms.

[00:22:09] Speaker 02:
Cassell, my friend, has indicated that they have not had a chance to have justice in this case.

[00:22:16] Speaker 02:
They've been litigating portions of this process for nearly two decades.

[00:22:21] Speaker 02:
They've had some wins, they've had some losses.

[00:22:24] Speaker 02:
They've had some recent attempts to get exactly the number of franchise permits that it requested in 2022.

[00:22:32] Speaker 02:
And we don't believe that AGT should be allowed another attempt, another bite at the apple, if you will.

[00:22:41] Speaker 02:
And in fact, AGT's decades-long quest for more taxis in Anaheim has left no more apple to bite their hunters.

[00:22:48] Speaker 02:
The apple's at its core and we feel it needs this case should be should be thrown out as the Tristan Court did.

[00:22:55] Speaker 02:
So unless there are any questions, happy to cede my time and submit.

[00:23:02] Speaker 04:
Thank you.

[00:23:04] Speaker 04:
I have no questions about Judge Bennett and Judge Lee.

[00:23:07] Speaker 04:
No.

[00:23:09] Speaker 04:
No questions.

[00:23:11] Speaker 04:
Thank you for your argument.

[00:23:16] Speaker 04:
appellant I think has some time for a bottle.

[00:23:28] Speaker 00:
I don't think your microphone's on.

[00:23:31] Speaker 03:
I'm sorry.

[00:23:32] Speaker 03:
Thank you, Judge Goldin and Judge Minnan.

[00:23:35] Speaker 03:
My client has never had one bite of the apple.

[00:23:38] Speaker 03:
Court, the State Court, when it dismissed as unauthorized that seventh cause of action, what more could it have meant by adding that verbiage, which I call the savings clause, quote unquote, but that, okay, well that already is listed in the writ case that's now

[00:23:56] Speaker 03:
with the district court, that's all it could have meant.

[00:24:00] Speaker 03:
And the difference here is that the state law of immunities is not subject to a 1983 action.

[00:24:08] Speaker 03:
Here we have, or available I should say, so there are not immunities.

[00:24:12] Speaker 03:
So the state court got rid of the other claims on the grounds, excuse me, of immunities, but it stopped short of saying that, oh well,

[00:24:23] Speaker 03:
the city's immune from 1983.

[00:24:26] Speaker 03:
So what it did was it said, I'm going to dismiss that as unauthorized.

[00:24:30] Speaker 03:
We know that was not appropriate because the law of the case, the story of the ceases, and all these things that the city has raised is of the Superior Tribunal, which was the Court of Appeal, which resurrected that claim.

[00:24:44] Speaker 03:
So there's a continuum of timeline from 2012, from 2013 when the action was first filed, and it was

[00:24:53] Speaker 03:
On time, the statute of limitations was met all along the way.

[00:24:57] Speaker 03:
We disagree that this particular claim in the district court is limited to the 2020 RFP.

[00:25:03] Speaker 03:
It's not.

[00:25:04] Speaker 03:
It definitely incorporates by reference the prior proceedings.

[00:25:08] Speaker 03:
It states that.

[00:25:09] Speaker 03:
And in our separate statement response, we do make reference to the constitutional issues, the other ones, due process and equal protection.

[00:25:20] Speaker 03:
And in our five

[00:25:22] Speaker 03:
additional statements of genuine issues.

[00:25:26] Speaker 03:
Three of those five go to that other issues.

[00:25:28] Speaker 03:
This was not new.

[00:25:30] Speaker 03:
So bias was one really more like a background and more implicit kind of claim, but there were also claims for the denial of especially substantive due process.

[00:25:40] Speaker 03:
And so we would ask that the court reverse and remand this case so that my client has an option at least to be able to have it stay in court.

[00:25:50] Speaker 03:
Thank you.

[00:25:52] Speaker 04:
Thank you, counsel.

[00:25:55] Speaker 04:
This case shall be submitted now.

[00:25:59] Speaker 04:
I think that concludes our arguments for today.

[00:26:05] Speaker 04:
I want to thank counsel on the last case.

[00:26:12] Speaker 04:
on both sides for their strong arguments.

[00:26:17] Speaker 04:
We appreciate it.

[00:26:18] Speaker 04:
That case is now submitted and the parties will hear from us in due course.

[00:26:26] Speaker 04:
The panel will now adjourn its argument session for today.

[00:26:34] Speaker 03:
This court for this session stands adjourned.