9th Circuit upholds dismissal of homeless woman's challenge to Monterey anti-camping ordinances, citing Supreme Court's…
Wills v. City of Monterey
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9th Circuit upholds dismissal of homeless woman's challenge to Monterey anti-camping ordinances, citing Supreme Court's 2024 Grants Pass ruling that such laws don't violate the 8th Amendment.
Why it matters
The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of Cynthia Wills's lawsuit challenging the City of Monterey's anti-camping ordinances. The court held that the Supreme Court's 2024 decision in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson foreclosed her Eighth Amendment cruel and unusual punishment claim, because that ruling established that enforcing generally applicable anti-camping laws against unhoused individuals is not cruel and unusual punishment. The court also rejected her attempt to add an Excessive Fines Clause claim, finding it futile because she had never actually been fined under the ordinances.
Who it affects
This ruling most directly affects unhoused individuals who challenge anti-camping ordinances under the Eighth Amendment, as it confirms such claims are foreclosed after Grants Pass. It also affects cities and municipalities in the Ninth Circuit, reinforcing their legal authority to enforce generally applicable anti-camping laws.
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Decision issued Jul 20, 2026
Unpublished opinion
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- Decision issued Jul 20, 2026Unpublished opinion
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Jul 20, 2026 · Unpublished opinion
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Cynthia Wills sued the City of Monterey and several related defendants, challenging the city's anti-camping ordinances under the Eighth Amendment's Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause. The district court granted judgment on the pleadings in favor of the city, and Wills appealed to the Ninth Circuit, arguing both that the legal ruling was wrong and that several procedural decisions during the case were improper. On the core legal question, the Ninth Circuit agreed with the district court. The Supreme Court's 2024 decision in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson directly controlled the outcome. That decision held that enforcing generally applicable anti-camping ordinances against unhoused people does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. The Ninth Circuit noted that Monterey's ordinances apply to anyone camping in prohibited areas, not just homeless individuals, and that the lower courts are obligated to follow Supreme Court precedent once it has been established. The Grants Pass decision also overruled an earlier Ninth Circuit case, Martin v. City of Boise, which had previously provided the legal foundation for challenges like Wills's. Wills also sought to amend her complaint to add a new claim under the Eighth Amendment's Excessive Fines Clause after her original claim was dismissed. The court rejected that request as well, finding the proposed amendment would have been futile. The record showed no evidence that Wills had ever actually been fined under the challenged ordinances, and the possibility of a future fine was too speculative to support a legal claim. On procedural matters, the court found no abuse of discretion in any of the district court's decisions. These included requiring participation in an alternative dispute resolution process during the COVID-19 pandemic, granting a continuance of the trial to allow the city's police chief to testify, and various case management choices. The court noted that Wills had forfeited some objections to the mediation process by not raising them at the time, and that she could not show prejudice from the trial continuance. The ruling has no binding precedential effect because the Ninth Circuit designated it as not for publication, but it illustrates how lower courts are applying the Grants Pass decision going forward.
CITATION AND RECORD
Record source: CourtListener
NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JUL 20 2026 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT CYNTHIA S. WILLS, No. 25-720 D.C. No. Plaintiff - Appellant, 3:21-cv-01998-EMC v. MEMORANDUM * 0F CITY OF MONTEREY; MONTEREY POLICE DEPARTMENT; MONTEREY HARBOR PATROL; MONTAGE HEALTH, Defendants - Appellees. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California Edward M. Chen, District Judge, Presiding Submitted July 15, 2026 ** 1F Before: McKEOWN, OWENS, and LEE, Circuit Judges. Cynthia Wills appeals the district court’s grant of judgment on the pleadings for the City of Monterey. She challenges the judgment as a matter of law and * 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). various procedural decisions. The parties are familiar with the facts, and we do not recite them here. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm. We review de novo a dismissal on the pleadings pursuant to Rule 12(c). Webb v. Trader Joe’s Co., 999 F.3d 1196, 1201 (9th Cir. 2021). We review for abuse of discretion the denial of leave to amend after a responsive pleading has been filed, Flowers v. First Hawaiian Bank, 295 F.3d 966, 976 (9th Cir. 2002), and the district court’s decisions regarding its local rules, Easley v. Collection Serv. of Nevada, 910 F.3d 1286, 1289 (9th Cir. 2018). A clear-abuse-of-discretion standard governs our review of a district court’s decision to grant a continuance. Bearchild v. Cobban, 947 F.3d 1130, 1138 (9th Cir. 2020). As the district court correctly explained, the Supreme Court’s decision in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson foreclosed Wills’s claim under the Eighth Amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause. 603 U.S. 520 (2024). Per Grants Pass, enforcing generally applicable anti-camping ordinances against unhoused individuals is not cruel and unusual punishment. The City of Monterrey’s ordinances are, similarly, laws that apply regardless of whether the criminalized conduct is undertaken by, for example, a homeless individual, a backpacker, or a protesting student. See id. at 546–47. After the pronouncement of Grants Pass, which abrogated Martin v. City of Boise, 920 F.3d 584 (9th Cir. 2019), the district court correctly dismissed Wills’s cruel-and-unusual-punishment 2 25-720 claim. See Rivers v. Roadway Exp., Inc., 511 U.S. 298, 312 (1994) (“[O]nce the [Supreme] Court has spoken, it is the duty of other courts to respect that understanding of the governing rule of law.”). That the motion for judgment on the pleadings came years into the litigation and months before trial does not alter the district court’s duty to apply Grants Pass. After dismissing Wills’s claim under the Eighth Amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying her leave to amend to add a claim under the Excessive Fines Clause because amendment would have been “futile.” Flowers, 295 F.3d at 976. There is no evidence in the record that Wills was ever actually fined under the challenged ordinances. Her alleged injury is too speculative because no actual fine has been imposed, nor is imposition of a fine “certainly impending.” Thomas v. County of Humboldt, 124 F.4th 1179, 1187 (9th Cir. 2024) (quoting 18 Unnamed John Smith Prisoners v. Meese, 871 F.2d 881, 883 (9th Cir. 1989)). Wills’s procedural arguments also lack merit. The district court did not abuse its discretion by requiring the parties to participate in its alternative dispute resolution (“ADR”) process. We afford “great deference” to a district court’s implementation of local rules because “a court that creates a rule is in the best position to apply it to the circumstances of particular cases.” Vogel v. Harbor Plaza Ctr., LLC, 893 F.3d 1152, 1157 (9th Cir. 2018). The court reasonably 3 25-720 implemented its ADR local rules, including the timeline upon which the ADR process was undertaken in Wills’s case, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The district court acted within its discretion when it denied Wills’s motion to exclude the case from the ADR process. Subsequently, Wills did not object to the appointed mediator, the reassignment of the case to a new mediator, or the docketed certifications that the mediation process was ongoing. She thus forfeited objections to the mediation process’s length and the mediator’s identity. No clear abuse of discretion occurred when the district court granted the City’s motion to continue trial. Wills cannot show any prejudice that arose from the continuance. See Danjaq LLC v. Sony Corp., 263 F.3d 942, 961 (9th Cir. 2001) (explaining that a showing of prejudice is required to find that a district court abused its discretion in ruling on a trial continuance motion). Granting the continuance in order to enable testimony by the City’s police chief, anticipated to be one of the trial’s key witnesses, was neither “arbitrary” nor “unreasonable.” Bearchild, 947 F.3d at 1138 (quoting United States v. Kloehn, 620 F.3d 1122, 1127 (9th Cir. 2010)). Each party shall bear its own costs on appeal. AFFIRMED. 4 25-720
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