arrest, and even that challenge is a limited one. There is no contention that the City ordered Lozman’s arrest to discriminate against him based on protected classifications, or that the City denied Lozman his equal protection rights by placing him in a “class of one.” See Village of Willowbrook v. Olech, 528 U.S. 562 (2000) (per curiam).
Lozman, moreover, now concedes that there was probable cause for the arrest. Although Lozman does not indicate what facts he believes support this concession, it appears that the existence of probable cause must be based on the assumption that Lozman failed to depart the podium after receiving a lawful order to leave.
Lozman’s claim is that, notwithstanding the presence of probable cause, his arrest at the city council meeting violated the First Amendment because the arrest was ordered in retaliation for his earlier, protected speech: his open-meetings lawsuit and his prior public criticisms of city officials. The question this Court is asked to consider is whether the existence of probable cause bars that First Amendment retaliation claim.
III
It is well established that in a §1983 case a city or other local governmental entity cannot be subject to liability at all unless the harm was caused in the implementation of “official municipal policy.” Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 691 (1978); see Los Angeles County v. Humphries, 562 U.S. 29, 36 (2010). Lozman’s §1983 damages claim is against only the City itself, based on the acts of its officers and employees—here, the members of the City Council. Lozman says that the City, through its city councilmembers, formed an official policy to retaliate against him and ordered his arrest. The Court assumes in the discussion to follow that the arrest was taken pursuant to an official city policy, but whether there was such a policy and what its content may have been are
