Tavin Padilla, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy, was off duty and driving his own car in Sun Valley on April 24, 2020, when LAPD officers stopped him, according to his lawsuit. On Oct. 12, 2026, his attorneys told the judge the case had settled on a conditional basis, City News Service reported on Oct. 19. The city and the two officers named in the suit deny the allegations.
Padilla and his wife, Edith Padilla, were driving separate cars to a repair shop, with her car directly ahead of his. Padilla alleges that he identified himself as an off-duty deputy, offered to show his badge and told the officers he had a gun mounted in the car near his right knee. His attorneys say about eight officers pointed guns at him, ordered him to lie on the ground and handcuffed him, and that an officer then found his sheriff’s badge in a pocket and a sergeant said the handcuffs could come off. Reports on the settlement did not give the reason the officers stopped him. His lawyers call it an “unjustified traffic stop.”
What the city and the officers say
The city and the two officers say the detention, including holding Padilla at gunpoint, was “lawful and reasonable under the totality of the circumstances,” City News Service reported. The suit is Padilla v. City of Los Angeles, Case No. 21STCV09580 in Los Angeles Superior Court, assigned to Judge Teresa A. Beaudet. It was filed in March 2021 and claims unlawful seizure, excessive force, false imprisonment and battery for Tavin Padilla and loss of consortium for Edith Padilla.
The defendants moved for summary judgment, and the court’s tentative order shows the March 20, 2025 hearing was continued after the plaintiffs filed 55 evidentiary objections and the defendants filed 32. No court ruling on the merits appears in that order.
The legal test for force during a stop
The phrase the defendants used tracks the Supreme Court’s approach in Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989). The Court said force must be judged “from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene,” and it pointed to the severity of the crime at issue, whether the person poses an immediate threat and whether he is resisting or fleeing. Under that test, what the officers knew in the first minutes of the stop carries the most weight, including what Padilla says he told them about the gun.
What a conditional settlement leaves open
No amount has been disclosed. Final approval rests with the city’s claims board, and a request to dismiss the case is expected by April 12, 2027. Until the dismissal is filed, the case is not closed, and neither side’s account has been tested at trial.
One stop, or a pattern
Padilla’s attorneys describe the case as the product of “inter-agency rivalry” between the LAPD and the Sheriff’s Department, which is their characterization and not a finding. Other stops have landed in front of juries. In Bexar County, Texas, a federal jury awarded a Houston man $76 over a 76-minute roadside stop, and a Virginia driver says a left-lane stop turned into questions about her plate scans.
What a driver should take from it
A traffic stop is a seizure under the Fourth Amendment, and a driver can sue after the fact even when the stop ends with no ticket. Padilla’s case took more than five years to reach a conditional settlement, and the amount, if any, stays private until the claims board acts. Drivers who carry a firearm in a vehicle should know their state’s rules on telling officers, because the rule differs from state to state and a disclosure can change how a stop unfolds.
Padilla says he mentioned the gun and offered his badge. The city says holding him at gunpoint was lawful and reasonable. The amount is undisclosed, and no trial will sort out the first minute of that stop. Is a settlement nobody gets to read a fair way to end it?