Filed: Apr. 11, 2005
Latest Update: Feb. 21, 2020
Summary: which they shot Cornel. While the voluntary, dismissal surely had claim preclusive effect and barred any attempt, to re-litigate the same claim against Solitro and Saraiva, see, United States v. Cunan, 156 F.3d 110, 114 (1st Cir.officers recalled little or no training on on-duty/off-duty issues.
United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
Nos. 04-1374
04-1390
04-1418
LEISA YOUNG, in her capacity as Administratrix of the Estate of
Cornel Young, Jr.,
Plaintiff, Appellant, Cross-Appellee,
v.
CITY OF PROVIDENCE by and through its treasurer, Stephen
Napolitano; URBANO PRIGNANO, JR., individually and in his
official capacity as Providence Chief of Police; RICHARD
SULLIVAN, individually; JOHN RYAN, individually; and KENNETH
COHEN, individually,
Defendants, Appellees, Cross-Appellants.
APPEALS FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND
[Hon. Mary M. Lisi, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Boudin, Chief Judge,
Lynch and Lipez, Circuit Judges.
Barry Scheck, with whom Nick Brustin, Cochran Neufeld &
Scheck, LLP, David T. Goldberg, The Law Offices of David T.
Goldberg, Robert B. Mann, and Mann & Mitchell were on brief, for
plaintiff, appellant, cross-appellee Leisa Young.
Kevin F. McHugh, Assistant City Solicitor, Providence Law
Department, with whom Joseph M. Fernandez, City Solicitor,
Providence Law Department, and Caroline Cole Cornwell, Assistant
City Solicitor, Providence Law Department, were on brief, for
defendants, appellees, cross-appellants City of Providence, Urbano
Prignano, Jr., and Richard Sullivan.
Michael J. Colucci, with whom Olenn & Penza, LLP was on brief,
for defendants, appellees, cross-appellants John Ryan and Kenneth
Cohen.
Peter T. Barbur and Cravath, Swaine, & Moore, LLP on brief for
National Association of Black Law Enforcement Officers, Inc. and
the Rhode Island Minority Police Association, Inc., amici curiae.
John W. Dineen and Yesser Glasson & Dineen on brief for Rhode
Island Affiliate, American Civil Liberties Union, amicus curiae.
Norman J. Chachkin, Theodore M. Shaw, and Miriam Gohara on
brief for NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., amicus
curiae.
April 11, 2005
LYNCH, Circuit Judge. In January 2000, two on-duty
Providence, Rhode Island, police officers, Michael Solitro and
Carlos Saraiva, while responding to a call, shot and killed an off-
duty Providence police officer, Cornel Young ("Cornel"), who was
attempting to respond to the same incident under a city policy (the
"always armed/always on-duty" policy) that required him to act
despite being off-duty and out of uniform. The two on-duty
officers, who are white, apparently mistook Cornel, an African-
American, for a threat.
Cornel's mother, Leisa Young ("Young"), filed suit in
federal court, as administratrix of her son's estate, against
Solitro and Saraiva for use of excessive force during the course of
a seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States
Constitution; she later dismissed these officers as parties to the
case but sought to hold others liable for the shooting. Young sued
the City of Providence and various Providence Police Department
("PPD") supervisors, alleging that they were responsible for
Solitro's and Saraiva's underlying excessive force violation due to
their deficient training, hiring, and discipline of these two
officers.
After the first phase of a bifurcated trial, the jury
found that Officer Solitro, but not Officer Saraiva, had violated
Cornel's constitutional rights by using excessive force against
him. The district court then granted summary judgment to
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Providence and the supervisors, holding that there was insufficient
evidence that these defendants a) caused the underlying
constitutional violation by Solitro and b) possessed the requisite
level of fault (deliberate indifference) to allow the case to go to
a jury. Young appealed; certain defendants cross-appealed.
After a thorough review of the evidence, we affirm the
district court in part and reverse in part. The jury verdict in
the first phase of the case -- finding that Solitro, but not
Saraiva, violated Cornel's constitutional rights -- stands against
challenges from both sides. We also affirm the district court's
grant of summary judgment against Young on a claim that
Providence's screening of Solitro before hiring him constituted
deliberate indifference by the City to Cornel's constitutional
rights (the "hiring claim"). We explain the exceptional difficulty
in bringing this sort of hiring claim against the City, in light of
Board of the County Commissioners of Bryan County v. Brown,
520
U.S. 397 (1997), because of the difficulty of showing a causal link
between decisions to hire police officers and subsequent
constitutional violations by those officers.
However, we reverse the district court's grant of summary
judgment for the City on a claim that it is responsible for
inadequately training Solitro on how to avoid on-duty/off-duty
misidentifications in light of the department's policy that
officers are always armed, and always on-duty. In Brown and City
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of Canton v. Harris,
489 U.S. 378 (1989), the Supreme Court
recognized that failure to train in a specific area -- such as
avoiding on-duty/off-duty misidentifications of fellow officers --
may have a more demonstrable causal link to a subsequent
constitutional violation by a police officer than the hiring of
that officer. It is plaintiff's burden to make that demonstration.
We hold that there is enough evidence that the City was
deliberately indifferent in its training and lack of protocols in
this area and that the training deficiencies and absence of
protocols were causally linked to Solitro's use of excessive force
against Young that a reasonable jury could find in Young's favor on
this training and lack of protocol claim (the "training claim").
A jury could also rationally conclude in defendant's favor, but
that is not the test on summary judgment. The error by the court
lay in taking the case away from the jury. Finally, we remand,
without discussion, claims against various supervisors to the
district court for consideration in light of our disposition of the
training and hiring claims against the City.
Our decision results in a remand for jury trial on
Young's claim that the City violated 42 U.S.C. § 1983 by failing to
adequately train Solitro on issues relating to on-duty/off-duty
interactions in a manner that was both causally related to
Solitro's deprivation of Cornel's constitutional rights and
deliberately indifferent to those constitutional rights.
-5-
I.
Young filed suit in federal court on June 7, 2001; an
amended complaint was filed on December 16, 2002. She asserted (1)
42 U.S.C. § 1983 claims against Solitro and Saraiva for excessive
force under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution;
(2) § 1983 claims against the City of Providence under Monell v.
Department of Social Services,
436 U.S. 658 (1978), for failure to
train Solitro, Saraiva, and Cornel, failure to discipline Saraiva
after an earlier incident, and the hiring of Solitro;1 (3) § 1983
supervisory liability claims against Urbano Prignano, Jr., Richard
Sullivan, John Ryan, Kenneth Cohen, and Saraiva in their personal
capacities; and (4) pendent state law claims against Solitro,
Saraiva, Prignano, Sullivan, Ryan, Cohen, and the City of
Providence. We describe later the titles and roles of each of
these individual defendants.
On January 24, 2003, defendants Prignano and Sullivan
moved for summary judgment on the merits of the supervisory claims
against them. This initial motion was granted in part and denied
in part on May 30, 2003. The district court held that Sullivan was
entitled to summary judgment on claims that he inadequately
1
Plaintiff also alleged a Monell claim against Urbano
Prignano, Jr., in his official capacity as allegedly being final
policymaker for the City; the district court considered this claim
as functionally identical to the claims against the City and did
not otherwise treat it. See Young v. City of Providence, 301 F.
Supp. 2d 163, 173 n.12 (D.R.I. 2004). This claim has not been
raised by any party on appeal and we do not discuss it.
-6-
investigated an incident involving Solitro's assault of a minority
officer when hiring Solitro and that he failed to discipline
Saraiva after a prior shooting. Other claims against Sullivan
connected with the hiring of Solitro, however, could go forward,
and hiring, training, and disciplinary claims against Prignano also
survived. Regarding the training claim, the court noted that
plaintiff's evidence suggested that "the department lacked policies
concerning the manner in which off-duty officers were to identify
themselves or to initiate action" and that "at best, only minimal
off-duty response training was provided at the police academy."2
Some additional evidence was taken between the date of this order
and the subsequent final order where the district court granted
summary judgment for all municipal and supervisory defendants.
Solitro and Saraiva moved for summary judgment as to the
claims against them on March 12, 2003. The district court granted
this motion in part and denied it in part on July 1, 2003. The
court held that the excessive force claims against the two officers
2
The court correctly rejected Prignano's attempt to avoid
supervisory liability by stating that he was not a final, official
municipal policymaker under
Monell, 436 U.S. at 690 n.55, as the
court noted that this was irrelevant for purposes of supervisory
liability against Prignano in his personal capacity.
The court also refused to entertain Prignano and Sullivan's
asserted qualified immunity defense. The court stated that
Prignano and Sullivan did not make any effort to argue the various
prongs of qualified immunity analysis (particularly whether the
right they allegedly violated was clearly established and whether
their conduct was objectively reasonable), and in truth were
relying solely on the merits.
-7-
survived summary judgment, particularly given that there were
factual disputes surrounding how Cornel was holding his gun and
whether he verbally identified himself as an officer in Solitro and
Saraiva's presence.
On August 13, 2003, Solitro and Saraiva moved for a
separate trial pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 42(b), seeking to have
the claims against them severed from the claims against the other
defendants. On September 12, 2003, the court granted Young's
motion to voluntarily dismiss Solitro and Saraiva as defendants
from the case, in return for Saraiva and Solitro dropping their
motion to bifurcate the trial. However, the other defendants had
meanwhile joined the motion for a bifurcated trial, and the court
granted their motion on the same day. The court correctly
interpreted the case law as stating that even without Solitro and
Saraiva in the case as defendants, any liability against the City
and the supervisory defendants would need to be conditioned on a
finding that at least one of the officers (Solitro or Saraiva)
violated Cornel's underlying constitutional right to be free of
excessive force during the course of a seizure. Thus, the court
ruled that the trial would proceed in two phases: phase one would
determine whether Solitro and/or Saraiva had violated Cornel's
constitutional rights, and, if the answer on phase one were yes for
at least one of the officers, phase two would determine whether
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there was any basis for holding Providence and/or the supervisory
defendants liable for this constitutional violation.
Phase one of the jury trial commenced on October 8, 2003,
and lasted about three weeks. Plaintiff presented testimony from
Solitro and Saraiva, several civilian witnesses from the night of
the shooting (January 28, 2000), and Dr. James Fyfe, an expert on
police tactics, who offered expert testimony that both Solitro's
leaving cover behind the police cruiser and Saraiva's failure to
instruct him to maintain cover were contrary to accepted police
standards in a situation like the one at issue because those
actions substantially raised the risk that police officers would
either be shot or would need to shoot others. Fyfe's testimony on
cover was admitted over the objections of the defendants. The jury
instructions included an instruction that "[i]n considering whether
Solitro and/or Saraiva acted reasonably, you may . . . consider the
events leading up to the shooting." On October 31, the jury
returned a special verdict, finding by a preponderance of the
evidence that Solitro shot Cornel in violation of the latter's
constitutional rights, but that Saraiva did not do so.
As we explain in our companion opinion in Scheck v. City
of Providence, No. 04-1334, issued this same day, the pro hac vice
status of two members of plaintiff's three-person legal team,
including lead counsel Barry Scheck, was revoked mid-trial (at the
end of the day on October 17), and the third member was forced to
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conduct much of the trial alone. See Young v. City of Providence,
301 F. Supp. 2d 187, 194-95 (D.R.I. 2004). At the conclusion of
the trial, all three members of the team were found to have
violated Fed. R. Civ. P. 11, and Scheck was publicly censured. See
id. at 198-99.
At the conclusion of Young's presentation of her case and
again after the close of all evidence, the defendants moved for
judgment as a matter of law under Fed. R. Civ. P. 50. See Young v.
City of Providence,
301 F. Supp. 2d 163, 168 (D.R.I. 2004). The
court heard argument on these motions on November 3, 2003, along
with argument on a motion for summary judgment that had been filed
by Providence, Ryan, and Cohen in June 2003 but never decided by
the court and held in abeyance pending completion of phase one.
See
id. at 169. On November 5 (embodied in a written order dated
February 11, 2004), the court denied defendants' Rule 50 motions,
granted summary judgment for Providence, Ryan, and Cohen on the
municipal and supervisory liability claims, and sua sponte
reconsidered its May 30, 2003 order denying summary judgment and
granted summary judgment to Prignano and Sullivan on the
supervisory claims against those officers. See Young v. City of
Providence,
301 F. Supp. 2d 163, 170 (D.R.I. 2004).3
3
We note that the court's February 11, 2004 written order also
granted judgment on the pleadings and summary judgment in favor of
defendants on all of Young's various pendant state law claims. See
id. at 184-87. Young has not appealed the judgment on these state
law claims to us, and any challenge to the dismissal of these state
-10-
The court held that municipal and supervisory claims
based on the failure to discipline and train Saraiva must fail,
given that Saraiva himself was not found to have violated Cornel's
constitutional rights. See
id. at 173. Moreover, the court held
that any evidence that the City had failed to train Cornel to deal
with off-duty situations was irrelevant, given that Cornel had no
constitutional right to training. See
id. at 182. The claim
against Providence based on failure to train Solitro failed to
survive summary judgment for three reasons: 1) there was inadequate
specific evidence that the training program was deficient, 2) there
was insufficient evidence of deliberate indifference, and 3) there
was insufficient evidence of causation. See
id. at 177-78. The
court relied on the training outlined in deposition by Steven
Melaragno and Robert Boehm, two officers who ran the firing range
for PPD recruits, as evidence that the City did provide training on
issues relating to off-duty/on-duty interactions. See
id. at 176-
77. The court held that the report submitted by Dr. James Fyfe,
plaintiff's expert witness on police training, was unsworn, and
thus should not be considered; at any rate, even if it were
considered, it was merely "conclusory" and "not of sufficient
evidentiary quality."
Id. at 177.
The court held that the claim against Providence for
deficient hiring procedures in the hiring of Solitro also failed to
law claims has been waived.
-11-
survive the high standards set out for such claims in Board of
County Commissioners of Bryan County v. Brown,
520 U.S. 397 (1997).
Solitro's use of force, the court held, was not a plainly obvious
consequence of his hiring as an officer. See Young,
301 F. Supp.
2d at 179-81. Finally, the supervisory claims against Ryan, Cohen,
Prignano, and Sullivan failed because Young's theories of
supervisory liability were factually and legally indistinguishable
from her theories of municipal liability against Providence. See
id. at 183-84. Although Prignano and Sullivan did not file for
reconsideration of the earlier denial of summary judgment on their
claims, the court sua sponte granted them summary judgment based on
the factual and legally indistinguishability of the claims made
against them from the claims made against Providence.4
Final judgment in favor of defendants entered on February
12, 2004, and Young filed her appeal on March 10. She appeals the
grant of summary judgment against her on the municipal and
supervisory claims that she has raised. She argues that there was
4
Young takes issue with the procedural fairness of the sua
sponte grant of summary judgment in favor of Sullivan and Prignano.
There are two responses. First, if this lack of notice had
precluded Young from addressing all the evidence as to the
liability of Sullivan and Prignano, we would be more sympathetic.
But that was not the situation here. Young was on notice of
Providence's motion, and had every incentive to present her best
case in opposition to summary judgment. Sua sponte grants of
summary judgment are allowable so long as the losing party was on
notice that she had to come forward with all of her evidence.
Celotex Corp. v. Catrett,
477 U.S. 317, 326 (1986). Second, the
record is fixed and our review of that record is de novo, so there
is no harm in any event.
-12-
sufficient evidence for the training claims and hiring claims
against Providence and the relevant supervisory defendants to go
forward to trial. She also argues that because her lead counsel
was removed mid-trial, the adverse jury finding that Saraiva did
not violate Cornel's constitutional rights in phase one ought be
vacated. Providence, Ryan, Cohen, Prignano, and Sullivan all
cross-appealed, challenging the admission of certain evidence in
the phase one trial against Solitro, and asking that the jury
finding that Solitro violated Cornel's constitutional rights be
overturned. The individual supervisory defendants (Ryan, Cohen,
Prignano, and Sullivan) also ask for qualified immunity, even
should the claims against the City go forward.
II.
A. Facts as to Phase One: The Verdict on the Underlying Excessive
Force Claim
We consider the evidence introduced at phase one of the
trial in favor of the jury's verdict that Solitro violated Cornel's
Fourth Amendment rights by using excessive force against him during
the course of a seizure, and draw all inferences and resolve all
credibility disputes in that direction. See Lubetzky v. United
States,
393 F.3d 76, 79 (1st Cir. 2004).
On the early morning of January 28, 2000, at 1:43 a.m.,
on-duty PPD officers Solitro and Saraiva, who were on patrol in a
police cruiser together, responded to a dispatch call reporting a
disturbance at Fidas Restaurant in Providence. The dispatch was
-13-
for "females fighting at Fidas" and was designated a Code 2 call;
Code 2 meant an "urgent" call and represented the middle range of
urgency in the PPD's dispatch system, between a Code 1 call, which
represented an "emergency" call and Code 3, which represented a
"routine" call. Solitro was an eight-day rookie on the force;
Saraiva was a three-year veteran and was informally acting as
Solitro's training officer.
As the officers drove up to the restaurant in their
patrol car, they saw a man (later identified as Aldrin Diaz)
running towards the door of a Chevrolet Camaro, which he then
entered. After the police had pulled up about 8 to 12 feet from
the Camaro and while they were still in the police cruiser, Solitro
and Saraiva saw Diaz pointing a gun out the window of the Camaro;
Solitro then said "gun" to Saraiva. That was the only word the two
officers exchanged during the entire incident. Saraiva and Solitro
got out of their car; Saraiva took cover behind some poles while
Solitro took cover behind the engine block and front wheel of the
police cruiser. Both officers yelled commands at Diaz
simultaneously: they told him to drop the gun and to get out of the
car. The officers could see that Diaz no longer had the gun in his
hands and was starting to get out of the car by the time that the
officers saw Cornel.
Saraiva never moved from his position until the end of
the incident. Solitro, after a few seconds in a position of cover
-14-
behind the cruiser, left this position of cover and walked into an
open spot directly in front of the Camaro. He stated that he did
this because his cover behind the patrol car was imperfect, because
he wanted to get a better look at the Camaro, because he wanted to
make a rapid arrest of Diaz, and because he wanted to keep Diaz
guessing. Plaintiff's expert witness, Dr. James Fyfe, an expert on
police tactics, testified that Solitro's leaving of cover was
"inconsistent with accepted police practices" because it made
Solitro far more vulnerable and therefore made it more likely that
deadly force would have to be used by Solitro and Saraiva in order
to defend Solitro.
Meanwhile, Cornel, an off-duty PPD officer, had been
inside the restaurant as a customer. Civilian witnesses located
inside the restaurant testified that they saw Cornel run through
the restaurant at around the time the police arrived, yelling
"police, police" or "police, get out of the way" very loudly. They
saw him run through the doors of the restaurant as he continued to
yell "police," and then heard him yell, "freeze." Cornel left the
restaurant within a few seconds of the arrival of Solitro and
Saraiva. A jury could easily find that Cornel was acting pursuant
to the always armed/always on-duty policy of the PPD.
Diaz, the man who had dropped the gun at police command,
was located outside the restaurant at the time. He testified that
he saw Cornel walk out of the restaurant holding his gun and scream
-15-
"freeze." Diaz stated that he could tell that Cornel was a police
officer, from his verbal command, his body language, and his
demeanor. There was then some movement by someone at the scene.
Diaz stated that Cornel made a quarter turn and faced Diaz, but
Cornel's gun was pointing at an angle downwards in front of Cornel
and not towards Diaz or anyone else. Diaz also stated that Cornel
was screaming other verbal commands during and after the quarter
turn, but Diaz was not paying attention and did not understand
them.
Joseph Hayman, another civilian witness located outside
the restaurant who was involved in the altercation that had
prompted the initial dispatch call, testified as well that he heard
Cornel yell "freeze"; Hayman then turned to look at Cornel. Hayman
testified that upon hearing this command, he figured the speaker
was a cop, given the tone of the voice, and he responded to the
command by putting his hands up. He further testified that Cornel
was holding his gun with two hands, as a police officer would,
rather than sideways with one hand (a technique called "gangster-
style" by some of the witnesses). Hayman, like Diaz, testified
that Cornel turned but never began to approach Diaz or the
officers.5
5
There were disputes of fact on virtually all of the critical
points testified to by Diaz, Hayman, and the witnesses inside
Fidas. For example, Solitro and Saraiva testified that they never
heard Cornel say anything, and Saraiva further testified that
Cornel was deliberately walking towards Diaz and Solitro and that
-16-
A witness inside Fidas testified that he heard the shots
that killed Cornel being fired only "[a] second" after Cornel had
left the restaurant; he referred to the timing of the shots after
Cornel had left the restaurant as "instant." Diaz testified that
Cornel was shot a "couple of seconds" after he made the quarter
turn. Hayman agreed that Cornel was shot immediately after he
began to turn.
Saraiva and Solitro both testified that they both yelled,
simultaneously, "drop the gun" or "drop it" more than once. It is
undisputed that they never prefaced their commands with the word
"police." Then, both officers shot Cornel multiple times, killing
him: Saraiva and Solitro testified that Saraiva shot first, and
Solitro shot immediately thereafter. Diaz testified:
[The two officers were] shooting and screaming
at the same time . . . . And . . . Solitro,
he's like hysterical moving. . . . [H]e was
like running in place like. His feet was
moving, and he's shooting and he's like
shooting with both hands, one hand. And he's
just freaking out, screaming out at the top of
his head.
The jury found Solitro, but not Saraiva, to have violated
Cornel's constitutional rights.
his gun was aimed at Diaz, not down towards the ground. Further,
Saraiva testified that Cornel was holding the gun with one hand,
sideways. These disputes of fact, of course, were for the jury to
resolve.
-17-
B. Facts as to Phase Two: Liability of the City and Supervisory
Defendants
Because phase two was decided as a pre-trial summary
judgment motion filed by the defendants, we recount the facts in
the light most favorable to Young, drawing all reasonable
inferences in her favor. See Noviello v. City of Boston,
398 F.3d
76, 81-82 (1st Cir. 2005).
Structure of Authority
The Providence Commissioner of Public Safety (who also
headed the fire department) was the head of the PPD. John
Partington, a civilian, held that position for the relevant periods
in this case. The Commissioner is statutorily "responsible for the
administration and discipline of the police department" and has
authority to make all rules and regulations
necessary for the efficiency, management and
direction of the police department. Said
rules shall provide for the qualification,
appointment, removal, organization, powers,
duties, discipline and control of members of
the police department . . . .
Providence City Charter § 1001(a). The PPD chief of police, Urbano
Prignano, Jr., during the relevant periods for this case, was
appointed by the Commissioner and served at his direction.
Id.
Lack of Specific Protocols and Training
Young argues that Solitro and Saraiva's excessive force
against Cornel was caused by a lack of training provided by the
City and certain supervisors who have been named as defendants --
Prignano, the PPD Chief of Police at all times when Solitro,
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Saraiva, and Cornel were on the force; John Ryan, the head of the
training academy when Saraiva and Cornel attended it as new
recruits, and Kenneth Cohen, the head of the training academy when
Solitro attended it as a new recruit. Specifically, plaintiff
argues that given the City's always armed/always on-duty policy,
which was known to be a dangerous policy, the PPD was required to
have protocols and give training on various aspects of the policy,
particularly the issue of avoiding misidentification of off-duty
officers.6
The always armed/always on-duty policy as it existed at
the time of Cornel's shooting stated as follows:
Except when on annual leave, a member shall be
armed at all times while off duty . . . .
A member shall act in his official capacity if
he becomes aware of an incident which requires
immediate police action and time is of the
essence to safeguard life or property. While
off duty, a member who takes police action . .
. shall be considered to be in an on-duty
status . . . .
Should an off-duty member become aware of an
incident which requires police action, and
life or property is not endangered, he shall
report the incident to the appropriate . . .
agency for action.
PPD Regs. §§ 202.1, 202.2. The relevant regulations further stated
as follows:
Duty status -- Although certain workday hours
are allotted to every member of the force for
the performance of specific workday duties, a
6
Young has made no argument that the City failed to train on
issues of cover.
-19-
member of the force shall be in an "on duty"
status at all times for the preservation of
the peace and the protection of life, liberty
or property. A member shall be prepared at
all times and under all circumstances to
perform immediately a police duty whether or
not the member is in uniform or off workday
duty whenever the member is cognizant of a
need for police.
PPD Regs. § 201.3.
Defendants, as evidence that the PPD did provide training
on off-duty/on-duty interaction issues relevant to the always
armed/always on-duty policy, relied heavily on the deposition
testimony of Steven Melaragno and Robert Boehm to the effect that
some form of training was provided, even if not necessarily
directly on the hazards of the policy. Melaragno was in charge of
firearms training at the training academy's firing range for new
recruits and for current officers (who go through periodic "in
service" training); Boehm worked under Melaragno at the range.
Melaragno stated that both in-service and new recruit training
would include paintball "simunition" scenarios, and the goal of the
training was to gauge the training officer's response whether to
shoot or hold fire. Training would include multiple scenarios, at
least one of which would be a no-shoot situation: this no-shoot
situation might, but need not, involve an off-duty officer as the
potential target (it could also include an innocent bystander, like
a store owner).
-20-
Melaragno also stated that training included a Range 2000
video simulator, which would confront officers with virtual
scenarios. Officers injected into a troublesome situation (say a
vehicle stop or an injured officer) would determine which commands
to give and which tactics to use; if they made certain choices,
shooting might be required. Melaragno was uncertain if any of the
five or six Range 2000 scenarios specifically dealt with situations
involving off-duty officers, although they certainly did deal with
other types of no-shoot situations.7 Partington, the Commissioner
of the PPD during the relevant period, testified that in his view,
Range 2000 did not specifically deal with the problem of "friendly
fire" due to off-duty misidentifications.
Melaragno testified more generally that new recruits are
taught that when taking action off-duty, they always need to
identify themselves by displaying their badge and firearm, and
calling out that they are "on the job." He testified that some of
this training occurred at the firing range, but some occurred in
classroom training that was provided in conjunction with firing
range training. Melaragno testified initially in his deposition
that this off-duty classroom training was integrated into a series
7
Melaragno stated that there were some static targets a few
minutes before the video scenarios began, which were used as warmup
for the officers. These included plainclothes officers wearing
badges along with hostile targets and bull's eyes, but Melaragno
said that he "really d[id not] consider them" since they were
static.
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of seven lectures on officer survival (the lectures were on issues
like cover). However, he testified later in the same deposition
that there was a separate, eighth lecture on off-duty issues.
Boehm told a grand jury investigating the Cornel shooting that
officers were never "directly" taught that they needed to display
their badge with their gun when taking action off-duty; this is
something they would pick up "inferentially" from other training,
such as the paper cutout training described below.
Boehm stated at his deposition that there were several
hours of training at the academy for new recruits at a live firing
range involving paper cutouts -- the officers once again had to
decide whether to shoot or not. Some of these cutouts were dressed
up like plainclothes officers with badges. Further, all recruits
went to Camp Varnum, a training facility that was set up like a
small city: recruits, who played on-duty officers, responded to
fake dispatch calls where scenarios played out. Five or six of
these scenarios involved off-duty officers (never played by the
recruits) who were jumping out of cars quickly, moving quickly to
get their badges, or running into situations where police were
investigating suspicious persons. The recruits' reactions to the
unexpected emergence of off-duty officers were critiqued with an
instructor after each scenario had been completed.
Still, the testimony of Melaragno and Boehm was disputed.
There were two themes to the factual disputes. First, the
-22-
testimony of Melaragno and Boehm as to off-duty training was not
documented in any form, as might be expected had it occurred.
Second, other witnesses testified that no pertinent training took
place.
Both Melaragno and defendant Ryan, head of the PPD police
training academy for several years, agreed that it was essential to
document training, and both stated that there was, in fact,
substantial documentation of other aspects of training. Melaragno
stated that the training scenarios described were not documented
because of an "oversight"; he admitted that this violated the basic
pro-documentation policy of the academy. He also testified that
documentation of classroom training on on-duty/off-duty
interactions, along with other material from that piece of the
curriculum (officer survival week), had simply been lost.
Further, Ryan testified at deposition inconsistently with
the testimony of Melaragno and Boehm, as did other witnesses. Ryan
testified that the only kind of academy training on on-duty/off-
duty interactions that he knew about was his own class on civil
liability training: he taught officers that because of possible
exposure to liability, it was better if they did not take police
action off-duty (in express contravention of the department's
written policy). He emphasized that this training focused on
liability concerns and did not discuss safety. He stated that he
would know about any other training on off-duty issues that
-23-
occurred at the academy, except for training on internal affairs by
a Sergeant Bennett (on avoiding misconduct by drinking too much
off-duty, etc.) and training on firearms by Melaragno. He stated
further that he would know about any "substantial training" by
Melaragno on on-duty/off-duty interactions and misidentifications,
and he did not know of any.
Defendant Cohen, who was head of the academy when Solitro
attended, testified that he did not know one way or the other
whether training on on-duty/off-duty interactions existed.
One PPD police officer, Shane Romano, recalled that there
was no training on officers identifying themselves while off-duty.
Another officer, Greg Small, mentioned Range 2000 training
regarding off-duty altercations. Solitro, when asked whether he
had any training on on-duty/off-duty identification issues, also
cited some Range 2000 training that he had while at the academy.
He recalled no other specific training on off-duty issues, although
he agreed that "[t]here may have been some off-duty issues raised
here and there in terms of questions and answers but no [specific]
course on it." Saraiva recalled some training involving paper
cutouts that represented off-duty officers at the range; he noted
that this involved no interaction with off-duty officers.
Prignano, the PPD police chief during the relevant
period, stated that in his view, off-duty officers are taught at
the academy to identify themselves by showing their badge, but at
-24-
any rate, this identification protocol is "common sense," and
"[you] can't teach common sense."8 Chief Prignano's testimony
could be understood to mean that there was no pertinent training
because no training was needed, as identification issues were
simply a matter of common sense.
Necessity of Specific Protocols and Training
Commissioner Partington agreed with the assessment of
plaintiff's expert, Dr. James Fyfe, that "off-duty encounters, and
the risk they might be interrupted by on-duty police, are a well-
recognized hazard of urban policing for which officers must be
carefully schooled by policy and training." He agreed with Fyfe
that an always armed/always on-duty policy was inherently
dangerous, and that given the department's always armed/always on-
duty policy, specific training and a protocol were necessary to
avoid friendly fire shootings of off-duty officers. He further
agreed with Fyfe that "[w]here such training and policy do not
exist, it can be expected that off-duty officers will intervene
unwisely, that on-duty officers will mistake them for suspects, and
that unnecessary blood will be shed by the public and by officers."
More specifically, Commissioner Partington testified that
interactions between on-duty and off-duty officers were very high
stress situations, and training was needed for the very high stress
8
Despite Prignano's belief, there was evidence that certain
officers did not understand that department policy required them to
carry their badges with them while off-duty.
-25-
situations that officers face, since officers tend to fall back on
their training in these situations. Partington agreed with Fyfe
that training on off-duty/on-duty misidentification must, inter
alia, "[p]rovide instruction on the risks associated with
encountering other law enforcement personnel while taking off-duty
action" and "[s]ensitize officers to the possibility that, while
taking on-duty action, they may encounter off-duty personnel." Yet
Partington testified that the only PPD training on off-duty/on-duty
interactions he was aware of was that an officer should not get
involved while off-duty unless a situation is life threatening
(which is contrary to the language of the policy and the testimony
of many other witnesses). He testified that the PPD also offered
Range 2000 training, but admitted that, in his view, this did not
"deal[] with the problem of friendly fire incidents."
Melaragno also emphasized the need for particularized
training on on-duty/off-duty interactions. Melaragno stated
similarly that on-duty/off-duty interactions were high stress
situations, and even though the correct actions might seem like
common sense, training was required because "under periods of high
stress sometimes you need to make sure someone understands what
they need to do." Melaragno further stressed the very substantial
potential for tragic consequences (as in this case) if a
misidentification occurs. Boehm testified that given the severity
of a friendly fire incident, he knew that the department had to
-26-
train to avoid such an incident despite the lack of prior friendly
fire shootings in the City.
Plaintiff presented numerous reports from police officers
of past misidentifications of off-duty personnel in Providence,
particularly involving minority officers, and thus, presented
evidence that the department was on notice of a misidentification
problem. Indeed, both Cornel and his police officer father had
been the subject of misidentifications in the past. None of these
earlier incidents had a violent or tragic outcome.
Plaintiff's expert, Dr. James Fyfe, wrote a report for
this case based on his understanding of standard police practice
and his research into other friendly fire shootings. Fyfe is the
Deputy Commissioner for Training of the New York City Police
Department and an authority on police tactics and training, with a
doctorate in criminal justice from the State University of New York
at Albany. He has reviewed more than 10,000 police shootings over
the course of his career. Fyfe wrote that always armed/always on-
duty policies such as the PPD policy at issue here were well-known
to carry a high risk of "fatal consequences for off-duty officers,"
largely because "minimally competent police administrators have
long recognized that there is a great distinction between officers'
capacity to act forcibly while on-duty and their ability to do so
off-duty." Thus, always armed/always on-duty policies "must be
accompanied by training such as that described in [his research],
-27-
and that specifies a protocol designed to avoid apparent friendly
fire tragedies such as occurred in this case." Absent such
training, it can be expected that on-duty officers will mistake
off-duty officers attempting to intervene in a situation for
suspects, which will lead to unnecessary bloodshed.
There was testimony that the need to train on the always
armed/always on-duty policy was heightened by the fact that there
was some evidence that officers were sometimes unclear what exactly
the policy required. Commissioner Partington was, before seeing
the written text of the policy, under the erroneous impression that
it only required action when there was a life threatening situation
and that off-duty police action was only used as a last resort.
And Ryan, as stated above, taught off-duty officers never to take
police action, for liability reasons.
The PPD changed the always armed/always on-duty policy in
2001, after the Cornel shooting, so that officers were no longer
required to carry firearms while off-duty. The new policy also
clarified that off-duty officers would sufficiently fulfill their
obligations under the policy by reporting an incident to police,
and provided a specific protocol for any off-duty action that was
taken.
Hiring
Young also argues that Providence is liable for hiring
Solitro without conducting an adequate background investigation.
-28-
As well, Young asserts supervisory claims connected with this
municipal claim, against both Prignano and Major Richard Sullivan
(who was head of the oral hiring board, an institution described
below, when Solitro was hired).
There is evidence that Solitro, who was a former employee
at a juvenile detention facility, used excessive force against
residents at the juvenile facility several times while attempting
to restrain them, and was disciplined for this at least once.
There was further evidence that he was repeatedly absent from his
work, that he broke a pool table, that he ripped a phone off the
wall because he was angry with a juvenile, and that the facility
made Solitro see a counselor weekly for six months for anger
control treatment. Solitro had also assaulted Detective Greg
Small, an off-duty African-American police officer, and referred to
him by using a racial slur, in the parking lot of a club in 1989;
Solitro pled no contest to a simple assault charge and his record
was later expunged.
A background check on Solitro was conducted by a PPD
detective Oscar Perez in accordance with a standard form packet
issued by the PPD; there is a written copy of these forms, filled
out, in Solitro's case. The background check consisted of an
interview of Solitro, his wife, his neighbors, and two supervisors
at the juvenile facility. The first supervisor stated, as a
response to form questions, that she found Solitro's work at the
-29-
training school satisfactory, that she would rehire him, that he
was the type of person that she would like to see as a police
officer in her town, and that if her son or daughter were in
trouble with the authorities, Solitro was someone that she would
like to have handle the case. Further, she noted that Solitro "has
gained a lot of experience on this job" and "would make . . . a
good police officer." Perez spoke to this supervisor for
approximately 10 or 15 minutes. She also told Perez that one of
Solitro's duties was to restrain juveniles; Perez may or may not
have specifically asked whether he acted improperly in this role.
The supervisor told about a near "riot" incident in the juvenile
facility that Solitro had appropriately brought under control. She
did not specifically discuss Solitro's disciplinary history with
Perez: she stated later (after the shooting of Cornel) that she
thought this information was confidential, that there was another
way for the PPD to request it, and that therefore she could not
discuss it during the interview. The PPD never requested or
received a copy of Solitro's personnel file from this juvenile
facility.
The second supervisor interviewed stated that Solitro was
an "honest guy" who "would do a good job" as a police officer.
There is evidence that one of Solitro's other supervisors, Brian
Terry, who was not interviewed, was concerned about Solitro's
-30-
fitness and called an officer on the force who was his uncle to
discuss the matter.
The background check was only a piece of Solitro's
evaluation during the hiring process. 2,200 applicants applied for
places in the 57th and 58th PPD recruit classes: only 48 recruits
were selected for the 57th police academy (including Saraiva and
Cornel), while only 22 officers (including Solitro) were selected
for the 58th class. Solitro had to pass a written test and an
agility test, and once he did so he was interviewed by a three-
person oral review board, which ranked the candidates. This
ranking determined the order in which candidates were admitted to
the academy. Psychological testing was also performed. There is
evidence that Small spoke with defendant Sullivan, the officer in
charge of the oral hiring board for Solitro's academy, before
Solitro was hired, and told Sullivan about the assault. Sullivan
raised the issues with Solitro before the oral board.9
Young argues that the decision to hire Solitro was part
of a pattern of inadequate screening by the PPD when hiring new
officers. Several detectives who performed background checks at
one time or another as part of their duties, including Perez,
stated that they had no training on how to conduct them. A brief,
9
Before the board, Solitro stated that he had a fight with
Small but did not know that he was a police officer at the time.
Sullivan believed the story partly because Solitro was charged with
simple assault, rather than the more significant crime of knowingly
assaulting a police officer.
-31-
three-page set of guidelines on conducting background checks was
provided with the background check packets used in screening
Solitro's class. There was also evidence that neither Prignano nor
Sullivan received or read background checks -- Prignano stated that
Sullivan, as head of the hiring board, should have brought any
concerns to him after reviewing the background check in conjunction
with other materials, while Sullivan said that he never saw the
background investigations and did not know who considered them.
Evidence existed as well that some candidates whom background
investigators recommended be rejected were subsequently accepted to
later academy classes without any consultation with the original
background investigator who wrote the negative report.10
Finally, there was some evidence of generalized
corruption in the PPD's hiring and promotions practices. Officers
seeking promotions were allowed to cheat on certain promotional
exams. Further, there is evidence that one applicant for a PPD
position benefitted from a bribe: despite officials knowing that he
had a series of arrests and an expunged criminal record for
impersonating a police officer and being caught near his
girlfriend's cabin with a rifle, the applicant was not removed from
10
Many of these policies were changed after the Cornel
incident. Partington and a new Chief of Police (Sullivan)
instituted more thorough background investigations (particularly
regarding searches for expunged criminal records), began training
background investigators on how to conduct their investigations,
and ensured that oral hiring boards had access to the results of
background investigations.
-32-
the academy list. Partington eventually ensured that the
individual's name was removed from the list and he was never
hired.11
III.
Challenges to the Phase one Verdicts
Both Young and the defendants raise challenges to the
phase one jury verdicts. Defendants challenge the verdict that
Solitro violated Cornel's constitutional rights; Young challenges
the verdict that Saraiva did not. We address these challenges in
turn, ultimately determining that there is no need to disturb the
jury's verdicts.
1. The Defendants' Challenge to the Solitro Verdict of
Constitutional Violation
Ryan and Cohen argue strenuously that the Solitro verdict
must be overturned because of the erroneous admission of testimony
that Solitro left cover, and in particular the testimony of Dr.
Fyfe, which focused on assessing the propriety of Solitro's leaving
cover. This argument is incorrect; the court did not abuse its
discretion in admitting this evidence. Likewise, the court did not
abuse its discretion in instructing the jury that "events leading
11
Young also asserts a third set of facts as a possible basis
for municipal and supervisory liability (against Prignano and
Sullivan). Plaintiff argues that the PPD's failure to discipline
Saraiva after a prior incident in which he pepper sprayed a crowd
and shot a civilian reflected deliberate indifference that caused
Cornel's death. But because we uphold the jury's finding that
Saraiva did not violate Cornel's constitutional rights, we need not
recount any of the facts about this claim.
-33-
up to the shooting" could be considered by it in determining the
excessive force question.
The rule in this circuit is that once it is clear that a
seizure has occurred, "the court should examine the actions of the
government officials leading up to the seizure." St. Hilaire v.
City of Laconia,
71 F.3d 20, 26 (1st Cir. 1995). Thus, police
officers' actions for our purposes need not be examined solely at
the "moment of the shooting." Id.; see also Roy v. City of
Lewiston,
42 F.3d 691, 696 (1st Cir. 1994) (considering within the
context of an excessive force case that the plaintiff "was armed;
he apparently tried to kick and strike at the officers; he
disobeyed repeated instructions to put down the weapons" as well as
whether the police, tactically, should have been armed with non-
lethal mace as well as guns and whether they should have "kept
their distance" from the plaintiff instead of trying to subdue him
at all).12 This rule is most consistent with the Supreme Court's
mandate that we consider these cases in the "totality of the
circumstances."13 Tennessee v. Garner,
471 U.S. 1, 8-9 (1985); see
12
The various circuits have taken somewhat different positions
on the question of how conduct leading up to a challenged shooting
should be weighed in an excessive force case. See, e.g.,
Billington v. Smith,
292 F.3d 1177, 1187-88 (9th Cir. 2002)
(collecting cases and explaining the different approaches). The
Fourth Circuit, for example, has gone so far as to say that pre-
shooting conduct is generally "not relevant and [is] inadmissible."
Greenidge v. Ruffin,
927 F.2d 789, 792 (4th Cir. 1991).
13
Defendants argue that in order to make the leaving cover
evidence admissible, we must segment that action out from all other
-34-
Graham v. Connor,
490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989); Abraham v. Raso,
183
F.3d 279, 291 (3d Cir. 1999). The district judge's admission of
the evidence was appropriate.
Defendants also argue that the only possible unreasonable
action by Solitro was leaving cover and that was not enough to
raise a jury question as to the objective unreasonableness of
Solitro's use of force, as a matter of law. Cf. Napier v. Town of
Windham,
187 F.3d 177, 188 (1st Cir. 1999) (fact that officers
snuck up to suspect's house did not create jury question in
excessive force case where officers unquestionably acted reasonably
in the few moments immediately surrounding the shooting). A jury
acts and determine whether there was a constitutional duty for
Solitro to maintain cover during the armed confrontation. This is
incorrect, and relies on a misreading of our precedent in St.
Hilaire and Napier v. Town of Windham,
187 F.3d 177 (1st Cir.
1999). St. Hilaire did not adopt a rigid segmentation approach
between events leading up to a shooting and the shooting itself,
but merely separated out a pre-shooting issue analytically for
purposes of qualified immunity, because of the concern for fair
notice to officers in such cases. See St.
Hilaire, 187 F.3d at 27-
28.
And Napier, which was also a qualified immunity case,
indicated only that the pre-shooting actions at issue in that case
-- the officers' creeping up to the plaintiff's house with their
guns drawn to investigate a complaint that someone had been
shooting on that property -- did not make their actions in the
moments immediately surrounding the shooting unreasonable.
Napier,
187 F.3d at 188. The pre-shooting conduct at issue in Napier was
far more remote from the shooting than the conduct here. Napier
then stated that, in certain cases, pre-confrontation conduct
itself could serve as the unreasonable conduct on which a section
1983 claim could be based, if that conduct was independently
constitutionally mandated.
Id. at 188-89. Napier does not hold
that events immediately leading up to a shooting cannot be
considered as part of the totality of the circumstances along with
the precise instant surrounding a shooting.
-35-
could have found, inter alia, that the officers' misidentification
of Cornel by itself was unreasonable, as well as the rapidity with
which they shot Cornel. The defendants' real claim is that the
leaving of cover lacked a sufficient causal nexus to the shooting
of Cornel to be admissible evidence -- defendants argued at trial
and here that the causal relationship was simply too "remote."
Such questions of proximate cause are generally best left to the
jury; so here. See, e.g. Wortley v. Camplin,
333 F.3d 284, 295
(1st Cir. 2003) ("Proximate causation and intervening cause are
usually issues for the jury to resolve.").
Indeed, defendants state in their briefs that they would
"tend to agree" that evidence of Solitro's failure to take cover
would be relevant if Diaz, and not Cornel, had been shot by the
police after Diaz brandished a weapon. Here, of course, when
Solitro left cover, he knew that Diaz was a threat but had not seen
Cornel yet. Still, an armed confrontation had commenced, and the
issue of whether Solitro's leaving cover was causally related to
the shooting of Cornel was appropriately left, as the district
judge did, to the jury. There was no abuse of discretion in
admitting the evidence. The Solitro verdict in phase one will
stand.
To the extent that the defendants make an argument that
the evidence was insufficient to support a jury verdict that
Solitro violated Cornel's constitutional rights by using excessive
-36-
force against him, the challenge fails. The test for whether the
use of deadly force is excessive is whether an objectively
reasonable officer would believe that the suspect posed a "threat
of serious physical harm either to the officer or others."
Garner,
471 U.S. at 12; see also
Abraham, 183 F.3d at 289. Most
importantly, there was evidence presented at the phase one trial
that Cornel was identifying himself as a police officer, was
holding his gun with two hands as a police officer would, and was
immediately recognized by bystanders as an off-duty officer. We
think that a jury could find that an objectively reasonable officer
would have recognized Cornel as an officer, and thus would have
recognized that he was not a threat and would not have shot him.
There was also evidence that Cornel's gun was pointed downwards,
and not at Diaz or anyone else, and that the officers shot him
extraordinarily quickly, almost immediately after he left the
restaurant, and without giving him adequate warning.
2. Plaintiff's Challenge to the Saraiva Verdict of No
Constitutional Violation -- Pro Hac Vice Revocation
Young argues that the Saraiva verdict should be vacated
because two members of her legal team, including lead counsel
Scheck, were removed in the middle of the phase one trial. In the
companion case Scheck v. City of Providence, No. 04-1334, issued
this same day, we held that the revocation of the pro hac vice
status of Young's counsel was improper and reversed, reinstating
the pro hac vice status of the two lawyers.
-37-
Young argues initially that reversal of the Saraiva
verdict should be automatic, and no prejudice need be demonstrated.
The Supreme Court has never decided whether erroneous
disqualification of chosen counsel in either criminal or civil
cases automatically results in reversal of a judgment in that case,
or whether harmless error analysis is employed. See Richardson-
Merrell, Inc. v. Koller,
472 U.S. 424, 438 (1985); Rodriguez v.
Chandler,
382 F.3d 670, 673 (7th Cir. 2004). This Circuit has held
that in a criminal case, erroneous denial of the sole counsel of
choice mandates reversal even absent any showing of prejudice. See
United States v. Panzardi-Alvarez,
816 F.2d 813, 818 (1st Cir.
1987).14
The Panzardi-Alvarez rule does not, by its terms, carry
over into the civil context. Panzardi-Alvarez is also factually
distinguishable because here the party continued to be represented
by at least one member of her chosen team of counsel and was not
14
We note that Panzardi-Alvarez predates much of the Supreme
Court's recent reshaping of harmless error doctrine. See, e.g.,
Brecht v. Abrahamson,
507 U.S. 619, 629-30 (1993); Arizona v.
Fulminante,
499 U.S. 279, 306-312 (1991). Courts which have
recently tackled the question of whether harmless error analysis
applies when a criminal defendant has been erroneously deprived of
chosen counsel have reached somewhat varying results. Compare,
e.g., United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez,
399 F.3d 924 (8th Cir. 2005)
(harmless error analysis inapplicable to erroneous denial of pro
hac vice admission for criminal defendant's sole chosen counsel),
with
Chandler, 382 F.3d at 675-76 (holding that at least on
collateral review, deprivation of one member of criminal
defendant's chosen team of lawyers must involve prejudice in order
for defendant to obtain reversal, and adopting an "adverse effect"
standard).
-38-
forced to bring in new counsel. In a criminal case, a defendant
erroneously deprived of chosen counsel has suffered a Sixth
Amendment violation, See
Panzardi-Alvarez, 816 F.2d at 818; Kevlik
v. Goldstein,
724 F.2d 844, 850 (1st Cir. 1984). The Sixth
Amendment does not apply to civil cases and therefore we have held
that there is no such constitutional protection for denial of
chosen counsel in a civil case. See
Kevlik, 724 F.2d at 848-49.15
In this case, Young has not been deprived of any constitutional
right through the district judge's disqualification of some of her
legal team. Counsel have been reinstated. We will not reverse the
underlying verdict, in addition to reinstating the lawyer, absent
some showing of prejudice pertinent to that verdict.
We need not define the exact standard of prejudice in
this case because we find it highly probable that the erroneous
revocation of the pro hac vice admission of two members of Young's
legal team did not affect the outcome of the verdict in favor of
Saraiva. The two lawyers who were removed continued to be
available to assist the remaining lawyer, Robert Mann, and Mann
continued to contact them, outside of the courtroom, because of
their knowledge about the case. Mann was considered by the
15
At least one court has held that erroneous denials of a civil
litigant's chosen counsel can raise constitutional issues through
the Fifth Amendment's Due Process clause. See In re BellSouth
Corp.,
334 F.3d 941, 955 (11th Cir. 2003). We think it rare,
although perhaps possible, that a denial of a civil party's chosen
counsel could rise to the level of a Fifth Amendment violation.
Certainly there was no such violation here.
-39-
district judge to be very competent. The local rules required Mann
-- as local counsel -- to be deeply involved in all proceedings in
the case conducted by pro hac vice counsel. See D.R.I. Local R.
5(c)(2). Mann was offered a continuance by the district court and
he in fact took such a continuance. By virtue of the continuance,
the judge's desire to give Mann "leeway," and for other reasons,
there was a break of one week between the removal and the bulk of
the additional testimony.16 Mann noted that he had never tried a
Monell case; however, he is a highly skilled trial lawyer and he
was not trying the Monell portion of the case in phase one, but
only a relatively straightforward § 1983 excessive force case.
Moreover, the removal occurred towards the very end of
plaintiff's case in chief. As to the defense case, Mann had
participated extensively in the depositions of defendants' fact
witnesses at the scene. Defendants' case was quite short (a little
more than two days of testimony) and consisted almost entirely of
such fact witnesses. Finally, we stress that Young was partially
successful -- the jury found that Solitro had violated Cornel's
constitutional rights -- and there were important differences
16
Dr. Fyfe, however, testified the day after the removal. One
of the key claims of prejudice made by the plaintiff was that Mann
was unprepared to proceed with examining Fyfe and unfamiliar with
the substance of his testimony. But the district judge did offer
to allow Mann a continuance to prepare his examination. Plaintiffs
declined that continuance because of Fyfe's limited availability.
Further, Fyfe's testimony focused mainly on Solitro; Solitro, of
course, was found to have violated Cornel's constitutional rights.
-40-
between the actions of Solitro and Saraiva (who was found not to
have violated Cornel's rights), as Young herself points out in her
reply brief to this court. Solitro left cover; Diaz's testimony
about the officers' erratic behavior was directed primarily at
Solitro's actions; and Solitro was closer to Cornel than Saraiva
and had an unobstructed view of him because he had no cover.
The Saraiva verdict, like the Solitro verdict, is
upheld.
IV.
A. Municipal Liability Against the City of Providence
Liability against the City of Providence is premised on
Monell v. Department of Social Services,
436 U.S. 658 (1978), which
held that a municipality could be liable in certain cases when its
agents and employees committed constitutional violations, but not
under a theory of respondeat superior.
Id. at 691-95. Instead, it
is only when the governmental employees' "execution of a
government's policy or custom . . . inflicts the injury" and is the
"moving force" behind the constitutional violation that a
municipality can be liable.17
Id. at 694.
17
We quickly dispose of a preliminary argument. Defendants
Ryan and Cohen argue that Young's voluntary dismissal of Solitro
and Saraiva as defendants, with prejudice, acts as a judgment that
Solitro and Saraiva did not violate Cornel's constitutional rights,
and this in turn bars liability against Providence or the
supervisors, since such liability can only be premised on an
underlying constitutional violation by Solitro and Saraiva. This
is without merit. Young's claim against the municipal and
supervisory defendants is not an attempt to adjudicate Solitro and
-41-
Assessing liability against the City requires two basic
elements: first, that plaintiff's harm was caused by a
constitutional violation, and second, that the City be responsible
for that violation, an element which has its own components.
Collins v. City of Harker Heights,
503 U.S. 115, 120 (1992).18 The
first element is satisfied here because the jury found that Solitro
-- although not Saraiva -- violated Cornel's constitutional rights
by using excessive force against him. The question at issue here
is whether Providence is responsible for that violation. The
finding that Solitro violated Cornel's constitutional rights is
necessary for any finding that the City is liable, see City of Los
Saraiva's own rights or obtain a judgment binding on them. See,
e.g., Wilson v. Town of Mendon,
294 F.3d 1, 7 (1st Cir. 2002)
(individual can sue city for Monell liability without also
proceeding against officers who committed underlying constitutional
violation). Ryan and Cohen are therefore trying to use the
voluntary dismissal of Solitro and Saraiva for issue preclusive,
rather than claim preclusive, effect. While the voluntary
dismissal surely had claim preclusive effect and barred any attempt
to re-litigate the same claim against Solitro and Saraiva, see
United States v. Cunan,
156 F.3d 110, 114 (1st Cir. 1998), it did
not have any issue preclusive effect on the factual question
whether Solitro and Saraiva violated Cornel's constitutional rights
because this issue was never actually litigated and decided, see,
e.g., Amadeo v. Principal Mut. Life Ins. Co.,
290 F.3d 1152, 1159
(9th Cir. 2002).
18
The sorts of Monell claims being alleged here -- based on
deficient training and hiring that helped cause the constitutional
violation suffered by Cornel -- should not be confused with the
kind of claim that occurs where a municipal policy itself violates
federal rights or directs or authorizes the violation of those
rights. See Brown v. County Comm'rs of Bryan County,
520 U.S. 397,
406-07 (1997). The standards in the latter sort of cases are quite
different.
-42-
Angeles v. Heller,
475 U.S. 796, 799 (1986); Evans v. Avery,
100
F.3d 1033, 1039-40 (1st Cir. 1996), and thus causally, any basis
for municipal liability must run through Solitro's actions. The
actions taken by Solitro that constituted excessive force must
somehow have been caused -- at least in part -- by the City's
failure to train, or erroneous hiring of, Solitro. Since Saraiva
did not use excessive force against Cornel, any claim hinged on the
City's failure to train or discipline Saraiva must fail. For that
reason, the district court correctly granted summary judgment for
the City on the claim of inadequate discipline -- there is no
allegation that Solitro was inadequately disciplined by Providence
at any point before the shooting of Cornel.
The Supreme Court, concerned that municipal liability
based on fault by the City might collapse into de facto respondeat
superior, has set a very high bar for assessing municipal liability
under Monell. The alleged municipal action at issue must
constitute a "policy or custom" attributable to the City. See,
e.g., Silva v. Worden,
130 F.3d 26, 31-32 (1st Cir. 1997).
Further, the Supreme Court has imposed two additional requirements:
1) that the municipal policy or custom actually have caused the
plaintiff's injury, and 2) that the municipality possessed the
requisite level of fault, which is generally labeled in these sorts
of cases as "deliberate indifference." See Brown v. County Comm'rs
of Bryan County,
520 U.S. 397, 404 (1997); see also Bordanaro v.
-43-
McLeod,
871 F.2d 1151, 1161-63 (1st Cir. 1989). Causation and
deliberate indifference are separate requirements, although they
are often intertwined in these cases.
We will address, in turn, Young's claims based on
Providence's allegedly deficient training program and hiring
procedures.
1. Training
The Supreme Court stated in City of Canton v. Harris,
489
U.S. 378 (1989), that an allegation of a local government's failure
to train police officers who then violate a plaintiff's
constitutional rights can be actionable where "the failure to train
amounts to deliberate indifference to the rights of persons with
whom the police come into contact" and where "the identified
deficiency in a city's training program [is] closely related to the
ultimate injury."
Id. at 388, 391.
At the outset, we agree with the district court's
reasoning that any proper allegation of failure to train must be
aimed at Solitro's lack of training and not at the deficiencies in
Saraiva's or Cornel's training, and must allege that Solitro's lack
of training caused him to take actions that were objectively
unreasonable and constituted excessive force on the night he shot
Cornel. Such a theory, when the evidence is looked at most
favorably to the plaintiff, can be made out in this case: a jury
could find that Solitro's shooting of Cornel was unreasonable,
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inter alia, because he should have recognized Cornel as an off-duty
officer (due to Cornel's demeanor and verbal commands) or not shot
Cornel so rapidly without making sure of his identity. A jury
could find that Solitro made such mistakes because of the PPD's
lack of training on on-duty/off-duty interactions, avoiding
misidentifications of off-duty officers, and other issues relating
to the City's always armed/always on-duty policy. Further, a jury
could find that this training deficiency constituted deliberate
indifference to Cornel's rights.
We reject one argument Young has used to advance the
result we do reach. The district court is correct in saying that
the issue is not whether Cornel's death was caused by his own lack
of proper training in identifying himself or otherwise in
conducting himself while off-duty.19 See Young,
301 F. Supp. 2d at
182. Collins establishes that a city worker has no constitutional
right at all to adequate training; thus, there can be no
independent claim of constitutional violation separate from
Solitro's use of excessive force. See
Collins, 503 U.S. at 130.
While the objective reasonableness test for excessive force is not
blind to the actions of the victim, the victim's actions are
19
This does not necessarily mean that evidence of Cornel's and
Saraiva's lack of training is irrelevant; such evidence might be
relevant to show that Solitro's lack of training was part of a
policy of not training on on-duty/off-duty interactions, rather
than simply an "otherwise sound program [that] has occasionally
been negligently administered."
Canton, 489 U.S. at 391. We
express no view on this question.
-45-
invariably considered from the officer's perspective and taken as
given; the question is whether the officer's responses to the
actions of the victim were objectively reasonable. The jury,
employing this view, has found Solitro's actions unconstitutional.
We do, though, disagree with the district court's
conclusion that, based on Melaragno's and Boehm's testimony, no
jury could find that the training program given to officers under
the policy for identification of off-duty officers was deliberately
indifferent to the constitutional rights of off-duty officers like
Cornel. It is true that a training program must be quite deficient
in order for the deliberate indifference standard to be met: the
fact that training is imperfect or not in the precise form a
plaintiff would prefer is insufficient to make such a showing. See
Canton, 489 U.S. at 391; Grazier v. City of Philadelphia,
328 F.3d
120, 125 (3d Cir. 2003); Palmquist v. Selvik,
111 F.3d 1332, 1345
(7th Cir. 1997) (where town gave police officers some training on
handling suspects exhibiting abnormal behavior, argument that even
more training should have been given failed).
We need not decide whether the training described by
Melaragno and Boehm, if fully credited, would be sufficient to
negate any possible inference of deliberate indifference, because
we think the district court ignored genuine disputes of fact about
whether this training ever took place. The testimony of Melaragno
and Boehm may be self-serving: they may be trying to protect the
-46-
department or personally avoid blame for deficient training. That
alone does not make it untrue. What calls the testimony into
question is that the described training was not documented and the
testimony of other witnesses is in conflict with the testimony of
Melaragno and Boehm. Young presented evidence that the general
policy of the PPD was to document training, and yet for unclear
reasons any on-duty/off-duty training was evidently undocumented.
Further, Ryan stated that he would know of any "substantial" off-
duty training that Melaragno supervised. This testimony either
acts to contextualize the extent of the training described by
Melaragno and Boehm as a proportion of total training or creates a
flat conflict with the statements of Melaragno and Boehm. Some
officers recalled little or no training on on-duty/off-duty issues.
Solitro recalled Range 2000 training, but Melaragno and
Commissioner Partington were uncertain about the extent to which
Range 2000 actually dealt with off-duty issues. Finally, Boehm and
Melaragno themselves disagree about some of the training at issue.
In short, there are substantial unresolved issues of fact with
respect to the amount of training that the PPD actually gave to
officers, including Solitro, on avoiding misidentifications of off-
duty officers. The jury could find that there was, at best, very
minimal training on these issues, and no real program of training
on them at all.
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A finding of deliberate indifference requires also that
the City have disregarded a known or obvious risk of serious harm
from its failure to develop a training program that dealt with off-
duty identifications in the context of its always armed/always on-
duty policy. We think the jury could reasonably make such a
finding here. Such knowledge can be imputed to a municipality
through a pattern of prior constitutional violations. See
Brown,
520 U.S. at 407-08; see also Swain v. Spinney,
117 F.3d 1, 11 (1st
Cir. 1997);
Palmquist, 111 F.3d at 1346. Young does not rely
primarily on this sort of notice, although she does have some
evidence from which a jury could find that it was common knowledge
within the PPD that misidentifications of off-duty officers
responding to an incident often occurred in Providence,
particularly misidentification of minority officers. It is clear
that a jury could find a pattern of knowledge of prior
misidentifications and that this was likely to pose a significant
risk of harm.
We have stated that "[t]he Supreme Court has left open
the possibility that a failure-to-train claim can succeed without
showing a pattern of previous constitutional violations."
Swain,
117 F.3d at 11 (citing
Brown, 520 U.S. at 409). In fact, the Court
has suggested that liability without such a pattern will be
appropriate "in a narrow range of circumstances," where "a
violation of [a] federal right[]" is "a highly predictable
-48-
consequence of a failure to equip law enforcement officers with
specific tools to handle recurring situations."
Brown, 520 U.S. at
409; see
Canton, 489 U.S. at 390 & n.10 ("[C]ity policymakers know
to a moral certainty that their police officers will be required to
arrest fleeing felons. The city has armed its officers with
firearms . . . . Thus, the need to train officers in the
constitutional limitations on the use of deadly force . . . can be
said to be 'so obvious' that failure to do so could properly be
characterized as 'deliberate indifference' to constitutional
rights."); see also Allen v. Muskogee,
119 F.3d 837, 844-45 (10th
Cir. 1997); Robles v. City of Fort Wayne,
113 F.3d 732, 735 (7th
Cir. 1997). We think a jury could find deliberate indifference by
virtue of this route here.
Although there was no evidence of a prior friendly fire
shooting, a jury could find from the testimony of Commissioner
Partington, Melaragno, and Boehm that the department knew that
there was a high risk that absent particularized training on
avoiding off-duty misidentifications, and given the department's
always armed/always on-duty policy, friendly fire shootings were
likely to occur. A jury could conclude that the severity of the
consequences of a friendly fire shooting forced the department to
take notice of the high risk despite the rarity of such an
incident. Dr. Fyfe's report could lead the jury to conclude that
it was common knowledge within the police community that the risk
-49-
of friendly fire shootings with an always armed/always on-duty
policy was substantial, and it was also common knowledge that
particularized training on on-duty/off-duty interactions (and
particularly on the risk of misidentifications) was required to
lessen this risk.20 Beyond Dr. Fyfe, the statements of Commissioner
Partington and Ryan could support a view that the City knew its
training program to be seriously deficient. We think, in short,
that the jury could find that the department knew that a friendly
fire shooting in violation of the Fourth Amendment was a
predictable consequence of the PPD's failure to train on on-
duty/off-duty interactions, and therefore that the department was
deliberately indifferent to Cornel's constitutional rights.
Defendants finally argue causation as a basis to affirm
summary judgment on the training claim in their favor. The
causation issue is close. The Supreme Court has stated that courts
must be very careful in assessing causation and must apply a
stringent standard: "the identified deficiency in a city's training
program must be closely related to the ultimate injury."
Canton,
489 U.S. at 391; see
Brown, 520 U.S. at 409-410. As we have
stated, the verdict in phase one reflects that Solitro acted in an
20
The district court declined to consider the Fyfe report on
summary judgment both because it was unsworn and because it was
conclusory. See Young,
301 F. Supp. 2d at 177. The report was
sworn to with an affidavit, and thus that ground for disregarding
the report was error. The aspects of the report on which we rely
could properly have been testified to by Fyfe.
-50-
objectively unreasonable fashion for an officer. The jury could
conclude that Solitro was not trained by the PPD to know that there
could be off-duty officers at a scene, responding to the same
incidents, whom on-duty officers must take pains to identify. A
jury could find that training would have made a difference here,
unlike in other situations where it would have been unlikely to
stop unconstitutional conduct. See, e.g., Barney v. Pulsipher,
143
F.3d 1299, 1308 (10th Cir. 1998) (training claim failed because
training would be unlikely to stop jailer from sexually assaulting
inmates);
Robles, 113 F.3d at 736.
The testimony of Commissioner Partington and Melarango
establishes that even though identification of off-duty officers
might appear to be a matter of common sense, in situations of high
stress such as where an officer is evaluating the threat level of
an unknown individual armed with a gun, officers tend to fall back
on their training. They could find that if Solitro had, for
example, been instructed that he was likely to encounter off-duty
police officers while on-duty himself, had seen many situations
involving off-duty officers in range and scenario training, and had
been instructed on the kinds of actions that off-duty officers
would take to attempt to identify themselves, then he would have
properly recognized Cornel as an off-duty officer and would not
have shot him.
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We reverse the grant of summary judgment against Young on
the failure to train claim. We remand this claim for trial.21
2. Hiring
It is much harder for a Monell plaintiff to succeed on a
hiring claim than a failure to train claim. See
Brown, 520 U.S. at
409 ("The proffered analogy between failure-to-train cases and
21
Providence makes several confusing arguments based on the
undisputed requirement under Monell that a municipal policy or
custom be involved in order to make a municipality liable. See,
e.g., Jett v. Dallas Indep. Sch. Dist.,
491 U.S. 701, 737 (1989);
City of St. Louis v. Praprotnik,
485 U.S. 112, 123-25 (1988)
(plurality opinion); Pembaur v. City of Cincinnati,
475 U.S. 469,
481-83 (1986); Baron v. Suffolk County Sheriff's Dept., No. 03-
2718,
2005 WL 708338, at 11-13 (1st Cir. March 29, 2005).
Providence does not dispute that the jury could find that the
always armed/always on-duty requirement is a policy of the City
promulgated by an official policymaker. A jury could further find
that this policy poses substantial risks of harm which are inherent
but which risks could be minimized by proper training. A jury
could also conclude from the testimony of Commissioner Partington
that there was a Providence policy or custom of not training PPD
officers on the inherent risks of the always armed/always on-duty
policy (and how to avoid them) in a way that was deliberately
indifferent and caused the violation of Cornel's constitutional
rights. And although it is unclear whether Chief Prignano was a
final policymaker for the municipality on PPD training issues,
Commissioner Partington clearly was such a final policymaker: as
Commissioner of Public Safety he had been delegated broad
policymaking authority over PPD procedures by the municipality.
We again leave for another day the question left open in
Baron, which is whether a court in a Monell case involving an
allegation of a culpable "custom" -- not policy -- must explicitly
link that custom to a final policymaker in order to make a
municipality liable. See Baron,
2005 WL 708338, at *12-13
(allegation of culpable municipal policy requires that court
explicitly find a final policymaker, but it is unclear whether
final policymaker must be explicitly identified in a custom case).
In this case, a jury could find either a policy or custom of
failure to train on the risks of the always armed/always on-duty
policy; the jury could also attribute either the policy or custom
to Commissioner Partington.
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inadequate screening cases is not persuasive."). This is because
it is especially difficult, with a hiring claim, to find both
causation (that the hiring decision caused the constitutional
deprivation of the plaintiff in a particularized sense) and fault
(that the hiring decision reflected deliberate indifference to the
particular constitutional right at issue of the plaintiff). See,
e.g.,
Barney, 143 F.3d at 1308. Further, hiring claims are
especially likely to collapse into a species of respondeat superior
liability, if not checked by particularly stringent standards. See
Brown, 520 U.S. at 410.
The Supreme Court has stated that it is unclear whether
a single hiring decision due to inadequate screening can ever lead
to Monell liability.
Id. at 412. If it can, however, the
plaintiff would need to show that, if the City had performed a full
review of the hired officer's record, the particular constitutional
violation committed by the hired officer would have been a "plainly
obvious consequence" of the hiring decision by the municipality.
Id. at 412-13; see also Morris v. Crawford County,
299 F.3d 919,
924-25 (8th Cir. 2002); Gros v. City of Grand Prairie,
209 F.3d
431, 435 (5th Cir. 2000);
Barney, 143 F.3d at 1308-09. This
standard is exceptionally stringent. Solitro's record included
several complaints of excessive force while restraining juveniles,
and he had an expunged conviction for assaulting Small, an off-duty
minority officer. But "even when an applicant's background
-53-
contains complaints of physical violence, including acts of
aggression and assault," this may still be insufficient to make a
City liable for inadequate screening of an officer who then uses
excessive force. See
Morris, 299 F.3d at 924; see also
Brown, 520
U.S. at 413-14 (officer's record insufficiently related to
excessive force complaint even where it included a conviction for
assault and battery).
At any rate, we need not decide this issue on which the
City so heavily relies. Although Brown itself is focused on the
"actual background of the individual applicant," it cannot be that
the "thoroughness or adequacy of the municipality's review of the
application" is irrelevant. See
Barney, 143 F.3d at 1308 n.7. The
procedures involved in the review of Solitro's application, on the
undisputed facts, were not sufficiently inadequate to raise a jury
question as to Providence's deliberate indifference. A background
check was performed, the background investigator spoke to two of
Solitro's supervisors at the juvenile facility and received good
reviews, and the Small incident came to light and was discussed at
Solitro's oral interview before the hiring board. That procedures
were flawed does not make Providence deliberately indifferent to
the risk that Solitro would use excessive force.
Finally, Young attempts to remove her hiring claim from
the ambit of the "single incident" facts discussed in Brown by
stating that here, the PPD's hiring procedures were generally
-54-
deficient. She points to evidence that background investigators
were untrained, that background checks were not received by the
members of the oral board, and that background checks were ignored
by the policymakers. She also points to evidence of one violent
individual whose name kept coming up on the applicant list due to
corruption, but who was never actually hired. Given the logic of
Brown, this is not the sort of hiring pattern that could lead to an
inference of deliberate indifference.22 See Synder v. Trepagnier,
142 F.3d 791, 796 (5th Cir. 1998) (analyzing hiring claim as a
single incident case under Brown despite allegation that "the
City's hiring policies were [generally] deficient because
candidates' backgrounds were inadequately investigated."). A
pattern of previous bad hiring decisions leading to constitutional
violations (perhaps of the same type as the one at issue) would
likely be necessary to get one outside the "single incident"
analysis in Brown. See
Brown, 520 U.S. at 409-11.
We affirm summary judgment for the City on Young's
deficient hiring claim. The recent trend of Supreme Court cases,
which use very particularized notions of causation and fault, make
22
We note, as well, that many of the general deficiencies in
hiring procedures that Young points to have no causal relationship
to the hiring of Solitro, and they thus have no causal relationship
to the shooting of Cornel. It made no difference to Solitro that
background checks were not seen by the oral board, for the
background check on Solitro contained no disqualifying information.
Likewise, the fact that negative background checks were ignored has
no causal relationship to Solitro's hiring, again because his
background check did not uncover any problems.
-55-
it unlikely that the training claim and the hiring claim could be
combined into one mishmash, despite the hiring claim's inability to
survive on its own, and given to the jury. See, e.g.,
Brown, 520
U.S. at 406-07. Even if, in some cases, it might be appropriate to
combine the two claims, see Bordanaro v. McLeod,
871 F.2d 1151,
1159 (1st Cir. 1989) (combining Monell claims that city had
inadequate "recruitment, training, supervision and discipline" of
its police force), this is not such a case. Throughout the
proceedings below and here (save for a brief mention at oral
argument), Young has argued the training, hiring, and discipline
points separately.
B. Supervisory Liability and Qualified Immunity
Young asserts claims against Prignano, Sullivan, Ryan,
and Cohen for supervisory liability. See, e.g., Camilo-Robles v.
Hoyos,
151 F.3d 1, 6-7 (1st Cir. 1998); Maldonado-Denis v.
Castillo-Rodriguez,
23 F.3d 576, 581-82 (1st Cir. 1994). These
individual defendants ask that the summary judgment granted in
their favor be affirmed. We decline to do so. The issues are
better addressed by the district court.
We have reversed entry of summary judgment against
Providence on the failure to train claim, a consideration pertinent
to qualified immunity analysis. The district court never dealt
with qualified immunity issues -- it made no rulings on the second
prong of qualified immunity analysis, whether both the underlying
-56-
constitutional violation of Solitro and the basis for liability of
the various supervisors were clearly established, nor did it make
any rulings on the third prong, whether the supervisors' actions
were otherwise objectively reasonable.23 See
Camilo-Robles, 151
F.3d at 6-8. Further, the record on qualified immunity issues is
not well developed and the briefing on appeal is inadequate. Thus,
the most prudent course is to vacate the grant of summary judgment
in favor of the four supervisory defendants, premised on the
erroneous grant of summary judgment to Providence, and remand. We
do not address the issue of supervisory liability here.
V.
The phase one verdict that Solitro violated Cornel's
constitutional rights while Saraiva did not is affirmed. On phase
two, the grant of summary judgment in Providence's favor on Young's
§ 1983 failure to train claim based on the training of Solitro is
reversed, and that claim is remanded for trial. The grants of
summary judgment in favor of Providence on all other § 1983 claims
against it -- based on Saraiva and Cornel's training, Solitro's
hiring, and Saraiva's discipline -- are affirmed. The grants of
23
In its May 30, 2003 ruling on Sullivan and Prignano's initial
motion for summary judgment, the district court held that the two,
in their motion, never raised any qualified immunity issues that
went beyond the merits of the case; in its February 11, 2004 ruling
on Ryan, Cohen, and Providence's subsequent motion for summary
judgment, the district court did not reach qualified immunity
because it held that the disposition of the claims against
Providence effectively disposed of the supervisory claims -- on the
merits -- as well. Young,
301 F. Supp. 2d at 183-84.
-57-
summary judgment against Young on the § 1983 supervisory claims
against Prignano, Sullivan, Ryan, and Cohen are vacated and
remanded to the district court. The case is remanded for
proceedings consistent with this opinion.24
24
Young challenges various discovery orders made by the
district court refusing requests for (1) records concerning
misidentification of officers by civilians or other officers, (2)
arrest and incident reports reflecting PPD officers taking off-duty
action, (3) discipline records concerning off-duty conduct of PPD
officers, and (4) data and statistics on racial profiling. We see
no abuse of discretion in the denial of these discovery requests.
The third and fourth items are irrelevant given Young's legal
theory. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). While some of the
information in the first and second items could have relevance to
this case, the sweeping breadth in the way these requests were
framed adequately justified denial. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(2).
Young also challenges orders declining a request to make former
Providence Mayor Cianci give more specific answers to deposition
questions and declining to force the current PPD chief to be
deposed at all. There was no abuse of discretion here either;
neither witness is relevant to Young's case.
Young also challenges a denial of her motion to amend the
complaint to add a supervisory claim against Ryan for his
involvement in the hiring process. This challenge is moot, given
that we have affirmed summary judgment against Young on her claim
that Providence was liable for deficient hiring; Young has put
forth no separate theory that would lead to supervisory liability
against Ryan based on hiring.
Young never asks us to rule on whether the district court's
use of a local rule, D.R.I. Am. Gen. Order 2002-01, to limit the
total length of legal memoranda to 10 pages for most motions and 20
pages for motions for summary judgment, and to limit the length of
supporting appendices and exhibits submitted with those memoranda
by use of the same (10 and 20) page restrictions, was appropriate.
We do not reach this question.
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