VINCENT L. BRICCETTI, District Judge.
Plaintiff
In addition, plaintiff asserts several state law claims against the City Defendants; the Emergency Medical Services of the City of Mount Vernon ("EMS"); Empress Ambulance Services, Inc. ("Empress Ambulance"); individual defendants David Hardy, Marquis Collier, Jermaine Hughley, and Sincere Savoy; and unidentified John and Jane Does.
Now pending is the City Defendants' and EMS's motion to dismiss the amended complaint pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) and to strike the amended complaint pursuant to Rule 12(f). (Doc. #38).
For the following reasons, the motion to dismiss is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART. The motion to strike is DENIED.
This Court has subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1367.
For the purpose of ruling on the motion to dismiss, the Court accepts as true all wellpleaded factual allegations in the amended complaint, and draws all reasonable inferences in plaintiff's favor, as summarized below.
On December 31, 2016, at approximately 2:30 p.m., plaintiff picked up her daughter from basketball practice at Mount Vernon Junior High School to drive her home. As they were driving, plaintiff's daughter—who was sitting in the front seat of the vehicle—was shot in the head by a stray bullet fired by defendant David Hardy.
Plaintiff alleges that she called 911 and that "cousins of Plaintiff's decedent . . ., and/or. . . others at the scene" also called 911. (Am. Compl." ¶¶ 36-37). Someone then informed plaintiff that the 911 operator said EMS would be there "immediately and/or in short time." (
EMS was taking a long time, so plaintiff considered driving her daughter to the hospital herself. A police officer then arrived; plaintiff asked the officer if he could provide her with a police escort to drive her daughter to the hospital. The officer said that was unnecessary because EMS would be there shortly.
Other police officers arrived on the scene and began to question plaintiff about the shooting. They also searched plaintiff's vehicle. Plaintiff provided what little information she had—that she had seen someone in a gray sweatshirt running and did not see his face—and tried to assure the officers that she and her daughter were innocent bystanders.
Plaintiff pleaded with the officers to let her be with her daughter, who was still in the vehicle, and to let her drive her daughter to the hospital. Instead, the officers surrounded plaintiff, said "you must come with us," and took plaintiff two blocks away to where plaintiff had seen the individual in the gray sweatshirt. (Am. Compl. ¶ 60). The officers told plaintiff another individual had been shot near that location, and wanted to bring her to the second victim to see if she recognized him or vice versa. Plaintiff did not recognize the individual, who was not wearing a gray sweatshirt and did not have life-threatening injuries. The individual likewise told the officers he did not recognize plaintiff, and plaintiff had not been involved in the shooting.
Twenty minutes after the call to 911, EMS arrived. But they went to where the other victim was located, and plaintiff had to "flag down" the ambulance and direct it to her daughter. (Am. Compl. ¶ 84). The EMS technician gave the following excuses for the twenty-minute response time: (i) EMS was understaffed; (ii) EMS did not have an ambulance in Mount Vernon and EMS personnel had to travel from Yonkers; and (iii) the dispatcher had provided EMS personnel with confusing or misleading information regarding the number of shooting victims and their location.
Plaintiff wanted to ride in the ambulance to the hospital with her daughter, who was still alive but in extreme pain. Plaintiff wanted to be by her daughter's side, especially if her daughter was dying. But the officers would not let her.
The officers told plaintiff she had to go with them to the Mount Vernon Police Precinct. Plaintiff insisted she had given the officers all the information she had regarding the shooting, but the officers told plaintiff she was a suspect and they would not let her see her daughter until she told them everything she knew about the shooting.
The officers took plaintiff to the precinct and held her in what plaintiff believed was an "interrogation room." (Am. Compl. ¶ 106). One of the officers was posted at the door; that officer told plaintiff she was not allowed to leave until a detective questioned her.
Then, Andrea Hamilton, a parent of another child on the Mount Vernon Junior High School basketball team, showed up at the precinct and pleaded with the officers to allow plaintiff to be with her daughter. Ms. Hamilton told the officers, "Plaintiff and her daughter had nothing to do with the shooting, as they were in fact the victims of a crime, as Plaintiff was in fact a good mother/person who would not be involved in criminal activities." (Am. Compl. ¶ 116). The officers still refused to release plaintiff, so Hamilton threatened to call and complain to City Councilman Andre Wallace. Only then did the officers release plaintiff.
All told, more than one hour had passed since the officers required that plaintiff accompany them to the other victim at the crime scene.
Plaintiff's daughter was still alive when she arrived at the hospital. But by the time plaintiff arrived, her daughter, tragically, had died.
In deciding a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the Court evaluates the sufficiency of the operative complaint under the "two-pronged approach" articulated by the Supreme Court in
To survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the allegations in the complaint must meet a standard of "plausibility."
The Court
The City Defendants argue plaintiff fails to state a claim for unlawful detention because the City Officers had reasonable suspicion to conduct an investigatory stop pursuant to
The Court agrees regarding plaintiff's detention at the crime scene. However, the Court disagrees as to plaintiff's continuing detention to and at the police precinct.
The Fourth Amendment, which applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, protects "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.'" U.S. Const. amend. IV.
"[T]he first step in any Fourth Amendment claim (or, as in this case, any section 1983 claim predicated on the Fourth Amendment) is to determine whether there has been a constitutionally cognizable seizure."
If there was a seizure, the Court proceeds to the second step, which is to determine what type of seizure occurred. There are two relevant types of seizures, each of which requires a different level of justification: (i) an investigatory (or
"A permissible investigative stop may become an unlawful arrest if the means of detention are more intrusive than necessary."
The third and final step is to determine whether the seizure was justified—in other words, whether the officers had reasonable suspicion (if the seizure was an investigatory stop) or probable cause (if the seizure was an arrest).
In contrast, probable cause exists if an officer has "knowledge or reasonably trustworthy information sufficient to warrant a person of reasonable caution in the belief that an offense has been committed by the person to be arrested."
Here, accepting the allegations of the amended complaint as true, the City Officers' initial detention of plaintiff was a
But when the officers required plaintiff to go with them to the precinct, the detention as alleged became a
Further, the arrest was not supported by probable cause. There are no facts alleged in the amended complaint indicating plaintiff was anything more than the victim of horrible circumstances. On the other hand, as alleged, multiple facts in the amended complaint indicate plaintiff was innocent: the second shooting victim did not recognize plaintiff and it was plaintiff's own daughter who had been shot.
Accordingly, plaintiff sufficiently alleges an unlawful detention claim.
Plaintiff asserts a claim against the City Defendants for infringement of her right to intimate association.
The Court agrees.
Qualified immunity shields government officials whose conduct "does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known."
"The issues on qualified immunity are: (1) whether plaintiff has shown facts making out violation of a constitutional right; (2) if so, whether that right was `clearly established'; and (3) even if the right was `clearly established,' whether it was `objectively reasonable' for the officer to believe the conduct at issue was lawful."
"[T]he general right to intimate association has been clearly established since 1984 when [
On December 6, 2018, the Second Circuit held that "a claim under the Due Process Clause for infringement of the right to familial associations requires the allegation that state action was specifically intended to interfere with the family relationship."
Plaintiff has not alleged any facts suggesting the City Officers intentionally interfered with plaintiff's relationship with her daughter. Therefore, the City Officers' alleged misconduct does not fall within the category of behavior that clearly violated plaintiff's rights.
Accordingly, the City Officers are entitled to qualified immunity on plaintiff's claim for infringement of her right to intimate association.
Plaintiff's "Caused to be Subjected" claim is duplicative of plaintiff's other Section 1983 claims and is not cognizable as a standalone Section 1983 claim. It is therefore dismissed.
Plaintiff's conspiracy claim against the City Defendants fails because the City Defendants are "officers, agents and employees of a single corporate entity," and are thus "legally incapable of conspiring together."
The Court rejects plaintiff's argument that Section 1983 conspiracy claims are not subject to the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine.
Accordingly, plaintiff's conspiracy claim is dismissed.
Plaintiff's
Under
A plaintiff may satisfy the "policy or custom" requirement by alleging one of the following: (i) "a formal policy officially endorsed by the municipality"; (ii) "actions taken by government officials responsible for establishing the municipal policies that caused the particular deprivation in question"; (iii) "a practice so consistent and widespread that, although not expressly authorized, constitutes a custom or usage of which a supervising policy-maker must have been aware"; or (iv) "a failure by policymakers to provide adequate training or supervision to subordinates to such an extent that it amounts to deliberate indifference to the rights of those who come into contact with the municipal employees."
"While
Plaintiff essentially alleges the City Police Department had policies or customs of underfinancing, mismanagement, and failure adequately to train and staff police officers, which plaintiff believes allowed the tragic shooting of her daughter to occur. But plaintiff does not allege any facts suggesting a policy or custom that led to her alleged unlawful detention or infringement of the right to familial association. Therefore, plaintiff fails sufficiently to allege a causal connection between a policy or custom and the alleged underlying constitutional violations.
Accordingly, plaintiff's
As relevant to the instant motion, plaintiff brings two state law negligence claims against the City Defendants, EMS, and Empress Ambulance—one on behalf of plaintiff and one on behalf of plaintiff's daughter—and claims for negligent infliction of emotional distress ("NIED") and intentional infliction of emotional distress ("IIED") against all defendants. In addition, plaintiff brings three categories of state law derivative claims, including: (i) wrongful death against the City Defendants, EMS, and Empress Ambulance; (ii) conscious pain and suffering against all defendants; and (iii) loss of consortium against all defendants.
First, plaintiff's wrongful death claims fail because plaintiff fails to allege distributees who have suffered a pecuniary loss because of plaintiff's daughter's death.
Second, plaintiff's loss of consortium claim fails because New York does not recognize a common law cause of action for loss of consortium.
Third, plaintiff's remaining state law claims against the City Defendants and EMS for negligence and conscious pain and suffering fail for the reasons discussed below.
Plaintiff brings negligence claims against the City Defendants, EMS, and Empress Ambulance. The City Defendants and EMS argue plaintiff fails to state negligence claims against them because plaintiff fails plausibly to allege a special relationship with the City.
"When a negligence claim is asserted against a municipality or its employees, the threshold inquiry is `whether the municipal entity was engaged in a proprietary function or acted in a governmental capacity at the time the claim arose.'"
"A municipality performs a governmental function when its acts are `undertaken for the protection and safety of the public pursuant to the general police powers.'"
"If it is determined that a municipality was exercising a governmental function, the next inquiry focuses on the extent to which the municipality owed a `special duty' to the injured party."
For a municipality voluntarily to assume a duty to the plaintiff beyond what was owed to the public generally, four elements must be present:
Here, plaintiff alleges someone—possibly plaintiff herself (though plaintiff's allegations are unclear on this point)—called 911 after her daughter was shot. Even if plaintiff spoke to a 911 operator herself, it would not be sufficient to create a special relationship between the City and her daughter. Plaintiff's daughter—not plaintiff herself—is the injured party. Plaintiff's daughter did not speak to a municipal agent. Therefore, plaintiff fails sufficiently to allege the third element necessary to create a special duty: direct contact between the municipality's agents and the injured party.
Accordingly, plaintiff's negligence claims are dismissed.
Plaintiff brings claims for NIED and IIED against all defendants. "New York does not recognize NIED or IIED causes of action where the conduct underlying them may be addressed through traditional tort remedies, such as false arrest."
As plaintiff's claims fall within the ambit of traditional tort law—namely, negligence, assault, battery, and false arrest—plaintiff's NIED and IIED claims are dismissed.
Plaintiff's claim for conscious pain and suffering against the City Defendants and EMS depends on plaintiff's claims for negligence, NIED, and IIED, which the Court has dismissed.
In addition, to the extent plaintiff claims her alleged unlawful detention is an underlying wrong supporting her claim for conscious pain and suffering, that argument fails. As explained above, plaintiff only sufficiently alleges unlawful detention once the officers took her to the police precinct, which plaintiff alleges occurred after the ambulance had already arrived. Therefore, plaintiff's alleged unlawful detention could not have plausibly caused the death or further injury of plaintiff's daughter.
Accordingly, plaintiff's conscious pain and suffering claim against the City Defendants and EMS is dismissed.
The City Defendants and EMS move to strike the amended complaint for failure to provide a "short and plain statement" in compliance with Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2).
The Court is tempted to grant the City Defendants' and EMS's request. However, the Court will not prejudice plaintiff because of her attorney's inartful pleading.
Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2) states a pleading must contain "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief." The Court may dismiss a complaint for failure to comply with Rule 8 "by virtue of a plaintiff's including redundant or unnecessary allegations."
Frankly, the Court is flabbergasted at the size of the amended complaint—192 pages and 470 paragraphs. Moreover, the amended complaint consists largely of repetitive and unnecessary statements. Plaintiff's sloppy pleading wastes the valuable time of the Court and defense counsel, which must decipher plaintiff's inartfully pleaded allegations and claims.
Plaintiff's counsel is on notice—the Court will not entertain future submissions that so egregiously violate reasonable length limitations.
The motion to dismiss is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART.
The motion to strike is DENIED.
The remaining claims in this action are:
The City of Mount Vernon shall file an answer by January 11, 2019.
The Clerk is instructed to (i) terminate the City of Mount Vernon Police Department and the Emergency Medical Services of the City of Mount Vernon from the docket, and (ii) terminate the motion. (Doc. #38).