Boyd v. Adams, 73 C 403.

• Decision Date: 29 June 1973
• Docket Number: No. 73 C 403.,73 C 403.
• Citation: 364 F. Supp. 1180
• Parties: Vertia BOYD, Plaintiff, v. R. ADAMS, badge no. 13001, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois

364 F. Supp. 1180

Vertia BOYD, Plaintiff, v. R. ADAMS, badge no. 13001, et al., Defendants.

No. 73 C 403.

United States District Court, N. D. Illinois, E. D.

June 29, 1973.

Kenneth K. Howell, and David C. Thomas, Woodlawn Crim. Defense Services, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff.

Richard L. Curry, Corp. Counsel, John V. Virgilio, Asst. Corp. Counsel, Chicago, Ill., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

MAROVITZ, District Judge.

Motion To Dismiss And Summary Judgment

This is an action for declaratory judgment, injunctive relief and damages brought pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 2201, 1331 and 1343 to redress injury arising out of alleged violations of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983, 1985, 1986 and 1988. Plaintiff alleges deprivation of her constitutional rights as protected by the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th and 14th amendments from the following undisputed facts as alleged in the five count complaint.

Plaintiff, Vertia Boyd, a passenger with two men in an automobile driven by Tommie Jones was ordered out of the car when officers Adams and Hofman, plain clothes policemen in an unmarked car, stopped the car after it turned left onto Laurel Street. The officers after preliminary inquiries searched the three men and the car finding no incriminating evidence and thereafter plaintiff, refusing to be searched, was violently pushed to the unmarked car, where the officers threatened and talked abusively to her. Plaintiff, pregnant at the time, was arrested for unstated reasons by the officers and later charged with disorderly conduct and resisting a police officer and held for five hours before release on bond. Plaintiff alleges she was under no pending charges, no outstanding warrants or indictments and that she was searched without probable cause. Plaintiff sues to recover damages for great bodily injury, pain, internal hemorrhaging, hospital expenses and miscarriage resulting in severe mental distress.

At her trial, plaintiff's attorney asked dismissal of the charges in exchange for plaintiff's release of all defendants from all civil liability, arising out of the arrest, which was agreed to by the Assistant State's Attorney. Plaintiff signed the release and by her same attorney filed this action claiming that the release was void.

Plaintiff joins as defendants the two arresting officers Adams and Hofman, the Chief of Police, James B. Conlisk, the City of Chicago, a municipal corporation, Edward V. Hanrahan, the State's Attorney and his Assistant State's Attorney, Paul Kayman, all in their individual and official capacities.

The complaint sets forth five counts and prays for the following relief:

Count I. prays $5,000 compensatory and $10,000 punitive damages jointly and severally against Adams and Hofman for injury resulting from the alleged unlawful search;

Count II. prays $1,000 compensatory and $5,000 punitive damages jointly and severally against Adams and Hofman for injuries resulting from the alleged unlawful arrest and confinement;

Count III. prays $1,000 compensatory and $5,000 punitive damages jointly and severally against Adams and Hofman for conspiring to injure plaintiff;

Count IV. prays $2,000 compensatory and $5,000 punitive damages jointly and severally against the City of Chicago and Conlisk under agency principles for the negligent training, supervision, knowledge and ratification of the actions of Adams and Hofman resulting in the injuries to plaintiff;

Count V. prays $2,000 compensatory and $5,000 punitive damages jointly and severally against Hanrahan and Kayman for severe mental anguish and asks this Court to declare the release of civil liability void and unenforceable and to permanently enjoin the practice of coercing releases for dismissal of criminal charges as well as any future prosecution of the charges and harassment against plaintiff.

The defendant City of Chicago, a municipal corporation, moves to strike plaintiff's complaint and to dismiss the City for lack of jurisdiction over the subject matter and for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Defendant Conlisk moves for summary judgment claiming that the doctrine of respondeat superior is inapplicable and that he may not be held accountable under § 1983 for actions in which he took no personal part. Defendants Hanrahan and Kayman move to dismiss on the grounds of prosecutorial immunity, failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted and that the release was not coerced. Defendants Adams and Hofman move to dismiss the complaint on the grounds that plaintiff has executed a valid release of all civil liability, and also affirmatively plead the release as a defense.

Plaintiff moves for summary judgment on the release as void as a matter of law.

The central issue in this case revolves around the validity of plaintiff's release, executed in exchange for nonsuit by the state of criminal charges, of all civil liability for damages arising out of her arrest by the defendants. Before deciding this issue, however, it is essential that the proper defendants to the claim be established.

The defendant City of Chicago, a municipal corporation, moves to strike the complaint and dismiss it as a party defendant on the grounds that a municipal corporation is not a "person" within the Civil Rights Act § 1983, therefore affording no jurisdictional ground upon which a claim may be pursued. Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 81 S.Ct. 473, 5 L. Ed.2d 492 (1961). Plaintiff, however, argues that Monroe was wrongly decided and that municipalities were not included as immune but subject to suit, especially if the state had abolished sovereign immunity. Even if Monroe was correct, plaintiff further argues that § 1983 follows local law regarding sovereign immunity, which is governed in Illinois by Ill.Rev.Stat., Ch. 85, § 1-101 et seq., providing for liability with certain exceptions irrelevant in this case, and claims the City is liable for the intentional acts of officers Adams and Hofman (§ 2-202). Plaintiff also urges that § 1988 grants an extraordinary remedy applicable in this case and that the claim against the City could be joined under the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction to the federal civil rights claim although unsupported by an independent federal jurisdictional base.

Until recently divergent theories of municipal liability under the Civil Rights Act have resulted in confusion among the circuits and plaintiff urges adoption of municipal liability as stated in Carter v. Carlson, 144 U.S.App.D.C. 388, 447 F.2d 358 (1971), rather than the Seventh Circuit's view in accord with Monroe in Ries v. Lynskey, 452 F. 2d 172 (C.A.7 1971). While plaintiff argues vigorously for vicarious liability by the City, the United States Supreme Court has now settled this question in three recent cases.

In District of Columbia v. Carter, 409 U.S. 418, 93 S.Ct. 602, 34 L.Ed.2d 613 (1973), the Supreme Court reversed Judge Bazelon's interpretation that the District of Columbia was a "State or Territory" within the purview of § 1983, which therefore negated the jurisdiction of that Court. Without this jurisdictional basis, theories of vicarious liability applicable to maintaining municipal liability under that section of the Civil Rights Act evaporated, as to claims arising in the District of Columbia.

The Supreme Court, thereafter in Moor v. County of Alameda, 411 U.S. 693, 93 S.Ct. 1785, 36 L.Ed.2d 596 (1973), further limited actions under the Civil Rights Act §§ 1983 and 1988 by enunciating greater immunity for municipalities stating that § 1988 was not "meant to authorize the wholesale importation into federal law of state causes of action—not even one purportedly designed for the protection of federal civil rights". 411 U.S. at 703-704, 93 S.Ct. at 1793. By limiting extraordinary remedies under § 1988 to gaps only as left uncovered by specific provisions of the Civil Rights Act rather than remedies for civil rights protection in general, the Court stated that "§ 1988, in light of the express limitations contained within it, cannot be used to accomplish what Congress clearly refused to do in enacting § 1983". 411 U.S. at 710, 93 S.Ct. at 1796. The effect of Moor was supportative to the doctrine of municipal immunity (the County was held eligible for immunity as a sufficient "body politic") as established in Monroe, and precluded petitioners' recovering for injury resulting from a shooting by a Deputy Sheriff of Alameda County, California, as against the County of Alameda under the Civil Rights Act.

The Court also in Moor held that wide discretionary power was vested in the District Court's consideration of nonfederally cognizable claims under the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction and that the federal forum was inappropriate as trier of difficult, unsettled state questions. The lower Court therefore acted properly in declining to exercise pendent jurisdiction over a claim without a federal jurisdictional basis which would unduly complicate the suit, and thus properly dismissed the County.

The third decision which directly bears upon this case is City of Kenosha v. Bruno, 412 U.S. 507, 93 S.Ct. 2222, 37 L.Ed.2d 109 (1973), which closed off the avenue of equitable relief against a municipality. The Court ruled that no jurisdiction attaches under 28 U.S.C. § 1343 for suits brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 where a municipality is sought to be enjoined in an action for declaratory judgment and injunction. Thus, appellees claimed deprivation of due process when a local liquor licensing committee's hearing resulted in a failure to renew their liquor license on the grounds that community sentiment was against nude dancing in bars. The Supreme Court held that § 1983 did not include a city within the definition of a "person" either for damages or equitable relief and that § 1983 was not intended by Congress to have a "bifurcated application to municipal corporations depending on the nature of the relief sought against them". 412 U.S. at 513, ...