Spencer v. Casavilla

Decision Date19 December 1994
Docket NumberNo. 38,D,38
PartiesErnestine SPENCER, individually as the mother of Samuel Benjamin Spencer III, deceased, and as Administratrix of the estate of Samuel Benjamin Spencer III, Samuel B. Spencer, Jr., father of Samuel Benjamin Spencer III, deceased, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Frank CASAVILLA, Cosmo Muriale, Frank D'Antonio, & Douglas Mackey, Defendants-Appellees. ocket 93-9356.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

James I. Meyerson, New York City, for plaintiffs-appellants.

Before: NEWMAN, Chief Judge, KEARSE and CARDAMONE, Circuit Judges.

KEARSE, Circuit Judge:

This case returns to us after a jury trial and a judgment setting aside the jury's verdict on certain claims, following our remand in Spencer v. Casavilla, 903 F.2d 171 (2d Cir.1990) ("Spencer I "). Plaintiffs Ernestine Spencer and Samuel Spencer, Jr., appeal from so much of the final judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Kimba M. Wood, Judge, as dismissed their claims pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Secs. 1981 and 1985(3) (1988) for the racially motivated beating and murder of their son, Samuel Spencer III ("Spencer"). With respect to federal and state-law claims asserted on behalf of Spencer, the jury returned a verdict in favor of plaintiffs on liability issues, and it awarded a total of $700,000 in compensatory and punitive damages on the state-law claims, but awarded no additional damages on the federal claims. The jury also found for plaintiffs on their individual claims under Sec. 1985(3) for conspiracy to deprive them of the services of Spencer, awarding them $300,000 on those claims. The district court set aside the verdicts on all of the federal claims, ruling principally (a) that the Sec. 1981 claims must be dismissed for lack of state action, and (b) that the Sec. 1985(3) claims on behalf of Spencer must be dismissed for lack of evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude that defendants acted with the intent to deprive Spencer of his constitutional right to travel. On appeal, plaintiffs challenge the dismissals of their federal claims. For the reasons that follow, we dismiss so much of the appeal as seeks review of the dismissal of the federal claims asserted on behalf of Spencer; we affirm the dismissal of the federal claims asserted on behalf of plaintiffs individually.

I. BACKGROUND

The events, as described in the district court's posttrial Amended Memorandum Opinion and Order dated December 7, 1993 ("Opinion"), may be summarized as follows. On May 28, 1986, Spencer, a young black man who resided with his parents in Yonkers, New York, was visiting his sister in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn. Sometime after midnight, Spencer left his sister's home Plaintiffs commenced the present action, asserting claims under Sec. 1981, Sec. 1985(3), and state law on behalf of Spencer for pain and suffering ("Spencer's claims"), and claims under Secs. 1981 and 1985(3) on behalf of themselves individually for loss of the services of their son (plaintiffs' "individual claims"). Section 1981 provides that

                and rode his bicycle to Nathan's Restaurant.  After an argument in the parking lot, Spencer was chased by defendants Frank Casavilla, Frank D'Antonio, Cosmo Muriale, and Douglas Mackey, young white men, who brutally beat and stabbed him to death, saying "Die, nigger."   In a state criminal prosecution for their attack on Spencer, the four defendants eventually were convicted, after trial or pleas of guilty, of state-law crimes ranging from assault to murder
                

[a]ll persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.

42 U.S.C. Sec. 1981(a). Section 1985(3) provides in pertinent part that

[i]f two or more persons in any State or Territory conspire ... for the purpose of depriving, either directly or indirectly, any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws ... [and] do, or cause to be done, any act in furtherance of the object of such conspiracy, whereby another is injured in his person or property, or deprived of having and exercising any right or privilege of a citizen of the United States, the party so injured or deprived may have an action for the recovery of damages occasioned by such injury or deprivation, against any one or more of the conspirators.

42 U.S.C. Sec. 1985(3).

The case was initially dismissed for lack of federal subject matter jurisdiction and failure to state a federal cause of action. See 717 F.Supp. 1057, 1062 (S.D.N.Y.1989) (Haight, J.). This Court reversed in Spencer I and remanded for trial. Addressing only Spencer's Sec. 1985(3) claim, we held that the complaint could be construed to allege a violation of Spencer's constitutional right to intrastate travel. See 903 F.2d at 174 (citing King v. New Rochelle Municipal Housing Authority, 442 F.2d 646, 648 (2d Cir.) ("It would be meaningless to describe the right to travel between states as a fundamental precept of personal liberty and not to acknowledge a correlative constitutional right to travel within a state."), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 863, 92 S.Ct. 113, 30 L.Ed.2d 107 (1971), and Memorial Hospital v. Maricopa County, 415 U.S. 250, 255-56, 94 S.Ct. 1076, 1080-81, 39 L.Ed.2d 306 (1974) (declining to consider whether to draw a constitutional distinction between interstate and intrastate travel)). We noted that plaintiffs might prove, for example, that Spencer had entered defendants' neighborhood and that defendants had sought to impede his right to travel freely in that area. See Spencer I, 903 F.2d at 174.

On remand, after trial before Judge Wood in 1992, the jury returned a special verdict, answering specific questions formulated by the court. As to the claims asserted on behalf of Spencer, the jury found in favor of plaintiffs on the issues of liability. On the Sec. 1985(3) claim, the jury found that all four defendants had conspired for the purpose of depriving Spencer of his right to travel intrastate, that their actions had been motivated by a discriminatory attitude toward blacks, and that Spencer's injuries had been caused by defendants' conspiracy. On the Sec. 1981 claim, the jury found that defendants' assault on Spencer was motivated by their racial animus. As to the state-law claims, the jury was directed, as a result of defendants' state-court convictions, that it must find that each of the defendants had assaulted Spencer in violation of state law. The jury was instructed to value the damages separately with respect to the state and federal claims. Because damages are not available for the value of a constitutional right itself, see Memphis Community School District v. Stachura, 477 U.S. 299, 310, 106 S.Ct. 2537, 2544, 91 L.Ed.2d 249 (1986), and because the jury The jury also found for plaintiffs on the liability issues on their individual claims. On their Sec. 1985(3) claims, the jury found that all four defendants had conspired to assault Spencer, that the assault had been motivated by a discriminatory attitude toward blacks as a group, and that defendants had acted with reckless disregard for the consequences of their actions. On plaintiffs' individual Sec. 1981 claims, the jury found that plaintiffs had a valuable relationship with Spencer; and it found that defendants' assault on Spencer was racially motivated, was committed with reckless disregard for the consequences, and caused damage to plaintiffs' relationship with their son. The jury awarded plaintiffs jointly $300,000 in compensatory damages on their individual Sec. 1985(3) claims; it awarded no additional damages on their claims under Sec. 1981.

                may not compensate a claimant twice for the same injury, see, e.g., Gentile v. County of Suffolk, 926 F.2d 142, 153-54 (2d Cir.1991), the district court specified that it was to award, for the federal cause of action "only compensatory damages that are in addition to those you awarded under the assault claim."   The jury awarded $250,000 in compensatory damages and $450,000 in punitive damages on Spencer's state-law claims;  it awarded no additional damages on his federal-law claims
                

After the jury returned its verdicts, Judge Wood addressed defendants' posttrial renewal of earlier motions to dismiss plaintiffs' federal claims as a matter of law. In a ruling not challenged on this appeal, the court dismissed the complaint against D'Antonio because he had died prior to trial and plaintiffs had not continued the action against his personal representative as required by New York law. (The dismissal of the claims against D'Antonio had the effect of reducing the total punitive damages award, which had been apportioned by the jury among the defendants and was properly assessed against them individually, see, e.g., McFadden v. Sanchez, 710 F.2d 907, 912-14 (2d Cir.1983)). In the rulings that are the subject of the present appeal, the court set aside the jury's verdicts in favor of plaintiffs on all of the federal claims.

With respect to the claims under Sec. 1985(3), which were premised on an interference with Spencer's constitutional right to travel, the court looked principally to the then-recent ruling in Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 753, 122 L.Ed.2d 34 (1993) ("Bray "), in which the Supreme Court held that a suit seeking redress under that section requires proof (a) that a racial or other class-based invidiously discriminatory animus lay behind the coconspirators' actions, (b) that the coconspirators intended to deprive the victim of a right...

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