Calvi v. Knox County

• Citation: 470 F.3d 422
• Decision Date: 11 December 2006
• Docket Number: No. 06-1843.,06-1843.
• Parties: Morgan CALVI, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. KNOX COUNTY et al., Defendants, Appellees.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (1st Circuit)

470 F.3d 422

Morgan CALVI, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. KNOX COUNTY et al., Defendants, Appellees.

No. 06-1843.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard November 7, 2006.

Decided December 11, 2006.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Eric M. Mehnert, with whom Hawkes & Mehnert and Joseph Baldacci were on brief, for appellant.

Edward R. Benjamin, Jr., with whom Thompson & Bowie, LLP was on brief, for municipal appellees.

John J. Wall, III, with whom Monaghan Leahy, LLP was on brief, for county appellees.

Before BOUDIN, Chief Judge, SELYA and LYNCH, Circuit Judges.

SELYA, Circuit Judge.

In this civil rights case, brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, plaintiff-appellant Morgan Calvi beseeches us to reverse the entry of summary judgment in favor of various county and municipal defendants.¹ In rapid-fire succession, she attacks the constitutionality of summary judgment, the district court's assessment of the evidence, and the court's concomitant refusal to consider certain claims on the ground that they were outside the compass of her complaint. Discerning no error, we affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

The pivotal facts are laid out in considerable detail in the recommended decision of the magistrate judge, see Calvi v. City of Rockland, Civ. No. 05-11, 2006 WL 890687 (D.Me. Mar.31, 2006), and we assume the reader's familiarity with that decision.

On January 19, 2003, a 911 operator, reacting to a male caller (later identified as Matthew Hayden) who had locked himself in his room because a woman was brandishing a knife in his house, dispatched Officer Kenneth Smith of the Rockland police department to 89 Talbot Avenue, Rockland, Maine. Several people, most of them unrelated, lived at that address. Smith was familiar with the locus, having gone there the day before to settle a dispute between Calvi and another tenant, Kevin Warren.

The dispatcher told Smith that Calvi had been identified as the knife-wielder. When Smith arrived at the residence, the landlord (Lawrence Frier) agreed to go inside and find Calvi. Around the same time, Warren—who had fled the scene—called the dispatcher and asked if it was safe to go back. Upon learning that the police were on the premises, he returned and played an audiotape for Smith. Warren told Smith that four people—he, Frier, Calvi, and Hayden—were present when the tape was made inside the dwelling. Apparently, Calvi had begun yelling at Warren because he "made faces" at her. When Warren (an alleged martial arts expert) approached Calvi, she snatched a butcher knife from the sinkboard.

On the tape, Calvi, obviously upset, could be heard launching a series of accusations at Warren. Frier could be heard imploring Calvi to be reasonable and, at one point, stating to her: "Morgan, that's a felony." Warren eventually fled, and Hayden called the police.

By the time that Frier located Calvi, another officer was at the scene. Calvi told Smith that she wanted to tell her side of the story. Smith, however, arrested her on the spot, charged her with criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon, see Me.Rev.Stat. Ann. tit. 17-A, § 209, and stated that she could relate her version later. Frier gave Calvi bail money and told Smith to be gentle because she was frail and had recently undergone elbow surgery.

Smith placed Calvi in handcuffs and double-locked them behind her back so that they would not tighten. He then marched her outside, deposited her in his cruiser, and belted her in for transport to the Knox County jail. Smith's fellow officer, Sergeant Jeffrey McLaughlin, was at the scene but had no real interaction with Calvi; McLaughlin spent his time talking with Warren and Hayden.

When handcuffing Calvi and assisting her into the back seat of the cruiser, Smith, who had been trained as a paramedic, did not observe any debilitating condition. He did notice, however, that Calvi was crying during the five-to-six-minute drive to the jail. All in all, Calvi was handcuffed for no more than fifteen minutes.

While Calvi has several disabilities, the only one relevant here is a birth defect that required surgical straightening of three of the fingers on her left hand. Although this disability is painful, it has never prevented Calvi from doing routine activities such as dressing herself, feeding herself, or working at Wal-Mart.

Upon arriving at the lockup, Smith transferred custody of his prisoner to a Knox County correctional officer, Rebecca Gracie. Gracie unlocked the handcuffs, patted Calvi down, and placed her in a holding cell. After other required aspects of the booking process had been completed, another Knox County officer fingerprinted Calvi. Gracie was present during the fingerprinting but had no direct involvement with Calvi at that stage.

Calvi claims that the officer who fingerprinted her repeatedly pushed her fingers down hard, in spite of being told that she had a hand deformity. She further claims that the fingerprinting caused injuries to her wrist and surgically repaired middle finger. Calvi eventually was released on bail that same day.

In due course, Calvi brought suit against Smith, McLaughlin, and Gracie (in each instance alleging excessive force) and against the City of Rockland, Knox County, and the county sheriff, Daniel Davey (in each instance alleging secondary liability, e.g., failure to supervise, failure to train). She did not sue, and has never sued, the Knox County correctional officer who fingerprinted her.

Following pretrial discovery, the various defendants moved for summary judgment. The district court referred the motions to a magistrate judge, see Fed.R.Civ.P. 72(b), who recommended that they be granted. See Calvi, 2006 WL 890687, at * 1. Over Calvi's objection, the district judge adopted the recommended decision and entered summary judgment in favor of all defendants.² See Calvi v. City of Rockland, Civ. No. 05-11, 2006 WL 1139924 (D.Me. Apr.26, 2006). This timely appeal ensued.

II. THE SUMMARY JUDGMENT STANDARD

It is common ground that appellate review of an order granting summary judgment is de novo and is confined to the record that was before the district court. See Mandel v. Boston Phoenix, Inc., 456 F.3d 198, 204 (1st Cir.2006). In effecting such review, the court of appeals must take as true the facts documented in the record below, resolving any factual conflicts or disparities in favor of the nonmovant. See Houlton Citizens' Coal. v. Town of Houlton, 175 F.3d 178, 184 (1st Cir. 1999). The court must draw all reasonable inferences from the assembled facts in the light most hospitable to the nonmovant. Id. If—and only if—the facts, so marshaled, show "that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law," Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c), will the entry of summary judgment be affirmed. See DePoutot v. Raffaelly, 424 F.3d 112, 117 (1st Cir.2005).

In implementing the summary judgment standard, an issue is considered genuine if "it may reasonably be resolved in favor of either party" at trial. Garside v. Osco Drug, Inc., 895 F.2d 46, 48 (1st Cir.1990). By like token, a fact is considered material if it possesses "the capacity to sway the outcome of the litigation under the applicable law." Nat'l Amusements, Inc. v. Town of Dedham, 43 F.3d 731, 735 (1st Cir.1995).

Of course, the nonmovant may defeat a summary judgment motion by demonstrating, through submissions of evidentiary quality, that a trialworthy issue persists. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322-24, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986). Doing so, however, requires more than the frenzied brandishing of a cardboard sword. As we have warned, "a conglomeration of `conclusory allegations, improbable inferences, and unsupported speculation' is insufficient to discharge the nonmovant's burden." DePoutot, 424 F.3d at 117 (quoting Medina-Munoz v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 896 F.2d 5, 8 (1st Cir.1990)).

It is with this standard in mind that we turn to Calvi's claims of error.

III. THE CONSTITUTIONAL CLAIM

In a broadside directed at the district court proceedings as a whole, Calvi contends that summary judgment is an unconstitutional abridgement of her Seventh Amendment right to trial by jury. That contention is hopeless.

Summary judgment has a unique place in federal civil litigation. Its "role is to pierce the boilerplate of the pleadings and assay the parties' proof in order to determine whether trial is actually required." Wynne v. Tufts Univ. Sch. of Med., 976 F.2d 791, 794 (1st Cir.1992). "The device allows courts and litigants to avoid full-blown trials in unwinnable cases, thus conserving the parties' time and money, and permitting courts to husband scarce judicial resources." McCarthy v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 56 F.3d 313, 315 (1st Cir.1995). So viewed, a grant of summary judgment does not compromise the Seventh Amendment's jury trial right because that right exists only with respect to genuinely disputed issues of material fact. See Harris v. Interstate Brands Corp., 348 F.3d 761, 762 (8th Cir.2003).

Not uniquely, the District of Maine's local rules require the filing, with every motion for summary judgment, of a short and concise statement of the material facts, with appropriate record references. See D. Me. R. 56(b). A related rule provides in pertinent part that "[a] party opposing a motion for summary judgment shall submit with its opposition a separate, short, and concise statement of material facts [which] shall admit, deny or qualify the facts by reference to each numbered paragraph of the moving party's statement of material facts and unless a fact is admitted, shall support each denial or qualification by a record citation." Id. 56(c). Calvi asserts, without any citation to persuasive authority, that these rules are unconstitutional because they ensure a trial by paper that, in the final analysis, is no trial at all. This assertion is baseless.

The District of Maine's local rules and similar...