Davet v. Maccarone, Civ. A. No. 89-0110 P.

• Decision Date: 08 October 1991
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 89-0110 P.
• Parties: Richard F. DAVET v. Enrico MACCARONE, Samuel Schlageter, Salvatore DeCesare, Robert A. DiMeo and Time Plating, Inc.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Rhode Island

775 F. Supp. 492

Richard F. DAVET v. Enrico MACCARONE, Samuel Schlageter, Salvatore DeCesare, Robert A. DiMeo and Time Plating, Inc.

Civ. A. No. 89-0110 P.

United States District Court, D. Rhode Island.

October 8, 1991.

Kevin Brill, Providence, R.I., for plaintiff.

Gerard DeCelles, Providence, R.I., for defendants DiMeo and Time Plating, Inc.

Marc DeSisto, Providence, R.I., for defendants Maccarone, Schlageter and DeCesare.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

PETTINE, Senior District Judge.

The plaintiff brought this action against the City of Cranston, three police officers (Enrico Maccarone, Samuel Schlageter and Salvatore DeCesare), and Robert A. DiMeo, a civilian, and his corporation, Time Plating, Inc. Since the complaint includes a false arrest allegation, federal jurisdiction is premised on 42 U.S.C. § 1983; pendent to this case are state claims of malicious prosecution and false arrest.

I ruled that none of the officers were entitled to qualified immunity and directed a verdict for the plaintiff on all of the § 1983 claims and against DiMeo on the state claim of false arrest; since the claim against him was predicated on joint liability with the defendant officers, he, as a civilian, had no immunity defense.

Only the question of damages for the false arrest and liability for malicious prosecution were submitted to the jury; it returned verdicts for the defendants, i.e., the jury found that DiMeo was not liable and that the plaintiff suffered no damages by reason of the false arrest.

The plaintiff's sole exception to the verdict is on the question of damages:

... the jury did not award any damages. It is from this verdict that Davet requests a new trial or JNOV judgment notwithstanding the verdict.

Plaintiff's Supplemental Memorandum at 5.

The defendants renew the motion for a directed verdict which they made at the conclusion of the plaintiff's case.

I.

Mr. Davet, president of Ringco Manufacturing Co., Inc., engaged in a dispute with Robert A. DiMeo, president of Time Plating, Inc., concerning the plating of certain jewelry. As a consequence, Davet stopped payment on a check remitted as payment for said work. The long and short of it all was that DiMeo threatened Davet with criminal prosecution for issuing a bad check if he was not paid. The check was not honored, and DiMeo brought the matter to the attention of the police department. Without detailing the written and verbal exchange between the parties, which is not relevant to the issue at stake, it suffices to say Davet was eventually arrested while attending a jewelry show in Providence. He spent one night in jail before posting bail. All criminal charges against him were eventually dismissed by the State Attorney General.

At trial, Davet described the anguish and anxiety he experienced while lying awake in a "filthy prison cell." No evidence of physical symptomatology was introduced; this absence of physical consequences raised the question whether, under Rhode Island law, there is an entitlement to damages for a tort which causes emotional harm but does not trigger any physical impairment. Without resolving the issue, I gave the benefit of the doubt to the plaintiff and instructed the jurors that they could make an award for emotional harm; they were told that Mr. Davet could recover "for physical pain that he might have suffered, mental pain which may have been caused by false arrest, emotional anguish, psychological distress." In so instructing, I reasoned that if I was in error and the jury did award damages, the error could easily be remedied post-trial.

II.

In Freeman v. Package Machinery Co., 865 F.2d 1331, 1333 (1st Cir.1988), Judge Selya, writing for the Court, set forth a learned exegesis on the standards to be applied when considering a motion for a new trial.

"In the federal system, a trial judge cannot displace a jury's verdict merely because he disagrees with it or would have found otherwise in a bench trial. Absent error of law ..., the judge's prerogative to set aside a verdict crystallizes only if `it is quite clear that the jury has reached a seriously erroneous result.' Borras v. Sea-Land Service, Inc., 586 F.2d 881, 887 (1st Cir.1978) (citation omitted). In our litany of cases, we have come to refer to this criterion as the `manifest miscarriage of justice' standard. E.g., Wagenmann v. Adams, 829 F.2d 196, 200-201 (1st Cir.1987); Insurance Co. of North America v. Musa, 785 F.2d 370, 375 (1st Cir.1986); Valm v. Hercules Fish Products, Inc., 701 F.2d 235, 237 (1st Cir.1983); Hubbard v. Faros Fisheries, Inc., 626 F.2d 196, 200 (1st Cir. 1980)."

Milone v. Moceri Family, Inc., 847 F.2d 35, 37 (1st Cir.1988). Put another way, the district court may order a new trial only if it is convinced that the jury's verdict is "against the clear weight of the evidence, or is based upon evidence which is false, or will result in a clear miscarriage of justice...." Coffran v. Hitchcock Clinic, Inc., 683 F.2d 5, 6 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1087, 103 S.Ct. 571, 74 L.Ed.2d 933 (1982). The mere fact that a contrary verdict may have been equally — or even more easily — supportable furnishes no cognizable ground for granting a new trial. If the weight of the evidence is not grotesquely lopsided, it is irrelevant that the judge, were he sitting jury-waived, would likely have found the other way. And if the judge rejects a new trial motion, we review his application of this hard-to-achieve standard solely for abuse of discretion. See Milone, 847 F.2d at 37; Real v. Hogan, 828 F.2d 58, 61 (1st Cir. 1987).

In Mitchell v. Evelyn C. Brown, Inc., 310 F.2d 420, 424 (1st Cir.1962), the Court, in reviewing a damage award in an admiralty case, said that the circumscription of a clearly erroneous standard did not foreclose vacating a damage award if it was left "with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed."

The foregoing legal standard is applicable only in the absence of an error of law; therefore, the first issue to be resolved is whether or not damages can be awarded for pure emotional distress. If the answer is "yes", then an analysis must be made guided by the teachings of Freeman and Mitchell, supra.

It is clear that for § 1983 claims, federal, not state law applies and there is no need to show physical symptoms to recover for emotional distress.¹ ... "Damages in tort cases are designed to provide `compensation for injury caused to plaintiff by defendant's breach of duty.' (citations omitted). To that end, compensatory damages may include not only out-of-pocket loss and other monetary harms, but also such injuries as `impairment of reputation ..., personal humiliation, and mental anguish and suffering.'" Memphis Community School District v. Stachura, 477 U.S. 299, 306-07, 106 S.Ct. 2537, 2542-43, 91 L.Ed.2d 249 (1986). It follows that even though the plaintiff in this case suffered no physical injuries, his emotional harm appears to be compensable.

Unfortunately, it is not that simple. I recognize the civil wrong committed. The right to life, liberty, freedom and independence are quintessential privileges bestowed upon us by our Constitution. The plaintiff was falsely arrested and so, indeed, was deprived of his precious liberty. It will be no surprise should he grimace in pain and express amazement when told that the anguish he suffered while caged in a prison cell cannot be assuaged with a monetary award because damages cannot be awarded for a civil rights violation based merely on the "abstract" value or "importance of the constitutional right." Memphis Community School District, supra.

Particularly pertinent to the case at issue is Magnett v. Pelletier, 488 F.2d 33 (1st Cir.1973). Back in 1978, the First Circuit stated that in a civil rights action the plaintiff may be awarded damages for just the "loss of his civil rights or purely mental suffering." Id. at 35. We now see that Memphis Community School District has modified this, but the balance of the Court's...