Piccone v. Bartels

• Decision Date: 07 May 2015
• Docket Number: No. 14–1989.,14–1989.
• Citation: 785 F.3d 766
• Parties: Colleen C. PICCONE; Peter V. Quaglia, Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. John W. BARTELS, Jr., Defendant, Appellee, Dalton Police Department; Town of Dalton, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

785 F.3d 766

Colleen C. PICCONE; Peter V. Quaglia, Plaintiffs, Appellants

v.John W. BARTELS, Jr., Defendant, Appellee

Dalton Police Department; Town of Dalton, Defendants.

No. 14–1989.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

May 7, 2015.

Daniel K. Gelb, with whom Richard M. Gelb, Michelle Iandoli Lamendola, and Gelb & Gelb LLP were on brief, for appellants.

David S. Lawless, with whom Nancy Frankel Pelletier and Robinson Donovan, P.C. were on brief, for appellee.

Before HOWARD, SELYA, and STAHL, Circuit Judges.

Opinion

STAHL, Circuit Judge.

Following an encounter between the parties, Defendant, a local police chief, called Plaintiffs' employer to complain about their behavior during the incident. Plaintiffs filed suit, alleging, inter alia, slander and interference with advantageous business relations. The district court granted summary judgment to Defendant on both counts. We affirm.

I. Background

Colleen Piccone, a resident of New York, is Deputy Associate Chief Counsel to Customs and Border Protection, part of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Her boyfriend, Peter Quaglia, is a New York-based special agent with the same agency. In January 2008, the Massachusetts Department of Social Services (DSS) and local police began investigating Piccone's brother, Louis, for alleged child abuse. The state court granted temporary custody of Louis's three children to DSS. Meanwhile, Louis fled the state with his wife and children. Subsequently, the court issued warrants for the parents' arrest.

Piccone applied for temporary custody of her brother's children with the intent of supervising them in the family's Dalton, Massachusetts home. On February 1, 2008, Piccone traveled with Quaglia from New York to Massachusetts to attend a hearing on her application. Before the hearing began, a juvenile court probation officer informed Piccone and Quaglia that someone would need to install a carbon monoxide detector in Louis's home in order to place the children there in Piccone's care. On counsel's advice, Piccone and Quaglia purchased a detector at a local hardware store and headed to Louis's home to install it before the hearing.

When they arrived, Piccone and Quaglia found two police officers at the house. Defendant John W. Bartels, Jr., chief of the Dalton Police Department, demanded that Piccone and Quaglia identify themselves and told them that they could not enter the dwelling. Piccone presented her driver's license and Quaglia showed his federal identification. After a tense exchange, Bartels called the juvenile court probation officer, who confirmed that Piccone and Quaglia had been told to install a carbon monoxide detector in the home. Bartels returned to Quaglia and told him that he could enter the house and install the detector. Quaglia did so, and then he and Piccone left for the courthouse.

Later that day, Bartels spoke with a state trooper and expressed his frustration that Quaglia and Piccone were “telling everybody what to do. That—that's what really gets my ass out.” The state trooper encouraged Bartels to “[m]ake calls to [the federal agency], get someone fired, do something.” Shortly after speaking with the state trooper, Bartels contacted DHS to complain about Plaintiffs' behavior and spoke with Matthew Carbone, an agent with DHS's Office of Inspector General. During their conversation, Bartels described his encounter with Plaintiffs at length and told Carbone that he found their conduct unprofessional.¹ After describing how he and his fellow officer asked Plaintiffs for identification and told them that they could not go in the house, Bartels relayed the following information:

Uh and there was a little bit of a uh an argument. You know things were getting a little agitated here. Uh and [my fellow officer and I] were on a ... high anxiety level as it was because we've been dealing with this thing for two weeks.... But at any rate I told them you're not going in[to the house], period. Uh until we're told by the court that you can. And uh they then um you know obeyed what we said. And they went and sat in their car.

Bartels then explained that he had confirmed Plaintiffs' story about the carbon monoxide detector with the juvenile court probation officer. Carbone replied:

CARBONE: Ok. So their story did pan out.

BARTELS: It did.

CARBONE: It's just that they really weren't too social about it.

BARTELS: No. They weren't.

Carbone pointed out that it was “good” for Piccone and Quaglia that they had explicitly told Bartels that they came to the house on a private matter and not on official federal agency business and “just showed [Bartels] their ID, which happened to be government ID.” Carbone also noted that the “story they gave [Bartels] was actually corroborated because they did have the CO detector.” Bartels acknowledged those facts, but said:

Well there were a lot of—there were a lot of questions as for what authority we had. Um you know and well I—I—it seemed like they didn't feel that we had the authority to tell them no you're not going into the house.... And not knowing who they were. I mean it was just kind of more of a hassle than we needed to go through.

Bartels expressed his view that Plaintiffs could have “ma[de] things a little bit easier on us” so that the officers didn't have to “increase” their “level of aggression.” Carbone replied:

CARBONE: Uh clearly unprofessional conduct on their—on their part uh.

BARTELS: On that level yes. Now to uh um Mr. Quaglia's credit, he apologized at the end of all this.

CARBONE: Ok.

BARTELS: Uh and he said ... we're at a high stress level.... He drove all night to get here....

CARBONE: Mm hm.

BARTELS: Uh and uh uh I can understand that. And I uh told him that. I said listen, I know things are—things are at a fever pitch right now. But we don't need to go through this type of stuff because it just makes matters worse.

CARBONE: Right.

BARTELS: Uh so um all in all they left in an amicable fashion. I didn't have any further conversation with Ms. Piccone because after the initial conversation, she went into the car, I never spoke with her again.

Bartels went on to note that the situation “was kind of defused” when his fellow officer “cool[ed] [Plaintiffs] down” and Quaglia apologized.

Midway through the conversation, Carbone inquired, “did you guys believe that ... Quaglia or Colleen knew where the parents were?” Bartels replied that the officers “didn't ask them specifically” but pointed out:

I can't believe—they've been involved in this thing since the get-go. And I believe it was Colleen's house ... which was searched by NYPD and that was—hell, that was back on the twenty-fifth of this month—or of last month. So not to know that there are warrants, I don't know.

Carbone then asked, “Is it fair to presume that she probably knows where they are, she's trying to get the ... foster or adoption paperwork done so that she can amicably take custody of the kids and then the parents would turn themselves in?” Bartels replied in the affirmative: “I think that's their motive. Uh I think they want to uh get the kids situated. And then let uh the parents uh you know deal with their criminal charges here.”

Carbone then said that he originally had the impression that Piccone and Quaglia were “[p]urposely hiding stuff” and “[n]ot being cooperative” with law enforcement, but told Bartels, “the fact that you guys didn't [pressure Plaintiffs to identify the location of the kids and parents] in the driveway with them leads me to believe” that “it's not that—that type of an emergency.” Carbone signaled that it would “definitely [have been] a [Customs and Border Protection] policy violation” if Quaglia and Piccone either had “misrepresent[ed] that they're there for immigration reasons and they weren't” or “thwart[ed] law enforcement from finding a fugitive.” Bartels clarified, “No that—that didn't happen.”

Bartels acknowledged again, “I don't know that there's an emergency” but told Carbone, “[t]he more I rattle that family's tree—.... [t]he better I'm going to feel.” He reiterated his displeasure with what he viewed as Piccone and Quaglia's lack of “professional courtesy” during the interaction: “yeah, you know, I'm not with the Department of Homeland Security and yeah, I don't have the connections you do, but goddamn it, I'm a cop just like you are.” Shortly after, Carbone asked whether Bartels “kn[ew]” that Quaglia and Piccone were aware that the state had issued arrest warrants for Louis and his wife. Bartels responded, “No I don't know that,” and then continued, “[b]ut I'm assuming that they know where [the family members] are, only because they're here trying to help get ... custody” of the children.

Toward the close of the phone call, Carbone noted that he was hesitant to “ratchet [the investigation] up another level” if “the law enforcement authority that's actually looking for the parents didn't ask [Plaintiffs] those tough questions” about the missing family's whereabouts. Bartels confirmed that he did not need Carbone to initiate an emergency investigation and concluded:

And I'm not looking uh for heads to roll. Uh I'm just looking to you know say hey where are they. Uh evidently the courts didn't—didn't push the issue. Uh and we didn't push the issue up at the house.... [M]aybe communications wasn't [sic] the best uh on our part between the police department and the courts.... In fact I wish the damn uh courts had called us to begin with to let us know. Say hey there's going to be people up at the house.... Then we wouldn't be having this conversation right now.

As a result of Bartels's telephone call, DHS launched investigations into Piccone and Quaglia's conduct. Ultimately, DHS took no action against either plaintiff.

Plaintiffs filed suit in district court,² alleging slander and libel; malicious falsehood; interference with advantageous business relations (“IABR”); violation of Massachusetts's right to privacy statute, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 214, § 1B ; and intentional infliction of...