Beach v. City of New York
| Docket Number | 1:21-CV-06737 (ALC) |
| Decision Date | 28 August 2023 |
| Parties | MAILA BEACH, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF NEW YORK, et. al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York |
Plaintiff Malia Beach brings this action alleging violations of federal and state law, against the City Of New York, Sergeant Gerard Dowling, Sergeant Roberto Dominguez, Police Officer Andy Collado, and Police Officers John Does #1-6, in their individual and official capacities (collectively “Defendants”). ECF No. 35-1, First Amended Complaint (“FAC”). Defendants now move for dismissal with prejudice of the FAC pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, judgment on the pleadings, and an application for costs under 28 U.S.C § 1927. ECF No. 40. After careful review Defendants' Motion, ECF No. 40, is DENIED as to the motion judgment on the pleadings because the pleadings are not closed. Defendants' motion to dismiss is GRANTED, and Defendants' application for costs under § 1927 is DENIED. The Court finds the individual officers are entitled to qualified immunity on Plaintiff's false arrest, First Amendment retaliation, and excessive force claims.
On April 24, 2021, at approximately 7:00 pm on the Brooklyn Bridge, Plaintiff participated in a protest. Police officers instructed the protestors to disperse and walk forward across the bridge towards Manhattan. FAC ¶¶ 16-17. “Defendants Dowling, Dominguez, Collado and Police Officer John Does #1-6 unlawfully detained and assaulted Plaintiff.” Id. at ¶ 15. An officer pushed back on the protestors and instructed them to move back, in contradiction with another officer's instruction to walk forward. Id. at ¶ 17. Defendant Sergeant Roberto Dominguez then pepper sprayed the crowd, spraying Plaintiff at close range in her face, and threw Plaintiff to the ground. Id. at ¶¶ 18-19. Plaintiff claims she informed officers that she was epileptic prior to her arrest and assault. Id. at ¶ 19. The officers “assaulted plaintiff with their arms, hands, and batons and beat plaintiff about her head and body.” Id. at ¶ 21. As the officers arrested her, Plaintiff moved her body and arms and an officer instructed her to “stop resisting.” ECF No. 41-1, AXON Body 2 Video 2021-04-24 2231 (“Exhibit B”) at 15:25. Plaintiff claims that officers pulled her shirt up and her pants down, exposing her stomach, bra, and buttocks as they arrested her and transported her into the NYPD van. Id. at ¶¶ 22, 24-26. The officers “deliberately tightened the flex cuffs to the point where plaintiff lost feeling in her fingers.” Id. at ¶ 23.
Plaintiff filed her initial complaint on August 11, 2021 against the City of New York, Sergeant Gerard Dowling, Sergeant Roberto Dominguez, Police Officer Andy Collado, and Police Officers John Does #1-6, in their individual and official capacities (collectively, “Defendants”), alleging violations of various federal and state statutes. ECF No. 3. Plaintiff was granted leave to amend her complaint to address deficiencies, which she filed on July 21, 2022. FAC. On September 8, 2022, Defendants filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings and dismissal with prejudice of the FAC, and attached the officers' bodycam footage to their motion. ECF No. 40; ECF No. 41-1.
Fed.R.Civ.Pro. 12(d). The complaint includes any attached “‘exhibit or any statements or documents incorporated in it by reference.'” Int'l Audiotext Network, Inc. v. Am. Tel. & Tel. Co., 62 F.3d 69, 72 (2d Cir. 1995) (per curiam) (quoting Cortec Indus., Inc. v. Sum Holding L.P., 949 F.2d 42, 47 (2d Cir. 1991). “Moreover, ‘when a plaintiff chooses not to attach to the complaint or incorporate by reference a [document] upon which it solely relies and which is integral to the complaint,' the court may nevertheless take the document into consideration in deciding the defendant's motion to dismiss, without converting the proceeding to one for summary judgment.” Id. at 72 (quoting Cortec, 949 F.2d 42 at 47-48).
In this case, Defendants have attached Exhibits A-D to their motion. Plaintiff relied heavily on this footage in drafting her FAC. ECF No. 33 at 1 (). The Court now considers Defendants' motion to dismiss.
When considering a motion to dismiss under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), a court should “draw all reasonable inferences in [the plaintiff's] favor, assume all well-pleaded factual allegations to be true, and determine whether they plausibly give rise to an entitlement to relief.” Faber v. Metro. Life Ins. Co., 648 F.3d 98, 104 (2d Cir. 2011) (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, “[t]o survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.'” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)).
The Court's function on a motion to dismiss is “not to weigh the evidence that might be presented at a trial but merely to determine whether the complaint itself is legally sufficient.” Goldman v. Belden, 754 F.2d 1059, 1067 (2d Cir. 1985). The Court should not dismiss the complaint if the plaintiff has stated “enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570. “A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. Moreover, “the tenet that a court must accept a complaint's allegations as true is inapplicable to threadbare recitals of a cause of action's elements, supported by mere conclusory statements.” Id. at 663.
Deciding whether a complaint states a plausible claim is “a context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial experience and common sense.” Id. at 678-79 (2009) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570).
A motion for judgment on the pleadings under Rule 12(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is subject to the same standard of review as a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6). Bank of N.Y. v. First Millennium, Inc., 607 F.3d 905, 922 (2d Cir. 2010). Thus, the Court accepts the nonmovant's allegations as true and draws all reasonable inferences in the nonmovant's favor. Harris v. Mills, 572 F.3d 66, 71 (2d Cir. 2009). In essence, a grant of a motion pursuant to Rule 12(c) is proper if “from the pleadings, the moving party is entitled judgment as a matter of law.” Burns Int'l Sec. Servs., Inc. v. Int'l Union, 47 F.3d 14, 16 (2d Cir. 1995) (per curiam). “On a 12(c) motion, the court considers the complaint, the answer, any written documents attached to them, and any matter of which the court can take judicial notice for the factual background of the case.” L-7 Designs, Inc. v. Old Navy, LLC, 647 F.3d 419, 422 (2d Cir. 2011).[2]
“A § 1983 claim for false arrest, resting on the Fourth Amendment right of an individual to be free from unreasonable seizures, including arrest without probable cause . . . is substantially the same as a claim for false arrest under New York law[.]” Weyant v. Okst, 101 F.3d 845, 852 (2d Cir. 1996) (internal citations omitted). Under New York law, the elements of a false imprisonment claim are: “(1) the defendant intended to confine [the plaintiff], (2) the plaintiff was conscious of the confinement, (3) the plaintiff did not consent to the confinement and (4) the confinement was not otherwise privileged.” Singer v. Fulton Cnty. Sheriff, 63 F.3d 110, 118 (2d Cir. 1995) (quoting Broughton v. State of New York, 37 N.Y.2d 451, cert. denied, 423 U.S. 929 (1975)). The existence of probable cause to arrest is a defense to a false arrest claim. Id. The same is true for a First Amendment retaliation claim. Nieves v. Bartlett, 139 S.Ct. 1715, 1724 (2019).
Probable cause exists “when the arresting officer has knowledge or reasonably trustworthy information sufficient to warrant a person of reasonable caution in the belief that an offense has been committed by the person to be arrested.” O'Neill v. Town of Babylon, 986 F.2d 646, 650 (2d Cir. 1993) (internal quotations and citations omitted). Defying a police order, on its own, does not give rise to probable cause. “A person may be guilty of disorderly conduct only when the situation extends beyond the exchange between the individual disputants to a point where it becomes a potential or immediate public problem.” People v. Weaver, 16 N.Y.3d 123, 128, 919 N.Y.S.2d 99, 944 N.E.2d 634 (2011) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). To determine if police have probable cause to arrest a person in defiance of a police order, courts consider 1) whether the order was communicated to the crowd; and 2) whether the protestors had “an opportunity to comply with those orders” and refused to do so. Dinler v. City of N.Y., 04-CV-07921 (RJS) (JCF), 2012 WL 4513352, at *10 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 30, 2012). Here, the officers repeatedly and emphatically ordered the protestors to disperse and move back because protestors were blocking the...
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