Biswas v. City of N.Y.

• Decision Date: 30 September 2013
• Docket Number: No. 12 Civ. 3607(JGK).,12 Civ. 3607(JGK).
• Citation: 973 F.Supp.2d 504
• Parties: Krittika BISWAS, Plaintiff, v. The CITY OF NEW YORK, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

973 F.Supp.2d 504

Krittika BISWAS, Plaintiff,

v.The CITY OF NEW YORK, et al., Defendants.

No. 12 Civ. 3607(JGK).

United States District Court,

S.D. New York.

Sept. 30, 2013.

Ravi Batra, Todd Brian Sherman, The Law Firm of Ravi Batra, P.C., New York, NY, for Plaintiff.

Elizabeth Norris Krasnow, Sumit Sud, New York City Law Department, New York, NY, for Defendants.

OPINION AND ORDER

JOHN G. KOELTL, District Judge:

This case arises from the arrest and school suspension of the plaintiff, a high school student named Krittika Biswas. The plaintiff was arrested and suspended from school for allegedly sending threatening e-mails to two teachers at the school. The charge against the plaintiff was eventually dropped and another student confessed to sending the e-mails. The plaintiff brings this civil rights action against the City of New York (“City”) and the New York City Department of Education (“DOE”), as well as numerous DOE and City employees: Howard Kwait, a principal employed by the DOE; Jamie Kim–Ross, a teacher employed by the DOE; Elayna Konstan, Chief Executive Officer of the DOE Office of School and Youth Development; Margaret Maldonado, a police officer of the New York City Police Department (“NYPD”); and Larry Granshaw, another NYPD police officer. Also named as defendants are ten unnamed John/Jane Doe personnel employed by the DOE and a further ten unnamed John/Jane Doe personnel employed by the NYPD.¹ The plaintiff brings a host of claims alleging that the defendants violated her rights under the United States Constitution and seeks recovery under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985, as well as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d et seq. She also alleges that the defendants violated several provisions of the New York State Constitution and committed several state law torts. Because several claims arise under federal laws, and the state law claims are based on the same operative facts, jurisdiction is proper pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1367.

The defendants now move to dismiss the Amended Complaint in its entirety for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. At oral argument, the plaintiff withdrew Counts XIX thru XXIII (negligence claims against various defendants) in their entirety. (Transcript of Oral Argument on August 9, 2013 (“Tr.”) at 38–40) The Court now considers the remaining claims.

I.

In deciding a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), the allegations in the complaint are accepted as true, and all reasonable inferences must be drawn in the plaintiff's favor. McCarthy v. Dun & Bradstreet Corp., 482 F.3d 184, 191 (2d Cir.2007); Arista Records LLC v. Lime Grp. LLC, 532 F.Supp.2d 556, 566 (S.D.N.Y.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.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007). “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.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009). While the Court should construe the factual allegations in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, “the tenet that a court must accept as true all of the allegations contained in a complaint is inapplicable to legal conclusions.” Id.

When presented with a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), the Court may consider documents that are referenced in the complaint, documents that the plaintiff relied on in bringing suit and that are either in the plaintiff's possession or that the plaintiff knew of when bringing suit, or matters of which judicial notice may be taken. See Chambers v. Time Warner, Inc., 282 F.3d 147, 153 (2d Cir.2002); see also Bertuglia v. City of New York, 839 F.Supp.2d 703, 713 (S.D.N.Y.2012), appeal dismissed,509 Fed.Appx. 43 (2d Cir.2013).

II.

The Court accepts the plaintiff's allegations in the Amended Complaint as true for the purposes of this motion to dismiss. The plaintiff, a national of India, resided in New York City and was an honors student at the John Bowne High School in Flushing, New York at the time the causes of action accrued. (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 6–7, 27.) She brought this civil rights action after she was detained, arrested, and suspended from school in connection with multiple threatening e-mails that were sent to two teachers at the high school, Kim–Ross and Ivan Cohill. (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 3, 4(c), 60.) On May 12, 2012, the plaintiff filed a Complaint in this Court, and filed an Amended Complaint on January 11, 2013.

Between November 2010 and February 2011, Kim–Ross, the plaintiff's calculus teacher, and Cohill, the plaintiff's physical education teacher, received several offensive and threatening e-mails. (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 4(c), 60, 80; Krasnow Decl. Ex. A.) On December 21, 2010, Naomi Eutsey, the assistant principal of security at John Bowne High School, called the plaintiff and another student into her office to talk about the e-mails. (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 90–93.) Eutsey told the plaintiff that school officials had conducted an investigation, and that the Internet Protocol address (“IP address”) displayed in the headers of the offensive e-mails indicated that the e-mails had been sent from the plaintiff's apartment building. (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 93–94.) The plaintiff alleges that this was an intentional misrepresentation and that the defendants could not have possessed information linking an IP address to a precise physical location. (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 99–102.) According to the plaintiff, such information is not publicly available and can only be obtained through legal process, a step which the defendants allegedly never undertook. (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 157–60.)

On February 6, 2011, Kim–Ross received another threatening e-mail. (Am. Compl. ¶ 215.) On February 8, Eutsey escorted the plaintiff to the office of Assistant Principal Michele Kearse, and ordered the plaintiff not to leave until the police arrived to question her. (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 203–17.) After the plaintiff was allegedly confined for approximately two hours at the school, Officer Granshaw arrived and took over; Granshaw questioned the plaintiff and insisted that she confess to sending the e-mails. (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 229–60.) Granshaw threatened the plaintiff by telling her that, if she did not confess, she would be placed in handcuffs and put in jail with prostitutes and persons with infectious diseases and would not graduate from high school. (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 260, 275.) When the plaintiff maintained her innocence, Granshaw tightly handcuffed the plaintiff, causing pain, redness, swelling, and bruising, for which the plaintiff sought medical attention. (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 260–63, 266, 274.) The plaintiff complained to Granshaw that the handcuffs were too tight and caused her pain, but Granshaw replied that if the plaintiff moved, the handcuffs would only become tighter. (Am. Compl. ¶ 273.) At some point afterwards, Officer Maldonado arrived in Kearse's office and replaced Granshaw's handcuffs with her own. (Am. Compl. ¶ 287.)

After arresting the plaintiff, Granshaw and Maldonado walked the plaintiff out of the school in handcuffs, placed her in a police car, and brought her to an NYPD precinct station house.² (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 333–34.) An unidentified police officer then “took hold” of the plaintiff, fingerprinted and photographed her, and placed her in a holding cell. (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 346, 350.) While at the precinct station house, the plaintiff was repeatedly denied access to restroom facilities. (Am. Compl. ¶ 341, 351.) The plaintiff was then handcuffed and transported to Queens Central Booking where she was again fingerprinted and photographed. (Am. Compl. ¶ 352, 354.) The plaintiff sought to call her father, but those requests were denied until she was placed into a cell at Queens Central Booking at about 7:00 pm.³ (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 348, 356–59.) After spending a night in a holding cell, at about 1:30 pm on February 9, the plaintiff was placed in handcuffs and brought to another cell where she was able to meet with an attorney. (Am. Compl. ¶ 373.) At about 2:00 pm on February 9, after intervention by the plaintiff's lawyer, the Queens County District Attorney decided not to bring charges against the plaintiff, and the plaintiff was released from custody. (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 375–76.)

Although no criminal charges were brought against the plaintiff, she was suspended from school on February 10, 2011. (Am. Compl. ¶ 385.) The plaintiff alleges that Kim–Ross, Kwait, and Konstan directed and authorized the plaintiff's suspension. (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 385, 407–08.) Additionally, on February 16, Kim–Ross filed a written complaint with the NYPD, claiming that the plaintiff had sent offensive e-mails to her. (Am. Compl. ¶ 403.) The plaintiff was forced to attend another school, which the plaintiff likens to a “reform school,” while the disciplinary charges were pending. (Am. Compl. ¶ 401.) The plaintiff retained a computer expert to analyze the IP address associated with the offensive e-mails; the expert concluded with “a reasonable degree of certainty” that the e-mails did not originate from the plaintiff's computer. (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 416–17.) The plaintiff forwarded this information to the DOE on March 11, 2011, and the plaintiff's suspension was withdrawn and expunged on March 15, 2011. (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 423, 425.) On March 15, another student, S.M., confessed to sending the e-mails, but S.M. was not referred to the NYPD and was not arrested. (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 448, 458–59.)

The plaintiff alleges that the defendants, motivated by racial animus, fabricated...