Borucki v. Ryan

• Decision Date: 20 August 1986
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 84-0228-F.
• Citation: 658 F. Supp. 325
• Parties: Robert A. BORUCKI, Plaintiff, v. W. Michael RYAN, Daniel Labato, Kenneth Patenaude, Gerald L. Le Vitre, Eugene La France, Michael B. Wall, John Doe, Harry Doe, Robert Doe, Ralph Doe, and City of Northampton, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

658 F. Supp. 325

Robert A. BORUCKI, Plaintiff, v. W. Michael RYAN, Daniel Labato, Kenneth Patenaude, Gerald L. Le Vitre, Eugene La France, Michael B. Wall, John Doe, Harry Doe, Robert Doe, Ralph Doe, and City of Northampton, Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 84-0228-F.

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

August 20, 1986.

Thomas F. McGuire, Amherst, Mass., Robert L. Ward and Themis J. Tsoumas, Belchertown, Mass., for plaintiff.

Roberta T. Brown, Asst. Atty. Gen., Boston, Mass., for Ryan.

Merrianne A. Thelwell, IBPO, Springfield, Mass., for LaFrance, LeVitre, Patenaude and Wall.

Patrick T. Gleason, Asst. City Sol., Northampton, Mass., John E. Dahl, Asst. City Sol., for Labato, Patenaude, LeVitre, LaFrance, Wall, Doe's, Northampton.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

FREEDMAN, Chief Judge.

I.

Plaintiff alleges that early in the morning of February 17, 1983 one or more unknown persons damaged twenty-three aircraft at LaFleur Airport in Northampton. Plaintiff was arrested for the crime that evening. A district court justice ordered plaintiff to undergo a psychiatric evaluation at Bridgewater State Hospital for a period of twenty days. Doctors at Bridgewater determined that plaintiff was competent to stand trial. Nevertheless, on June 17, 1983, defendant Ryan, district attorney for the Northwestern District of Massachusetts, which includes Northampton, dropped the criminal complaint against plaintiff. The same day, Ryan held a press conference at which he openly discussed the contents of the Bridgewater report to the news media. He also characterized the Northampton Police Department's investigation of the LaFleur incident as "superb."

Plaintiff alleges that Ryan and several Northampton police officers and the City of Northampton violated his federally protected civil rights and are liable in damages pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983, 1985, 1986 and 1988. In addition, plaintiff includes in his complaint pendant claims of intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress and a violation of Mass.Gen.Laws ch. 12, § 111 (state civil rights statute).

Before the Court is defendant Ryan's motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). Ryan raises four grounds in support of his motion: (1) the complaint fails to allege a cause of action against him because there is no general constitutional right to privacy that would encompass the allegations at issue here; (2) even if such a right were found, the right was not clearly established and Ryan would be entitled to qualified immunity under Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818-19, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982); (3) Ryan, as prosecuting attorney, is absolutely immune from liability while in the performance of his official duties, Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, 96 S.Ct. 984, 47 L.Ed.2d 128 (1976); (4) if all the federal claims are dismissed for any of the previous reasons, the pendant claims should also be dismissed because of an absence of a substantial federal question. United Mine Workers of America v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 726, 86 S.Ct. 1130, 1139, 16 L.Ed.2d 218 (1966).

II.

In passing on a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, the Court must presume as true all factual allegations contained in plaintiff's complaint and resolve all reasonable inferences in favor of plaintiff, the non-moving party. Miree v. DeKalb County, Georgia, 433 U.S. 25, 27 n. 2, 97 S.Ct. 2490, 2492 n. 2, 53 L.Ed.2d 557 (1977). To succeed on his motion, Ryan has the burden of demonstrating that "it appears beyond doubt that plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief." Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 101-102, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957).

With this standard in mind, the Court will discuss Ryan's arguments seriatim.

A. Right To Privacy

As stated by the Supreme Court in Adickes v. S.H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144, 90 S.Ct. 1598, 26 L.Ed.2d 142 (1970), there are two essential elements to a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

First, the plaintiff must prove that the defendant has deprived him of a right secured by the Constitution and laws of the United States. Second, the plaintiff must show that the defendant deprived him of his constitutional right "under color of any state ordinance, custom or usage of any State or Territory." This second element requires that the plaintiff show that the defendant acted "under color of law."

Id. at 150, 90 S.Ct. at 1604. It is not disputed that Ryan, as a district attorney, acted under color of state law. What the defendant does vigorously contest, though, is whether the plaintiff's complaint alleges a deprivation of a "right secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States."

Defendant Ryan urges that there is no constitutionally protected right to the non-disclosure of information contained in a court-ordered psychological evaluation. The parties agree that if such a right exists it must be founded in the constitutional protection of privacy.

Defendant is obviously correct that the Constitution nowhere mentions a right to privacy. But as stated by the Supreme Court, "In a line of decisions ... going back perhaps as far as Union Pacific R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 251, 11 S.Ct. 1000, 1001, 35 L.Ed. 734 (1891), the Court has recognized that a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist under the Constitution." Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 152, 93 S.Ct. 705, 726, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973). Justice Brandeis, in an oft-cited opinion, explained:

The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man's spiritual nature, of his feelings and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure, and satisfaction of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone — the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.

Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 478, 48 S.Ct. 564, 572, 72 L.Ed. 944 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting).

Writing for a unanimous Court, Justice Stevens noted that Supreme Court cases revealed two distinct types of interests protected under the rubric of "privacy": "One is the interest in avoiding disclosure of personal matters, and another is the interest in independence in making certain kinds of important decisions." Whalen v. Roe, 429 U.S. 589, 599-600, 97 S.Ct. 869, 876, 51 L.Ed.2d 64 (1977). Plaintiff's interest in the instant litigation is clearly of the first type, referred to frequently as a "right of confidentiality."

Whalen involved a New York statute requiring physicians to report personal information of patients receiving certain prescription medications to a state agency. The Court unequivocally recognized that there was a privacy interest at stake. Nevertheless, it sustained the statute after having balanced the state interest against the relatively slight risk of public disclosure of the collected information. Of great interest to the Court was the statute's scrupulous security measures designed to prevent unnecessary disclosure of personal information. Id. at 593-95, 97 S.Ct. at 873. Because the New York statutory scheme and implementing regulations demonstrated "a proper concern with, and protection of, the individual's interest in privacy," the Court did not "decide any question which might be presented by the unwarranted disclosure of accumulated private data...." 429 U.S. at 605-06, 97 S.Ct. at 879.

In their separate concurring opinions, Justices Brennan and Stewart offered their insights into the question left unanswered by the Court. Justice Brennan stated, "broad dissemination of state officials of such information ... would clearly implicate constitutionally protected rights, and would presumably be justified only by compelling state interests." Id. at 606, 97 S.Ct. at 879 (Brennan, J., concurring). By contrast, Justice Stewart rejected this possibility, finding that case law did not support "a general interest in freedom from disclosure of private information." Id. at 609, 97 S.Ct. at 881 (Stewart, J., concurring).

Approximately four months after the decision in Whalen was announced, the Court returned to the element of privacy characterized as "`the individual interest in avoiding disclosure of personal matters'" and seemed to endorse the Brennan view. Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S. 425, 457, 97 S.Ct. 2777, 2797, 53 L.Ed.2d 867 (1977) (quoting Whalen, 429 U.S. at 599, 97 S.Ct. at 876). Before the Court in Nixon was former President Richard Nixon's challenge to the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act, Pub.L. 93-526, 88 Stat. 1695. This act directed the administrator of General Services to assume custody of President Nixon's papers and have them screened by government archivists to remove those materials deemed personal and return them to the former President. Among the grounds for the attack was a claim that the Act impinged on Mr. Nixon's privacy interests.

The Court's opinion, by Justice Brennan, acknowledged that Mr. Nixon did have a constitutionally protected privacy interest at stake: "We may agree with the appellant that, at least when Government intervention is at stake, public officials, including the President, are not wholly without constitutionally protected privacy rights in matters of personal life unrelated to acts done by them in their public capacity." 433 U.S. at 457, 97 S.Ct. at 2797. This interest was plainly most acute where it pertained to "extremely private communications between him and, among others, his wife, his daughters, his physician, lawyer, and clergyman, and his close friends...." Id. at 459, 97 S.Ct. at 2797. Nevertheless, this interest, when balanced against the need to screen all of the...