Ciulla v. Rigny

• Decision Date: 08 March 2000
• Docket Number: No. Civ.A. 98-10141-WGY.,Civ.A. 98-10141-WGY.
• Citation: 89 F.Supp.2d 97
• Parties: Jennifer CIULLA and Lawrence Ciulla, Plaintiffs, v. Miles RIGNY, Gen Linsky, and the City of Gloucester, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

89 F.Supp.2d 97

Jennifer CIULLA and Lawrence Ciulla, Plaintiffs, v. Miles RIGNY, Gen Linsky, and the City of Gloucester, Defendants.

No. Civ.A. 98-10141-WGY.

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

March 8, 2000.

James D. Gotz, Robert D. Cohan, Cohan, Rasnick, Myerson & Marcus, LLP, Boston, MA, for Jennifer Ciulla, Plaintiff.

Leonard H. Kesten, Brody, Hardoon, Perkins & Kesten, Boston, MA, for Miles Rigny, Defendant.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

YOUNG, Chief Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

This rather anomalous case would have little significance beyond the litigants and the people of Gloucester, Massachusetts, were it not for the fact that the Court is here compelled to analyze the profound contribution made by the American jury to the very structure and fabric of American law. In this case, the plaintiff, exaggerating the indignity of a search of her person incident to her arrest, sued, claiming that both the scope and location of the search violated her civil rights. Her compelling tale of having been "strip-searched" following a traffic stop earned her a trial by jury. The jury saw through her fabrications with relative ease,¹ but while they were at it, condemned the "location" of the search pursuant to a proper legal charge and awarded the plaintiff $1.00 in nominal damages. The Court then promptly took the dollar away from the plaintiff on the ground that her constitutional right to be free of a search in that location had not been "clearly established" prior to the jury's verdict.

Despite her deceit, the plaintiff now argues that the "provocative role of the lawsuit" in enhancing and establishing the civil rights of the people of Gloucester entitles her to attorneys' fees and costs as the "prevailing" party.

II. BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL POSTURE

In August 1996, Jennifer Ciulla ("Ciulla") was pulled over while driving in Gloucester, Massachusetts, by an off-duty police officer, Lieutenant Miles Rigny ("Rigny"). Rigny arrested Ciulla for reckless driving and operating a vehicle after her license had been revoked. Ciulla was transported to the Gloucester Police Department, placed in a holding cell, and searched by a female employee of the Gloucester Police, Gen Linsky ("Linsky"), who was the matron-on-call. In her complaint, during pre-trial proceedings, and at trial, Ciulla took the position that she was ordered by Linsky to "submit to a strip search, against her will." Am. Compl. ¶ 12. Specifically, Ciulla claimed that Linsky required her "to lift and/or remove her clothing, thereby exposing her breasts and genital area to Linsky." Id. ¶ 13. In contrast, Linsky rather diffidently testified that she only asked Ciulla to pull her top away from her body and roll down the top of her shorts a few inches, both with minimum exposure, so that she could be sure Ciulla was not concealing anything in her bra or the waistband of her undergarment² (for the purposes of this opinion, a "minimum exposure search"). Linsky then at once backed off.

During a view³ of the Gloucester police station, the jury observed that there was a glass window that looked in on the holding cell where Ciulla had been searched. On the other side of the window lies a small observation room which, as revealed during trial, is accessible by police officers and never locked.⁴ At trial, Ciulla testified that Rigny surreptitiously watched Linsky conduct the purported strip-search through the window. Arguing that the strip-search was unreasonable and Rigny's alleged peeping-Tom act was a further invasion of her liberty, Ciulla asserted claims against Rigny, Linsky, and the City of Gloucester for (i) violations of 42 U.S.C. § 1983, 42 U.S.C. § 1986, and Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 12, § 11I (collectively, the "civil rights claim"); (ii) intentional infliction of emotional distress, and (iii) negligent infliction of emotional distress. See Am. Compl. ¶ 1. Ciulla's husband, Lawrence Ciulla, asserted a claim for loss of consortium. See id.

At the conclusion of a five-day trial, a jury found for Ciulla against Linsky on the civil rights claim. As a basis for their verdict, in response to a special interrogatory, the jury stated that "while we do not credit the testimony of Jennifer Ciulla, the search that was conducted was unreasonable as respects its necessity, manner, or location." Jury Verdict ¶ 1. The jury underlined the word "location." See id. The jury assessed no compensatory damages and only one dollar in punitive damages. See id. The jury rejected all of the other claims. See id. ¶¶ 2-4.

After trial, Linsky filed a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. Determining that prior to the trial it was not clearly established that conducting a minimum exposure search in a location resembling the holding cell in question was constitutionally unreasonable, this Court granted Linsky's motion on the basis of qualified immunity. Despite this Court's ruling, Ciulla here presses her motion for attorneys' fees and costs seeking a total of $87,650.77.

III. WHO PREVAILED?

Both 42 U.S.C. § 1988(b) and Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 12, § 11I authorize the Court to award attorneys' fees and costs to a prevailing party in a civil rights action. A determination of qualified immunity does not prevent a party who otherwise prevailed from obtaining a fee award. See Pulliam v. Allen, 466 U.S. 522, 543-44, 104 S.Ct. 1970, 80 L.Ed.2d 565 (1984); Handy v. Penal Insts. Comm'r of Boston, 412 Mass. 759, 763 n. 4, 592 N.E.2d 1303 (1992). Decisions in the First Circuit have recognized that a plaintiff may through litigation win significant practical relief favorable to her position, and thus "deserve attorneys' fees, even without a formal victory; for example, the so-called `catalyst' theory might justify an award where the defendant abandoned an unlawful practice after the case was brought, as a direct result of the lawsuit. ..." Stanton v. Southern Berkshire Reg'l Sch. Dist., 197 F.3d 574, 577 (1st Cir.1999) (Boudin, J.) (citing Pearson v. Fair, 980 F.2d 37, 43-45 [1st Cir.1992]).<sup>5</sup> Moreover, at least in Massachusetts, courts have determined that a prevailing party may be one who simply prevailed on a "question of law ... of `substantial public interest'" although obtaining no monetary relief. Batchelder v. Allied Stores Corp., 393 Mass. 819, 822, 473 N.E.2d 1128 (1985) (quoting Batchelder v. Allied Stores Int'l, Inc., 388 Mass. 83, 86, 445 N.E.2d 590 [1983]); see also Zurakowski v. D'Oyley, 46 F.Supp.2d 87, 88 (D.Mass.1999) (applying Batchelder as the controlling decision as to Massachusetts law but denying attorneys' fees since the plaintiff prevailed only on a matter of law of no substantial public interest). "Again, the inquiry is a practical one." Stanton, 197 F.3d at 577.

Based on the verdict slip, the Court concludes that the jury here did not believe Ciulla's claim that she was "strip-searched" and found the minimum exposure search unreasonable only because of its location. At its broadest reach, the jury verdict may be read as finding that it is constitutionally unreasonable for police to conduct a minimum exposure search in a "room with a view." At the very least, Ciulla established to the jury's satisfaction that it is constitutionally unreasonable for the Gloucester Police Department to continue conducting such searches in that particular location without at least hanging a shade on the window to the holding cell. Either way, the verdict's significance lies in the fact that the jury deemed an obtrusive search that falls short of a strip search constitutionally unreasonable because of location, a verdict which extends Fourth Amendment protections further than prior federal decisions. See Logan v. Shealy, 660 F.2d 1007, 1014 (4th Cir.1981) (holding unreasonable "a strip search [conducted] in an area exposed to the general view of persons known to be in the vicinity") (emphasis added).

`So what?' argues defense counsel. A jury's decision does not establish "the law" and a jury verdict in itself has no precedential authority. See Howard v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 160 F.3d 358, 359 (7th Cir.1998); Summers v. Watkins Motor Lines, 323 F.2d 120, 123 (4th Cir.1963). It is only the judgment that enters after the jury verdict that carries claim preclusive effect. See Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 13 (1982) ("The rules of res judicata are applicable only when a final judgment is rendered."). And here, as defense counsel points out, the ultimate judgment awards nothing to Ciulla.

In the interesting circumstances of this case, however, defense counsel is quite wrong. "Every legal decision depends upon a melding of the generalized standard with the particular facts at hand. [If i]t is the judge who teaches how the melding is to take place in each individualized instance," 1 William G. Young, John R. Pollets & Christopher Poreda, Massachusetts Evidence § 102.1, at 15 (2d ed. 1998) ("Massachusetts Evidence"), then it is emphatically the jury that gives practical meaning and substance to the generalized standard by "inject[ing] community values into judicial decisions," Note, The Right to a Jury Trial in Complex Civil Litigation, 92 Harv. L.Rev. 898, 898 (1979) and by "`constantly bringing the rules of law to the touchstone of contemporary common sense.'" Commonwealth v. Canon, 373 Mass. 494, 516, 368 N.E.2d 1181 (1977) (Abrams, J., dissenting) (quoting 1 W. Holdsworth, A History of English Law 348-49 [3d ed. 1922]).

"`The American jury must rank as a daring effort in human arrangement to work out a solution to the tensions between law and equity and anarchy.'" H. Ziesel, The American Jury, in Final Report: The American Jury System 72 (Roscoe Pound & American Trial Lawyers Foundation eds. 1977) (quoting the last paragraph in H. Kalvens & H. Zeisel, The American Jury [1966]).

No other legal institution sheds greater insight into the character of American justice.

....

[Indeed a]s an instrument of justice, the civil jury is quite simply the best we have. `[T]he...