Gilday v. Quinn
| Decision Date | 28 September 1982 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 74-4169-C. |
| Citation | 547 F. Supp. 803 |
| Parties | William M. GILDAY, Jr., Plaintiff, v. Robert H. QUINN, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts |
Scott P. Lewis, Palmer & Dodge, Boston, Mass., for William M. Gilday, Jr.
Ralph Child, Asst. U. S. Atty., John W. Bishop, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Dept. of Correction, Joanna Conley, Boston, Mass., for Robert H. Quinn, et al.
This suit was filed in 1974 by William M. Gilday, Jr. an inmate at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Walpole ("MCI Walpole"), against eight individuals, each of whom was or is a state or federal official. Each defendant has been sued in both his individual and official capacities. Plaintiff claims that he has been one of the prime targets of two operations, GILROB and STOP, which were implemented by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in conjunction with various state law enforcement and prison authorities, as part of the FBI's effort to gather information about the robbery of a Boston bank on September 23, 1970. Plaintiff was convicted for murder of a Boston policeman who was shot and killed during the course of that robbery. Plaintiff claims that through operations GILROB and STOP, the defendants have conspired to violate his constitutional rights, as well as rights created by federal and state statutes, by illegally intercepting his oral and written communications and confiscating his legal work papers. Plaintiff seeks legal, equitable, and injunctive relief, including compensatory, punitive, and statutory damages.
The two federal defendants, current FBI Director William Webster ("Webster") and past FBI Director Clarence Kelly ("Kelly") have filed a motion to dismiss the complaint to the extent that it is against them in their individual capacities on the ground that this Court lacks personal jurisdiction over them in their individual capacities. Kelly has also moved to have the complaint dismissed as against him in his official capacity as well, on the ground that although he was director of the FBI when this suit was filed, he has since resigned from that position, and has been replaced by defendant Webster. Accordingly, Kelly argues, Webster should be "automatically substituted as a party" for Kelly under Fed.R.Civ.P. 25(d)(1), and the complaint should be dismissed against Kelly inasmuch as it applies to him in his "official" capacity.
After considering the briefs and oral arguments of all the parties on this motion, I rule that the complaint should be dismissed against Kelly in its entirety, and against Webster insofar as it applies to him in his personal capacity.
The defendants argue that because the plaintiff has not alleged in his complaint that either Webster or Kelly personally took any action in Massachusetts with respect to alleged agreement to violate Gilday's rights, and because the plaintiff has not made any allegation or showing that the unnamed agents who allegedly carried out the alleged agreement were the personal representatives of Webster or Kelly, the Massachusetts long-arm statute by its own terms does not apply. The defendants each submitted an affidavit in the form of a signed "declaration" in which each stated that he had not been a physical resident of Massachusetts at any time during the pendency of this action, and that each had been physically present in the state five times during his tenure as FBI director, either in connection with speaking engagements before professional or academic groups, social engagements, or intermediate stops in Massachusetts in route to other destinations. Both Webster and Kelly stated that they had not personally or through agents engaged in any of the conduct alleged in the second amended complaint.
Gemini Enterprises, Inc. v. WFMY Television Corp., 470 F.Supp. 559, 564 (M.D.N.C. 1979) (citation omitted). Plaintiff here argues that both Webster and Kelly were members of a conspiracy or scheme which included unknown agents who, as authorized by Kelly and Webster, or with their knowledge, acted in Massachusetts with respect to plaintiff's incarceration at MCI Walpole, in furtherance of the GILROB and STOP operations, thereby depriving the plaintiff of his rights. As a result, plaintiff argues, personal jurisdiction over Kelly and Webster exists under the conspiracy theory.
While the conspiracy theory has been adopted in several jurisdictions outside of Massachusetts, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit recently refused in Glaros v. Perse, 628 F.2d 679, 682 (1st Cir. 1980) to recognize a conspiracy theory of personal jurisdiction under the Massachusetts long-arm statute. The court in Glaros, however, did demonstrate that adequate grounds for dismissing a complaint exist in this Circuit when the conspiracy theory standard as it has been refined by other courts has not been met. Thus, in our case, if the plaintiff cannot allege the elements of the conspiracy theory test, the complaint against Webster and Kelly, individually, may be properly dismissed.
In order to establish grounds for personal jurisdiction under the conspiracy theory, the complaint must allege 1) that a conspiracy to deprive plaintiff of his rights existed; 2) that Kelly and Webster were parties to the conspiracy, and 3) that substantial acts in furtherance of the conspiracy, of which Kelly and Webster were aware or should have been aware, took place in Massachusetts.
The defendants do not deny the existence of the GILROB operation, which is identified in the second amended complaint,...
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