Jones v. City of Philadelphia

• Decision Date: 25 January 2006
• Citation: 890 A.2d 1188
• Parties: Thomas JONES v. CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, Police Commissioner John Timoney; Lieutenant Joseph Mullin; Police Officer Cedric Gaines; Police Officer Michael Livewell; Police Officer Dwayne Merrill; Police Officer James Klepesley; Police Officer Susan Clark; Police Officer Charles Marable; Police Officer Paul Langford; Police Officer Jose Perez; Police Officer Darryl Gregory, Appeal of City of Philadelphia.
• Court: Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court

890 A.2d 1188

Thomas JONES v. CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, Police Commissioner John Timoney; Lieutenant Joseph Mullin; Police Officer Cedric Gaines; Police Officer Michael Livewell; Police Officer Dwayne Merrill; Police Officer James Klepesley; Police Officer Susan Clark; Police Officer Charles Marable; Police Officer Paul Langford; Police Officer Jose Perez; Police Officer Darryl Gregory, Appeal of City of Philadelphia.

Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued June 8, 2005.

Decided January 25, 2006.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Craig Gottlieb, Philadelphia, for appellant, City of Philadelphia.

Federico C. Sayre, Santa Ana, CA, for appellee, Thomas Jones.

BEFORE: COLINS, President Judge, and McGINLEY, Judge, and SMITH-RIBNER, Judge, and FRIEDMAN, Judge, and LEADBETTER, Judge, and COHN JUBELIRER, Judge, and LEAVITT, Judge.

OPINION BY Judge COHNJUBELIRER.

The City of Philadelphia (City) has filed an interlocutory appeal by permission from the order entered January 30, 2004, by the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County, denying the City's Motion for Summary Judgment. Addressing a "constitutional issue of first impression" in a well-researched and thoughtful opinion, the trial court determined that Thomas Jones (Jones) was entitled to seek a civil remedy in money damages against the City for its alleged use of excessive force against him, in violation of his state constitutional rights.

I. Introduction

In 2001, Jones filed a complaint for money damages against eleven individual police officers¹ (Officers) and the City, alleging that he had been personally injured when the Officers used excessive force in apprehending him for driving an admittedly stolen car.² Jones claimed the Officers' actions violated his right against unreasonable seizure under Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution.³ The City filed a Motion for Summary Judgment.⁴ It claimed that, even if Jones could prove the City's policies fostered the use of excessive force, the City was immune under Pennsylvania's Political Subdivision Tort Claims Act (Act), and need not remedy the physical harm that it or its officers caused.

The trial court denied the City's Motion for Summary Judgment.⁵ The court concluded that the City could be liable under Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution if: (1) Pennsylvania courts create a cause of action under Section 8 for damages; (2) the judicially-created cause of action applies to both the City and individual officers; and (3) it is beyond the legislature's power to immunize government defendants from this judicially created cause of action. Jones v. City of Philadelphia, 68 Pa. D. & C.4th 47 (C.P. Phila. County 2004). The court also determined that the City was not immune from suit under the Act, because "the legislature does not have the power under the constitution to take away a state constitutional right." Jones, 68 Pa. D. & C.4th at 84.

The City requested the trial court to certify the matter for an interlocutory appeal by permission pursuant to 42 Pa.C.S. § 702(b) "on the specific question of whether the city can be liable under the Pennsylvania Constitution for a claim of excessive force." Jones, 68 Pa. D. & C.4th at 54. The trial court denied the City's request. The City then petitioned this Court for review pursuant to Pa. R.A.P. 1311, and we granted the City's petition for an interlocutory appeal.⁶

On appeal, the City states: "to avoid exponentially complicating an already complex case, we accept for purposes of the current appeal that a cause of action exists under the Pennsylvania Constitution, because resolution of that question is unnecessary for resolution of this appeal." (City Br. at 16.) Instead, the City asks this Court to determine whether it can be liable in damages for a claim of excessive force under Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution when: (1) the Bivens case⁷ applies only to claims against individual officers, and not to claims against the government; or, in the alternative, (2) pursuant to Robbins v. Cumberland County Children and Youth Serv., 802 A.2d 1239 (Pa.Cmwlth.2002) (en banc),⁸ the Pennsylvania legislature's grant of immunity under 42 Pa.C.S. § 8541 serves to bar any State constitutional claims asserted against the City.⁹ However, the basis of the trial court's order is that a cause of action exists under the Pennsylvania Constitution and we must, therefore, address this holding. Moreover, without an understanding of the characteristics and scope of the constitutional right at issue, this Court would not be able to determine whether the City was entitled to the governmental immunity it claims.

The trial court agreed with Jones' argument that Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, guarantees him a monetary remedy if the City is found by a jury to be liable for the use of excessive force, which caused him physical injury. This is an issue of first impression in Pennsylvania. The trial court agreed with Jones that, if the Pennsylvania appellate courts do not create such a cause of action, the Declaration of Rights enumerated in the Pennsylvania Constitution becomes nothing more than a hollow promise.

However, before we can determine whether the Court should recognize a cause of action for monetary damages for governmental use of excessive force in violation of Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution (in other words, a constitutional tort¹⁰), we must first determine the scope of Jones' right to be protected from the City's alleged use of excessive force under Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution.¹¹ Accordingly, we first determine the scope of this right under Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, and whether the protections are coextensive with or greater than the protections under the Fourth Amendment of the Federal Constitution. We then examine whether it is necessary for this Court to create a remedy under the Pennsylvania Constitution to enable Jones to recover monetary damages from the City for a violation of Article I, Section 8.

II. Analysis

A. Determining The Scope of the Right Under Pennsylvania's Constitution

"Pennsylvania has a long and active history of independent enforcement of its state constitution." Jennifer Friesen, Recovering Damages for State Bills of Rights Claims, 63 Tex. L.Rev. 1269, 1278 n. 50 (1985). Our Supreme Court has emphasized that, "in interpreting a provision of the Pennsylvania Constitution, we are not bound by the decisions of the United States Supreme Court which interpret similar (yet distinct) federal constitutional provisions." Commonwealth v. Edmunds, 526 Pa. 374, 388, 586 A.2d 887, 894 (1991). This is because each state has the power to go beyond the minimum levels of protection established by the federal constitution which are "equally applicable to the [analogous] state constitutional provision," id. (quoting Commonwealth v. Platou, 455 Pa. 258, 260 n. 2, 312 A.2d 29, 31 n. 2 (1973), cert. denied, 417 U.S. 976, 94 S.Ct. 3183, 41 L.Ed.2d 1146 (1974), overruled by, Commonwealth v. Reese, 520 Pa. 29, 549 A.2d 909 (1988)), as long as the state remains faithful to the minimum guarantees provided by the federal constitution. Edmunds at 389, 586 A.2d at 895. In fact, our state Supreme Court has "stated with increasing frequency that it is both important and necessary that we undertake an independent analysis of the Pennsylvania Constitution, each time a provision of that fundamental document is implicated." Id. at 389, 586 A.2d at 894-95; see also PruneYard Shopping Ctr. v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74, 100 S.Ct. 2035, 64 L.Ed.2d 741 (1980) (Rehnquist, J.) (recognizing that states have power to provide broader standards and are encouraged to engage in independent analysis in drawing meaning from their own constitutions). Furthermore, state courts are now required to make a "plain statement" of the "adequate and independent state grounds" upon which they rely, to avoid any doubt that they have rested their decisions "squarely upon [state] jurisprudence." Edmunds, 526 Pa. at 390, 586 A.2d at 895 (citing Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 103 S.Ct. 3469, 77 L.Ed.2d 1201 (1983)).

Consequently, our Supreme Court, in Edmunds, established four factors to be briefed and analyzed in each case implicating a provision of the Pennsylvania Constitution:¹²

1) the text of the Pennsylvania constitutional provision;

2) history of the provision, including Pennsylvania case-law;

3) related case-law from other states;

4) policy considerations, including unique issues of state and local concern, and applicability within modern Pennsylvania jurisprudence.

526 Pa. at 390, 586 A.2d at 895. "Depending upon the particular issue presented, an examination of related federal precedent may be useful as part of the state constitutional analysis, not as binding authority, but as one form of guidance. However, it is essential that courts in Pennsylvania undertake an independent analysis under the Pennsylvania Constitution." Id. at 390-91, 586 A.2d at 895. Although judges and courts are not required to follow this methodology in their opinions, see Ken Gormley, The Pennsylvania Constitution After Edmunds, 3 Widener J. Pub.L. 55, 66 (1993), we do so here because Edmunds provides structure and a consistent means to analyze the issue at bar.¹³

Thus, in the following four subsections, we examine each of the factors set forth in Edmunds.

1. Edmunds Analysis — Text

The wording of Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution is almost identical to that of the Fourth Amendment. David Rudovsky, Searches and Seizures, in The Pennsylvania Constitution — A Treatise on Rights and Liberties 299, 300 (Ken Gormley ed., 2004). The text of Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution provides:

The people shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers and possessions from unreasonable searches and seizures and no warrant to search any place or to seize any...