MacDonald v. Town of Eastham

Decision Date24 May 2013
Docket NumberCivil Action No. 12–12061–RGS.
Citation946 F.Supp.2d 235
PartiesPhilip MACDONALD v. TOWN OF EASTHAM, Norman Sylvia, Kate Mungovan, and Terry Dinan.
CourtU.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

Bruce T. MacDonald, Cambridge, MA, for Philip MacDonald.

Leonard H. Kesten, Thomas R. Donohue, Brody, Hardoon, Perkins & Kesten, Boston, MA, Matthew J. Murphy, Bourne, MA, for Town of Eastham, Norman Sylvia, Kate Mungovan, and Terry Dinan.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER ON DEFENDANTS' MOTION TO DISMISS

STEARNS, District Judge.

In this action, Philip Macdonald seeks damages to redress alleged violations of the Fourth Amendment and various state laws arising from a warrantless search of his home and his subsequent prosecution in state court based on the fruits of that search. Defendants Town of Eastham, Eastham police officers Norman Sylvia and Kate Mungovan, and Barnstable County Sheriff's Department employee Terry Dinan move to dismiss the Complaint for failure to state a claim pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). For the reasons set forth below, defendants' motion will be allowed.

BACKGROUND

The well-pleaded facts alleged in the Complaint are as follows. See S.E.C. v. Tambone, 597 F.3d 436, 438 (1st Cir.2010) (en banc). At approximately 1:00 p.m. on November 7, 2009, Macdonald left his house with his dog and drove to a nearby beach to dig clams, stopping for a coffee along the way. As he often did when away for a short period of time, Macdonald left the side entrance of the house open to permit his cat to roam freely.

Forty-five minutes later, a dispatcher at the Town of Eastham Police Department received a call from Georgia Hawko, a neighborhood watch captain who lived in a house adjoining Macdonald's property. Hawko stated:

This is Georgia Hawko. I am a neighborhood watch and I see a house that nobody's home but the door is wide open, both the screen and the front door, and I don't know if I should be concerned, if they just ran out and left it open or what's going on.

Compl. ¶ 11.

Eastham police officers Sylvia and Mungovan were sent to investigate. Upon arrival, they spoke briefly with Hawko, who told them that Macdonald's door was wide open and that, to her knowledge, no one was home. The officers then proceeded to Macdonald's house. They announced their presence and, after receiving no response, walked through the open door into the kitchen. Sylvia reported in a radio transmission upon entering that [s]o far it appears that somebody just left their door open. There are definitely people staying here.” Compl. ¶ 17. The officers then proceeded to conduct a sweep of the house, during which they observed marijuana plants growing upstairs and in the basement.

Macdonald returned home at approximately 2:15 p.m. to discover police cars in his driveway and Officers Sylvia and Mungovan in his living room. The officers told Macdonald that they had found marijuana and that the house was now a crime scene. Macdonald was frisked, read his Miranda rights, and detained. Following the issuance of a search warrant, Officers Sylvia and Mungovan, Eastham Detective Benjamin Novotny, and Sheriff's Department employee Dinan conducted a second search of the home, looking inside closets, drawers, and cabinets. Macdonald several times asked them individually and collectively to stop the search and leave the property. Each request was refused.

On November 25, 2009, Detective Novotny, the officer in charge of the investigation, submitted an application for a criminal complaint against Macdonald in the Orleans District Court.1 Three days later, Macdonald, through his attorney, provided Novotny with a legal memorandum asserting that the initial entry into the house by Officers Sylvia and Mungovan was unlawful and requesting that no criminal complaint be pursued. At a January 27, 2010 hearing, the clerk magistrate asked Novotny whether anything could be done short of issuance of the complaint. Novotny replied in the negative, requesting that the matter be referred to the District Attorney. The complaint then issued. Macdonald was charged with knowingly or intentionally manufacturing a Class D controlled substance (marijuana) in violation of Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 94C, § 31.

Macdonald filed a motion to suppress in the state district court challenging the legality of the search. He contended in a July 13, 2010 motion and accompanying memorandum that the initial search of his home was unlawful because it was conducted without a search warrant. He also argued that neither the emergency exception nor the community caretaking doctrine excused the failure to obtain a warrant. At a subsequent evidentiary hearing, Officer Mungovan testified that she did not observe anything prior to or immediately upon entering Macdonald's home that indicated that there had been a forced entry, or that a burglary was in progress, or that someone might be in distress. Hawko similarly testified that she did not observe anything at or around the home suggestive of an emergency. The state district court judge granted the motion to suppress, and the criminal complaint was dismissed on September 3, 2010.

This lawsuit followed. Macdonald's Amended Complaint sets out five counts: alleged Fourth Amendment violations pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against individual defendants Sylvia, Mungovan, and Dinan (Counts I and II); an alleged § 1983 failure to train violation against the Town of Eastham (Count III); and common-law claims of false imprisonment and malicious prosecution against Sylvia and Mungovan (Counts IV and V). On March 3, 2013, defendants filed this motion to dismiss all counts for failure to state a claim. The court heard oral argument on May 22, 2013.

DISCUSSION

To survive a motion to dismiss, “a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’ Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009), quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007). Two underlying principles guide the court's analysis. “First, the tenet that a court must accept as true all of the allegations contained in a complaint is inapplicable to legal conclusions.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937. “Second, only a complaint that states a plausible claim for relief survives a motion to dismiss.” Id. at 679, 129 S.Ct. 1937. A claim is facially plausible if its factual content “allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id. at 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937. “If the factual allegations in the complaint are too meager, vague, or conclusory to remove the possibility of relief from the realm of mere conjecture, the complaint is open to dismissal.” Tambone, 597 F.3d at 442.

Section 1983 Claims

The gravamen of Macdonald's lawsuit is his claim that Sylvia, Mungovan, and Dinan violated his Fourth Amendment rights when they entered and searched his home without a warrant. Defendants, for their part, argue that their actions were legally justified and that, in any event, they are entitled to qualified immunity.

The doctrine of qualified immunity shields state officials from liability for damages under § 1983 where their conduct “does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). [T]he qualified immunity inquiry ... allows ... for the inevitable reality that ‘law enforcement officials will in some cases reasonably but mistakenly conclude that [their conduct] is [constitutional], and ... that ... those officials—like other officials who act in ways they reasonably believe to be lawful—should not be held personally liable.” Hegarty v. Somerset Cnty., 53 F.3d 1367, 1373 (1st Cir.1995), quoting Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987) (emphasis omitted). The line properly drawn is not between the constitutional and unconstitutional, but between acts that although unconstitutional are nonetheless objectively reasonable and acts that are unconstitutional on their face. See Cox v. Hainey, 391 F.3d 25, 31 (1st Cir.2004). The doctrine is not merely a defense to liability but also “a limited ‘entitlement not to stand trial or face the other burdens of litigation.’ Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 672, 129 S.Ct. 1937, quoting Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 526, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985). “Accordingly, qualified immunity should be resolved at the earliest possible stage of litigation.” Rocket Learning, Inc. v. Rivera–Sanchez, 715 F.3d 1, 8 (1st Cir.2013), citing Maldonado v. Fontanes, 568 F.3d 263, 268 (1st Cir.2009).

In assessing a claim of qualified immunity at the motion to dismiss stage,2 the court must determine (1) whether the facts alleged by the plaintiff make out a violation of a constitutional right; and (2) if so, whether the right at issue was ‘clearly established’ at the time of the defendant's alleged violation.” Eldredge v. Town of Falmouth, Mass., 662 F.3d 100, 104–105 (1st Cir.2011), quoting Maldonado, 568 F.3d at 269 (alteration omitted). The “clearly established” inquiry, in turn, has two aspects.

One aspect focuses exclusively on the clarity of the law at the time of the alleged violation. “To overcome qualified immunity, [t]he contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right.’ [Maldonado, 568 F.3d at 269] (alteration in original) (quoting Anderson[, 483 U.S. at 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034] ). The other aspect considers the specific facts of the case at bar. The “clearly established” inquiry “must be undertaken in light of the specific context of the case, not as a broad general proposition.” Brosseau v. Haugen, 543 U.S. 194, 198, 125 S.Ct. 596, 160 L.Ed.2d 583 (2004) (quoting Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201, 121 S.Ct....

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  • State v. McCormick
    • United States
    • Tennessee Supreme Court
    • May 10, 2016
    ...to whether the community caretaking doctrine should extend beyond the context of automobiles to residences. Macdonald v. Town of Eastham, 946 F.Supp.2d 235, 241–42 (D.Mass.2013) (collecting cases); Gregory T. Helding, Stop Hammering Fourth Amendment Rights: Reshaping the Community Caretakin......
  • State v. McCormick
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    • Tennessee Supreme Court
    • May 10, 2016
    ...to whether the community caretaking doctrine should extend beyond the context of automobiles to residences. Macdonald v. Town of Eastham, 946 F.Supp.2d 235, 241-42 (D. Mass. 2013) (collecting cases); Gregory T. Helding, Stop Hammering Fourth Amendment Rights: Reshaping the Community Caretak......
  • Macdonald v. Town of Eastham
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    • U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit
    • March 12, 2014
    ...district court granted the motion. The court held that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity. See Macdonald v. Town of Eastham, 946 F.Supp.2d 235, 243 (D.Mass.2013). 1 This timely appeal ensued. Our review of the grant of a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss is de novo. See Butler, ......
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