Martinez v. City of Chi.
| Decision Date | 29 June 2016 |
| Docket Number | No. 14-cv-369,14-cv-369 |
| Parties | DANIEL MARTINEZ, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF CHICAGO, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
MEMORANDUM AND OPINION ORDER
Before the Court is Defendants' motion for partial summary judgment [174]. For the reasons set forth below, Defendants' motion [174] is denied. Also before the Court are Defendants' motions in limine 1-29 [140, 184, 185] and Plaintiff's motions in limine A-V [141], which are granted in part and denied in part as set forth below. As a housekeeping matter, Defendants' motion to file instanter an amended reply in support of Defendants' motion in limine no. 2 [163] is granted. This case remains set for a pretrial conference on July 6, 2016 at 1:15 p.m.
On January 17, 2012, at approximately 3:45 p.m., non-Defendant officers Reynaldo Nunez and Joaquin Salazar, while on patrol and in their marked squad car, observed a vehicle run a stop sign and attempted to conduct a traffic stop. The offender, subsequently identified as Alberto Martinez (the brother of Plaintiff Daniel Martinez), exited his vehicle and began to run down an alley, tossing a revolver as he fled. After running through the alley and weaving through several streets, Alberto Martinez entered a residence located at the corner of Talman and 55th Street. Officer Nunez followed the suspect into the home, drawing his weapon upon entering. Officer Nunez searched the home but did not locate the suspect. Within minutes, additional police units arrived, and multiple officers began searching the area, including the interior and exterior of the home.
At some point, Defendant Officer Weber arrived on the scene to help search for "a male Hispanic with long hair, the last name Martinez," also described as a "male Hispanic with ponytail." [198, ¶ 5.] Sometime after entering the home,1 Officer Weber encountered Plaintiff, who arguably matched the description of the suspect (i.e., Plaintiff is also a Hispanic male, and he had long braided hair at the time [190, ¶ 17]). Although the parties dispute the precise details of the interaction between Officer Weber and Plaintiff, Plaintiff said something along the lines of "Who the fuck are you," "What are you doing here," and "What the fuck is going on?" [198, ¶ 5.] Officer Weber, allegedly thinking that Plaintiff was, or might have been, the suspect in question, ordered him to lie down on the ground. [190, ¶ 19.] Plaintiff refused to comply with Officer Weber's orders and moved towards the door, prompting Officer Weber to restrain Plaintiff. At some point, Defendant Officer Chavez, who arrived separately on the scene, entered the room and assisted Officer Weber in restraining Plaintiff. The officers placed Plaintiff under arrest, handcuffed him, and placed him in a nearby squad car.
One highly disputed issue is whether Defendants Weber and Chavez acted alone in arresting Plaintiff, or whether a third officer, Defendant Bogdalek, was also involved. Although Defendants deny that Officer Bogdalek was involved in the arrest, there is at least some evidence that a "blonde female" participated in the arrest, and Officer Bogdalek matches that description. The parties also note that Officers Weber and Bogdalek had prior run-ins with the Martinezbrothers. More specifically, both officers were named defendants in a civil rights action in which both Alberto and Daniel Martinez were plaintiffs relating to an incident that occurred in September 2008. See Martinez v. City of Chicago, 09-cv-5938 (N.D. Ill.). At the time of Plaintiff's arrest, Defendant Bogdalek was still a named defendant in that case, but Officer Weber had been voluntarily dismissed.
At some point while Plaintiff was still in the squad car, Officer Bogdalek saw Plaintiff and said something along the lines of [190, ¶ 39.] About that time, other officers located the actual suspect, Alberto Martinez, hiding in a garbage can in the neighboring gangway. Despite confirmation that Alberto Martinez was the suspect in question, the officers kept Plaintiff in custody. Later that day, Officers Weber and Chavez filed sworn complaints against Plaintiff, each charging him with resisting and obstructing a peace officer in violation of 720 ILCS 5/31-1(a). [190, ¶ 30.] Officer Bogdalek did not create a police report in connection with the arrests of either Martinez brother, nor was she mentioned in any of the other police reports relating to those arrests. [190, ¶¶ 42-43; 198, ¶ 18.]
Summary judgment is proper where "the pleadings, the discovery and disclosure materials on file, and any affidavits show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c); see also Sallenger v. City of Springfield, Ill., 630 F. 3d 499, 503 (7th Cir. 2010) (). In determining whether summary judgment is appropriate, the court should construe all facts and reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. See Carter v. City of Milwaukee, 743 F. 3d 540, 543 (7th Cir. 2014). Rule 56(a) "mandates the entry of summary judgment, after adequate time for discovery and upon motion, against any party who fails to make a showing sufficient to establish the existence of an element essential to that party's case, and on which that party would bear the burden of proof at trial." Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322 (1986)). Put another way, the moving party may meet its burden by pointing out to the court that "there is an absence of evidence to support the nonmoving party's case." Id. at 325.
To avoid summary judgment, the opposing party then must go beyond the pleadings and "set forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 250 (1986) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). For this reason, the Seventh Circuit has called summary judgment the "put up or shut up" moment in a lawsuit—"when a party must show what evidence it has that would convince a trier of fact to accept its version of events." See Koszola v. Bd. of Educ. of City of Chicago, 385 F. 3d 1104, 1111 (7th Cir. 2004). In other words, the "mere existence of a scintilla of evidence in support of the [non-movant's] position will be insufficient; there must be evidence on which the jury could reasonably find for the [non-movant]." Anderson, 477 U.S. at 252.
By way of background, on October 19, 2015, Defendants filed a motion for summary judgment seeking resolution of all claims in Plaintiff's complaint, which includes allegations of illegal search and seizure (Count I), false arrest (Count II), conspiracy (Count III), retaliation (Count IV), indemnification (Count V), and malicious prosecution (Count VI). However,discovery closed in this case on February 10, 2015 (i.e., more than eight months before Defendants filed their motion for summary judgment), and, at the time of filing, this case was set for trial to begin approximately three months later, on January 11, 2016. During a status hearing on February 26, 2015, counsel for one of the Defendants raised the issue of dispositive motions and noted that if such a motion were filed, it would be limited to a single (unspecified) count. During that discussion, the Court proposed—and the parties accepted—a June 1, 2015 deadline for filing of any dispositive motions, recognizing that the trial date would be no sooner than November 1. Given that discussion, the Court concluded that Defendants' October 2015 motion for summary judgment was untimely, and struck it without prejudice. [See 134.] However, the trial date was later pushed back for unrelated reasons and, in an effort to streamline the issues at trial, the Court allowed briefing to proceed on Defendants' motion for summary judgment, but only as to Plaintiff's civil conspiracy claim (Count III). [172, at 1.] Defendants' renewed motion [174] is now before the Court.
A civil conspiracy is "a combination of two or more persons acting in concert to commit an unlawful act, or to commit a lawful act by unlawful means." Scherer v. Balkema, 840 F.2d 437, 441 (7th Cir. 1988). To establish conspiracy liability pursuant to § 1983, a plaintiff must establish that "(1) the individuals reached an agreement to deprive him of his constitutional rights, and (2) overt acts in furtherance actually deprived him of those rights." Beaman v. Freesmeyer, 776 F.3d 500, 510 (7th Cir. 2015) (citing Scherer, 840 F.2d at 442); see also Hostrop v. Bd. of Jr. College Dist. 515, 523 F.2d 569, 576 (7th Cir. 1975) (). Summary judgment should not be granted "if there is evidence from which a reasonable jury could infer the existence of a conspiracy." Id. at 510-11 (citing Cooney v. Casady, 735 F.3d 514,518 (7th Cir. 2013). "Because conspiracies are often carried out clandestinely and direct evidence is rarely available, plaintiffs can use circumstantial evidence to establish a conspiracy, but such evidence cannot be speculative." Id. at 511 (citing Williams v. Seniff, 342 F.3d 774, 785 (7th Cir. 2003)).
Plaintiff argues that "a reasonable jury could conclude that the Defendants agreed to unlawfully continue Plaintiff's seizure in the absence of probable cause." [191, at 9.] According to Plaintiff's version of the facts, this agreement can be inferred because (a) Officers Weber and Bogdalek knew Plaintiff from a prior incident, and both were named defendants in a civil...
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