Pelosi v. Spota

• Decision Date: 10 March 2009
• Docket Number: No. 07-CV-5030 (JFB)(ETB).,07-CV-5030 (JFB)(ETB).
• Citation: 607 F.Supp.2d 366
• Parties: Daniel PELOSI, Plaintiff, v. Thomas J. SPOTA, III, individually and in his official capacity as District Attorney and Janet Albertson, individually and in her official capacity as Assistant District Attorney, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York

607 F.Supp.2d 366

Daniel PELOSI, Plaintiff, v. Thomas J. SPOTA, III, individually and in his official capacity as District Attorney and Janet Albertson, individually and in her official capacity as Assistant District Attorney, Defendants.

No. 07-CV-5030 (JFB)(ETB).

United States District Court, E.D. New York.

March 10, 2009.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Daniel Pelosi, Greenhaven Correctional Facility, Stormville, NY, pro se.

Richard T. Dunne, Esq., Suffolk County Department of Law, Hauppauge, NY, for defendants.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

JOSEPH F. BIANCO, District Judge:

Plaintiff pro se Daniel Pelosi ("Pelosi" or "plaintiff") brings this action against Thomas J. Spota, III ("Spota"), District Attorney for the County of Suffolk and Janet Albertson ("Albertson"), Assistant District Attorney for the County of Suffolk (together, "defendants"), pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 ("Section 1983"), alleging that defendants violated his constitutional rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments in connection with his criminal proceedings by improperly obtaining and utilizing a medical record during cross-examination of plaintiff during the criminal trial. Specifically, plaintiff argues that defendants improperly obtained a written psychiatric evaluation of plaintiff, that was marked as a court exhibit during the course of a Workman's Compensation trial approximately ten years earlier, and then used it during questioning in the criminal trial. Plaintiff seeks an order declaring that defendants acted in violation of his constitutional rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, an award of compensatory damages in the amount of $150,000,000, and attorney's fees, as well as the costs of the instant action.

Defendants now move for dismissal of the complaint in its entirety, pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(c).¹ Plaintiff did not submit any opposition to the motion. However, the Court has still analyzed the merits of the motion and addressed the strongest arguments that could potentially be made in opposition to the motion. For the reasons set forth below, defendant's motion is granted. The critical issue is whether plaintiff had a constitutional right to privacy in a psychiatric medical report obtained and used by prosecutors during cross-examination of plaintiff at his 2004 criminal trial for Murder in the Second Degree. The answer is no. Specifically, because it is undisputed, based on plaintiff's complaint, that the medical report at issue was marked as a court exhibit at the plaintiff's 1995 Workman's Compensation trial in state court and was therefore part of the public record, plaintiff had no constitutional right to privacy in that record. Accordingly, plaintiff's Section 1983 claims must be dismissed as a matter of law.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Facts

The following facts are taken from the complaint ("Compl."), as well as exhibits attached to plaintiff's complaint, which include judicial records of which the Court may take judicial notice.² The Court assumes the allegations in the complaint to be true for the purpose of deciding this motion and construes them in the light most favorable to plaintiff, the non-moving party.

On April 24, 1995, after a jury verdict on the issue of damages, a judgment was entered by the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of Suffolk, in connection with a Workman's Compensation claim brought by plaintiff against defendant insurance carriers. In the action, plaintiff alleged pain and suffering, as well as resultant substance abuse, from a fall at a construction site. During the pendency of the civil action, plaintiff, accompanied by counsel, presented himself to a psychiatrist, Dr. Michael L. Melamed, who was selected by defendants to conduct an examination of plaintiff and issue an expert report.³ During the trial of the civil action Dr. Melamed testified and his report was marked as a court exhibit, with the later specification by the trial judge that it not be presented to the jury.⁴ (Compl., Ex. A.) On March 24, 2004, plaintiff was indicted and charged, in connection with the death of Theodore Amman, with Murder in the Second Degree in Suffolk County Criminal Court. According to the complaint, which annexed notes from a Suffolk County Detective's log book, Assistant District Attorney Janet Albertson obtained the Melamed report as a result of a meeting with the civil attorney from the 1995 Workman's Compensation case.⁵ (Compl., Ex. D.) The information contained in the Melamed report was used for a portion of Assistant District Attorney Alberton's cross-examination of plaintiff in his criminal trial for Murder in the Second Degree. (Compl., Ex. C.) Plaintiff was convicted of this charge by a jury verdict returned on December 13, 2004.

B. Procedural History

Plaintiff filed the instant action on December 3, 2007. On May 9, 2008, defendants filed a motion for dismissal pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(c). After receiving two extensions of time to file his opposition papers, plaintiff was to submit his response to the motion by December 1, 2008, but failed to do so. However, as noted above, despite the lack of any opposition to the motion, the Court has nevertheless analyzed the merits of the motion and raised the strongest possible arguments plaintiff could have made in opposition to the motion.⁶

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

In reviewing a motion to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), the Court must accept the factual allegations set forth in the complaint as true, and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff. See ATSI Commc'ns, Inc. v. Shaar Fund, Ltd., 493 F.3d 87, 98 (2d Cir.2007); Cleveland v Caplaw Enters., 448 F.3d 518, 521 (2d Cir.2006). The plaintiff must satisfy "a flexible `plausibility standard.'" Iqbal v. Hasty, 490 F.3d 143, 157 (2d Cir.2007). A claim that is not plausible on its face must be "supported by an allegation of some subsidiary facts to survive a motion to dismiss." Benzman v. Whitman, 523 F.3d 119, 129 (2d Cir.2008). "[O]nce a claim has been stated adequately, it may be supported by showing any set of facts consistent with the allegations in the complaint." Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 1969, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007). The Court, therefore, does not require "heightened fact pleading of specifics, but only enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Id. at 1974.

Moreover, as the Second Circuit recently emphasized in Sealed Plaintiff v. Sealed Defendant, "[o]n occasions too numerous to count, we have reminded district courts that when [a] plaintiff proceeds pro se, ... a court is obliged to construe his pleadings liberally .... This obligation entails, at the very least, a permissive application of the rules governing the form of pleadings .... This is particularly so when the pro se plaintiff alleges that her civil rights have been violated. Accordingly, the dismissal of a pro se claim as insufficiently pleaded is appropriate only in the most unsustainable of cases." 537 F.3d 185, 191 (2d Cir. 2008) (citations and quotation marks omitted); see also Weixel v. Bd. of Educ. of the City of N.Y., 287 F.3d 138, 146 (2d Cir. 2002) (holding that when plaintiff is appearing pro se, the Court shall "`construe [the complaint] broadly, and interpret [it] to raise the strongest arguments that [it] suggests.'") (quoting Cruz v. Gomez, 202 F.3d 593, 597 (2d Cir.2000) (alterations in original)); accord Sharpe v. Conole, 386 F.3d 482, 484 (2d Cir.2004).

In connection with a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), the Court generally may only consider "facts stated in the complaint or documents attached to the complaint as exhibits or incorporated by reference." Nechis v. Oxford Health Plans, Inc., 421 F.3d 96, 100 (2d Cir.2005); accord Kramer v. Time Warner Inc., 937 F.2d 767, 773 (2d Cir.1991). The Court may only consider a document not appended to the complaint if the document is "incorporated in [the complaint] by reference" or is a document "upon which [the complaint] solely relies and ... is integral to the complaint." Roth v. Jennings, 489 F.3d 499, 509 (2d Cir.2007) (quoting Cortec Indus., Inc. v. Sum Holding L.P., 949 F.2d 42, 47 (2d Cir.1991) (emphases in original)). Courts also "`routinely take judicial notice of documents filed in other courts ... not for the truth of the matters asserted in other litigation, but rather to establish the fact of such litigation and related filings.'" Crews v. County of Nassau, No. 06 Civ. 2610(JFB), 2007 WL 316568, at *2 n. 2, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6572, at *5 n. 2 (E.D.N.Y. Jan. 30, 2007) (quoting Kramer, 937 F.2d at 774); see also Brodeur v. City of New York, No. 04 Civ. 1859(JG), 2005 WL 1139908, at *3, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10865, at *9 (E.D.N.Y. May 13, 2005) (court could consider "public documents of which the plaintiff has notice" on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss). Thus, in the instant case, the Court can consider all of the documents attached to plaintiff's complaint, including the psychiatric evaluation and the relevant portion of the transcript of the 1995 Workman's Compensation trial in state court. In any event, the Court can take judicial notice of the transcript and exhibits from these state proceedings. See Global Network Comm'cns, Inc. v. City of New York, 458 F.3d 150, 157 (2d Cir.2006) ("`A court may take judicial notice of a document filed in another court not for the truth of the matters asserted in the other litigation, but rather to establish the fact of such litigation and related filings.'") (quoting Int'l Star Class Yacht Racing Ass'n v. Tommy Hilfiger U.S.A., Inc., 146 F.3d 66, 70 (2d Cir.1998)); see also Johnson v. County of Nassau, 411 F.Supp.2d 171, 178 (E.D.N.Y.2006) (noting that a court "may take judicial notice of the records of state administrative procedures, as these are public records, without converting a motion to dismiss to one for summary judgment.") (internal quotation and citation omitted); ...