Quire v. City of N.Y.

Decision Date28 January 2021
Docket NumberNo. 19-CV-10504 (RA),19-CV-10504 (RA)
PartiesBRIAN QUIRE, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF NEW YORK, NEW YORK POLICE DEPARTMENT, PSYCHEMEDICS CORPORATION, and THOMAS CAIRNS, individually and in his capacity as Senior Scientific Advisor for Psychemedics Corporation, Defendants.
CourtU.S. District Court — Southern District of New York
OPINION & ORDER

RONNIE ABRAMS, United States District Judge:

Plaintiff Brian Quire filed this action in May 2019 in New York State Supreme Court, bringing claims against the City of New York and the New York Police Department ("the City Defendants") as well as against Psychemedics Corporation and its senior scientific advisor, Thomas Cairns ("the Psychemedics Defendants"). The City Defendants removed this action to federal court in October 2019, after which Plaintiff filed the operative First Amended Complaint ("FAC"). See Dkt. 30.

Quire, an NYPD officer from 2006-2018, was fired after testing positive for methamphetamine in a random drug screening test performed by Psychemedics. He argues that the method of drug testing employed by Defendants was unreliable, and that his termination was thus in violation of his rights to due process under the U.S. and New York constitutions. He also raises claims for negligence and negligent misrepresentation under the common law of New York. See FAC at 12-16. Now before the Court are motions to dismiss filed by the City Defendants, see Dkt. 44, and the Psychemedics Defendants, see Dkt. 36. The Court concludes that because Quire received all the process he was entitled to in connection with his termination, he has failed to state a claim for a violation of due process under the federal constitution, and grants Defendants' motions to dismiss as to that claim. The Court further declines to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over his state law claims, and remands the action to New York Supreme Court.

BACKGROUND
I. Factual Background

The following facts are drawn from Plaintiff's First Amended Complaint, Dkt. 30 ("FAC."), and are assumed to be true for the purpose of resolving this motion. See Stadnick v. Vivint Solar, Inc., 861 F.3d 31, 35 (2d Cir. 2017).

Quire was appointed as an NYPD officer in January 2006, and was promoted to Detective in September 2015. FAC ¶¶ 18, 20. Following a random drug screening test, however, Quire was demoted in August 2016 and ultimately terminated in February 2018. Id. ¶ 22.

The drug test was performed in April 2016 by Defendant Psychemedics Corp., a company that contracts with the City and the NYPD to provide drug tests for NYPD employees. Id. ¶¶ 25-26. Psychemedics collected and analyzed a hair sample taken from Quire's leg, which purportedly tested positive for methamphetamine. Id. ¶¶ 25, 56. As a result, and based solely on this positive test, the NYPD began disciplinary proceedings against Quire in May 2016; he was subsequently suspended, demoted from his position as Detective, and terminated. Id. ¶ 56, 59.

Psychemedics' hair testing, Quire alleges, does not reliably show whether a person has used drugs. Although the technology accurately screens for the presence of drugs in the hair, it cannot determine whether a positive test is the result of the person's internal ingestion of drugsor from external environmental contamination. Id. ¶¶ 28-29, 40-41. The risk of environmental exposure to drug use is significant for police officers, who come into frequent contact with drug use through their daily duties. Id. ¶ 50. Psychemedics and Cairns nonetheless represent that they can reliably and accurately determine whether a tested employee has purposefully ingested drugs, and the NYPD continues to rely on those tests to take adverse action against employees. Id. ¶¶ 31-34, 44. Dr. Cairns, as a senior scientific advisor for Psychemedics, promotes the accuracy of the hair testing tool and has provided expert testimony on the NYPD's behalf at disciplinary hearings, including at Quire's. Id. ¶ 38.

According to Quire, other methods of drug testing, including urinalysis, more reliably demonstrate whether an employee has ingested drugs. Since 2005, however, the NYPD has exclusively used Psychemedics' hair analysis without cross-analyzing the tests with any other methods. Id. ¶¶ 47-48. It has done so despite findings by scientific researchers and other courts casting doubts on the reliability of Psychemedics' testing of hair samples. Id. ¶¶ 51-52; see also Bos. Police Dep't v. Civil Serv. Comm'n, 483 Mass. 461, 466-468 (2019) (in a case involving an applicant to the Boston Police Department, noting reliability concerns involving Psychemedics' drug testing, including the possibility of false positives and the difficulty of removing external contaminants).

As a result of being demoted and terminated, Plaintiff suffered damage to his career and reputation; the loss of wages, employment benefits, future earnings, and employment opportunities; and emotional distress. Id. ¶¶ 62-64.

II. Procedural History

Following Quire's May 2016 positive drug test result, the NYPD initiated disciplinary proceedings against him. The department charged Quire with methamphetamine use andsuspended his employment on an interim basis pending the outcome of a hearing before the city's Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings ("OATH"). See Dkt. 47-2 ("Art. 78 Decision") at 2. An administrative trial took place across six days in April, May, and September 2017, presided over by David Weisel, an Assistant Deputy Commissioner for Trials in the NYPD. See Dkt. 45-1, In the Matter of the Disciplinary Proceedings Against Police Officer Brian Quire ("OATH Report") at 3. At the hearing, the Department called three witnesses on its behalf, including Cairns. Quire called five witnesses and testified on his own behalf, asserting principally that he "could have been exposed to the drug passively as a result of police work," that "his use of decongestant medicines could have led to the positive result," and that "the procedures in place at the laboratories used in his tests were not reliable." Id. at 5. Quire also presented evidence about his opposition to drug use and his good character, including the testimony of three NYPD colleagues who described him as organized, knowledgeable, and reliable. Id. at 26-30.

In support of his claim that the hair drug test was not a reliable indicator that he ingested drugs, Quire testified that his police work frequently involved skin-on-skin contact with fugitives trying to flee, many of whom possessed drugs or had drugs around them. Id. at 10. Quire also testified that he frequently wore shorts, which could explain the environmental contamination of hairs on his leg. Id. Among the witnesses called by Quire was Dr. David Kidwell, a Navy research chemist who testified that hair testing cannot reliably distinguish between intentional drug ingestion and unintentional drug exposure, and that Psychemedics' hair-washing techniques may not always succeed in removing external contaminants. Id. at 13. Testifying on behalf of the NYPD, Cairns disputed these assertions. He testified that when drugs are ingested, as opposed to merely present in the external environment, they "tend to make it into the microfibrils andmacrofibrils of the hair," effectively becoming "trapp[ed]" there and insusceptible to removal through washing. Id. at 18. Cairns estimated that, based on the amount of methamphetamine found in Quire's hair samples, Quire ingested between 200 to 400 milligrams of the illicit drug per month. Id. at 14.

On the basis of competing expert testimony from Cairns and Kidwell, ADC Weisel concluded that the hair-washing technique employed by Psychemedics could adequately distinguish between the internal ingestion of methamphetamine and external contamination. Id. at 15. ADC Weisel further rejected Quire's claim that his positive test result could have been caused by his use of a nasal spray and other medications. Id. at 23. The administrative court rejected Quire's argument that his due process rights were violated when the NYPD medical review officer failed to make an independent and impartial determination in interpreting the test results. ADC Weisel ultimately found Quire to be guilty of possessing and ingesting methamphetamine, and recommended to the NYPD commissioner that he be terminated from employment. Id. at 33. Quire challenged that recommendation before the NYPD commissioner, who rejected his arguments and adopted the OATH Report's recommendations in full. As a result, Quire was fired. See Art. 78 Decision at 3.

Following his termination, in June 2018, Quire initiated proceedings in New York Supreme Court pursuant to Article 78 of New York's Civil Practice Law.1 His petition alleged that (1) the NYPD's decision to terminate him was not supported by substantial evidence; (2) ADC Weisel applied the wrong burden of proof in the OATH proceeding; and (3) the penalty of termination was disproportionate to the offense. Id. at 4. In May 2019, the Supreme Court heldthat ADC Weisel correctly applied a preponderance of the evidence standard, and transferred the remaining questions to the Appellate Division, First Department, pursuant to NY CPLR § 7804(g). Id. at 6. Upon transfer, the First Department held that "[t]he determination that petitioner possessed and ingested methamphetamine is supported by substantial evidence in the record," noting that the hair samples from Quire's leg were repeatedly tested by independent laboratories. Quire v. City of New York, No. 12554, 2020 WL 7061767, at *1 (N.Y. App. Div. Dec. 3, 2020). The First Department also upheld the penalty, stating that "[t]he Commissioner's dismissal of a police officer for using illegal drugs is not so disproportionate to the offense as to be shocking to one's sense of fairness." Id. at *2 (quoting Trotta v. Ward, 77 N.Y.2d 827, 828, (1991)).

Quire filed the instant action in state court in May 2019 (while the Article 78 petition was still pending), and Defendants removed the action to this court...

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