Reiner v. Dandurand

• Decision Date: 16 July 2014
• Docket Number: Cause No. 2:13–CV–352–PRC.
• Citation: 33 F.Supp.3d 1018
• Parties: James E. REINER and Dana Reiner, Plaintiffs, v. Anthony DANDURAND, Travis Thomas, and Town of Hebron, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Indiana

33 F.Supp.3d 1018

James E. REINER and Dana Reiner, Plaintiffs

v.Anthony DANDURAND, Travis Thomas, and Town of Hebron, Defendants.

Cause No. 2:13–CV–352–PRC.

United States District Court, N.D. Indiana, Hammond Division.

Filed July 16, 2014.

J. Michael Loomis, Loomis Law Office, Fort Wayne, IN, for Plaintiffs.

Brooke L. Riffell, Kopka Pinkus Dolin & Eads PC, Crown Point, IN, William G. Murphey, Rubino Ruman Crosmer Smith Sersic & Polen, Dyer, IN, for Defendants.

OPINION AND ORDER

PAUL R. CHERRY, United States Magistrate Judge.

This matter is before the Court on Defendants' F.R.C.P. 12(b)(6) Motion to Dismiss [DE 6], filed on October 18, 2013.

I. Procedural Background

On August 29, 2013, Plaintiffs James E. Reiner and Dana Reiner filed an eleven-count Complaint against Defendants Anthony Dandurand, Travis Thomas, and the Town of Hebron in the Porter County, Indiana, Superior Court, based on a January 30, 2012 traffic stop. The Complaint alleges federal claims against Officers Dandurand and Thomas for illegal seizure of person (Count I), excessive force (Count II), and false arrest (Count III), all in violation of the United States Constitution pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Against Officers Dandurand and Thomas as well as against the Town of Hebron based on a theory respondeat superior liability, the Complaint alleges Indiana state law tort claims of assault (Count IV), battery (Count V), false arrest (Count VI), false imprisonment (Count VII), excessive use of force (Count VIII), malicious prosecution (Count IX), intentional infliction of emotional distress (Count X), and civil conspiracy (Count XI).

On September 30, 2013, Defendants removed this case to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana. On October 18, 2013, they filed this Motion to Dismiss. This matter became fully briefed on November 27, 2013, and the Court was advised on December 6, 2013, that the parties had filed forms of consent to have this case assigned to a United States Magistrate Judge to conduct all further proceedings and to order the entry of a final judgment in this case. This Court thus has jurisdiction to decide this case pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(c).

II. Standard of Review

A motion to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) tests the sufficiency of the complaint and not the merits of the suit. See Gibson v. City of Chi., 910 F.2d 1510, 1520 (7th Cir.1990). In ruling on such a motion, the Court accepts as true all of the well-pleaded facts alleged by the plaintiffs and all reasonable inferences that can be drawn therefrom. See Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555–56, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) ; see also Tamayo v. Blagojevich, 526 F.3d 1074, 1082 (7th Cir.2008).

To survive a 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, the complaint must first comply with Rule 8(a) by providing “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief,” Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2), such that the defendant is given “fair notice of what the ... claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955 (quoting Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957) ); see also Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 677–78, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009). Second, the “complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’ ” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937 (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955 ); see also Tamayo, 526 F.3d at 1082. The Supreme Court explained that the “plaintiff's obligation to provide the grounds of his entitlement to relief requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955 (quotation marks and brackets omitted); see also Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678–79, 129 S.Ct. 1937 ; Brooks v. Ross, 578 F.3d 574, 581 (7th Cir.2009). Determining whether a complaint states a plausible claim for relief requires the Court to draw on its judicial experience and common sense. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679, 129 S.Ct. 1937.

III. Plaintiff's Factual Allegations

The facts, as alleged by Plaintiffs, are as follows. Plaintiff Dana Reiner (Dana) went into labor shortly after midnight on January 31, 2012. She and her husband, Plaintiff James Reiner (James), got in their 1994 Lincoln Town Car at about 1:50 a.m. and left their Demotte, Indiana, home for St. Anthony's Hospital in Crown Point, Indiana, with James driving. They drove north along U.S. 231 and soon arrived at the intersection of U.S. 231 and S.R. 2. At the intersection, Plaintiffs saw a police officer in a marked squad car, facing east, pulled over behind another car. James stopped and drove carefully through the intersection, turning left onto S.R. 2. While he was going through the intersection he made eye contact with the officer.

After driving for about a mile, James noticed the officer perform a u-turn and start following them. Immediately after noticing this, James made a call to a 9–1–1 dispatcher to ask for a police escort to the hospital. They drove on with James obeying all applicable traffic laws. The squad car then pulled behind them and activated its flashing emergency lights. Dana was worried that, if they were pulled over, she might end up giving birth to their baby in a remote area, without the benefit of medical assistance. Instead of pulling over, James turned on his hazard blinkers and continued to drive. He remained on the phone with the 9–1–1 dispatcher, attempting to communicate to the police why he wasn't pulling over. After driving about a mile, he decided to get off the phone, pull over, explain things to the officer, and ask for an escort to the hospital.

James pulled over onto the right shoulder of S.R. 2. As soon as Plaintiffs' vehicle came to a stop, Dana saw laser-beam dots darting around the inside of their car. James saw the silhouette of an officer approaching the car with his gun drawn. The Lincoln's driver-side window didn't work, so—with both hands raised—he opened the door and rolled out onto the pavement. As he got out, Dana told him to stop because, seeing the laser beams, she was afraid he would be shot. Neither James nor Dana could understand the officer (Defendant Officer Anthony Dandurand), since he had left his siren on. James yelled to Officer Dandurand that his wife was in labor and that he needed to get her to the hospital. Officer Dandurand—who was pointing his gun at James—yelled back: “I will shoot you, you piece of shit! Get on the ground!”

Officer Dandurand, still with gun drawn, approached James and put his knee on the back of James's neck, shoving his face onto the pavement. He handcuffed James, and—though James was physically submissive—yelled at him to “stop resisting, stop resisting.”

Shortly after James was handcuffed, a second officer (Defendant Officer Travis Thomas) arrived, also with gun drawn. James continued to attempt to explain that his wife, who was still in the passenger seat, was in labor and needed to get to the hospital. He also explained that he had called a 9–1–1 dispatcher to ask for a police escort. Officer Dandurand replied: “You will be in jail tonight, and you will not be there when your child is born.” Concerned that his car would run out of gas and that he wouldn't be able to drive Dana to the hospital, James asked the Officers if he could turn the motor off. Officer Dandurand responded, “It doesn't matter, that car is mine now!” James asked if he could get up off the pavement; Officer Dandurand refused.

Around the same time, Officer Thomas approached the passenger side of the car. Dana's contractions had grown closer together; she was screaming in pain and frightened for her own safety as well as the safety of her child and husband. Dana attempted to explain the situation to Officer Dandurand and Officer Thomas, but to no avail. Officer Thomas responded that James was going to jail because “he didn't do what I told him!” Dana told the police that she had directed James not to stop because she was having a baby. This prompted Officer Thomas to respond that James “is a grown-ass man and can make his own decisions.” Dana then got out of their vehicle to show that she was pregnant (her water had broken, and her pants were wet), asking that she be taken to the hospital. Officer Thomas then pointed his gun at Dana's stomach (Dana observed the dot of a laser beam on her abdomen) and yelled “I don't care, get back in the fucking car!” Afraid for both herself and her soon-to-be-born child, she got back in the car and waited. Meanwhile, James had been moved to the back seat of one of the squad cars.

At some point, Dana asked for James's cell phone, so she could call her mother. One of the officers eventually tossed her the phone, and she called her mother. When Dana asked for an officer to speak to her mother, Officer Thomas told her “you are a grown-ass woman. I am not going to talk with your mother.”

Other officers soon arrived at the scene, but Dana could not identify which agencies they represented. Later, when she tried to get out of the vehicle, an officer (not one of the Defendants) stood in front of her door, barricading her in.

One of the officers asked Officer Dandurand whether he had tazed James. Officer Dandurand then turned to James and asked him, “Have you ever been tazed before?” James responded that he had not. Officer Dandurand then said “Do you want to get tazed? It's not too late!”

During this time, Dana's contractions had gone from two minutes apart to one minute apart. When asked by a Lowell Police Officer what this meant, Dana informed him that this “means I am having this baby right now. Are you going to take me to the hospital or not?” The Lowell Police Officer told her no, she would have to wait for an ambulance. Fifteen minutes after the stop began, Officer Dandurand called for an ambulance,...