Robles v. City of Chi., 18 CV 4379

• Decision Date: 18 January 2019
• Docket Number: No. 18 CV 4379,18 CV 4379
• Citation: 354 F.Supp.3d 873
• Parties: Raul ROBLES, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF CHICAGO, a Municipal Corporation; Chicago Police Officers David Salgado, Star 16347; Xavier Elizondo, Star 1304; Robert Ramirez, Star 12261; Peter Theodore, Star 10523; Bryan Cox, Star 19328; Benjamin Martinez, Star 14519; Rocco Pruger, Star 15445; George Nichols, Star 19184; Joseph Foley, Star 3711; Jack Lin, Star 11860; and Louis Szubert, Star 15620, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois

354 F.Supp.3d 873

Raul ROBLES, Plaintiff,

v.CITY OF CHICAGO, a Municipal Corporation; Chicago Police Officers David Salgado, Star 16347; Xavier Elizondo, Star 1304; Robert Ramirez, Star 12261; Peter Theodore, Star 10523; Bryan Cox, Star 19328; Benjamin Martinez, Star 14519; Rocco Pruger, Star 15445; George Nichols, Star 19184; Joseph Foley, Star 3711; Jack Lin, Star 11860; and Louis Szubert, Star 15620, Defendants.

No. 18 CV 4379

United States District Court, N.D. Illinois, Eastern Division.

Signed January 18, 2019

Louis Joseph Meyer, Daniel P. Kiss, Meyer & Kiss, LLC, Darryl A. Goldberg, Law Offices of Darryl A. Goldberg, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff.

Avi T. Kamionski, Shneur Z. Nathan, Christopher A. Wallace, Nathan & Kamionski LLP, Steven Blair Borkan, Graham P. Miller, Timothy P. Scahill, Whitney Newton Hutchinson, Borkan & Scahill, Ltd., Kenneth M. Battle, Jessica Gomez-Feie, Winnefred A. Monu, O'Connor & Battle LLP, Lawrence S. Kowalczyk, Matthew P. Dixon, Megan Kathleen Monaghan, Querrey & Harrow, Ltd., Chicago, IL, for Defendants.

ORDER

John J. Tharp, Jr., United States District Judge

The defendant officers' motion to dismiss the complaint [36] is denied. See Statement for details.

STATEMENT

The complaint in this case (which is accepted as true for purposes of this motion) alleges that the 11 defendant officers were all members of Team 6713, an operational subunit of the 10th District Gang Enforcement Unit. Defendant Elizondo, a sergeant, led the team. According to the complaint, Team 6713 operated as a robbery ring. The team gained access to homes by obtaining search warrants on the strength of fabricated affidavits reporting information purportedly obtained from anonymous "John Doe" informants who did not, in fact, exist. In the course of executing those warrants, the team stole narcotics, cash, jewelry and other valuables from the homes they searched. During the searches, the team made false arrests and otherwise used force and intimidation to extort their victims and to cover up their unlawful conduct. Two members of the team, Elizondo and defendant officer David Salgado, have been indicted on charges relating to this alleged scheme and await trial.

This case involves allegations concerning a single such episode. Plaintiff Raul Robles alleges that on July 7, 2016, Team 6713 executed an unlawful search of his home based on a bogus John Doe warrant the team had secured. The complaint alleges that "the Defendant-Officers" then:

(1) Entered Plaintiff's residence;

(2) Found and seized money, jewelry, firearms, two bullet proof vests, and a baton;

(3) Did not inventory all of the money or the jewelry they seized; and (adding insult to injury)

(4) Drank a case of Plaintiff's Gatorade while in the home.

Robles says that he was forced to sign an evidence log relating to his firearms and vests, but he was not arrested or charged as a result of this search. He filed a complaint with the Police Department which, he says, conducted a sham investigation that wrongly concluded that his claim was unfounded. Against the individual defendants, Robles presses two theories. In Count One, he maintains that the search violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment to be free from unreasonable searches and in Count Two he charges that the Defendant-Officers conspired together to conduct the unlawful search of his home in order to rob him.

The defendant officers (other than Elizondo and Salgado) have moved to dismiss both counts on the ground that the complaint relies on "group pleading" that fails to provide them with notice of what each defendant is alleged to have done to violate the plaintiff's rights. Alleging that "the Defendant-Officers" performed the wrongful conduct described in the complaint, without differentiating among the defendants, does not suffice, they maintain, because it "forces Defendant Officers to speculate as to which claims, if any, they must defend themselves." Motion, ECF No. 36, at 6. Robles rejoins by asserting that he both identified all of the individual defendants and "detailed exactly what...each Defendant did wrong."

The question presented is whether Robles' allegations regarding "the Defendant-Officers" are sufficient to put each defendant on notice of the general claim that is being pressed against him. There is no "group pleading" doctrine, per se , that either permits or forbids allegations against defendants collectively; "group pleading’ does not violate Fed. R. Civ. P. 8 so long as the complaint provides sufficient detail to put the defendants on notice of the claims." Lattimore v. Vill. of Streamwood , No. 17 C 8683, 2018 WL 2183991, at *4 (N.D. Ill. May 11, 2018). And with respect to the notice required to a particular defendant, there is no bright line; the Seventh Circuit has simply cautioned that "at some point the factual detail in a complaint may be so sketchy that the complaint does not provide the type of notice of the claim to which the defendant is entitled under Rule 8." Airborne Beepers & Video, Inc. v. AT & T Mobility LLC , 499 F.3d 663, 667 (7th Cir. 2007).

This is not a case where the allegations of the complaint leave the defendants in the dark about what they are alleged to have done. In contrast to other cases on which the defendants rely, the complaint in this case does not employ ambiguous formulations of collective action by multiple defendants that fail to "adequately connect specific defendants to illegal acts." Brooks v. Ross , 578 F.3d 574, 580 (7th Cir. 2009) ("one of more of the Defendants"); see also, e.g., Atkins v. Hasan , No. 15 CV 203, 2015 WL 3862724, *3 (N.D. Ill. June 22, 2015) ("the defendants, or other individuals acting at the direction of, agreement with and/or with the actual knowledge of the defendants"); Harrison v. Wexford Health Sources Inc. , No. 1:17-CV-01383-JBM, 2018 WL 659862, at *3 (C.D. Ill. Feb. 1, 2018) ("conduct included but was not limited to involvement of multiple of said personnel in various types of physical abuse"). As the Seventh Circuit confirmed in Brooks , allegations against "the Defendants" adequately plead personal involvement where it is clear that they pertain to all of the defendants. 578 F.3d at 582 ("Brooks adequately pleads personal involvement, because he specifies that he is directing this allegation at all of the defendants"). See also Atkins , 2015 WL 3862724 at *4 (concluding that use of "the defendants" adequately alleged participation of all defendants in alleged conspiracy).

That is the case here. Robles alleges unequivocally that "the Defendant-Officers" obtained a bogus warrant, unlawfully searched his home, and stole his property, and his response brief confirms that the term "Defendant-Officers" encompasses all of the individual defendants in this case. Thus, each of the defendant officers is alleged to have been a member of a team that collectively conspired to, and did, jointly rob Robles by obtaining a search warrant with fabricated evidence and seizing cash, firearms, and other valuable property found in the home. Each defendant is alleged to have participated personally in the unlawful search and in the seizure and theft of Robles' property. That is enough to put each defendant on notice as to "what he … did that is asserted to be wrongful." Bank of America, N.A. v. Knight , ...