Rohman v. NY City Transit Auth.

• Decision Date: 01 August 1998
• Docket Number: Docket No. 98-9554
• Citation: 215 F.3d 208
• Parties: (2nd Cir. 2000) ANDREW M. ROHMAN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. NEW YORK CITY TRANSIT AUTHORITY (NYCTA), Defendant, CARMEN J. BIANCO, Defendant-Appellant
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

Page 208

215 F.3d 208 (2nd Cir. 2000)

ANDREW M. ROHMAN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. NEW YORK CITY TRANSIT AUTHORITY (NYCTA), Defendant, CARMEN J. BIANCO, Defendant-Appellant.

Docket No. 98-9554

August Term, 1998

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

Argued: July 15, 1999

Final Briefs Submitted: March 23, 2000

Decided: May 26, 2000

Appeal from an order of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (I. Leo Glasser, Judge) denying the defendant-appellant's motion for summary judgment with respect to the plaintiff's action brought under 42 U.S.C. §1983. We conclude that it was not objectively unreasonable for the defendant-appellant to believe that he was not violating the plaintiff's constitutional rights. The district court therefore erred in concluding that the defendant-appellant was not immune from suit under §1983.

Reversed and remanded.

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] RICHARD SCHOOLMAN, Office of the General Counsel, New York City Transit Authority New York, NY, for Appellant Carmen J. Bianco.

DAVID B. TURRET, Sanocki Newman & Turret, New York, NY, for Appellee Andrew M. Rohman.

Before: WALKER, CABRANES, and SACK, Circuit Judges.

SACK, Circuit Judge:

The plaintiff, Andrew M. Rohman, brought this action in New York state court against Carmen J. Bianco and his and Rohman's former employer, the New York City Transit Authority (the "NYCTA"). Rohman's complaint, as amended, alleged under 42 U.S.C. §1983 that the defendants' complicity in Rohman's arrest and prosecution deprived him of his federal constitutional rights. Rohman also asserted state-law claims of malicious prosecution, false imprisonment and wrongful termination. Bianco and the NYCTA removed the case to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (I. Leo Glasser, Judge) under 28 U.S.C. § 1443. After completion of discovery, the defendants moved to dismiss Rohman's complaint pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). Treating the defendants' motion as one for summary judgment under Rule 56(b) and relying on a substantial record developed during discovery, the district court granted the motion as to all Rohman's claims except for the §1983 and state-law malicious prosecution claims against Bianco. Rohman v. New York City Transit Auth., No. 97-CV-0231(ILG), 1998 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19367 (E.D.N.Y. Oct. 30, 1998). Bianco appeals only from the district court's ruling on the §1983 claim.

We conclude that as a matter of law it was not objectively unreasonable for Bianco to believe that his actions did not violate Rohman's constitutional rights. Bianco was therefore entitled to qualified immunity with respect to Rohman's §1983 claim, and the district court erred in denying Bianco's motion for summary judgment on that claim. We therefore reverse the order of the district court insofar as it denied Bianco's motion for summary judgment on Rohman's §1983 claim and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

BACKGROUND

From 1985 until his retirement in August 1995, Rohman worked for the NYCTA as Manager of Rapid Transit Investigations in the Division of Field Operations, Office of System Safety. Rohman's job was "to provide the Authority with the capability of conducting professional, impartial, objective[] rail accident investigations on a 24 hour per day, 365 day per annum basis." He was assisted by several investigators under his supervision. Until April 1995, Rohman's own supervisor was Charles Yongue, whose title was Director of Field Operations. Yongue, in turn, reported to Bianco, who was Assistant Vice President of the NYCTA's Office of System Safety.

Prior to the events that gave rise to this litigation, Rohman was assigned an NYCTA automobile to help him perform his "around the clock" duties. The NYCTA also gave him Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority ("TBTA") tokens for use when driving the vehicle through TBTA tunnels or over its bridges on NYCTA business. TBTA tokens were also distributed by Rohman to his investigators for their use on official business. Rohman was required to submit "token receipt sheets" detailing both his and the investigators' use of the tokens. The token receipt sheets identified the date each token was used, the name of the person using it, the NYCTA vehicle being driven when it was used, the value of the token used, and the TBTA bridge or tunnel where it was used.

The NYCTA gave Rohman a yearly "Management Performance Review." Throughout his career with the NYCTA, Rohman's review ratings were consistently high. This changed, however, with his review for the period of June 10, 1993 to June 10, 1994. Yongue, whose responsibility it was to prepare the review, had originally planned to give Rohman an overall rating of "Good," but in November 1994 Bianco learned of Yongue's intention and demanded that Yongue change the rating to "Marginal." The downgrade would have the effect of depriving Rohman of a merit salary increase. According to Yongue's deposition testimony, Bianco "basically told" him that he would be fired if he did not give Rohman a "Marginal" rating. Yongue did so on December 13, 1994.

Rohman appealed the "Marginal" rating to Bianco, who in turn requested that Yongue provide supporting documentation for the evaluation. By memorandum dated February 8, 1995, Yongue refused, and expressed remorse for having acceded to Bianco's earlier threat: "I am ashamed that I did not have the courage of my convictions and that I allowed you to negatively influence my initial rating of Mr. Rohman's performance.. .. I will not fabricate responses to your questions since you know perfectly well why the rating on Mr. Rohman's [review] was changed."

After his appeal to Bianco failed, Rohman sought redress from an independent NYCTA Appeals Board. The Board interviewed Bianco, Yongue and Rohman and unanimously concluded that Rohman's "Marginal" rating should be upgraded to "Good." The Board explained its decision in a March 17, 1995 memorandum: "Mr. Rohman did not receive any written or oral warnings to indicate that his performance was marginal. Moreover, there is no documentation to support his drastic change in performance. All his previous reviews have been excellent."

Bianco informed Yongue of the Board's decision by memorandum dated March 27, 1995. After requesting, in response to the Board's recommendation, that Yongue develop an "improvement plan" for Rohman, Bianco ordered that Rohman be restricted in his use of NYCTA vehicles.¹ When Yongue voiced his concern about this restriction, Bianco responded by demoting Yongue and replacing him with another NYCTA employee, Ronald Alexander. According to Rohman's deposition testimony, when Rohman complained to Alexander, his new supervisor, about Bianco's restriction of his vehicle use, Alexander told him, "Brother, [Bianco]'s after you." Rohman contends that Alexander then authorized Rohman to take his NYCTA vehicle home notwithstanding Bianco's prohibition but not to record the trips on mileage sheets, which Alexander denies.

On Friday July 28, 1995, James Bromfield, Bianco's executive assistant, told Bianco that some System Safety Division investigators "were concerned that something improper had been occurring in the accounting for TBTA tokens distributed to accident investigators for their use when driving [NYC]TA vehicles at TBTA bridges or tunnels." The following Monday, July31, Bianco asked Alexander whether he knew anything about the matter. Alexander told Bianco that earlier that same day Joseph Resch, a subway investigator working under Rohman's supervision, had expressed to Alexander concern "that Mr. Rohman might have been misreporting... Resch's, TBTA token use."

Bianco and Alexander then obtained from the NYCTA employee in charge of NYCTA vehicles token receipt sheets and "passenger vehicle usage sheets"² for Rohman and his investigators covering the previous three months. According to Alexander's declaration submitted to the district court, he, Bianco and Bromfield, Bianco's executive assistant, discovered a number of discrepancies. In some cases, a token receipt sheet indicated that one of the investigators had used a TBTA token at a particular location when there was no indication on the passenger vehicle usage sheet that this investigator had been using a NYCTA vehicle anywhere near that location. In other cases, a token receipt sheet indicated that Rohman had used a token at a particular location, but the corresponding passenger vehicle usage sheet did not reflect that Rohman had been driving near there. In all, Bianco, Alexander and Bromfield found some seventy-five apparent disparities as to token usage, counting round-trips as two separate events. According to Alexander, both Bianco and he thought that these discrepancies indicated that Rohman had repeatedly misappropriated TBTA tokens and submitted inaccurate and false documentation.

The same day, July 31, Bianco contacted both the New York City Police Department, with which he worked on a daily basis in connection with his NYCTA duties, and representatives of NYCTA's Labor Relations Office. Whether these communications were in person or by telephone is unclear.

The following day, August 1, Bianco met with police officers and Labor Relations Office personnel to discuss the matter. According to Bianco, "My purpose in calling this meeting was to ask for guidance on how to proceed; I invited the police because I wanted the NYPD's guidance...." He then prepared a memorandum dated August 2, 1995, purporting to detail the seventy-five instances of TBTA token abuse. The memorandum also suggested that Rohman had used his NYCTA vehicle for personal business in violation of NYCTA procedures and the personal directive he had been given. Bianco sent copies of the memorandum to both the Labor Relations Office and the police. He also sent them each a copy of a memorandum written by Joseph Resch in which Resch denied that he had used...