Romanski v. Detroit Entertainment, L.L.C.

• Decision Date: 28 May 2003
• Docket Number: No. 02-73358.,02-73358.
• Citation: Romanski v. Detroit Entertainment, L.L.C., 265 F.Supp.2d 835 (E.D. Mich. 2003)
• Parties: Stella ROMANSKI, Plaintiff, v. DETROIT ENTERTAINMENT, L.L.C. d/b/a MotorCity Casino, a Michigan Corporation, Marlene Brown, Gloria Brown, Robert Edwards, and Joetta Stevenson, Jointly and Severally, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan

265 F.Supp.2d 835

Stella ROMANSKI, Plaintiff, v.DETROIT ENTERTAINMENT, L.L.C. d/b/a MotorCity Casino, a Michigan Corporation, Marlene Brown, Gloria Brown, Robert Edwards, and Joetta Stevenson, Jointly and Severally, Defendants.

No. 02-73358.

United States District Court, E.D. Michigan, Southern Division.

May 28, 2003.

Neil H. Fink, Birmingham, MI, for Plaintiff.

Robert F. MacAlpine, John B. Farrell, Garan Lucow, Detroit, MI, for Defendants.

OPINION AND ORDER

ZATKOFF, Chief Judge.

This matter is before the Court on Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment.Plaintiff responded.The Court finds that the parties have adequately set forth the relevant law and facts, and that oral argument would not aid in the disposition of the instant motion.SeeE.D. MICH. LR7.1(e)(2).Accordingly, the Court ODERS that the motion be decided on the briefs submitted.For the reasons set forth herein, Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment is DENIED.

I.BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs Second Amended Complaint was removed by the Defendants from the Wayne County Circuit Court on August 19, 2002.Her Second Amended Complaint contains the following four counts:

1.False Arrest and Imprisonment;

2.Defamation;

3.Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress; and

4.Violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983.¹

Defendants filed a motion for summary judgment on these counts.The Court shall now describe the facts surrounding Plaintiffs action, and will then briefly describe the procedural history of this action.

A.Factual History

Ms. Stella RomansM, a grandmother of nine children, and her two friends, Ms. Dorothy Dombrowski and Ms. Linda Holman, enjoyed spending time together by periodically visiting casinos in the Detroit area.On August 7, 2001, Ms. Romanski, and her two friends took advantage of a promotion offered by Defendant MotorCity Casino.²Basically, for $9.00, MotorCity Casino, which is located near downtown Detroit, Michigan, offered to provide transportation to and from the casino, as well as a complementary lunch at the casino's Classic Buffet.In particular, in the morning, a casino bus would pick up patrons in Sterling Heights, Michigan— which is a suburb of Detroit—and would drive them to the casino.The patrons would then spend several hours in the casino, and, in the evening, a casino bus would return the patrons to Sterling Heights.

Ms. Romanski and her friends arrived at the casino late in the morning, roughly around 11:30 a.m.They had agreed to split up, however, they would meet each other for lunch at the buffet at 1:30 p.m.After they went their separate ways, Ms. Romanski headed towards the "nickel" slot machines.Over the course of the next hour, she primarily played at one machine.At about 12:30, she stood up, walked by some of the other slot machines in her area, and returned to the machine that she had been playing for the previous hour.While she was walking around, she noticed that there was a token worth five cents lying in the tray of an abandoned slot machine.She picked it up and took it with her.When she returned to the slot machine that she had been playing, she put a twenty-dollar bill into the machine, along with the five cent token.What happened next is subject to dispute.

Ms. Romanski alleges that she began playing the machine again; she testifies that she knew that she played it thirteen times because she counted her money when she returned home.While she was playing the machine, four security officers surrounded her, and asked to her to accompany them.The security officers, still surrounding her, led her to the casino's security office.When they got to the security office, Ms. Romanski was seated at a desk, and three female security officers surrounded her.One officer informed Ms Romanski that she stole a coin from the slot machine tray, and that she committed a crime.Ms. Romanski began to cry at the thought that she, a grandmother of nine children, could commit a crime.The security officers made her cash out.After her money was counted, she had $14.10; the security officers gave her a ten-dollar bill, four one-dollar bills, and two nickels.A security officer, however, kept one of the two nickels; this way, the casino had recovered the money that was stolen from it.

Afterwards, the security officers took a photograph of Ms. Romanski, and photocopied her driver's license.A security officer also asked for Ms. Romanski's Social Security number; while Ms. Romanski was hesitant to surrender such information at first, the security officer told Ms. Romanski that she was a "policewoman," afterwards Ms. Romanski surrendered the information.A few minutes later, a woman approached Ms. Romanski, and informed her that she was banned from the casino for six months, and that she had to leave.It occurred to Ms. Romanski that it was almost time for her to meet her friends for lunch, accordingly, she requested to at least have lunch with her friends; a security officer, however, denied that request, and informed Ms. Romanski that she had lost all of her rights, and that she was banned from the casino.

After Ms. Romanski was informed that she had to leave the casino, three security officers escorted her out of the casino.Ms. Romanski stated that she felt sick, and that she wanted to use the bathroom.While they let Ms. Romanski use the restroom, one of the female security officers followed her into the restroom, and then followed Ms. Romanski into her stall.After Ms. Romanski was done with the restroom, the security officers escorted her to the valet area.They pointed to an area some distance away, and stated that her bus would arrive there at 3:00 p.m.

After the security officers left, Ms. Romanski used a cellular telephone to contact her friends and inform them that she had been banned from the casino.Her friends thought it was a joke at first, and could not believe that Ms. Romanski would steal anything.Concerned, however, Ms. Holman and Ms. Dombrowski asked casino personnel if what Ms. Romanski told them was true.Sometime later, casino personnel informed Ms. Romanski's friends that Ms. Romanski was banned from the casino for theft.

Around 3:00, Ms. Romanski left the valet area and walked over to the area where she was told to go in order to wait for a bus to take her home.After she crossed Grand River Ave., and negotiated relatively heavy traffic, she discovered that it was not the proper bus, and that her bus would not arrive for another two hours.Because Ms. Romanski was not allowed back into the casino, she had to wait outside on a hot day for the next bus to arrive.

A short time later, Ms. Romanski's two friends found her.The three women went back to the casino, and waited in the vestibule area in order to get out of the heat.Casino security officers noticed that Ms. Romanski had re-entered the casino; they approached the three women and informed them that Ms. Romanski was banned, and had to wait outside.In response, one of Ms. Romanski's friends, Ms. Dombrowski, stated that she thought that this was a "stupid" situation.One of the security officers took offense to the comment, and accused Ms. Dombrowski of calling the security officer stupid, and began to physically intimidate Ms. Dombrowski.The three women then left the casino again, and waited for the bus to take them back to Sterling Heights.

Defendants' account of the facts is different.Defendants state that a security officer, DefendantMarlene Brown, was working undercover, or in "plainclothes" on August 7, 2001.She noticed Ms. Romanski take a token worth a nickel out of the tray of a slot machine that she was not playing.She then saw Ms. Romanski prepare to play the token; Ms. Romanski placed the token in the slot machine, but before she had a chance to play it, DefendantMarlene Brown approached Ms. Romanski, and informed Ms. Romanski that she had taken casino property.DefendantMarlene Brown explained that the casino had a policy in which it considered money left in a tray of a slot machine to be casino property, and that Ms. Romanski had therefore taken casino property.In response, Ms. Romanski became hostile and raised her voice in objection.DefendantMarlene Brown, who was new at doing undercover security work, signaled to the other undercover security officers, DefendantsGloria Brown and Robert Edwards, that she needed assistance.When it appeared that Ms. Romanski was not going to calm down, they decided to take her to the security office; during her deposition, DefendantMarlene Brown stated: "Well, my instinct was to just tell her and let her just go finish gaming, okay, but like I said, she was getting kind of loud, and that's when I called Sky³, and that's when I called my partners.That's when I was instructed to bring her to the office."See Dep. of M. Brown, 65.

Defendants also state that after Ms. Romanski was taken to the security office, the decision was made to ban her from the casino largely because she continued to be hostile—even belligerent.Indeed, DefendantMarlene Brown stated during her deposition that Ms. Romanski was banned from the casino "[blecause of her attitude," and not because she committed a "crime."Seeid. at 75.After she was banned, Ms. Romanski was led to the air-conditioned valet area, where she was allowed to remain until her bus arrived.Defendants state that Ms. Romanski freely chose to leave the valet area and wait outside in the heat.Defendants also state that after Ms. Romanski met with her friends, the three women decided to wait in the lobby of the casino until their bus arrived.When DefendantMarlene Brown approached to ask Ms. Romanski to leave, Ms. Romanski's friends began to yell at DefendantMarlene Brown and call her "stupid."

These are the disputed facts.The parties do not dispute the fact that the casino has a policy that states that tokens found in the trays of abandoned slot machines are considered casino property, and no one, except the...