Rossi v. City of Chi.

• Decision Date: 22 June 2015
• Docket Number: No. 13–3795.,13–3795.
• Citation: 790 F.3d 729
• Parties: Joseph A. ROSSI, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. CITY OF CHICAGO and Glenn Mathews, Defendants–Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

790 F.3d 729

Joseph A. ROSSI, Plaintiff–Appellant

v.CITY OF CHICAGO and Glenn Mathews, Defendants–Appellees.

No. 13–3795.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued Jan. 22, 2015.

Decided June 22, 2015.

Peter A. Cantwell, Attorney, Cantwell & Cantwell, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff–Appellant.

Kerrie Maloney Laytin, Attorney, Office of the Corporation Counsel, Chicago, IL, for Defendants–Appellees.

Before EASTERBROOK, MANION, and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.

Opinion

MANION, Circuit Judge.

Joseph Rossi was assaulted by several persons, one of whom was an off-duty Chicago police officer. Glenn Mathews, a detective with the Chicago Police Department, was assigned to investigate. For six weeks, Mathews did practically no work on the case; he followed zero leads, did not inspect the crime scene, and questioned no witnesses other than Rossi. Aside from taking some messages and filing perfunctory reports, he exerted no discernible effort. He then closed his investigation.

Rossi sued Mathews under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that he violated his constitutional right to judicial access because his failure to investigate led to the spoilage of evidence in his civil suit against the assailants. He also brought a Monell suit against the City of Chicago for perpetuating a “code of silence” that shields police officers from investigation and promotes misconduct by police. The district court granted summary judgment for the defendants on the grounds that Rossi was not denied judicial access because the police did not conceal from him any facts which prevented him from obtaining legal redress from his assailants. The court also dismissed Rossi's Monell claims for lack of evidence of widespread practices on the part of the police department. We affirm.

I. Background

On November 11, 2006, Jose Garcia (Jose), president of Garla Trucking and Excavation Company, arranged a meeting at the company's premises with Joseph Rossi. Rossi believed that Jose wanted to meet with him in order to pay him for work that Rossi had previously done for Garla. But Jose had other designs: he sought to question Rossi about a Bobcat construction vehicle that had disappeared from Garla's lot. Jose believed that Rossi knew the whereabouts of the Bobcat and was determined to get him to speak about it, by any means necessary.

What followed resembled less a business meeting than a scene from a gangster film. When Rossi arrived at Garla, Jose, Roberto Garcia (Jose's brother), and two other Garla employees bound him with electrical cord and duct tape and began beating him. Three hours later, Catherine Doubek, a Chicago Police Officer and the wife of Jose, arrived at Garla's premises to find the crew interrogating Rossi. Instead of intervening, Doubek made a dramatic show (according to the complaint) of removing her police badge to show Rossi that his interrogators could assault him with impunity. After that, Doubek acted as a lookout, utilizing her police radio to monitor activity to ensure that the beating went undetected by police. For the next several hours, Rossi remained tied to the chair while Jose and his associates alternated between questioning him about the Bobcat and beating him.

Rossi eventually escaped in the early morning by sending Doubek on a “wild goose chase”—telling her that the Bobcat was located at an equipment yard on the west side of Chicago. When Doubek left to visit that site, Rossi, finally alone, managed to chew through his restraint and escape barefoot to the nearby home of a stranger where he called an ambulance. In total, Rossi spent six hours bound to a chair; in his haste to escape, he left behind his car keys and other personal items at the scene of the crime.

Hours after the incident, Detective Glenn Mathews, a Chicago Police Detective, interviewed Rossi while he was still at the hospital receiving treatment for his injuries. In a five-minute interview, Rossi recounted the incident to Mathews, including that a Chicago police officer was one of his assailants. However, because Rossi did not know Doubek's name but only knew that she was the wife of Jose Garcia, he initially identified her by the name “Garcia.”

Rossi learned of the identity of each of his assailants in reach him; instead, he left a message furnishing the name “Catherine Doubek” as the police officer involved in the assault. He also supplied her home address, which (as expected) was the same address as that of Jose Garcia. Having been provided with Doubek's address, Mathews needed only to enter it into the police database—a standard practice in all investigations—to learn that Doubek resided at that address and was married to Jose Garcia. He failed to do this.

Mathews's indolence did not stop there. Despite knowing their names and where they worked, Mathews never attempted to question the suspects. He never visited Garla's premises even though he knew from his initial interview with Rossi that this is where the assault occurred. He never returned Rossi's phone calls, and he never reached out to additional witnesses. Instead, several weeks later—on December 29, 2006—he filed a Supplementary Report in which he spelled Doubek's name as “Dubinek” and then stated that he could not find any such name in the police roster. Mathews requested a suspension of the investigation, ostensibly because he could not ascertain the identity of the police officer.

Because a police officer was reported to have been involved in the assault, the Internal Affairs Division conducted its own investigation—at least in appearance. Officer Dennis Chengary was assigned to this investigation but did not attempt to contact Rossi until December 11, 2006, when he tried to visit him at his apartment. He failed at this because the address listed in the police report was incorrect; in fact, the reported address did not exist. Chengary located Rossi's landlord who provided him with a correct address, but Chengary did not visit him there. Instead, he attempted to mail a certified letter to Rossi, but proceeded to send it to the incorrect address listed in the police report (which he had tried to visit but failed). Weeks later, Chengary closed the Internal Affairs investigation for lack of evidence.

Frustrated with the lack of effort by police, Rossi told his story to the media who reported it as a police cover-up. Faced with negative publicity, the police finally conducted a thorough investigation in April 2007. When they searched Garla's premises—five months after the assault—the police found that the room in which the interrogation occurred had been cleaned and re-carpeted. They gathered fingerprints, DNA and blood samples, and took photos. Rossi contends that, despite these efforts, the majority of evidence was lost: a rope that was placed around Rossi's neck as a noose; beer cans and other refuse; the chair to which Rossi was bound; the extension cord used to bind Rossi; and Rossi's personal property such as his shoes and socks.

Officer Doubek was not interviewed about her role in the assault until three years later in February 2010. Jose and Roberto Garcia were convicted in state court of aggravated battery and unlawful restraint in connection with the incident. Doubek, however, was not charged; nor was she disciplined by the police department.

Rossi brought civil claims against each of the assailants and those have subsequently settled. He received $80,000 from the Garla defendants and an undisclosed amount from Doubek. The only remaining claims are those against Mathews and the City of Chicago. These claims allege that Mathews's failure to investigate violated his civil rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and led to the spoilage of evidence that he could have used favorably in his civil suit against his assailants. He also brought a Monell suit against the City, alleging that the police force cultivated, and the City allowed, a “code of silence” that shields police officers from investigation and promotes a culture of misconduct among police that contributed to his assault.

The district court granted summary judgment for the defendants because Rossi had not demonstrated that the defendants violated a clearly established constitutional right as is required to prevail on a § 1983 claim. Specifically, the district court found that Mathews did not deny Rossi judicial access because his failure to investigate did not prevent Rossi from discovering the identities of the assailants—he already knew who assaulted him and was able to recover for his injuries in a civil suit against them. Additionally, the district court granted summary judgment against Rossi's Monell claim because he did not submit evidence suggesting widespread practices by the police of failing to adhere to ethical conduct.

Following the denial of Rossi's motion for reconsideration, the district court awarded the City $7,443 in costs as the prevailing party.

II. Analysis

To survive a summary judgment motion, a plaintiff suing under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 must show that there is a genuine issue of material fact (that is, a fact capable of affecting the outcome) about one or more of the essential elements of the action. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986). We review the district court's grant of summary judgment de novo, construing all facts and reasonable inferences in Rossi's favor. Smiley v. Columbia College Chicago, 714 F.3d 998, 1001 (7th Cir.2013). To obtain relief under § 1983, Rossi must demonstrate that a person acting under color of state law deprived him of a right, privilege, or immunity secured by either the Constitution or by federal law. Rather than acting as a source of rights, § 1983 serves as a vehicle for “vindicating federal rights elsewhere conferred.” Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 393–94, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989).

A. Right to Judicial Access

The First and Fourteenth Amendments protect the rights of individuals to seek legal redress for claims that have a reasonable basis in law and...