Smith v. Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 05 August 2022
• Docket Number: Civil Action 21-5473-KSM
• Parties: SUZANNE B. SMITH, Plaintiff, v. COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania

SUZANNE B. SMITH, Plaintiff,
v.
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA et al., Defendants.

Civil Action No. 21-5473-KSM

United States District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania

August 5, 2022

MEMORANDUM

MARSTON, J.

Pro se Plaintiff Suzanne Smith claims her constitutional rights were violated when she was taken to Montgomery County Emergency Services (“MCES”) for mental health screening on a 302 Application^[1] submitted by her neighbor, Pro se Defendant Karen Broadnax. (See generally Doc. No. 1.) After she was released, Smith filed this case against Broadnax, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Cheltenham Township, MCES, and MCES employee, Tina L. Pergine. (Id.) Before the Court are motions to dismiss filed by the Commonwealth (Doc. No. 67), the Township (Doc. No. 55), and MCES and Pergine (Doc. No. 70). Smith opposes these motions (Doc. Nos. 68, 76-78, 80) and has moved to amend her complaint and to add Montgomery County as an additional defendant (Doc. Nos. 49, 59, 60). In addition, Broadnax has requested appointment of counsel. (Doc. No. 69.) For the reasons discussed below, the

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motions to dismiss are granted, Smith's motion to amend the complaint and to add a defendant is denied, Broadnax's request for counsel is denied, and the Court declines to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state law claims.

I. BACKGROUND FACTS

This case arises out of the less-than-neighborly relationship between Smith and Broadnax, and their interactions in December 2018 and June 2021. We provide a succinct description of that relationship here.

Smith is a self-described 75-year-old, transsexual, lesbian woman. (Doc. No. 1 at p. 20.) As early as April 2017, Smith began renting Apartment 9D at the Melrose Station Apartments in Melrose Park, Pennsylvania. (Doc. No. 44-1 at p. 2; Doc. No. 1 at pp. 11, 13.) At the time, Broadnax and her family rented Apartment 9B, which is directly below Smith's apartment. (Doc. No. 1 at p. 16.) According to Smith, “[n]oise coming from the [Broadnax's] apartment [has] continued to be a problem since April, 2018, when the [Broadnax's] purchased a home audio system.” (Id. at p. 11.) For example, in December 2018, Smith heard drumming coming from the Broadnax apartment and knocked on their door to complain. (Id. at pp. 13, 16.) The Broadnax family called the Township Police Department and reported that Smith had grabbed the doorknob to their apartment and attempted to break in. (Id. at p. 13; see also Doc. No. 22 (copy of police report).)

The relationship went downhill from there. Over the next year and a half, Smith made several noise complaints to management for the apartment complex, and on June 23, 2021, Smith filed a noise complaint with the Township Police Department.^[2] (Doc. No. 1 at p. 11.) Detective

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Richard Schaffer went to Melrose Station Apartments “to investigate [Smith's] complaint of persistent noise harassment, drumming and other sounds, coming from the Broadnax apartment.” (Id. at pp. 11, 13.) The detective's investigation revealed “long standing structural problems in [the] apartment building,” which had caused the ceiling to fall down in the Broadnax's apartment and a crack to form between the floor and baseboard in Smith's apartment. (Id. at p. 11.) These structural issues appear to have exacerbated the noise problem between the two apartments.

Three days later, on June 26, Broadnax filed an application under § 302 of the MHPA (the “302 Application”). (Id. at p. 11; see also Doc. No. 44-2 at p. 2 (excerpt from 302 Application).) Broadnax is “a mental health worker at Friends Mental Hospital in Philadelphia” (Doc. No. 1 at p. 11), and in the 302 Application, Broadnax states that she believes Smith “is severely mentally disabled” and “poses a clear and present danger of harm to others or to . . . herself” (Doc. No. 44-2 at p. 2). Broadnax attests:

Susanne [sic] Smith has been calling the police and stating we are sending electrical beams through the ceiling to harm her. Has been recording conversations in my home through a hole in the floor. Has been standing outside my door listening to us. Is telling police that we have a private detective watching her. Was filming me this morning, 6/26/21 as I left for work. Keeps trying to turn my doorknob. She does these things after I leave out of my home when my daughter is home alone with her kids. I work at Friends Hospital and she is having paranoid delusions and I feel that she may act on it.^[3]

(Doc. No. 68-2 at pp. 3-4; see also Doc. No. 1 at p. 11 (providing excerpt).) After reviewing Broadnax's Application, Defendant Tina Pergine, the county delegate for Montgomery County, signed a warrant authorizing an involuntary examination of Smith at MCES (the “302 Warrant”). (Doc. No. 68-2 at p. 7.)

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On June 27 at 9:00 p.m., a Township police officer and MCES personnel tried to serve Smith with the warrant, but Smith, who was in bed at the time, ignored the doorbell and later, the knocking, at her apartment door. (Id. at pp. 13, 15-16.) The next morning, Smith noticed a voicemail message from the officer, asking her to answer her apartment door and answer a few questions. (Id. at p. 16.) Smith returned the officer's call and left her own voicemail, but she never received a call back. (Id.)

On June 29 at 9:00 p.m., the officers returned. This time, three police officers and two MCES employees obtained the key to Smith's apartment from management and “without knocking, forced entry” into her home, “breaking the entry door security chain” in the process. (Id. at p. 13; see also id. at p. 20 (“The Apts Manager had given police a key to my apartment; but the inside security chain door jamb screws had been stripped out of the door jamb when the door was forced.”).) Smith, who was in bed at the time and “wearing only a pink pajama top and athletic socks,” left her room to investigate the noise. (Id. at p. 16.) When she saw the officers, she tried to close her door, telling them that she was not dressed, but the closest officer “interposed himself between the door and the door jamb to prevent [her] closing” it. (Id. at p. 17.) The officer told her that she was sufficiently dressed and that he and the other officers were there to help her. (Id.) Smith responded that she did not need their help and asked whether they had a warrant. (Id.)

After a slight delay, a “woman not in uniform” showed Smith “what she said was a warrant for [Smith] to be detained for a mental evaluation”; however, Smith denies that she was ever given a copy of the 302 Application or the 302 Warrant. (Id. at pp. 17-18.) The officers allowed Smith to dress, to print a copy of her resume, and to call her work supervisor to tell him what was happening. (Id. at p. 17 (explaining that she may have also left a voicemail with a law

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firm but “cannot remember that part clearly”).) Smith then picked up her keys, phone, identification, and briefcase, and followed the officers out of the apartment. (Id.) However, one of the MCES employees took her briefcase and phone, saying she “could not keep those.” (Id.)

The police officers and MCES personnel escorted Smith to an ambulance, where she was “strapped down to a gurney” and driven to MCES. (Id. at pp. 8, 18 (referring to the hospital as “the infamous ‘building 50' state mental hospital in Norristown, PA”).) Once there, Smith was placed in a waiting room, and asked to sign certain papers, including a notice of her constitutional rights. (Id. (explaining that she signed the documents without reviewing them because “[e]verything that was happening to me seemed involuntary anyway”); see also Doc. No. 68-2 at p. 7 (affirmation by Deatrice Fields that she “explained [Smith's] rights to him/her” and that she believed Smith “does understand these rights”).) Smith refused, however, to authorize MCES to receive a copy of her medical records. (Doc. No. 1 at p. 18 (explaining that she denied access because she “DID NOT CHOOSE TO BE THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE AND WOULD NOT EVER TRUST SUCH PEOPLE WHO WERE KIDNAPPING PEOPLE OUT OF THEIR HOMES AND IMPRISONING THEM!”).)

A doctor met with Smith, asked her some questions, and read her the narrative from Broadnax's 302 Application. (Id.) Smith denied Broadnax's allegations, but the doctor told her that it was her word against Broadnax's and that she would need to provide a character reference if she wished to be released. (Id. at pp. 18-19.) Although it was after 1:00 a.m., staff members were able to get in touch with Smith's work supervisor. (Id. at p. 19.) The supervisor confirmed that Smith was not a danger to herself or others, and Smith was released; her personal effects were returned to her; and she was allowed to return home. (Id.)

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Smith claims this incident has left her in “fear every day . . . that as a transsexual, lesbian woman, I am not safe in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania” and “could be 302'd in the future.” (Id. at p. 20.) She describes feeling guilty and shameful, believes she has lost her selfesteem, and has experienced emotional distress. (Id. at pp. 20-21.) Last, Smith claims her “Second Amendment rights are [at] risk from possible future PA 302 filings against me.” (Id. at p. 21 (“The MCES people say my second amendment rights are not affected because I was not ‘admitted' to the MCES Mental Institution; but, I do not trust these people who have no respect for anyone's Federal civil rights.”).) Although she was not admitted at MCES, she claims it was “a close thing,” in that “[i]f [her] friend had not answered the blind phone call after 1:00 AM, [she] would have been admitted to the building 50 mental institution and would have lost [her] second amendment rights.” (Id.)

11. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On December 14, 2021, Smith filed her initial Complaint against the Commonwealth, the Township, MCES, Pergine, and Broadnax.^[4] (See generally Doc. No. 1.) Her claims are

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grounded in 42 U.S.C. § 1983, asserting numerous...