Spearman v. Elizondo

• Decision Date: 02 May 2016
• Docket Number: No. 15 C 7029,15 C 7029
• Citation: 230 F.Supp.3d 888
• Parties: Sharon SPEARMAN, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Sgt. ELIZONDO #1340, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois

230 F.Supp.3d 888

Sharon SPEARMAN, et al., Plaintiffs,

v.Sgt. ELIZONDO #1340, et al., Defendants.

No. 15 C 7029

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

Signed May 2, 2016

Gregory E. Kulis, Brian M. Orozco, Joshua S. Patrick, Gregory E. Kulis and Associates, Ltd., Sami Ziad Azhari, Azhari LLC, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiffs.

Kenneth M. Battle, Michael B. Cohen, Quintairos, Prieto, Wood & Boyer, P.A., Bret Anthony Kabacinski, City of Chicago Department of Law, Chicago, IL, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Elaine E. Bucklo, United States District Judge

Plaintiff Sharon Spearman ("Spearman"), on behalf of herself and her children, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against several Chicago police officers ("the officer defendants") for violating her and her children's civil rights. Spearman later amended her complaint to include a claim against the City of Chicago ("the City") under Monell v. Department of Social Services of the City of New York, 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978). The City has moved to dismiss the Monell claim pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. For the reasons discussed below, the motion is denied.

I.

According to the complaint, whose allegations I must accept as true for purposes of this motion, see, e.g. , Ashcroft v. Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009), on or about March 1, 2015, Spearman and her children were at home when several Chicago police officers broke down her apartment door. The officers claimed that they had a warrant to search the premises and entered with their guns drawn. Spearman was placed in handcuffs while the officers conducted the search. Finding no contraband, the officers realized that they had searched the wrong apartment. They left Spearman's home and executed the warrant at another residence (where they once again broke down the door), leaving Spearman and her children traumatized.

No reports were filed regarding the bungled search of Spearman's home. Instead, one of the officers who had participated in the search returned later in the day and gave Spearman $1,000 in cash "for her troubles." Am. Compl. ¶ 16. The complaint alleges on information and belief that the officers obtained the cash during the search that they conducted after leaving her home.

Spearman alleges that the officers' actions constituted an unlawful search and seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment. She seeks to hold the City liable on the ground that her and her children's injuries were caused by the City's custom or practice of failing to supervise and discipline its police officers and the "code of silence" pervading the Chicago Police Department ("CPD").

II.

A motion to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rule 12(b)(6) challenges the sufficiency of a complaint, not its merits. Gibson v. City of Chicago, 910 F.2d 1510, 1520 (7th Cir. 1990). In evaluating the complaint's sufficiency, I must "construe it in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, accept well-pled facts as true, and draw all inferences in [the plaintiff's] favor."

Cincinnati Life Ins. Co. v. Beyrer , 722 F.3d 939, 946 (7th Cir. 2013) (quotation marks and brackets removed).

To survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, a complaint need only surmount what the Seventh Circuit has described as "two easy-to-clear hurdles." E.E.O.C. v. Concentra Health Servs., Inc. , 496 F.3d 773, 776 (7th Cir. 2007). First, the complaint "must describe the claim in sufficient detail to give the defendant fair notice of what the ... claim is and the grounds upon which it rests."Id. (quotation marks and ellipsis omitted). Second, the complaint's "allegations must plausibly suggest that the plaintiff has a right to relief, raising that possibility above a speculative level." Id. (citation and quotation marks omitted). As the Seventh Circuit has clarified, "plausibility" "in this context does not imply that the district court should decide whose version to believe, or which version is more likely than not." Swanson v. Citibank, N.A. , 614 F.3d 400, 404 (7th Cir. 2010). Rather, it means only that "the plaintiff must give enough details about the subject-matter of the case to present a story that holds together." Id.

III.

The City contends that the allegations in support of Spearman's Monell claim are deficient in several respects. I address the City's arguments in turn.

A. Factual Allegations

The City's first set of objections is directed at what it deems the complaint's general lack of factual detail and specificity. To begin with, the City argues that many paragraphs included in Spearman's Monell count are formulaic and conclusory. This is indeed true of some of the complaint's allegations, see, e.g. , Am. Compl. ¶ 30 ("This persistent and defiant code of silence was the moving force behind the Defendant's actions complained [sic] herein"), but it does not warrant dismissal of the Monell claim. As the Seventh Circuit has observed, "Iqbal makes clear that legal conclusions can provide the framework of a complaint so long as they are supported by factual allegations." Engel v. Buchan , 710 F.3d 698, 709 (7th Cir. 2013).

Here, Spearman's conclusory assertions are buttressed by numerous factual allegations, including: (1) the fact that the officer defendants together have over ninety complaint registers lodged against them; (2) the verdict in Obrycka et al. v. City o f Chicago et al. , No. 07 2372 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 13, 2012), in which a jury found that a code of silence and/or a widespread custom of failing to adequately investigate and discipline officers existed within the ranks of the CPD; (3) a statement by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel during a December 2015 press conference acknowledging a prevailing "code of silence" within the CPD; (4) the convictions or guilty pleas of nine Chicago police officers on allegations of official misconduct during traffic stops and home searches between the years 2007 and 2012; (5) the statement by one of the latter officers during a 2012 interview that the practice of stealing from citizens during searches was widespread, well-known, and condoned by commanding officers; and (6) the City's payment of $5 million in "hush money" to the family of Laquan McDonald, who was fatally shot in 2014 by a Chicago police officer later charged with first-degree murder.

The City insists that these allegations are not enough. It examines each of the allegations individually and argues that none of them is sufficient to support a Monell claim. This divide-and-conquer mode of argument is unpersuasive and runs afoul of the firmly established requirement that complaints be read as a whole. See, e.g ., Engel , 710 F.3d at 709(holding that when read as a whole, the plaintiff's complaint contained enough specific factual allegations to state a plausible claim); Atkins v. City of Chicago , 631 F.3d 823, 832 (7th Cir. 2011) (noting that under Iqbal and Twombly , "the complaint taken as a whole must establish a nonnegligible probability that the claim is valid"); see also Kadamovas v. Stevens , 706 F.3d 843, 845 (7th Cir. 2013) (citing Atkins ).

When Spearman's factual allegations are taken together and the complaint is read as a whole, the complaint "give[s] enough details about the subject-matter of the case to present a story that holds together." Swanson , 614 F.3d at 404. At the pleading stage, that is all the plaintiff is required to do. Id.

B. Allegations Concerning Monell 's Custom, Policy, or Practice Requirement

The City also takes issue with the complaint's allegations regarding specific elements of Spearman's Monell claim. To establish a municipality's liability under Monell , a plaintiff must show that: "(1) [s]he suffered a deprivation of a federal right; (2) as a result of either an express municipal policy, widespread custom, or deliberate act of a decision-maker with final policy-making authority for the City; which (3) was the proximate cause of his injury." Ovadal v. City of Madison, Wisconsin , 416 F.3d 531, 535 (7th Cir. 2005) (quotation marks omitted).

With respect to element (2), Spearman claims that her rights were violated not as a result of an express policy or a decision-maker's deliberate act, but due to a widespread custom. The City first argues that the precise nature of the alleged custom is unclear. In some places, the custom complained of appears to be that of failing to train, supervise, monitor, and/or discipline police officers. See, e.g. , Am. Compl. ¶¶ 21, 23 & 24. In other places, however, the custom in question appears to be the code of silence prevailing within the CPD. See, e.g. , id. ¶¶ 25, 26, 29 & 30. The City further argues that the expression "code of silence" is itself used ambiguously in the complaint, referring at times to police officers' custom of not "ratting" on one another, and at other times to the City's attempts to buy citizens' silence with funds obtained by shakedowns or other improper means.

The City may be correct in highlighting the complaint's equivocation on this point, but it is not fatal to Spearman's Monell claim. The complaint may be read as referring to a set of interrelated, mutually-reinforcing customs or practices, all of which contribute to civil rights violations of the kind alleged by Spearman. The City cites no authority for the proposition that Monell plaintiffs must precisely delineate a single custom or policy that caused their alleged harm. Indeed, Obrycka dispels such a notion. The plaintiff in Obrycka produced evidence "concerning both a code of silence within the CPD and a widespread custom or practice of failing to adequately investigate and/or discipline officers." Obrycka v. City of Chicago , 913 F.Supp.2d 598, 603 (N.D. Ill. 2012). As the City itself is keen to point out elsewhere in its brief, see Def.'s Mem. at 5, the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff without specifying whether one or both of these policies formed the basis for its conclusion. Obrycka , 913 F.Supp.2d at...