Stancuna v. Sherman

• Decision Date: 27 June 2008
• Docket Number: No. 3-.07CV00491 (DJS).,3-.07CV00491 (DJS).
• Citation: 563 F.Supp.2d 349
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut
• Parties: Vernon STANCUNA, Plaintiff, v. John SHERMAN, Defendant.

Page 349

563 F.Supp.2d 349

Vernon STANCUNA, Plaintiff, v. John SHERMAN, Defendant.

No. 3-.07CV00491 (DJS).

United States District Court, D. Connecticut.

June 27, 2008.

John R. Williams, New Haven, CT, for Plaintiff.

Beatrice S. Jordan, John J. Radshaw, III, Howd & Ludorf, LLC, Hartford, CT, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION AND ORDER

DOMINIC J. SQUATRITO, District Judge.

The plaintiff, Vernon Stancuna ("Stancuna") brings this action against the defendant, John Sherman ("Sherman"), pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging a violation of his right under Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution to be free from unreasonable searches. Stancuna also brings a claim of trespass under Connecticut common law. Now pending before the court is Sherman's motion for summary judgment (dkt.# 23) pursuant to Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ("Fed. R. Civ.P."). For the reasons that hereafter follow, Sherman's motion for summary judgment (dkt.#23) is DENIED.

I. FACTS

The facts of this case are relatively brief. Stancuna resides at 85 West Dayton Hill Road in Wallingford, Connecticut ("the Property"). He owns the Property. Sherman is a property assessor for the Town of Wallingford. On March 23, 2004, Officer Jason Haberski ("Haberski") of the Wallingford Police Department observed the presence of unregistered motor vehicles on the Property. In response to Haberski's referral of his observation, Sherman was assigned to investigate and determine whether unregistered motor vehicles were present on the Property and, if so, whether motor vehicle taxes were owed to the Town of Wallingford for those vehicles.

On April 21, 2004, Sherman, who was driving a vehicle marked as belonging to the Town of Wallingford, went to the Property to conduct his investigation. Sherman parked his vehicle in the driveway located on the Property. The parties disagree as to what happened during Sherman's investigation. According to Sherman, from his vantage point on the driveway, he could see, in plain sight, several motor vehicles parked on the driveway or in the garage. Sherman claims he exited his vehicle and proceeded up the driveway to a door adjacent to the Property's garage; knocked on the door to ascertain whether anyone was home and to announce his presence; and received no response. As a result, He maintains that proceeded to take photographs of the vehicles on the Property.

Sherman further claims that after a few moments, Stancuna exited the residence and approached Sherman, inquiring who Sherman was and what he was doing. Sherman maintains he advised Stancuna that he was an assessor for the Town of Wallingford and that he was there because of a report of potential unregistered motor vehicles located on the Property. According to Sherman, Stancuna stated that the vehicles were for his business, that some belonged to friends, and that he was fixing them at his residence. Sherman states that subsequently he left the Property. By Sherman's account, he was present on the Property for approximately ten or fifteen minutes, most of which was spent talking with Stancuna. Sherman maintains that he never entered Stancuna's residence, and that he was in the driveway the entire time he was at the Property.

As seen in his deposition testimony, Stancuna provides a different story. Stancuna maintains that, on the day in question, he was inside his house upstairs when he heard a noise from the outside, possibly a door shutting. He looked outside a window and saw Sherman's vehicle parked in his driveway. Stancuna claims that he went downstairs and walked through a breezeway side door into his garage, where he saw Sherman using a video camera. In his deposition, Stancuna testified that the main door to the garage was open, a fact which seems to have surprised him. Stancuna further claims that he had a few words with Sherman, who left the Property shortly thereafter.

II. DISCUSSION

Stancuna alleges that Sherman violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches. He also alleges that Sherman committed trespass under Connecticut law. Sherman argues that Stancuna's claims are barred by the doctrine of res judicata, and that they fail as a matter of law. The court shall discuss the parties' arguments seriatim.

A. RES JUDICATA

Before the court can analyze the substantive claims at issue here, it must first address Sherman's argument that Stancuna's claims are barred by the doctrine of res judicata. "Under the doctrine of res judicata, or claim preclusion, `[a] final judgment on the merits of an action precludes the parties or their privies from relitigating issues that were or could have been raised in that action.'" St. Pierre v. Dyer, 208 F.3d 394, 399 (2d Cir.2000) (quoting Federated Dep't Stores, Inc. v. Moitie, 452 U.S. 394, 398, 101 S.Ct. 2424, 69 L.Ed.2d 103 (1981)). "Res judicata bars litigation of any claim for relief that was available in a prior suit between the same parties or their privies, whether or not the claim was actually litigated." Irish Lesbian and Gay Org. v. Giuliani, 143 F.3d 638, 644 (2d Cir.1998). "Whether or not the first judgment will have preclusive effect depends in part on whether the same transaction or connected series of transactions is at issue, whether the same evidence is needed to support both claims, and whether the facts essential to the second were present in the first." N.L.R.B. v. United Techs. Corp., 706 F.2d 1254, 1260 (2d Cir.1983). "To prove the affirmative defense a party must show that (1) the previous action involved an adjudication on the merits; (2) the previous action involved the plaintiffs or those in privity with them; (3) the claims asserted in the subsequent action were, or could have been, raised in the prior action." Monahan v. N.Y. City Dep't of Corr., 214 F.3d 275, 285 (2d Cir.2000).

It is undisputed that Stancuna brought an earlier action in this district against the Town of Wallingford and its mayor.¹ The defendants moved for summary judgment on Stancuna's one-count complaint, which the Honorable Janet Bond Arterton granted on May 15, 2007. See Stancuna v. Town of Wallingford, 487 F.Supp.2d 15, 17 (D.Conn.2007) ("Wallingford"). In Wallingford, Stancuna had alleged that the Town of Wallingford and its mayor violated his right to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in the form of selective enforcement of Wallingford's zoning regulations and Town Code provisions concerning storage of inoperable and/or unlicensed vehicles and operating an automotive repair business on his residential property.² Id. Specifically, Stancuna had alleged that the mayor caused Wallingford's Planning and Zoning Department to initiate zoning enforcement proceedings against him for keeping and repairing motor vehicles at his residence, and that he was subjected to warnings, threats, and harassment from the agents of the Town of Wallingford because of keeping motor vehicles on his property and/or fixing his cars on his property. Id. According to Stancuna, other Wallingford residents kept and repaired unlicensed motor vehicles in front of their residences in, full view, but no actions were taken against them. Id.

In setting forth the background in Wallingford, Judge Arterton described Haberski's March 23, 2004 patrol, where he observed apparently unregistered vehicles located on the Property. Id. at 19. Judge Arterton then went on to detail the further incidents involving Stancuna and the vehicles located on his property. Those incidents included: (1) complaints made to Wallingford's Planning and Zoning Department; (2) inspections of the Property (some by Haberski) to see if Stancuna had complied with Wallingford's zoning regulations and Town Code provisions concerning the storage of inoperable and/or unlicensed vehicles and the operation of an automotive repair business; and (3) citations and a cease and desist order issued' to Stancuna because of his apparent noncompliance with Wallingford's zoning regulations and Town Code provisions. Id. at 19-20.

There is no question that Judge Arterton's decision in Wallingford constituted an adjudication of the merits in that case. In addition, the claims asserted in this case could have been raised in Wallingford. "In deciding whether a suit is barred by res judicata, `[i]t must ... be determined that the second suit involves the same "claim"-or "nucleus of operative fact[s]"-as the first suit.'" Waldman v. Village of Kiryas Joel, 207 F.3d 105, 108 (2d Cir.2000) (quoting Interoceanica Corp. v. Sound Pilots, Inc., 107 F.3d 86, 90 (2d Cir.1997)). "To ascertain whether two actions spring from the same `transaction' or `claim,' we look to whether the underlying facts are related in time, space, origin, or motivation, whether they form a convenient trial unit, and whether their treatment as a unit conforms to the parties' expectations...." Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Stancuna's allegations here spring from the same circumstances involved in Wallingford, i.e., investigations into potential unregistered vehicles on the Property. Haberski's conduct on March 23, 2004 constitutes an important background fact both in Wallingford and in this case. In addition, Sherman has submitted Stancuna's interrogatory answers from Wallingford in which Stancuna, when asked to identify all the facts supporting his contention that the Town of Wallingford harassed him, specifically listed Sherman's April 21, 2004 inspection. (See dkt. # 23, Ex. C ¶ 11.) It is clear, then, that Sherman's conduct in this case was related in time, space, origin, and motivation to the events in Stancuna's prior lawsuit.

In the court's view, however, res judicata does not bar Stancuna's claims here because Sherman, who was not named as a defendant in Wallingford, is not in privity with the Wallingford defendants. "Privity traditionally has denoted a successive relationship to the same rights of property.... In its...