Taylor v. Montgomery Cnty. Md.

• Decision Date: 30 August 2021
• Docket Number: GJH-20-3143
• Parties: AARON IFALOLA TAYLOR, Plaintiff, v. MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MARYLAND, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland

AARON IFALOLA TAYLOR, Plaintiff, v. MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MARYLAND, et al., Defendants.

No. GJH-20-3143

United States District Court, D. Maryland, Southern Division

August 30, 2021

MEMORANDUM OPINION

GEORGE J. HAZEL United States District Judge

Plaintiff Aaron Ifatola Taylor brings this action against Defendants Montgomery County, Thomas Fox, Timothy Serlo, Michael McDannell, Christina Courtemanche, Laura Andreallo, Paris Capalupo, and Marquetta Washington, pursuant to 42 U.S.C § 1983, alleging false imprisonment and excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment as well as various state law claims. ECF Nos. 3 &17. Pending before the Court is Defendants' Motion to Dismiss. ECF No. 25.^[1] No hearing is necessary. See Loc. R. 105.6 (D. Md. 2021). For the following reasons, Defendants' Motion to Dismiss is granted, in part, and denied, in part.

I. BACKGROUND ^[2]

On the morning of July 26, 2017, Plaintiff was exiting a Shell gas station when Officer Timothy Serlo intercepted him. ECF No 17 ¶¶ 21-22. Defendant Serlo demanded that Plaintiff turn around and place his hands on the hood of a running police cruiser. Id. ¶ 22. Plaintiff alleges that he did not know why Defendant Serlo was asking that he put his hands on the vehicle and refused, asking for more information. Id. ¶ 23. Defendant Serlo then, without explanation, grabbed Plaintiff's upper arms and forced his hands onto the hood of the police car, which was “scalding hot” since it was still running. Id. ¶ 24. Plaintiff alleges that he cried out in pain and repeatedly told Defendant Serlo that his hands were burning, but Defendant Serlo ignored Plaintiff and only pressed his hands more firmly into the hood. Id. ¶ 25. Shortly thereafter, a second officer, Officer Laura Andreallo, arrived and persuaded Defendant Serlo to let Plaintiff remove his hands from the police cruiser. Id. ¶ 26.

Plaintiff was detained for a period of time without explanation, ^[3] during which at least seven more officers arrived on the scene, including Thomas Fox, Michael McDannell, Christina Courtemanche, and Marquetta Washington. Id. ¶¶ 27-28. Plaintiff was then searched and photographed without his consent. Id. ¶ 28. Eventually, one of the officers told Plaintiff that they were detaining him in order to rule him out as a shoplifting suspect. Id. ¶ 29. Almost three hours later, a female officer arrived at the scene and informed the others that Plaintiff was not the suspected shoplifter and could be released. Id. ¶ 30. Plaintiff alleges that, following an internal investigation, Defendants Courtemanche and McDannell were ordered to complete corrective counseling while Defendants Washington and Fox were not reprimanded. Id. ¶ 40.

Plaintiff informed the officers at the scene that he wanted to file a formal complaint about the treatment he received. Id. ¶ 32. Because the police station was not within walking distance, and Plaintiff did not have a car, one of the officers offered to drive Plaintiff to the station. Id. When Plaintiff arrived, instead of being provided the paperwork to file a formal complaint, Plaintiff was escorted into what appeared to be an interrogation room. Id. ¶ 33. Another officer, Detective Paris Capalupo, entered the room and told Plaintiff he was being held for questioning regarding his suspected involvement in a separate armed robbery. Id. ¶ 34. Plaintiff was held in the room for approximately six hours. Id. ¶ 35. During that time, he was not given the opportunity to consult with an attorney. Id. Plaintiff was also subjected to “various interrogation tactics aimed at inducing a confession, ” including turning the temperature down for hours, leaving Plaintiff alone for hours at a time, and escorting Plaintiff in handcuffs when he asked to use the bathroom. Id.

Finally, while Plaintiff was detained, Defendant Capalupo applied for a warrant to search Plaintiff's house. Id. ¶¶ 37-38. The application for the warrant described the armed robbery suspect as “a heavy-set Black male in his late twenties, with long dreadlocks, who walked with his feet pointed outwards.” Id. ¶ 38. Montgomery County police detectives executed the search warrant on Plaintiff's home but found no evidence to connect Plaintiff to the armed robbery. Id. ¶ 37. Plaintiff was then released. Id. ¶ 39.

Plaintiff filed suit against Montgomery County and seven officers in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County on September 23, 2020. ECF No. 1 at 1; ECF No. 1-2. On October 28, 2020, Defendants removed the action to this Court. ECF No. 1. Plaintiff filed an Amended Complaint on November 12, 2020, alleging false imprisonment against all Defendants under the Fourth Amendment (Count I), under Articles 24 and 26 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights (Count II), and as a common law tort (Count III); excessive force against all Defendants under the Fourth Amendment (Count IV) and Articles 24 and 26 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights (Count V); battery against Defendant Serlo (Count VI); negligent training, supervision, and retention against Defendant Montgomery County (Count VII); gross negligence and negligence against all Defendants (Counts VIII and IX, respectively); and violation of his Fourth Amendment rights under Monell against Defendant Montgomery County (Count X). Defendants filed a Motion to Dismiss on November 30, 2020. ECF No. 25. Plaintiff filed a response in opposition on December 28, 2020, ECF No. 27, and Defendants replied on February 5, 2021, ECF No. 29.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

Defendants move to dismiss this action for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). “A motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) tests the sufficiency of the claims pled in a complaint.” Paradise Wire & Cable Defined Benefit Pension Plan v. Weil, 918 F.3d 312, 317 (4th Cir. 2019). To overcome a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, a complaint must allege sufficient facts to state a plausible claim for relief. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (citing Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007). A claim is plausible when “the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id.

In evaluating the sufficiency of the plaintiff's claims, “a court ‘must accept as true all of the factual allegations contained in the complaint,' and must ‘draw all reasonable inferences [from those facts] in favor of the plaintiff.'” Retfalvi v. United States, 930 F.3d 600, 605 (4th Cir. 2019) (alteration in original) (quoting E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. v. Kolon Indus., Inc., 637 F.3d 435, 440 (4th Cir. 2011)). However, the complaint must contain more than “legal conclusions, elements of a cause of action, and bare assertions devoid of further factual enhancement[.]” Nemet Chevrolet, Ltd. v. Consumeraffairs.com, Inc., 591 F.3d 250, 255 (4th Cir. 2009). Accordingly, in ruling on a motion brought under Rule 12(b)(6), a court “separat[es] the legal conclusions from the factual allegations, assum[es] the truth of only the factual allegations, and then determin[es] whether those allegations allow the court to reasonably infer that ‘the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.'” A Society Without a Name v. Virginia, 655 F.3d 342, 346 (4th. Cir. 2011), cert. denied, 566 U.S. 937 (2012) (quoting Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 1949-50).

Defendants challenge Plaintiff's practice throughout the Amended Complaint of referencing the officer Defendants as a group, rather than specifying each individual's contributions to the alleged misconduct. See ECF No. 25-1 at 5.^[4] Plaintiff's Amended Complaint must contain specific allegations against each Defendant in order to put Defendants on adequate notice of the claims against them. See Classen Immunotherapies, Inc. v. Biogen IDEC, 381 F.Supp.2d 452, 455 (D. Md. 2005) (dismissing claims where the complaint failed to “delineate the particular acts of infringement attributable to each Defendant” and thus did “not provide facts sufficient to inform” the defendant of the basis for the plaintiff's claims); Robbins v. Oklahoma, 519 F.3d 1242, 1250 (10th Cir. 2008) (“[I]t is particularly important in [§ 1983 cases against multiple government actors in their individual capacities] that the complaint make clear exactly who is alleged to have done what to whom, to provide each individual with fair notice as to the basis of the claims against him or her[.]” (emphasis in original)); Horton v. City of Rockford, No. 18 C 6829, 2019 WL 3573566, at *3 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 6, 2019) (“Group pleading that refers to ‘Defendants' collectively is sufficient under Rule 8 when a plaintiff provides enough detail about the nature of the allegations to put each defendant on fair notice of the claims.”). Where the plaintiff “sufficiently allege[s] the personal involvement or acquiescence of each of the defendant officers, ” the plaintiff will be able to overcome a motion to dismiss. See Weston v. City of Philadelphia, No. CV 17-2432, 2017 WL 3722435, at *4 (E.D. Pa. Aug. 29, 2017).

III. DISCUSSION

A. Constitutional Claims

Plaintiff alleges Defendants violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a plaintiff may file suit against any person who, acting under color of state law, “subjects or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws” of the United States. “Section 1983 ‘is not itself a source of substantive rights,' but merely provides ‘a method for vindicating federal rights elsewhere conferred.'” Albright v. Oliver, 510 U.S 266, 271 (1979) (quoting Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137, 144, n. 3 (1979))....