Thacker v. Hyattsville

• Decision Date: 14 November 2000
• Docket Number: No. 2131,2131
• Citation: 135 Md. App. 268,762 A.2d 172
• Parties: Robert Lee THACKER, et al., v. CITY OF HYATTSVILLE, et al.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

762 A.2d 172

135 Md. App. 268

Robert Lee THACKER, et al., v. CITY OF HYATTSVILLE, et al.

No. 2131, Sept. Term, 1999.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

November 14, 2000.

Elliot P. Dematteis, Annapolis, for appellants.

Kevin Karpinski (Daniel Karp, Michelle L. Seidleck and Allen, Johnson, Alexander & Karp, on the brief), Baltimore, for appellees.

Argued before WENNER,¹ SONNER and ADKINS, JJ.

ADKINS, Judge.

Like a chameleon, the common legal term "malice" must be examined in context. As the Court of Appeals recently observed in an analogous case involving qualified public official immunity, "[t]he word `malice' has been a troublesome one in the law, because it has been used in many different contexts...." Shoemaker v. Smith, 353 Md. 143, 161, 725 A.2d 549 (1999). This wrongful arrest case is additional anecdotal affirmation of that troublesome nature.

We must resolve a series of "malice" related issues in this appeal from summary judgment in favor of appellees, who are eight municipal defendants. Because the Circuit Court for Prince George's County concluded that there was insufficient evidence of malice to defeat the presumption of qualified immunity afforded to municipal officials under Md.Code (1974, 1998 Repl.Vol.), § 5-507 of the Courts & Judicial Proceedings Article ("Section 5-507"),² we will address the qualified immunity issue first. In doing so, we also must consider the effects of an order by Judge Alexander Williams of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, dismissing with prejudice the federal civil rights claim of Robert Thacker, appellant. We shall hold that (1) the federal court's decision had no preclusive effect on the remanded state law claims now before us; (2) there was sufficient evidence to raise an inference of malice against the arresting officer; (3) the city employing the arresting officer may be held vicariously liable for his torts and constitutional violations, and is not otherwise immune from liability for violations of the Maryland Constitution; and (4) there was no evidence of malice against the other six municipal defendants.

As a result, we must review the undisputed material facts to determine whether summary judgment was appropriate even absent such qualified immunity. Each cause of action must be considered separately, because the respective prima facie elements and defenses differ. We shall affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand to the circuit court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

BACKGROUND OF LEGAL PROCEEDINGS

The Arrest And Complaint

Thacker's arrest for disorderly conduct precipitated the instant case. Thacker, an apartment complex manager, requested police assistance in removing from the property management office a tenant who was disgruntled over Thacker's refusal to issue him a temporary parking permit. In the ensuing encounter among Thacker, Hyattsville police officers, and the tenant, Officer Gary Blakes arrested Thacker. Additional evidence regarding that encounter and arrest is reviewed in Part III of this opinion.

After the disorderly conduct charge was nolle prossed, Thacker and Melvin Berman, as general partner of the partnership that employed Thacker, filed a complaint against Blakes and seven other municipal defendants.³ The gravamen of the complaint was that Thacker did not commit any crime, that Blakes made defamatory statements regarding Thacker, and that the arrest was wrongfully motivated by Blakes' dislike of Thacker and his desire to retaliate, intimidate, humiliate, and harm him. The other municipal defendants were alleged to be liable under theories of vicarious liability, negligent training, and/or negligent supervision.⁴

Federal Court Proceedings

The municipal defendants removed the entire case to the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, based upon a single civil rights count under 42 U.S.C. section 1983 (the "section 1983 claim").⁵ They immediately filed a preliminary motion to dismiss the complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). No discovery had been conducted. Plaintiffs filed an opposition, attaching a copy of Blakes' incident report to it.

At the motion hearing, without prior notice to Thacker's attorney, defense counsel urged the court to exercise its discretion under Rule 12(b) to convert the motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment.

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: I do note that while the complaint itself is fairly limited in factual allegations, the plaintiff has attached a copy of the police report to his reply memorandum, thereby, I submit, making the police report itself in essence part of his complaint. I think it's therefore fair to refer to that complaint.

THE COURT: Are you now turning this into a motion for summary judgment?

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: It is in practical effect a motion for summary judgment based upon the additional material supplied by the plaintiff, not the defendant, to the record.

THE COURT: Does [plaintiffs' counsel] have the right to receive notice of this and an opportunity to supplement his response? What is your view on that?

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: I would respectfully submit that the defendant is under no obligation to warn the plaintiff that by adding additional information he risks converting what is a motion to dismiss to a motion for summary judgment. My position would perhaps have been clearer had I submitted affidavits from my clients, but, frankly, I didn't think it necessary.

Thacker's attorney objected that he was not prepared for a dispositive evidentiary motion, and that the police report was neither proffered nor admissible for the truth of Officer Blakes' statements therein.

[PLAINTIFF'S COUNSEL]: Initially, I must state that I was prepared today to argue the motion to dismiss and not a motion for summary judgment. And it is very clear from my pleading that the purpose of attaching the police officer's report was only for the purpose of showing his state of mind, if you would, for purposes of arrest. We certainly do not admit the facts that are alleged in that report and I make that clear when I attached that to my pleading by a statement to that effect. We certainly dispute those facts. Our position here is that we are not here to try this case. We are here on an issue of whether or not we have sufficiently pled facts from which a jury can reasonably infer that these violations have occurred.

Without further comment on converting the motion to dismiss, the federal court proceeded to raise the issue of qualified immunity.

THE COURT: Well, what is the purpose of having submitted a copy of the complaint and your interpretation of that? What was the purpose of that?

[PLAINTIFF'S COUNSEL]: To show that the officer thought that it was his responsibility to resolve the parking problem, and he thought that it was within his parameters to arrest Mr. Thacker, the plaintiff, by virtue of the fact that he would not stop asking him to remove the tenant from his office.

THE COURT: It just seems to me that it's a built-in qualified immunity defense. It doesn't matter whether in fact he had probable cause, but if he reasonably and objectively believed that he had the right to arrest him for disorderly conduct, I think the game is over. That's what qualified immunity is.

[PLAINTIFF'S COUNSEL]: Well, I would think, Your Honor, that whether or not it was reasonable for him to believe such is the jury question.... [M]y point is that the justification for the arrest is what compromises the whole claim. If there are sufficient facts from which the jury can determine, which I believe there is, that the officer was not reasonable in thinking that he could make the arrest and that his arrest was not justified, which we claim that it is not justified, then there falls the probable cause argument.

After noting that "we have not even developed any of the facts in this case," Thacker's attorney proffered his client's anticipated testimony that (a) as he and the tenant were leaving, Officer Blakes yelled that Thacker was a bad manager, and (b) Thacker responded by yelling out the door that "If I'm a bad manager, you're a bad police officer."

Without further proffer, argument, or ruling, the federal court granted defendants' motion to dismiss the section 1983 claim. In accordance with his "clear and consistent" practice of declining to exercise supplementary jurisdiction over pendent state law claims, Judge Williams remanded the remaining state law claims without addressing the effect his ruling would have on those remanded claims:

Well, I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do, counsel. I'm going to allow you to go back to state court. I'm going to remand this case back to the state court. Why? Because I don't believe that you have and can establish, based on the pleadings itself, a 1983 action.... But based on the document that you submitted, based on my reading of the facts, and based on what confronts me and leaps out at me right now, I believe that all over this case is qualified immunity.... Based on the facts I see and what is so clear to me as a matter of law, I find that the officers had a bas[i]s to arrest. They had probable cause, and even if they didn't have probable cause, they objectively and reasonably believed they had the right to arrest, which, as I see it, that's qualified immunity.

The Fourth Circuit has told these district court judges to assess qualified immunity as early as we can. I have done that. I have given you a chance to talk me out of it.... I'm dismissing [the 1983 claim] with prejudice. And having reviewed the complaint that you have submitted, I also believe that as an alternative ground summary judgment should be awarded.

I'm going to remand Counts I, II, III, IV, V, and VII [and IX] to the state court for your continued litigation. I will not offer an opinion at all on those counts. I will leave those for you to fight in the state system.... I will remand the case back to state...