Torres v. City
| Decision Date | 30 March 2022 |
| Docket Number | 20-cv-4007 (BMC) |
| Parties | ELAINE TORRES, Plaintiff, v. THE CITY OF NEW YORK, KRISTIN FLANAGAN, WILFREDO RAMOS, ALAN BUNGAY, RENETTE PIERRE-ANTOINE, ROBERT CHIUSANO, and JOHN and JANE DOE 1 through 10, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York |
Plaintiff brings this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and corresponding provisions of state law, for false arrest malicious prosecution, denial of fair trial, and failure to intervene, in addition to state law claims of assault and battery. Plaintiff's arrest occurred because she has a special needs son who ran into a business and said that his mother had beaten him and that he was afraid. The police were called, they heard his story, and the child showed them bruises on his arm. The child also wrote and signed a statement detailing his assault. Other police officers then arrested plaintiff based on this evidence. However, the child recanted his story shortly thereafter and a prosecutor ultimately dismissed the case in the interests of justice.
Plaintiff's claims for false arrest run afoul of the well-established principle that in determining the existence of probable cause, police officers are not required to act as judge or jury. The child's story provided sufficient grounds to make an arrest and probable cause defeats plaintiff's claims, notwithstanding the child's later recantation. However, plaintiff may proceed on her claims of malicious prosecution and denial of a fair trial as to Officer Flanagan and Sergeant Chiusano, as there are factual issues in dispute. Defendants' motion for summary judgment is therefore granted in part and denied in part.
On May 29, 2019, plaintiff's 13-year-old son B.C. did not come home after school. After calling his school to inquire as to his whereabouts, plaintiff got into her car and drove around to look for him. She stopped by a Wendy's where she knew her son routinely hung out with friends. There, she spotted defendant Youth Officers Alan Bungay and Renette Pierre-Antoine and told them she was looking for her son. They said they might have seen him with another youth just a few minutes before.
Plaintiff found B.C. across the street from his school, but he refused to enter her car and ran away.[1] He ran into a nearby business - a senior living center - and told the staff there that he was afraid of his mother because she been “giving him bruises.” He asked the staff to hide him and call 911 which they did.
Officers Bungay and Pierre-Antoine responded to the radio run. Upon arrival, the senior living center staff advised them that B.C. was hiding in a back office of the building, that he appeared frightened, and that he looked like he had been crying. The two officers proceeded to interview B.C. He told them that plaintiff was physically abusing him, and that plaintiff was looking for him to beat him further. He also showed the officers bruising on his arm, telling them that his mother had caused the bruises. The officers later photographed B.C.'s injuries, which are part of this record.
The officers took B.C. to the precinct house to speak with him further. Once there, B.C. wrote a signed statement averring that plaintiff had assaulted him. He wrote that the abuse had started “a while ago” after he had a bad day at school. He also wrote that plaintiff “had made other family members bleed” and that as a result, he was scared. B.C.'s statement noted that when his mother had found him that afternoon, she had told him that when she got out of her car, she was going to hurt him, which was why he had run away and asked for help.
After B.C. signed the statement, Officer Bungay submitted a report of suspected child abuse to the New York City Department of Adult and Child Services. An ACS investigator later spoke to B.C., and he repeated his allegations that his mother hit him for doing poorly in school. He added that plaintiff had hit him in the past in his stomach, arm, and face, and one time she had given him a bloody nose.
As the two Youth Officers were finishing up with their shifts, they informed defendant Officers Kristin Flanagan and Wilfredo Ramos of B.C.'s allegations. Officers Flanagan and Ramos spoke to B.C., and he repeated his allegations that his mother was hitting him for not doing well at school and was threatening to hurt him
At approximately 5 p.m., plaintiff called 911 to report that B.C. was missing. Roughly half an hour later, she received a call telling her to go to the precinct house because her son was there. When she got there, she was placed under arrest by Officers Flanagan and Pierre-Antoine who advised her that B.C. had made allegations against her and that she was being arrested based on that complaint. She denied the allegations and informed them that B.C.'s bruises were from a recent school incident and that there was a school record of it. In her deposition, plaintiff has acknowledged that she had hit B.C. in the past, but not with the severity he was claiming.
When B.C. “peeked out” (according to his testimony) of the interrogation room he was in and saw plaintiff at the front desk in handcuffs, he had an episode of decompensation, becoming so out of control that he had to be handcuffed. He told Officers Pierre-Antoine, Bungay, Ramos that plaintiff “didn't do it, ” and that he had received his bruises in an incident at school. Officer Ramos recalled relaying this information to Officer Flanagan, who told him that she had subsequently discussed B.C.'s recantation with Sergeant Chiusano. Officer Flanagan later relayed to Officer Ramos that the sergeant had given her the go-ahead to proceed with the process to file charges during this conversation.
Officer Flanagan then met with a prosecutor and signed a criminal court complaint. The criminal complaint did not disclose that B.C. had recanted. Officer Flanagan informed the prosecutor that plaintiff had protested that B.C. had gotten in trouble at school and that plaintiff also told her that there was a record of B.C. being bruised in a playfield incident at school.
Plaintiff was charged with endangering the welfare of a child, third degree assault, and second-degree harassment. She was arraigned at Central Booking the next day and released on her own recognizance. Three weeks later, at a second court appearance, the court approved the prosecutor's request to dismiss the charges in the interest of justice. The prosecutor stated on the record that “The People were shown school records of [B.C.'s] injuries and they were from another student.”
This action followed.
Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides that summary judgment is warranted where the “movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(a). A genuine dispute exists “if the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the non-moving party.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986). A fact is material if it “might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law.” Id.
Once the moving party has met its burden, the opposing party Caldarola v. Calabrese, 298 F.3d 156, 160 (2d Cir. 2002) (quoting Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 586-87 (1986)). “Bald assertions or conjecture unsupported by evidence are insufficient to overcome a motion for summary judgment.” Zdziebloski v. Town of E. Greenbush, 336 F.Supp.2d 194, 201 (N.D.N.Y. 2004) (citing Carey v. Crescenzi, 923 F.2d 18, 21 (2d Cir. 1991)). In determining whether genuine issues of material fact exist, the court is required to “resolve all ambiguities and draw all permissible factual inferences in favor of the party against whom summary judgment is sought.” Patterson v. Cty. of Oneida, 375 F.3d 206, 219 (2d Cir. 2004). In deciding a summary judgment motion, “the court cannot properly make credibility determinations or weigh the evidence.” Soto v. Gaudett, 862 F.3d 148, 157 (2d Cir. 2017).
In analyzing a § 1983 claim for false arrest, courts look to the law of the state in which the arrest occurred. Jaegly v. Couch, 439 F.3d 149, 151 (2d Cir. 2006).[2] “Under New York law, the existence of probable cause is an absolute defense to a false arrest claim.” Id. at 152; see also Fulton v. Robinson, 289 F.3d 188, 195 (2d Cir. 2002). An officer has probable cause to arrest when he has “knowledge or reasonably trustworthy information of facts and circumstances that are sufficient to warrant a person of reasonable caution in the belief that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing a crime.” Weyant v. Okst, 101 F.3d 845, 852 (2d Cir. 1996).
The Supreme Court has held that the proper analysis on a false arrest claim is “whether the facts known by the arresting officer at the time of the arrest objectively provided probable cause to arrest.” Jaegly 439 F.3d at 153 (citing Devenpeck v. Alford, 543 U.S. 146, 153 (2004)). Even when probable cause is based on mistaken information, it can still exist so long as the arresting officer acted reasonably and in good faith in relying on that information. Bernard v. United States, 25 F.3d 98, 102 (2d Cir. 1994). ...
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