Waananen v. Barry

• Decision Date: 08 November 2004
• Docket Number: No. 3:02CV2307 (JBA).,3:02CV2307 (JBA).
• Citation: 343 F.Supp.2d 161
• Parties: Neal WAANANEN, Plaintiff, v. Timothy BARRY et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut

Page 161

343 F.Supp.2d 161

Neal WAANANEN, Plaintiff, v. Timothy BARRY et al., Defendants.

No. 3:02CV2307 (JBA).

United States District Court, D. Connecticut.

November 8, 2004.

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

Sharon A. Scully, Attorney General's Office Employment Rights, Hartford, CT, for Defendants.

Ruling on Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment [Doc. # 30], Defendants' Motion to Strike [Doc. # 44], and Plaintiff's Motion to Strike [Doc. # 36]

ARTERTON, District Judge.

This action pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1983 is brought by Neal Waananen, a Master Sergeant at Connecticut State Police (CSP) Troop D in Danielson, Connecticut, against four other CSP supervisors in their individual capacities: Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Barry; Eastern District Commander Major John Rearick; Western District Commander Major Edward Lynch; and Master Sergeant Sue Kumro, who was the commanding officer of the CSP Employee Assistance Program. Plaintiff alleges that defendants violated his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure and his Fourteenth Amendment rights to procedural and substantive due process of law, by searching his house, seizing firearms found therein, and forcing him to undergo a psychiatric examination. Defendants now bring a motion for summary judgment. For the reasons that follow, defendants' motion is GRANTED.

I. Plaintiff's and Undisputed Facts

The incidents complained of in this case arise from a marital dispute between Plaintiff Neal Waananen and his now ex-wife, Rosanne Waananen, in January 2000. At that time, the couple resided in Enfield, Connecticut, with their two children, Erik (then 11 years old) and Audrey (then 6 years old). The marital discord began around Thanksgiving, 1999, and by January 2000 Waananen essentially was no longer speaking to his wife.

On Friday, January 28, 2000, Waananen had a regularly-scheduled day off from work. He had three appointments for that day, but when he tried to use the family car to go to his first doctor's appointment, Roseanne hid the keys from him. In retaliation, he disconnected some wires under the hood of the family car, thinking that "if I couldn't use it, she wasn't going to use my car either." Waananen Depo. 88:23-24. Waananen used his police cruiser to get to his appointments.

Later that afternoon, Waananen heard over his police radio that because of a water main break, his children's school was closing early. He drove to the school to pick up his children, only to learn that Roseanne had already taken them home. When Waananen arrived home, he did not know where his family had gone. He surmised that Roseanne and the children had gone to her parents' house in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

While Waananen was out, he received a page from a state trooper named Terry McFadden. McFadden alerted Waananen to the fact that a friend of his, John McGunigle, was urgently trying to contact him. Waananen and McGunigle had been good friends since 1986, when they had lived in the same neighborhood. They played golf together, attended sporting events with their children, and socialized with each others' families. On January 28, 2000, Waananen did not return McGunigle's page. He instead told Trooper McFadden that everything was fine with his family and that he would "take care of it." Id. at 92:14-15.

When Waananen returned home at about noon that day, his sister, Laurel Slate, was waiting for him. She told him they needed to talk, and Wannanen refused. He told her to "Get out of my house," and then locked her out. Id. at 94:10-11, 95:7. At some point soon thereafter McGunigle again contacted Troop D looking for Waananen. The troop paged Waananen, and he told the troop again, "Don't worry. I'll take care of it." Id. at 97:15-16. Waananen guessed that his wife must have contacted McGunigle asking for assistance, although it later turned out that his sister Laurel had made the call. At about 1:00 p.m., McGunigle came to Wannanen's house and insisted that they talk, saying that he thought he would find Wannanen "with [his] head blown off." Id. at 99:14-15. Waananen criticized his friend for alerting his troop to his marital difficulties, and insisted that McGunigle leave the house at that time, but they did make plans to spend that Sunday together to watch the Superbowl.

On the evening of Saturday, January 29, Roseanne called Waananen by telephone, but Waananen hung up on her. During the day on Sunday, January 30, Waananen changed the lock to their kitchen door. The lock needed repair, but Waananen was also afraid that when he left to watch the Superbowl his wife would take away all of their household possessions. Also that day Roseanne sent him some type of certified letter, but he did not open it. He left for Springfield, Massachusetts, where he and McGunigle watched the Superbowl at a sports bar and briefly discussed Waananen's marital difficulties.

The next morning, Monday, January 31, Waananen's family returned to the house at about 9:00 or 10:00 a.m. Waananen had posted a note on the door, addressed to the children, stating that "your mother has told people that I'm homicidal or suicidal," that "she has run back to the bosom of her family," and was taking the children away from him. Id. at 137:14-138:16. Waananen let his family into the house and gave Rosanne a key to the new kitchen door lock. He exchanged angry words with his wife and tried to speak with his children, whom he described as "frightened, confused." Id. at 141:4.

After a few minutes, Rosanne took the children to school and remained there for the rest of the school day. She noticed Waananen parked outside the school in his police cruiser. At the end of the day she put the children in her car and Waananen followed them in his cruiser. She drove around the town of Enfield, eventually stopping in the parking lot of the Enfield Police Department. There, Waananen got out of his car and tried to speak with the children. After a while he and Rosanne agreed they would return home, and they both drove back to their house. When they arrived, Waananen ushered the children into the den room, which he had converted into a bedroom for himself over the weekend, and locked the door.

Rosanne called McGunigle on her cell phone. While she was speaking with him the phone went dead, so he called back on the Waananen's home phone. Waananen and Rosanne both answered. Waananen heard McGunigle's voice and felt hurt, betrayed and angry that McGunigle was "conspiring" with his wife. Waananen Depo. 163:18. Over the phone he yelled at McGunigle that he "better not show [his] face here," at their house, and then hung up. Id. 165:10-11.

McGunigle then went over to the Waananen's house, and Rosanne let him inside. McGunigle "pound[ed]" on the door of the den, where Waananen was locked in with his children, telling the plaintiff to open up the door. Id. at 166:25. Waananen repeatedly shouted at McGunigle, through the door, to get out of his house, and eventually opened up the den door, confronted McGunigle, "picked him up by his overcoat collar, and ... escorted him out of the house." Id. at 168:7-8. Throughout this time, Rosanne was screaming at her husband not to hurt McGunigle and at Erik and Audrey to run out of the house. The children did run away down the driveway, "crying hysterically," wearing only their socks. Id. at 171:16. On Waananen's orders Erik returned to the house but Audrey went to a neighbor's. With his wife, daughter and friend outside, Waananen locked the kitchen door, which was their main entrance to the house. Rosanne tried to unlock the door, but each time she unlocked it, Wannanen relocked it. After this pattern repeated itself a number of times, Waananen moved the refrigerator to block the door, preventing Roseanne and McGunigle from reentering the house. Waananen also stopped answering the home telephone, which McGunigle was calling from his cell phone.

McGunigle then called James Tilley, a state police trooper who had been a mutual friend of both McGunigle and Wannanen when the three of them played golf together. Waananen stated that Tilley held a grudge against him stemming from a dispute over golf rules that had caused Tilley to lose a game. McGunigle told Tilley that there was a problem between Waananen and his wife, and Waananen had barricaded himself and his son inside the house with a refrigerator.

Tilley paged Master Sergeant Sue Kumro, who was the coordinator of the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) of the Department of Public Safety. The EAP is a "confidential counseling and support service for employees who have problems, including marital problems." Pl. Interrogatories, ¶ 1. Only an employee or his/her supervisor are supposed to make EAP referrals. Tilley was a subordinate of Waananen. Nonetheless, Tilley paged Kumro because he was close friends with her, and "knew that she was friendly with Waananen and also that her job was to assist DPS [Department of Public Safety] employees with personal problems." Tilley Aff. ¶ 5. Kumro called Tilley back, and Tilley informed her that Waananen had had an argument with his wife, was acting irrationally, was barricaded in his house with his son, and had physically pushed McGunigle out of the house. Tilley told Kumro that he had unsuccessfully tried to reach Waananen by telephone.

Kumro called Waananen, repeatedly leaving messages on his home answering machine. Waananen did not listen to the messages and did not know Kumro was trying to contact him. When Kumro could not get through to Waananen in person, she spoke with Major Edward Lynch, Western District Commander of the State Police, who happened to be with her attending a funeral for a state trooper. Major Lynch called Lieutenant Eric Smith, who lived close to Waananen's house in Enfield, and told him to go to the Waananen house and attempt to stabilize the situation. Major Lynch also contacted Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Barry, who in...