Williams v. USA, Case No. 04-CV-4880 (FB) (JMA).
| Decision Date | 20 July 2010 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 04-CV-4880 (FB) (JMA). |
| Parties | Lillian CARTER, Russell Carter, Chad Carter, Terrance Wilson, and Virgil Williams, Plaintiffs, v. UNITED STATES of America, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
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Brett Klein, Esq., Leventhal & Klein, LLP, Brooklyn, NY, for Plaintiffs.
Loretta E. Lynch, Esq., United States Attorney, Eastern District of New York, by: Scott R. Landau, Esq., Brooklyn, NY, for Defendant.
In the early morning hours of February 25, 2004, armed law enforcement officers invaded plaintiffs' home based on what turned out to be incorrect information that a suspect named Kinte Carter lived there. Plaintiffs thereupon sued the individual officers under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619 (1971), and the United States of America under the Federal Tort Claims Act (“FTCA”), 28 U.S.C. §§ 1346, 2671-80.
The Bivens claim was tried to a jury, which found the individual defendants not liable. The FTCA claim was then tried to the Court. For the reasons explained in the following findings of fact and conclusions of law, the Court awards plaintiff Lillian Carter (“Lillian”) $300,000 for past and future emotional distress suffered because an employee of the United States Postal Service negligently misinformed law enforcement that Kinte Carter resided in Lillian's home. 1
In 2004, Lillian lived with her husband Russell (“Russell”), her sons Chad Carter and Terrance Wilson (“Chad” and “Terrance,” respectively), and her younger cousin Virgil Williams (“Virgil”) at 525 Cary Avenue, in the Port Richmond neighborhood of Staten Island. Between late 2002 and early 2004, Special Agent Jon Ellwanger (“Ellwanger”) of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (“ATF”) was investigating narcotics activity and violent crime in the neighborhood.
By February 2004, Ellwanger's investigation had yielded indictments and arrest warrants for twenty-eight suspected members of two rival drug gangs in the area. One of those suspects was Kinte Carter, who was considered by law enforcement to be armed and dangerous.
On separate occasions, two confidential informants pointed out to Ellwanger three or four houses in the 500 block of Cary Avenue and stated that Kinte Carter may have lived in one of them. Ellwanger eventually identified 526 and 471 Cary Avenue as possible addresses for Kinte Carter. He also identified 35 Holland Avenue, Apt. 5E, as a third possible address.
On February 17, 2004, a member of Ellwanger's team, Special Agent Tom Shelton (“Shelton”) faxed a request to the Postal Inspection Service to verify the three possible addresses for Kinte Carter (along with possible addresses for several other suspects). The Postal Inspection Service is the law-enforcement arm of the United States Postal Service; one of its primary functions is to verify addresses at the request of law-enforcement agencies.
Shelton's request was processed by several Inspection Service Operation Technicians, including Wilhelmina Corley (“Corley”). Corley has worked at the Postal Inspection Service for over ten years. Although her training was brief and informal, she understood that requesting agencies expected her to provide reliable information to be used to “track people down.” Trial Tr. at 1025.
Corley was responsible for verifying the possible addresses for Kinte Carter. In that regard, she contacted the postal carrier responsible for the 500 block of Cary Avenue. Neither Corley nor the carrier remembered any conversation regarding Kinte Carter. Based, however, on the carrier's testimony that he did not recall Kinte Carter ever receiving mail at 525 Cary Avenue, the Court finds that he told Corley only that a Carter family received mail at 525 Cary Avenue.
Following her usual procedure, Corley made handwritten notes of her investigation on the fax from Shelton. Her note-taking method invited confusion regarding names: As she learned who received mail at each address, she would sometimes write a first and last name, sometimes just a last name, and sometimes a last name with the notation “FNU” (“first name unknown”). Next to the entry for 526 Cary Avenue, she wrote “Vasquez fam.,” Pls.' Ex. 30. Above it, she wrote “525 Carter (good).” Id.
Corley later typed out her notes on another copy of Shelton's fax; she had no recollection of how much time passed before she transcribed her handwritten notes. Since she received Shelton's fax on February 17th and sent her response on February 20th, there could have been as much as a three-day delay. During that time, Corley was responding to “numerous, if not hundreds of” other address verification requests. Trial Tr. at 1041-42.
For 526 Cary Avenue, Corley's handwritten notes became “KINTE CARTER IS GOOD AT 525 CARY AVE. 526 CARY AVENUE-VASQUEZ FAMILY IS GOOD.” Pls.' Ex. 29. In other words, Corley incorrectly assumed that the reference to “Carter” in her handwritten notes referred to Kinte Carter. By comparison, Corley transcribed her handwritten note “Viola (FNU)” as “VIOLA FAMILY,” and her handwritten note “Edmond” as “EDMOND FAMILY.” Pls.' Exs. 28-30. Kinte Carter was the only subject whose first name did not appear in Corley's handwritten notes but was included in her response to ATF. In sum, the Court finds that Corley failed to use due care in transcribing her handwritten notes and, as a result, erroneously reported to ATF that Lillian's home was a “good” address for Kinte Carter.
Corley's fax caused Ellwanger to change his focus from 526 to 525 Cary Avenue. At Ellwanger's request, one of the confidential informants returned to the 500 block and reported back that 525 Cary Avenue was one of the houses where Kinte Carter might have lived. Ellwanger then confirmed with Consolidated Edison (“ConEd”) that someone with the last name “Carter” received utility service at 525 Cary Avenue; however, the name “Kinte” did not appear in ConEd's records. Finally, Ellwanger asked a New York City Police Department detective in the 120th Precinct if Kinte Carter was “associated” with 525 Cary Avenue; the detective (whose name Ellwanger could not remember) said he was. Trial Tr. at 510. Ellwanger would not have approved a search of 525 Cary Avenue had Corley not reported it as a “good” address for Kinte Carter.
The arrest warrants for Kinte Carter and 27 others were executed simultaneously in the early morning of February 25, 2004, by hundreds of agents from multiple law enforcement agencies. The executing officers had not participated in the investigation.
The four officers executing the arrest warrant for Kinte Carter went to 525 Cary Avenue. They knocked loudly on the door and Lillian let them in. At that time, she was the only occupant who was awake: Russell was not at home, while Chad, Terrance and Virgil were asleep in their bedrooms.
The officers told Lillian that they were looking for Kinte Carter and proceeded to search each room in the house, with their guns drawn for at least part of the search. Lillian accompanied some of the officers, going with them to the bedrooms and the basement. She honestly-although incorrectly-believed that one of the officers held a gun to her back throughout the search because she felt something cold touch her neck and back, though she never saw what it was.
The search took approximately 30 minutes. Kinte Carter was not found. The Court credits Lillian's testimony that Kinte Carter was unknown to her and her family and had never been in their home.
Lillian was terrified that she or one of her family members might be killed during the search. Moreover, she began to think that the suspect the officers were seeking might have broken into her home, and that she would be killed in a firefight between him and the officers. Following the search, Lillian had nightmares about alternate versions of the incident in which members of her family were killed, and flashback hallucinations in which she felt a gun on her neck.
In addition, the incident dramatically affected Lillian's ability to enjoy her work or the company of her family. Her relationships with her sons and the younger cousin for whom she was caring deteriorated. Her fear of having her house invaded motivated her to install security cameras on the exterior of her home and watch the attached video monitor constantly. She eventually moved upstate-temporarily abandoning her family-because of the fear she associated with her house on Cary Avenue.
Two days after the incident, Lillian saw her primary-care physician, Dr. Salvator Prainito. He prescribed Xanax, a tranquilizer that Lillian had previously taken to reduce anxiety. As of the time of trial, Lillian was still taking Xanax.
Dr. Prainito referred Lillian to Dr. Santapuri Rao, a psychiatrist. Dr. Rao treated Lillian between June of 2004 and June of 2005. He diagnosed her as suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (“PTSD”) and, in addition to continuing Lillian on Xanax, prescribed Paxil, another anti-anxiety medication that Lillian had been taking prior to the incident; he eventually quadrupled Lillian's dosage of Paxil from her pre-incident prescription.
When Lillian moved upstate, she began treatment at an outpatient mental-health clinic in Monticello, New York. Psychiatrists there confirmed the diagnosis of PTSD and, over time, moved Lillian from Paxil to a combination of medications to manage her continuing anxiety. As of the time of trial, Lillian was still receiving treatment and continuing her medication regimen.
At trial, the medical experts proffered by both Lillian and the United States agreed that Lillian suffered from PTSD as a result of the incident; however, they...
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