Brenes-Laroche v. Toledo Davila

682 F. Supp. 2d 179, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8848, 2010 WL 431389
CourtDistrict Court, D. Puerto Rico
DecidedJanuary 26, 2010
DocketCiv. No. 08-1815 (PG)
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 682 F. Supp. 2d 179 (Brenes-Laroche v. Toledo Davila) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Puerto Rico primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Brenes-Laroche v. Toledo Davila, 682 F. Supp. 2d 179, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8848, 2010 WL 431389 (prd 2010).

Opinion

OPINION AND ORDER

JUAN M. PEREZ-GIMENEZ, District Judge.

Plaintiff Abderraman Brenes-La Roche brought this action for damages against several supervisory and on-the-field officers of the Puerto Rico Police Department (“PRPD”) under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for constitutional violations of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments allegedly stemming from an unreasonable seizure, the use of excessive force, and summary punishment without due process of law. Plaintiff also pleads supplementary claims under Puerto Rico law for assault and battery, false arrest, and restriction of liberty. Before the Court are the police officer defendants’ Motion to Dismiss (Docket No. 7) for failure to state a claim under Fed.R.CivP. 12(b)(6) as well as Plaintiffs Opposition (Docket No. 10).1 For the reasons set forth below, the Court GRANTS in part and DENIES in part the Motion to Dismiss.

I. Factual Background

The Court draws the following facts from Plaintiffs Complaint and takes them as true for purposes of resolving Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss.

On or about August 4, 2007, Plaintiff attended a protest at a construction project known as Paseo Caribe as a “legal observer” assigned by the Colegio de Abogados de Puerto Rico. He accompanied a group of demonstrators, including his son, to the fourth floor of a parking building at the site, where they were met with about a dozen members of the PRPD’s San Juan Tactical Operations Unit (“SJTOU”). The officers closed off all means of egress from the fourth floor and announced that the demonstrators would have to leave but only by one of two means: either jumping from the fourth floor or running through a wall of baton-wielding police. Plaintiff and the demonstrators sat down on the floor whereupon the officers “immediately began to indiscriminately beat the seated demonstrators.” (Compl. ¶ 28.)

More specifically, defendant Merky Vazquez Santos (“Vasquez”) hit Plaintiffs son with the metal tip of his baton; Plaintiff was jabbed in his mid-section with the metal tip of a baton belonging to either Vasquez or another officer whose name is yet unknown (“Doe”); and Plaintiff received a sharp blow on his right wrist from Doe while Vasquez and other officers hit and kicked him in various parts of his body. (Compl. ¶¶ 29-35.) Vasquez, Doe, and other officers, acting in concert, used physical force to confine him. Plaintiff continued to receive sharp blows as he left the building through an opening allowed by the officers. As a result of the physical injuries sustained, Plaintiff suffered an oblique bone fracture, bruises, and soft tissue swelling on his left2 wrist.

[183]*183In addition to the individual officers who directly participated in the beatings, Plaintiff posits that supervisory officers Pedro Toledo, Jose Caldero, Benjamin Rodriguez, Walter Rivera, and Eric Serrano (collectively, “supervisory officers”) are also liable for their participation in deploying the SJTOU the day of the beatings while being aware of the SJTOU’s use of unlawful and excessive force. Plaintiff states that Toledo, Caldero, and Rodriguez deployed the San Juan Tactical Operations Force on August 4, 2007 “in reckless disregard or callous indifference to the likelihood that it would use unlawful and excessive force at Paseo Caribe.” (Compl. ¶ 53.) He believes and alleges that Serrano communicated from the scene with the aforementioned, as well as with Rivera, and obtained their orders to proceed. Thus, Plaintiff argues that all of the supervisory officers knew that the SJTOU would use unlawful force but actively engaged them anyway, and therefore, proximately caused his injuries.

Furthermore, Plaintiff states that the supervisory officers were aware of the SJTOU’s custom, practice, and policy of removing their identification when using unlawful force, but failed to enforce regulations requiring police to display their identification when in uniform. Additionally, Plaintiff claims that Toledo, Caldero, Rodriguez, and Rivera failed to properly train and supervise their subordinates and to discipline them for using unlawful force to disperse demonstrators. These acts and omissions, Plaintiff believes, also proximately caused his injuries.

All the named officer defendants filed a Motion to Dismiss under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) for failure to state a cognizable claim under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments and thus under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (“section 1983”). Their main argument surrounds the failure of Plaintiff to establish any direct involvement by Defendants with the damages caused to Plaintiff, especially since the supervisory officers “were not in [sic] the fourth floor of the multilevel parking” the day of the alleged beatings. (Mot. Dismiss 6.) As for defendant Vasquez, whom Plaintiff alleges kicked him in various parts of his body and possibly jabbed him in his midsection with a baton, Defendants argue that only Doe directly injured Plaintiff. Furthermore, because the demonstrators were trespassing on private property, Defendants argue that the officers were dispatched to remove the protestors who knew they could be arrested for said acts and who thus provided the officers with probable cause for their arrest, resulting in no unreasonable restriction of liberty or unjustified seizure.

Seeking to dismiss the suit against the supervisory officers, Defendants argue that under the case law supervisors cannot be held liable simply under a theory of respondeat superior. Rather, they may only be held liable for their own acts or omissions if these are affirmatively linked to the subordinate’s unconstitutional behavior (e.g. by encouragement or gross negligence). Defendants posit that “Plaintiff pleaded only vague and conclusory allegations that ... [the supervisory officers] ... failed to train and supervise their subordinates ... which is not enough to establish a claim of supervisory liability.” (Mot. Dismiss 9.) Defendants submit that the Complaint has not set forth any facts in support of its accusations against the supervisory officers.

[184]*184Moreover, Defendants proceed to argue why Plaintiff has failed to state a cognizable claim under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. They state that they did not use unreasonable force and thus did not violate the Fourth Amendment because the demonstrators chose to disobey police orders to leave the private property and instead sat down in refusal of their orders. A reasonable response by a police officer, therefore, would have been to remove the trespassers. They also argue that it is a “normal custom of the Tactical Operations Unit to stand shoulder to shoulder when they are dispatched anywhere and that in itself does not amount to the deprivation of any constitutional right.” (Mot. Dismiss 10.)

With respect to the Fifth Amendment, Defendants state that the Due Process Clause only applies to federal government actions, not state or local government. Since Defendants are not federal actors, the argument goes, any Fifth Amendment claim must be properly dismissed. At the very least, Defendants say that excessive force claims should be analyzed under the Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness standard under the prevailing case law.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Howe v. Town of North Andover
784 F. Supp. 2d 24 (D. Massachusetts, 2011)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
682 F. Supp. 2d 179, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8848, 2010 WL 431389, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/brenes-laroche-v-toledo-davila-prd-2010.