Davis v. City of New York

902 F. Supp. 2d 405, 2012 WL 4813837
District Court, S.D. New York·Decided October 9, 2012·No. No. 10 Civ. 0699(SAS)·Published·Cited by 25 cases

Opinion

AMENDED OPINION AND ORDER

SHIRA A. SCHEINDLIN, District Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

This putative class action challenges the policies and practices that the New York City Police Department (“NYPD”) and the New York City Housing Authority (“NY-CHA”) use to enforce prohibitions against trespassing on public housing property. The lawsuit alleges that defendants’ actions have resulted in a widespread pattern of unlawful stops, questioning, frisks, searches, and arrests of NYCHA residents and their invited guests.1

This is the second of three lawsuits before this Court that challenge the NYPD’s stop and frisk practices.2 Like the other two cases, and like many of its predecessors, this suit “thrusts to the fore difficult and troublesome issues regarding a sensitive area of police activity.”3 Nearly forty-five years ago, faced with a rising tide of urban violence and what Justice William 0. Douglas called “powerful hydraulic pressures” 4 to give police an upper hand, the Supreme Court first confronted “the practical and constitutional arguments pressed with great vigor on both sides of the public debate over the power of the police to ‘stop and frisk’ — as it is sometimes euphemistically termed — suspicious persons.”5

In Terry v. Ohio, the Supreme Court held that the Constitution permits stops when the police have a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. But the precise contours of the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable stops remain [409]*409fiercely debated in the courts, the newspapers, and the streets.

Because they focus on people residing or present in public housing, the practices at issue in this lawsuit are more narrow than those addressed in either Terry or Floyd v. City of New York, both of which involved street stops. But they are no less consequential. Indeed, for many residents, the tension at the heart of this lawsuit is also a central part of their daily lives: what one scholar has called the “decades-long battle by NYCHA tenants for a life both dignified and safe.”6

The perspective of plaintiff Eleanor Britt highlights this challenge. Britt, a sixty-four year old African American woman, has lived in NYCHA housing for more than thirty-five years.7 Like generations of NYCHA residents before her, she is a member of an anti-crime tenant organization.8 She testified at her deposition that she would like the police to conduct more vertical patrols through her building, because “it helps us keep the building safe .... [T]he more their presence is seen, the less problems we would have.”9 But Britt has also witnessed serious police misconduct:

I have seen the police approach young men in the building and I have seen them just grab them and thrown them up against the wall and frisk them .... [I]t seems like there is a disparity in the way they deal with Black as opposed to White .... [I]t is a little excessive when they are dealing with people of color.10

Ensuring both dignity and safety may be challenging but it is absolutely necessary. The police officers who patrol NY-CHA buildings must act within the limits imposed by the federal and state constitutions. This lawsuit presents difficult and close questions. The key one is this: are defendants acting within constitutional limits in their presumably sincere efforts to provide a safe environment for the residents of public housing? Or, in their zeal to provide that protection, are they violat[410]*410ing the rights of the very residents (and guests) whom they seek to protect?

Nine of the original eighteen plaintiffs settled their claims. Of the remaining nine, eight have been arrested for trespass by the NYPD 11 and five live in NYCHA housing.12 They have brought twelve causes of action against the NYPD and NYCHA under federal, state, and local laws and under the United States and New York State constitutions. Defendants have moved for partial summary judgment on most of these claims. The parties agreed to brief these motions in two parts: the first part, adjudicated here, addresses the individual circumstances of plaintiffs’ arrests and tenancies.13 The second part, which has yet to be briefed, will address defendants’ practices and policies. For the reasons explained below, defendants’ motions are granted in part and denied in part.

II. LEGAL STANDARD ON A MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

Summary judgment in defendants’ favor is appropriate only if they show “that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and [that they are] entitled to judgment as a matter of law.”14 “An issue of fact is genuine if the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party. A fact is material if it might affect the outcome of the suit.”15

Because they are moving for summary judgment, defendants “bear[] the burden of establishing the absence of any genuine issue of material fact.” 16 To defeat defendants’ motions, plaintiffs “ ‘must do more than simply show that there is some metaphysical doubt as to the material facts,’ ” 17 and “may not rely on conclusory allegations or unsubstantiated speculation.”18

[411]*411In deciding these motions, I must “construe the facts in the light most favorable to the non-moving party,” that is, to plaintiffs, “and must resolve all ambiguities and draw all reasonable inferences against the movant[s],” that is, against defendants.19 However, “ ‘Credibility determinations, the weighing of the evidence, and the drawing of legitimate inferences from the facts are jury functions, not those of a judge.’ ”20 “The role of the court is not to resolve disputed issues of fact but to assess whether there are any factual issues to be tried.”21

III. APPLICABLE LAW

Plaintiffs have brought claims under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution; Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (the “Fair Housing Act”); the Civil Rights Act of 1866 (42 U.S.C. § 1981

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Davis v. City of New York, 902 F. Supp. 2d 405, 2012 WL 4813837 (S.D.N.Y. 2012).

902 F. Supp. 2d 405 (Davis v. City of New York) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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