Fossen v. Clackamas County

352 P.3d 1288, 271 Or. App. 842, 2015 Ore. App. LEXIS 746
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedJune 17, 2015
DocketCV11090107; A155792
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 352 P.3d 1288 (Fossen v. Clackamas County) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Fossen v. Clackamas County, 352 P.3d 1288, 271 Or. App. 842, 2015 Ore. App. LEXIS 746 (Or. Ct. App. 2015).

Opinion

GARRETT, J.

Believing plaintiff to be the target of a New York criminal investigation, Clackamas County sheriffs deputies cooperated with New York law enforcement officials in obtaining a New York warrant for plaintiffs arrest. They then arrested plaintiff and held her in the Clackamas County Jail for approximately 25 hours and released her after they determined that they had the wrong woman. Plaintiff brought claims against defendant for “False Arrest/False Imprisonment” and negligence. During a hearing on defendant’s motion for summary judgment, the trial court ruled that plaintiffs false imprisonment claim could proceed under the theory that defendant unlawfully continued to detain plaintiff even after defendant determined that it had the wrong person. At trial, defendant moved for a directed verdict on both of plaintiffs claims, which the trial court denied. The jury awarded plaintiff $1,500 in economic damages and $100,000 in noneconomic damages.

Defendant appeals, raising six assignments of error. We reject the fifth and sixth assignments without written discussion. We write to address the first four assignments, all of which attack, on various grounds, the trial court’s ruling that denied defendant’s motion for a directed verdict and allowed plaintiff to submit her claims of “False Arrest/False Imprisonment” and negligence to the jury. We conclude that the trial court correctly allowed plaintiffs false imprisonment claim to go to the jury. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court’s denial of defendant’s directed verdict motion. Moreover, because plaintiffs false imprisonment claim and her negligence claim are simply alternate theories of liability, either of which is sufficient to support the damages award, our affirmance on the former claim obviates any need to consider defendant’s arguments regarding the negligence claim.

The facts are not disputed. Plaintiff was arrested by Clackamas County sheriffs deputies on November 4, 2009, following an approximately week-long investigation that began when a detective from the New York City Police Department told the Clackamas County Sheriffs Office (CCSO) that plaintiff was a suspect in several New York [845]*845criminal cases. On the day of plaintiffs arrest, CCSO deputies were in communication with New York police. After receiving confirmation that a New York judge had signed an arrest warrant, CCSO deputies arrested plaintiff and took her to the county jail, where she was booked at 5:15 p.m.

During the booking process, plaintiffs fingerprints were taken. Those prints were subsequently sent to the Oregon State Police (OSP) so that they could be run through a database maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). At 11:11 p.m. that evening, the CCSO learned from the OSP that plaintiffs fingerprints did not match any fingerprints on file with either OSP or the FBI, nor did they match the fingerprints of the New York suspect (which were on file with the FBI). Plaintiff remained in the county jail overnight. On the morning of November 5, a CCSO deputy called OSP and was informed that the results indicated that, unlike the New York suspect, plaintiff had never been arrested. At 3:00 p.m. that day, plaintiff was arraigned on a fugitive warrant before Judge Robert Herndon. No one from the CCSO advised Judge Herndon or plaintiffs attorneys about the results of the fingerprint search. Judge Herndon set a bail hearing for the following day, November 6, at 3:00 p.m.

Later on the afternoon of November 5, a CCSO jail technician, Manley, sent a teletype message to the New York police that stated as follows: “It has been determined by fingerprints that this is not the same person that you have a warrant out for. She is being released on your hold.” Plaintiff was released at 6:10 p.m. on November 5, nearly 25 hours after being arrested, and approximately 19 hours after CCSO was informed of the fingerprint results.

Manley testified that no permission or order was required for plaintiffs release:

“Well, it’s automatic when we find out somebody’s not the person that’s wanted for their state. I do that, 'cause there’s no reason to hold them.
"*****
“So I don’t have to have an order. The order’s from — there’s no reason to hold them. It’s not the same person. So that [846]*846would be me releasing it and doing our filing and letting her go.”

A CCSO deputy, Anderson, also agreed that, “as soon as anyone from the [CCSO] knew that [plaintiff] was not the right person, she needed to be released from that jail cell.” Expert witnesses at trial also testified that CCSO had an obligation to inform the prosecutor of the fingerprint results.

Plaintiff brought claims for “False Arrest/False Imprisonment” and negligence. Defendant moved for summary judgment on all claims, arguing principally that, because the arrest was made pursuant to a facially valid arrest warrant, defendant was immune under the doctrine of quasi-judicial immunity. According to defendant, the county could be liable for false imprisonment only if plaintiff could show that the magistrate who issued the arrest warrant had been deceived by the affidavit provided by the New York City police. At the hearing, plaintiff explained that her “False Arrest/False Imprisonment” claim encompassed two distinct theories of liability: (1) defendant became liable for the intentional tort of “false arrest” when it first arrested plaintiff; (2) defendant committed the tort of “false imprisonment” when it continued to imprison plaintiff after discovering that her fingerprints did not match those of the New York suspect. At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial court granted defendant’s motion as to the false arrest claim, apparently concluding that the arrest warrant provided immunity for plaintiffs initial confinement. But the court ruled that plaintiff could proceed on her false imprisonment claim, on the theory that, even if the initial arrest was lawful, the imprisonment was rendered unlawful when the CCSO failed to release plaintiff promptly after learning of the fingerprint results. The court also allowed plaintiff to proceed on her negligence claim.1

[847]*847At trial, after plaintiff concluded her case, defendant moved for a directed verdict. Defendant argued that (1) the trial court’s summary judgment order dismissing the false arrest claim had also disposed of the false imprisonment claim because the two claims are legally “synonymous”; (2) defendant was immune from suit under the doctrine of quasi-judicial immunity; and (3) the trial court erred in allowing plaintiff to pursue a negligence theory because defendant’s duties with regard to out-of-state warrants are defined and limited by statute, meaning that the general duty to exercise reasonable care did not apply to defendant under these circumstances. The trial court denied the motion. The jury concluded that defendant had committed the tort of false imprisonment and had been negligent in several respects. The jury awarded plaintiff $1,500 in economic damages and $100,000 in noneconomic damages.

On appeal, defendant reprises the arguments that it raised during its motion for a directed verdict. “A directed verdict should be entered only in the exceptional case where, from the facts taken in the light most favorable to plaintiff, reasonable persons could draw one inference and that inference being that defendant was not [liable].” Hall v. State, 43 Or App 325, 328, 602 P2d 1104 (1979), aff'd, 290 Or 19, 619 P2d 256 (1980).

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
352 P.3d 1288, 271 Or. App. 842, 2015 Ore. App. LEXIS 746, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/fossen-v-clackamas-county-orctapp-2015.