Humphrey v. Demitro

931 F. Supp. 571, 1996 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7778, 1996 WL 308278
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Illinois
DecidedJune 5, 1996
DocketNo. 94 C 6234
StatusPublished

This text of 931 F. Supp. 571 (Humphrey v. Demitro) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Humphrey v. Demitro, 931 F. Supp. 571, 1996 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7778, 1996 WL 308278 (N.D. Ill. 1996).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

SHADUR, Senior District Judge.

Frank Humphrey (“Humphrey”) has filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (“Section 1988”) against four City of Chicago police officers, alleging that his constitutional rights were violated when he was arrested on September 12, 1992. Humphrey asserts that officers Michael Demitro (“Demitro”), Norbert Stas-zak (“Staszak”), Lawrence Pajowski (“Pajow-ski”) and Gerald Neuffer (“Neuffer”) falsely arrested him, violated his right to equal protection under the law and engaged in a conspiracy to deprive him of his constitutional rights.

Defendants now move for summary judgment under Fed.R.Civ.P. (“Rule”) 56. Both sides have substantially complied with this District Court’s General Rule (“GR”) 12(M) and 12(N),1 and the motion is fully briefed and ripe for decision. For the reasons set forth in this memorandum opinion and order, defendants’ motion is granted in part and denied in part.

Summary Judgment Principles

Under familiar Rule 56 principles defendants have the burden of establishing both the lack of a genuine issue of material fact and that they are entitled to a judgment as a matter of law (Celotex v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322-23, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2552-53, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986)). Summary judgment is appropriate only if the record reveals that no reasonable jury could conclude that defendants violated Humphrey’s constitutional rights. This Court is called upon to draw inferences in the light most favorable to non-movant Humphrey, but it is “not required to draw every conceivable inference from the record — only those inferences that are reasonable” (Bank Leumi Le-Israel, B.M. v. Lee, 928 F.2d 232, 236 (7th Cir.1991) and cases cited there).

As already hinted in n. 1, defendants have done themselves a considerable disservice by their inattention to the express warning in GR 12(M)(3):

All material facts set forth in the statement filed pursuant to section N(3)(b) will be deemed admitted unless controverted by the statement of the moving party.

Throughout their GR 12(M)(3) response defendants have asserted that they “deny the additional facts set forth by plaintiff in this paragraph” or that they “disagree with the facts set forth in paragraph — ,” in each instance without pointing to evidence in the record as grounds for their denial or disagreement. To that extent Humphrey’s additional facts are left uncontroverted and will' therefore be deemed admitted for purposes of this motion, a measure repeatedly approved by our Court of Appeals (e.g., LaSalle Bank Lake View v. Seguban, 54 F.3d 387, 389 (7th Cir.1995) and cases cited there).

Both the earlier-described basic summary judgment principles and the just-stated doctrine are especially important in this case, in which the record consists only of deposition testimony about the facts surrounding Humphrey’s arrest, and in which the stories told in those depositions are at sharp odds. Defense counsel have repeatedly asserted that if all Humphrey can point to is his own version of the facts surrounding his arrest, defendants are then entitled to summary judgment.2 That of course is dead wrong. [575]*575Defendants seem to believe that Humphrey’s rendition of the facts — his sworn version of what happened — means nothing. But what is defendants’ own deposition testimony other than their sworn rendition of the facts?

When two sworn factual versions thus conflict, there is a genuine issue of fact. Humphrey’s version of the facts must be credited at this stage, for it will be up to the factfinder later — and not to this Court now— to decide whether to believe Humphrey or the police officers. As Door Sys., Inc. v. Pro-Line Door Sys., Inc., 83 F.3d 169, 172 (7th Cir.1996) (citations omitted) has recently reconfirmed:

Summary judgment is not to be used to resolve evidentiary conflicts, but merely to identify their presence or absence. Before it can properly be granted, therefore, the court must have a very high degree of confidence that any disagreement over the facts is spurious. The heavy caseloads that press on federal district courts today, especially in the large metropolitan districts such as the Northern District of Illinois, from which this case comes to us, make it tempting to use summary judgment as an abbreviated form of trial. We have warned against yielding to that temptation.

What follows in the Facts section, then, is a factual statement drawn from the parties’ submissions, with any differences between them resolved in Humphrey’s favor.3

Facts 4

On Saturday, September 12, 1992 all four officers were assigned to the Chicago Police Department’s Mass Transit Unit (D. 12(M) ¶ 1), and all were working in plain clothes (not in uniform) (id. ¶ 5). Humphrey was in Chicago for the weekend (he then lived in Madison, Wisconsin) to attend the wedding of a childhood friend. Humphrey is black and all four police officers are white.

Humphrey drove to downtown Chicago on the morning of September 12,1992 to pick up a tuxedo to wear at the wedding (Humphrey Dep. 55). He parked his ear on Randolph Street just west of State Street (D. 12(M) ¶ 3). Meanwhile Demitro, Staszak and Neuf-fer were standing on the west side of State Street when they saw Pajowski chase a black man, Willie Kelly (“Kelly”),5 out of the stairwell that leads from the subway to the street near the comer of State and Randolph (id. ¶ 2). All three officers took up the chase as Kelly headed west on Randolph Street, but Demitro and Neuffer caught Kelly about halfway down the block and arrested him (id. ¶ 3). Staszak trailed about 30 yards behind Demitro and Neuffer when they caught Kelly (Neuffer Dep. 12).

Humphrey saw Kelly being arrested as he left his ear. He testified (Humphrey Dep. 60-61)

I heard vulgar language, and I saw what appeared to be handcuffs go around this individual’s hands. I heard language, and I saw the hair of this individual get pulled and — and language uttered to the effect that, Didn’t I tell you not to ever try to run away from me, or something to that effect, the m-f word and other language.
And there was a retaining wall at that point in time — it looked like a retaining [576]*576wall; I don’t know. Maybe there was construction going on there — and it appeared as if, while they were pulling his hair and shaking his head, that they were going to thrust it forward.
One of the officers at that time looked over and saw me observing this and seemingly gave indication to the other officers to curtail their behavior.

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Bluebook (online)
931 F. Supp. 571, 1996 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7778, 1996 WL 308278, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/humphrey-v-demitro-ilnd-1996.