Karina Garcia v. Michael R. Bloomberg

662 F. App'x 50

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
• Decided: October 13, 2016
• Docket: 15-3113-cv
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

SUMMARY ORDER

Plaintiffs-Appellants (“Plaintiffs”) appeal from an order of the district court denying their request for leave to file a proposed Third Amended Complaint. 1 Plaintiffs’ proposed Third Amended Complaint asserts claims of false arrest against Defendants Michael Bloomberg,' City of New York, Raymond Kelly (Commissioner of the New York Police Department (NYPD)), Joseph Esposito (Chief of the Department for the New York Police Department), Thomas Purtell (Assistant Chief of the Department), as well as other named and unnamed individual officers who were present at or participated in the mass arrest of marchers who blocked the Brooklyn Bridge roadway during an October 2011 Occupy Wall Street protest march. Plaintiffs participated in that march and were arrested by the NYPD. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, the procedural history of the case, and the issues on appeal.

We review a district court’s denial of leave to amend for abuse of discretion. See United States ex rel. Ladas v. Exelis, Inc., 824 F.3d 16, 28 (2d Cir. 2016). Leave to amend should be “freely give[n] ... when justice 'so requires,” Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2), but “ ‘should generally be denied in instances of futility, undue delay, bad faith or dilatory motive, repeated failure to cure deficiencies by amendments previously allowed, or undue prejudice to the non-moving party.’ ” Ladas, 824 F.3d at 28 (quoting Burch v. Pioneer Credit Recovery, Inc., 561 F.3d 122, 126 (2d Cir. 2008)). “[W]hen denial of leave to file a revised pleading is based on a legal interpretation, such as futility, a reviewing court conducts a de novo review.” Balintulo v. Ford Motor Co., 796 F.3d 160, 164 (2d Cir. 2015). Plaintiffs sought to amend their complaint to add additional allegations in support of their state and federal law claims of false arrest against the individual officers as well as City and NYPD officials under the Monell doctrine. The plaintiffs newly allege, based largely on testimony from police depositions in other cases, that defendants Purtell and Esposito did not deploy appropriate police tactics to prevent marchers from following the line of officers down the roadway portion of the Bridge. Plaintiffs further allege that Chief Esposi-to directly participated in the false arrests of the marchers and that Raymond Kelly, Commissioner of the NYPD, failed to supervise him. Plaintiffs additionally allege de facto policies of the City and the NYPD allowing and even facilitating unpermitted marches and then, without warning, performing mass arrests of marchers.

Vicarious liability is not applicable in § 1983 suits. Littlejohn v. City of New York, 795 F.3d 297, 314 (2d Cir. 2015). Thus, “to impose liability on a municipality under § 1983, a plaintiff must identify a municipal ‘policy’ or ‘custom’ that caused the plaintiffs injury.” Newton v. City of New York, 779 F.3d 140, 152 (2d Cir. 2015) (citing Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs. of City of New York, 436 U.S. 658, 694, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978)). The “City cannot be liable under Monell where [a plaintiff] cannot establish a violation of his constitutional rights.” Askins v. Doe No. 1, 727 F.3d 248, 253 (2d Cir. 2013) (internal quotation marks omitted).

Plaintiffs here assert false arrest as their underlying cause of action for the Monell claim. Probable cause is a complete defense to a claim of false arrest under New York law. See Ackerson v. City of White Plains, 702 F.3d 15, 19 (2d Cir. 2012). This Court previously held, Garcia v. Does, 779 F.3d 84 (2d Cir. 2015) (as amended) (“Garcia III”), that the arresting officers were entitled to qualified immunity for the claim of false arrest because the officers had probable cause to effect the seven hundred arrests. See id. at 92, 96.

We determined in Garcia III that “defendants in this case had, from their personal observations, sufficient evidence to establish probable cause on each of the elements of a disorderly conduct violation,” and noted that “the law of probable cause” does not “require[] police officers to engage in an essentially speculative inquiry into the potential state of mind of (at least some) of the demonstrators.” Id. at 96. Therefore, the question before us now is whether the proposed additions to the Third Amended Complaint plausibly allege facts that vitiates probable cause for the arrests of the marchers for violating N.Y. Penal Law § 240.20(5).

Plaintiffs have not added sufficient allegations in the proposed Third Amended Complaint to show lack of probable cause for the underlying arrests. Taking Plaintiffs’ new allegations as true, Plaintiffs’ main contentions' are (1) that Chief Esposito was on the scene and knew that many of the marchers did not hear the instructions to disperse, yet made the deci sion to arrest anyway, (2) that actions of Esposito and other officers conveyed implicit permission to march on the roadway, (3) that Esposito, the City, and the NYPD had other methods to prevent Plaintiffs from proceeding on the bridge and chose not to use them, and (4) that the City and NYPD had policy of escorting unpermitted protests but then arresting the participants without notice. But none of these allegations defeats probable cause for the arrests.

“An officer has probable cause to arrest when he or she has knowledge or reasonably trustworthy information of facts and circumstances that are sufficient to warrant a person of reasonable caution in the belief that the person to be arrested has committed ... a crime.” Stansbury v. Wertman, 721 F.3d 84, 89 (2d Cir. 2013) (internal quotation marks omitted). The demonstrators were arrested for disorderly conduct under N.Y. Penal Law § 240.20(5), which prohibits “obstructing] vehicular or pedestrian traffic.” Id. As we previously noted, “[t]he essential flaw in plaintiffs’ logic ... is the extent to which it requires police officers to engage in an essentially speculative inquiry into the potential state of mind of (at least some of) the demonstrators. Neither the law of probable cause nor the law of qualified immunity requires such speculation.” Gar-da III, 779 F.3d at 96.

The proposed Third Amended Complaint does not alter our conclusions in Garda III. Rather, it only asserts that Esposito had better knowledge of the state of mind of the demonstrators than the other individual officers had, namely that Plaintiffs lacked the intent to violate the law. 2 But the state of mind of the demonstrators—whether they thought that they were participating in a sanctioned, First-Amendment-protected roadway march or whether they were intentionally or recklessly blocking traffic—is irrelevant to the question of probable cause, although it is a potential defense to the underlying criminal charge. See Curley v. Vill. of Suffern, 268 F.3d 65, 70 (2d Cir. 2001) (“[T]he arresting officer does not have to prove plaintiffs version wrong before arresting him”).

While an officer may not “deliberately disregard facts known to him which establish justification,” Jocks v. Tavernier, 316 F.3d 128, 136 (2d Cir. 2003), even the facts alleged in the Third Amended Complaint, if true, do not plausibly plead that Esposi-to deliberately ignored facts known to him that justified the marchers’ takeover of the roadway. As this Court has already explained, the scene was chaotic, the retreat of police officers on the Bridge was not an unambiguous invitation to follow, and many marchers continued to funnel onto the sidewalk path. See Garda III, 779 F.3d at 93-94.

The Third Amended Complaint alleges that there were no unambiguous instructions given to the marchers not to follow the officers, but does not assert any facts in support of instructions to follow the officers beyond the conclusory claim that “the clear communicative message of the ongoing police lead and escort was that it was permissible for marchers to continue in the police escorted march” onto the roadway. Joint App’x at 103. But the video evidence considered by this panel and by the previous panel incontrovertibly shows the absence of a clear message that their conduct was lawful. Absent the allegation of specific facts to support a direct communication from police to marchers that the marchers were permitted to occupy the road, the Third Amended Complaint fails to change our prior conclusion that the defendants had probable cause to arrest Plaintiffs for violating N.Y. Penal Law § 240.20(5).

Because Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights were not violated by the arrests, the plaintiffs’ Monell claims are also barred. “Liability under section 1983 is imposed on the municipality when it has promulgated a custom or policy that violates federal law and, pursuant to that policy, a municipal actor has tortiously injured the plaintiff.” Asians, 727 F,3d at 253. Thus, the simple existence of a policy, without the corresponding violation, may not be challenged under § 1983.

Insofar as Plaintiffs allege that Esposito acted as a policymaker who failed to use sound police tactics (such as deploying scooters or installing orange mesh) to prevent the demonstrators from entering the bridge roadway, mere negligence is insufficient to establish a Monell claim, See Amnesty Am. v. Town of W. Hartford, 361 F.3d 113, 128 (2d Cir. 2004), Furthermore, the allegation that Kelly failed to supervise Esposito similarly fails, as Esposito did not violate Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights for the reasons stated above.

We have considered Garcia’s remaining arguments and find them to be without merit. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.

1 . This Court previously reversed and remanded the District Court’s denial of defendants’ motion to dismiss with instructions to dismiss the Second Amended Complaint. See Garcia v. Does, 779 F.3d 84 (2d Cir. 2015) (as amended).

2 . It is relevant to note that Esposito was one of the named individual officer defendants at the time we considered defendants' previous appeal.