Lawyer v. Cota

Opinion

18-1136 Lawyer v. Cota

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

SUMMARY ORDER

RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.

1 At a stated Term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the 2 Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York on the 3 2nd day of April, two thousand nineteen. 4 5 Present: ROSEMARY S. POOLER, 6 DENNY CHIN, 7 Circuit Judges, 8 ERIC N. VITALIANO,1 9 District Judge. 10 11 _____________________________________________________ 12 13 RYAN LAWYER, 14 15 Plaintiff-Appellant, 16 17 v. 18-1136-cv 18 19 DREW COTA, in his individual capacity as a Trooper for the Vermont 20 State Police, BEN PATNODE, in his individual capacity as a Trooper 21 for the Vermont State Police, DEREK ROLANDINI, in his individual 22 capacity as a Trooper for the Vermont State Police, 23 24 Defendants-Appellees.2 25 _____________________________________________________ 26 27 Appearing for Appellant: Paul S. Volk, Blodgett, Watts & Volk, P.C., Burlington, VT.

1 Judge Eric N. Vitaliano, United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation. 2 The Clerk of Court is directed to amend the caption as above.

2 Appearing for Appellees: Bartholomew J. Gengler, Assistant Attorney General for the State 3 of Vermont, Montpelier, VT. 4 5 Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Vermont 6 (Crawford, C.J.). 7 8 ON CONSIDERATION WHEREOF, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, 9 AND DECREED that the judgment of said District Court be and it hereby is AFFIRMED. 10 11 Plaintiff-Appellant Ryan Lawyer appeals from the April 4, 2018, judgment of the United 12 States District Court for the District of Vermont (Crawford, C.J.) granting Defendants- 13 Appellees’ motion for reconsideration and dismissing Lawyer’s complaint alleging that he was 14 improperly held on felony drug possession charges in its entirety. We assume the parties’ 15 familiarity with the underlying facts, procedural history, and specification of issues for review. 16 17 Trooper Drew Cota arrested and detained Lawyer, who was intoxicated at the time, for 18 impeding a public officer and disorderly conduct. After troopers left Lawyer in a holding cell 19 unattended, Lawyer used his foot to dislodge an object that was hidden in the cell’s sink, the 20 object split open, and approximately 100 bags of heroin spilled onto the floor. He fell asleep with 21 his shoes off and the bags of heroin still scattered on the floor. When Cota and fellow troopers 22 Derek Rolandini and Ben Patnode returned to the cell and discovered the heroin, they held 23 Lawyer on felony charges for possession of heroin. Lawyer claims that the affidavit of probable 24 cause that Cota swore in order to detain Lawyer falsely stated that the cell was clean before 25 Lawyer was detained there and that Lawyer had advised Rolandini that Lawyer had taken the 26 heroin packages from his shoe.3 27 28 Lawyer subsequently brought an action alleging various claims related to his unlawful 29 detention against Cota, Rolandini, and Patnode. The district court, then Judge J. Garvan Murtha 30 presiding, dismissed all of Lawyer’s claims against Rolandini and Patnode but allowed some of 31 Lawyer’s claims to proceed against Cota because it was Cota’s “fabricated and false statements 32 in the affidavit of probable cause” that led to Lawyer’s unlawful seizure and detention. Lawyer v. 33 Cota, No. 1:16-cv-62-jgm, 2017 WL 2572372, at *5 (D. Vt. June 14, 2017). Thereafter, 34 Defendants-Appellees moved for clarification and reconsideration of the district court’s decision 35 on qualified immunity. While the motion was pending, Judge Murtha took inactive status, and 36 the case was reassigned to Chief Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford. Chief Judge Crawford granted 37 Defendants-Appellees’ motion for reconsideration and held that all three troopers were entitled 38 to qualified immunity. Lawyer v. Cota, No. 5:16-cv-62-gwc, 2018 WL 1635237, at *3 (D. Vt. 39 Apr. 3, 2018). 40 41 Lawyer argues on appeal that Chief Judge Crawford lacked grounds to grant Defendants- 42 Appellees’ motion for reconsideration, violated the law of the case, and improperly granted Cota 43 qualified immunity as a matter of law. We review a district court’s decision to grant or deny a 44 motion for reconsideration for abuse of discretion. See Shrader v. CSX Transp., Inc., 70 F.3d 45 255, 257 (2d Cir. 1995). “[W]e review a district court’s application of the law of the case 3 The charges against Lawyer were dropped two weeks after his arrest. App’x at 6, ¶ 28.

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1 doctrine for abuse of discretion . . . .” Devilla v. Schriver, 245 F.3d 192, 198 (2d Cir. 2001). 2 Finally, we review a district court’s decision regarding qualified immunity on a motion to 3 dismiss de novo and accept the facts in the complaint as true, drawing all reasonable inferences 4 in Lawyer’s favor. Garcia v. Does, 779 F.3d 84, 91 (2d Cir. 2015). 5 6 A motion for reconsideration “will generally be denied unless the moving party can point 7 to controlling decisions or data that the court overlooked.” Shrader, 70 F.3d at 257. Defendants- 8 Appellees argued below that the district court was bound by Second Circuit precedent to apply 9 the corrected affidavit doctrine and determine whether Cota’s probable cause affidavit still 10 supported a finding of probable cause when the false statements were removed from the 11 affidavit.4 But the district court did not apply the corrected affidavit doctrine in adjudicating 12 Defendants-Appellees’ motion to dismiss. See Lawyer, 2017 WL 2572372, at *5. The district 13 court therefore overlooked controlling precedent, giving Chief Judge Crawford grounds to grant 14 the motion for reconsideration. See Shrader, 70 F.3d at 257. 15 16 Lawyer’s claim that the district court failed to apply the law of the case stumbles at the 17 gate. A motion for reconsideration under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) necessarily asks 18 a district court to reconsider the law of the case. While a motion for reconsideration is pending, 19 the law of case is therefore in flux because Rule 60(b) expressly permits the court to “relieve a 20 party . . . from a final judgment.” Because the district court properly granted the motion for 21 reconsideration, it properly reconsidered the law of the case. 22 23 Lastly, we affirm the district court’s conclusion on reconsideration that Cota is entitled to 24 qualified immunity. Cota, Rolandini, and Patnode are entitled to qualified immunity if they acted 25 with probable cause in detaining Lawyer on felony drug possession charges. See Velardi v. 26 Walsh, 40 F.3d 569, 573 (2d Cir. 1994). While an officer making an arrest pursuant to a warrant 27 is presumed to be entitled to qualified immunity, Martinez v. City of Schenectady, 115 F.3d 111, 28 115 (2d Cir. 1997), “[w]here an officer knows, or has reason to know, that he has materially 29 misled a magistrate on the basis for a finding of probable cause, the shield of qualified immunity 30 is lost,” Rivera v. United States, 928 F.2d 592, 604 (2d Cir. 1991). If an officer knowingly or 31 recklessly makes a false statement in an affidavit of probable cause and the false statement “was 32 necessary to the finding of probable cause,” the officer is not entitled to qualified immunity. 33 Martinez, 115 F.3d at 115 (internal quotation marks omitted). We determine whether the false 34 information was “necessary” to the probable cause finding by “consider[ing] a hypothetical 35 corrected affidavit, produced by deleting any alleged misstatements from the original warrant 36 affidavit and adding to it any relevant omitted information.” Ganek v. Leibowitz, 874 F.3d 73, 82 37 (2d Cir. 2017). After these alterations, if the corrected affidavit still supports a finding of 38 arguable probable cause, then the officer is entitled to qualified immunity. Id. 39 40 Striking Cota’s alleged misstatements that Lawyer’s cell was clean prior to Lawyer being 41 detained in the cell and that Lawyer told Rolandini that he took the heroin from his shoe, the 42 officers still had probable cause to arrest Lawyer. The corrected probable cause affidavit avers 43 that after handcuffing Lawyer to a wall in a holding cell, officers returned to the cell to find 44 Lawyer asleep with heroin packages strewn across the holding cell. On these facts, it was 4 Lawyer filed a sur-reply in opposition to the motion to dismiss, permitting him to respond to Defendants-Appellees’ arguments.

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1 reasonable for Defendants-Appellees to infer that Lawyer, the occupant of the cell, was the 2 source of the drugs. Accordingly, Lawyer “has suffered no violation of Fourth Amendment 3 rights,” and Defendants-Appellees are “entitled to qualified immunity and dismissal.” Id. 4 5 We have considered the remainder of Lawyer’s arguments and find them to be without 6 merit. Accordingly, the order of the district court hereby is AFFIRMED. Each side to bear its 7 own costs. 8 9 FOR THE COURT: 10 Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk