Pines v. Bailey

563 F. App'x 814
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedApril 25, 2014
Docket12-3352-cv
StatusUnpublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 563 F. App'x 814 (Pines v. Bailey) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pines v. Bailey, 563 F. App'x 814 (2d Cir. 2014).

Opinion

SUMMARY ORDER

Appellant Michael Bailey (“Bailey”), a detective with the Enfield, Connecticut police department, appeals from an order denying his motion for summary judgment, on the ground of qualified immunity, *816 as to pro se Appellee James Pines’s (“Pines”) 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim of malicious prosecution. Bailey also seeks to appeal the district court’s denial of his motion for summary judgment as to Pines’s state-law claim of negligent infliction of emotional distress. 1 We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, the procedural history of the case, and the issues presented for review, which we reference only as necessary to explain our decision.

We review de novo the denial of a summary judgment motion on qualified immunity grounds. See Coollick v. Hughes, 699 F.3d 211, 219 (2d Cir.2012). Summary judgment is appropriate where the movant shows that “there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(a). While we generally lack jurisdiction to consider the denial of summary judgment, an exception exists when the district court has rejected a qualified immunity defense raised in the motion. See Walczyk v. Rio, 496 F.3d 139, 153 (2d Cir.2007). Our jurisdiction, however, is “limited to circumstances where the qualified immunity defense may be established as a matter of law.” Escalera v. Lunn, 361 F.3d 737, 743 (2d Cir.2004) (internal quotation marks omitted). In situations where the district court has identified a disputed issue of fact, therefore, the party asserting the qualified immunity defense may obtain interlocutory review by asserting an entitlement to the defense under the plaintiffs version of the facts. See Savino v. City of New York, 331 F.3d 63, 72 (2d Cir.2003). Thus, for purposes of this appeal, we must analyze the facts in the light most favorable to Pines, focusing our review on the legal question whether the disputed facts identified by the district court are, in fact, material. Id.

Pines’s § 1983 malicious prosecution claim is premised on statements made by Bailey in an affidavit he submitted in support of a warrant for Pines’s arrest on the Connecticut state law charge of reckless endangerment in the first degree. Pines alleges that, in his affidavit, Bailey intentionally or recklessly made false statements and omitted material information necessary for the magistrate to make an adequate probable cause determination. “Qualified immunity shields law enforcement officers from § 1983 claims for money damages provided that their conduct does not violate clearly established constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have been aware.” Zalaski v. City of Hartford, 723 F.3d 382, 388 (2d Cir.2013). Although “[o]rdinarily, an arrest or search pursuant to a warrant issued by a neutral magistrate is presumed reasonable because such warrants may issue only upon a showing of probable cause,” Fabrikant v. French, 691 F.3d 193, 214 (2d Cir.2012) (internal quotation marks omitted), “[wjhere an officer knows, or has reason to know, that he has materially misled a magistrate on the basis for a finding of probable cause, the shield of qualified immunity is lost,” Velardi v. Walsh, 40 F.3d 569, 573 (2d Cir.1994) (internal quotation marks and ellipsis omitted). To state a claim on the basis of a misleading warrant, therefore, a plaintiff must establish that the defendant “intentionally or recklessly made false statements in the warrant application” and “those statements were necessary to the finding of probable cause.” Loria v. Gorman, 306 F.3d 1271, 1289 (2d Cir.2002) (emphasis added).

*817 To determine whether errors in an affidavit were “necessary” to the probable cause finding, we rely upon the “corrected affidavit doctrine,” under which errors in the affidavit “are not material if, after crossing out any allegedly false information and supplying any omitted facts, the ‘corrected affidavit’ would have supported a finding of probable cause.” Velardi, 40 F.3d at 573. We conclude that the errors in Bailey’s affidavit were not material. Bailey’s affidavit, when corrected, would still aver that Pines’s pistol and shotgun were found in his home, loaded, visible, and in locations easily accessible to his children. From these facts, the judge who issued the warrant could reasonably conclude that the condition of the firearms demonstrated an “extreme indifference to human life” that created “a risk of serious physical injury” to Pines’s children, and that — as the owner of the firearms, recently present in the home — Pines was responsible for their condition. See Conn. Gen. Stat. § 53a-63(a); see also Escalera, 361 F.3d at 743 (finding probable cause where the officer “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 or is committing a crime”) (internal quotation marks omitted); State v. Vitale, No. CR8-930111888S, 1994 WL 282254, at *5 (Conn.Super.Ct. June 21, 1994) (observing, in a second degree reckless endangerment case, that “the defendant ... should have known that leaving firearms and ammunition together with children alone in the house posed a substantial and unjustifiable risk of physical injury to the children or others”).

Contrary to the district court’s finding, including in the affidavit Pines’s statement that he intended to retrieve his pistol and omitting the erroneous assertion that Pines stated that the pistol was loaded would not have altered this analysis. At a minimum, the corrected affidavit would still support the reasonable inference that Pines left a loaded pistol accessible to his children before he purportedly attempted to retrieve it, permitting Bailey and a reasonable magistrate to conclude that probable cause existed to initiate a prosecution for reckless endangerment. See Zalaski, 723 F.3d at 389-90, 393 (2d Cir.2013) (affording greater “latitude” to officers assessing intent to commit a crime incident to arrest); State v. Otto, 305 Conn. 51, 43 A.3d 629

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Morant v. New Haven
D. Connecticut, 2025
Carmon v. City of New Haven
D. Connecticut, 2025
Jackson v. New Haven
D. Connecticut, 2024
Horn v. New Haven
D. Connecticut, 2024
Pal v. Cipolla
D. Connecticut, 2020

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
563 F. App'x 814, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pines-v-bailey-ca2-2014.