Zboralski v. Monahan

616 F. Supp. 2d 792, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 85402, 2008 WL 4087948
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Illinois
DecidedAugust 20, 2008
Docket06 C 3772
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 616 F. Supp. 2d 792 (Zboralski v. Monahan) 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
Zboralski v. Monahan, 616 F. Supp. 2d 792, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 85402, 2008 WL 4087948 (N.D. Ill. 2008).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

JAMES B. MORAN, Senior District Judge.

Plaintiff Geneva Zboralski brought this action against defendants Tom Monahan, Tim Budz, Darrell Sanders, Steve Strock, JoEllen Martin, Diane Franzen, Lori Biermann, and Brenda Wilts (collectively “defendants”), in their individual capacities, alleging violations of her constitutionally- *796 protected Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, invasion of privacy and assault and battery. The claims arise from a series of searches defendants performed on plaintiff in May and June 2005, when she was visiting her husband, who was civilly committed in an Illinois treatment and detention facility. Defendants now move for summary judgment on plaintiffs claims. They also move to strike certain of plaintiffs responses to defendants’ statement of facts, and certain of plaintiffs additional facts. For the following reasons, defendants’ motion to strike is granted in part. Their summary judgment motion is granted as to defendants Monahan and Budz, and as to the invasion of privacy claim. It is denied as to defendant Martin, and entered and continued as to the remaining defendants.

Motion to Strike

Defendants argue that numerous' of plaintiffs facts and responses should be stricken for failure to comply with Local Rule 56.1. Specifically, defendants argue that several of plaintiffs responses and facts are based on speculation, hearsay or unauthenticated documents, and are non-responsive, argumentative or conclusory. We address each argument in turn.

Defendants argue that two additional facts and one response contain inadmissible hearsay. The paragraphs all involve statements by certain TDF employees (or in one case Department of Health Services (“DHS”) general counsel) made to either plaintiff or other TDF employees. Each one is hearsay because it is being offered for the truth of the matter asserted — first, that Martin instructed other officers to require plaintiff to remove her shoes, second, that shoe removal was only required if the person was suspected of bringing in contraband, and third, that visitors were not to be scanned with the Rapiscan. None of these statements falls within any recognized exceptions to’ the hearsay rule. 1 They are not admissions because the people making the statements are not party opponents since the facility as a whole is not a party to this action. While Martin’s alleged statement to the officers would count as an admission, it is couched within the statement of the non-party officers to plaintiff that does not satisfy that exception. The statement about the shoes is not being offered to show the effect on the listener — plaintiff is offering it to show that she should not have had to remove her shoes, not how she felt about being told she should not have to. The same can be said for the statement about the Rapiscan searches. Therefore, to the extent that the foregoing statements are hearsay, they are stricken.

Next, defendants take issue with several of plaintiffs facts that rely on allegedly unauthenticated materials, namely, the Rapiscan operation manual and two web pages. With regard to the manual, plaintiff responds by including a letter from Rapiscan’s counsel to plaintiffs counsel, which accompanied delivery of the manual pursuant to subpoena. Plaintiffs counsel also submits a declaration that the CD delivered to counsel (the manual in .pdf format) is the same as the pages plaintiff reproduced for this court. While plaintiff has failed to file a declaration of a Rapiscan employee verifying the authenticity of the manual, defendants have failed to offer any evidence that the manual is not authentic or is not the correct manual for the model of Rapiscan located at the *797 TDF during the period in question. Therefore, we find plaintiffs submissions sufficient However, with regard to the web pages, plaintiffs submissions are not sufficient. Even if the authenticity were not challenged, both web sites contain hearsay statements that plaintiff is offering for their truth. Neither web page submission satisfies any recognized exception to the hearsay rule and therefore neither is admissible.

Defendants argue that several of plaintiffs additional facts are based on impermissible speculation. This court is clearly capable of detecting and disregarding speculation and will do so without necessitating the striking of offered facts.

Finally, defendants argue that certain responses and facts are insufficiently supported. Upon review of the paragraphs cited, we find that all are sufficiently supported by plaintiffs deposition testimony, except that in paragraph 6 there is no support for the proposition that Martin “ran her finger” between plaintiffs vaginal lips. Her testimony only states that Martin’s finger “went between” plaintiffs vaginal lips. That characterization is stricken, but the rest of the paragraph remains.

Therefore, paragraphs 34 of plaintiffs response and paragraphs 16, 18, and 38 of plaintiffs statement of facts are stricken. Paragraph 6 is stricken only as to the phrase discussed above.

Motion for Summary Judgment

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff is married to Brad Lieberman, a civilly committed resident of the Illinois Department of Human Services’ Treatment and Detention Facility (“TDF”) in Joliet, Illinois. Plaintiff regularly visited her husband at the Joliet TDF from 2000 through July 2005. From 2000 until sometime in May 2005, plaintiff was always patted down before being allowed inside the TDF. Searches of visitors are necessary to prevent contraband from being brought inside the facility. TDF personnel were not allowed to strip-search visitors. Each pat-down search was performed by a TDF employee of the same gender as the visitor. Prior to May 2005, plaintiff did not have any problem with being patted down before entering. Plaintiff has never been suspected of bringing contraband into the facility.

During May 2005, defendant JoEllen Martin was a security therapy aide at the TDF. She worked second shift from 2:45 p.m. to 11:15 p.m. There were times when plaintiff arrived that Martin was working patting down other visitors at the front entrance. However, during this period, plaintiff believed that Martin made a point of being the person to pat her down. Plaintiff stated that Martin always told her she was on her way out to have a cigarette when plaintiff arrived (plf. dep. p. 40). At least one other employee, a man named Thompson, joked to plaintiff that Martin was her friend and buddy. Plaintiff felt like “people were making innuendos” (plf. dep. p. 19, 49). The teasing made plaintiff uncomfortable, but not so uncomfortable that she felt the need to report it.

Martin patted plaintiff down between ten and 20 times in May 2005. During these patdowns she took plaintiff around the comer out of view of the security office and security camera. 2 During the full body pat-down search, Martin would pat-down one leg and then the other. She never patted down a visitor’s chest or the small of the back. Plaintiff believed that during three of the pat-downs, Martin touched her vaginal area momentarily. *798

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
616 F. Supp. 2d 792, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 85402, 2008 WL 4087948, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/zboralski-v-monahan-ilnd-2008.