Nowacki v. New Canaan et al

Filing 163

RULING GRANTING MOTIONS TO DISMISS. For the reasons set forth in the attached ruling, the New Canaan defendants' motion to dismiss (Doc. # 106 ) and the State of Connecticut's motion to dismiss (Doc. # 119 ) are GRANTED. The second amended complaint is dismissed with prejudice in its entirety. The Clerk of Court shall enter judgment for defendants State of Connecticut, Town of New Canaan, Kevin Casey, James Cole, William Ferri, Joseph Farenga, Louis Gannon, Christian Gray, Daniel Gulino, Leon Krolikowski, Edward Nadriczny, Thomas Swindon, and Jason Kim, and close this case. It is so ordered. Signed by Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer on 3/28/2017. (Levenson, C.)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF CONNECTICUT

MICHAEL NOWACKI,
Plaintiff,
v.

No. 3:16-cv-00407 (JAM)

TOWN OF NEW CANAAN, et al.,
Defendants.

RULING GRANTING MOTIONS TO DISMISS
In 2010, plaintiff Michael Nowacki was arrested three times by the police in the Town of
New Canaan, Connecticut on criminal charges arising from conflicts that he had with his ex-wife
and their childcare provider. Plaintiff exercised his right to trial on these charges, and he was
ultimately exonerated as a result of acquittals on two of the charges and then a successful appeal
of the remaining two charges.
Plaintiff’s exoneration has now prompted him to file this lawsuit against the Town of
New Canaan, ten individual officers of the New Canaan Police Department, the chairman of the
New Canaan Police Commission, and the State of Connecticut. He alleges a wide range of civil
rights and tort claims that stem from his arrest, prosecution, and now-vacated convictions.
For the reasons set forth below, I will grant defendants’ motions to dismiss the complaint.
As to the State of Connecticut, this lawsuit must be dismissed on grounds of the State’s
sovereign immunity from a lawsuit for money damages in federal court. As to the remaining
defendants from New Canaan, plaintiff’s federal claims are mostly time-barred by the statute of
limitations. For those few claims that are not time-barred, qualified immunity defeats plaintiff’s
claims against any of the individual defendants. As to plaintiff’s claim against the Town of New
Canaan, plaintiff has not plausibly pleaded facts to support Monell liability against the Town.
1

Because there are no grounds for plaintiff’s federal claims, the Court lacks federalquestion jurisdiction, and I will decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiff’s
numerous state law claims. Plaintiff may consider whether to seek further relief in the state
courts of Connecticut.
BACKGROUND
Plaintiff’s second amended complaint (Doc. #94) and its attached exhibits set forth the
following facts, which are accepted as true for purposes of this motion to dismiss. Many of these
facts are also set forth in the state appellate court decision in plaintiff’s criminal case. See State v.
Nowacki, 155 Conn. App. 758 (2015) (attached to complaint as Doc. #95-3).
Beginning in late 2009, plaintiff and his ex-wife, Suzanne Sullivan, employed a nanny,
Katelyn Waters, to provide childcare for their two children. In December 2009, plaintiff and
Waters (but not Sullivan) signed an agreement detailing the terms of Waters’s employment. See
Doc. #96-12. Under the contract, Waters was provided with a leased car, paid for by plaintiff and
Sullivan.
On February 21, 2010, plaintiff and Waters had a dispute about the leased car, which
needed its tires replaced. Plaintiff wanted to transfer the tires from his own car (a similar model)
onto the leased car, and then put new tires on his own car. Plaintiff tried to coordinate with
Waters to accomplish the tire exchange. According to plaintiff, Waters refused to cooperate,
despite plaintiff’s attempts to coordinate with her by phone. Plaintiff then drove to the location
where Waters was working at her second job. He informed Waters that she had a responsibility
to maintain the leased car under the employment agreement. Because Waters still refused to
cooperate, plaintiff took the leased car back to his house. At the time, he did not realize that the
car contained some of Waters’s personal property, including her wallet.

2

That night, Sullivan and Waters contacted the New Canaan Police Department and
requested a police escort to retrieve Waters’s property from the leased car. Two officers
accompanied Waters and Sullivan to plaintiff’s house. The officers retrieved Waters’s property
from the car and returned the property to Waters, who was waiting with Sullivan outside the
house.
The next morning, February 22, 2010, plaintiff followed Waters, Sullivan, and plaintiff’s
daughter on their drive to school, in another unsuccessful effort to coordinate the tire exchange
with Waters. A few hours later, plaintiff drove to Sullivan’s house to return one of the cars to
Waters. This prompted Waters to call the police, and defendant Kevin Casey, an New Canaan
police officer, responded to the call. Officer Casey warned plaintiff not to contact Sullivan or
Waters again by phone, email, or in person, or he would be arrested.1
Officer Casey applied for an arrest warrant in response to the events of February 22,
seeking to arrest plaintiff for disorderly conduct in violation of Conn. Gen. Stat. § 53a-182 and
illegal use of a motor vehicle with intent to harass or intimidate in violation of Conn. Gen. Stat.
§ 14-240a. Doc. #97-1 at 2–5. The arrest warrant was signed and approved by a judge of the
Connecticut Superior Court. Id. at 2. Plaintiff was arrested pursuant to this warrant on February
24, 2010. Doc. #95-1 at 12.
In the meantime, on the evening of February 23, 2010, plaintiff had emailed Waters. In
the email, he informed her that she was violating the terms of her employment agreement. He
threatened legal action against her due to her violation of the agreement, and he warned her that

1
During oral argument on the New Canaan defendants’ motion to dismiss, plaintiff denied that Officer
Casey ever issued such a warning. See Doc. #120 at 20 (“THE COURT: So to be clear, though . . . you’re claiming
that Casey never gave you that warning. MR. NOWACKI: That is correct.”). Plaintiff’s complaint, however, appears
to concede that such a warning was issued. See Doc. #94 at 49, 51 (¶¶ 156, 163) (arguing that officers exceeded their
lawful authority when they issued a “de facto criminal protective order” by threatening plaintiff with arrest if he
communicated with Waters).

3

the statement she gave to police the previous day could qualify as perjury. See Doc. #95-1 at 4.
The next day, Waters contacted the police and submitted a written statement stating that “I
received an email from [plaintiff] threatening me” and that she had been unable to sleep because
she “was in fear of what [plaintiff] would do next.” Id. at 5.
On the basis of this new information, the police decided to pursue a new arrest warrant.
The police submitted an application for a warrant to arrest plaintiff on a charge of harassment in
the second degree, in violation of Conn. Gen. Stat. § 53a-183(a)(2).2 Attached to the arrest
warrant application was a copy of the email that plaintiff sent to Waters. The arrest warrant was
signed and approved by a judge of the Connecticut Superior Court. Doc. #95-1 at 1–6. Plaintiff
was arrested pursuant to this warrant on February 25, 2010.
A state court judge entered a formal protective order against plaintiff on February 24,
2010. The protective order barred plaintiff from contacting Sullivan in any manner, including by
written, electronic, or telephone contact. Docs. #97-5 at 12–13; #97-10 (modifying protective
order with respect to plaintiff’s contact with his children). On June 15, 2010, plaintiff violated
the protective order when he copied Sullivan on an email that he sent expressing his views about
some kind of a dispute involving the Freedom of Information Commission. See Nowacki, 155
Conn. App. at 764 n.4. The email was addressed to an attorney for the Town of Darien, with “cc”
to Sullivan, as well as to the editor of the Darien Times newspaper. The email did not concern or
relate to Sullivan, although Sullivan would later testify that it was routine for plaintiff to send her
emails concerning subjects not related to her. See id. at 764.

2
The statute provides in relevant part that: “(a) A person is guilty of harassment in the second degree when
. . . (2) with intent to harass, annoy or alarm another person, he communicates with a person by telegraph or mail, by
electronically transmitting a facsimile through connection with a telephone network, by computer network, as
defined in section 53a-250, or by any other form of written communication, in a manner likely to cause annoyance
or alarm; . . . .”

4

Sullivan told the police that plaintiff had contacted her, and the police again applied for
an arrest warrant to charge plaintiff with criminal violation of a protective order, in violation of
Conn. Gen. Stat. § 53a-223.3 The police officer’s application for the arrest warrant described the
information received from Sullivan and included a copy of the email that had been sent by
plaintiff to Sullivan. Doc. #95-4 at 2–3, 7.
The application further stated that “this has been an ongoing issue between Nowacki and
Sullivan and this is the 8th family dispute we have investigated since 2005.” Id. at 3. According
to the application, Sullivan told the police that she had been in family court with plaintiff that
day and that a judge had denied plaintiff’s request for unsupervised visitation with his children
on Father’s Day. Sullivan said that plaintiff was “visibly agitated in court,” and “[s]he further
stated that his overall demeanor is becoming more aggressive and she is concerned with Father’s
Day approaching.” Ibid. As with the previous warrants, this arrest warrant was approved and
signed by a Connecticut Superior Court judge.
The police arrested plaintiff pursuant to the arrest warrant on June 17, 2010. According to
plaintiff, he told the police upon his arrest that he had accidentally copied Sullivan on his email,
when in fact he had meant to copy a different person—Susan Schultz, a reporter for a local
newspaper—whose name appeared alphabetically next to Sullivan’s on plaintiff’s drop-down
menu for email contacts. See Nowacki, 155 Conn. App. at 766; Doc. #95-4 at 4 (“Notice of
Rights” form with plaintiff’s explanation about his mistake); Doc. #95-4 at 33–34 (plaintiff’s
letter of complaint to the New Canaan police asserting that he was arrested on the basis of his

The statute provides in relevant part: “(a) A person is guilty of criminal violation of a protective order
when an order issued pursuant to [statute], and such person violates such order.” A violation of this statute requires
evidence that “defendant intended to perform the activities that constituted the violation.” State v. Opio-Oguta, 153
Conn. App. 107, 119 (2014).
3

5

mistake in sending the email to Sullivan rather than to Schultz). Plaintiff’s explanation was
evidently not credited by the police.
In short, plaintiff was arrested three times in 2010. Each time, he was arrested pursuant to
an arrest warrant that was supported by an affidavit of a New Canaan police officer and that was
approved by a state court judge. First, he was arrested on February 24, 2010, for disorderly
conduct and illegal use of a motor vehicle with intent to harass. Second, he was arrested on
February 25, 2010, for harassment in the second degree. Third, he was arrested on June 17, 2010,
for criminal violation of a protective order.
All four of the underlying charges were eventually consolidated in a single charging
information, and plaintiff went to trial on all four charges in January 2012. The trial jury
acquitted plaintiff on the charges of disorderly conduct and illegal use of a motor vehicle with
intent to harass; on the other hand, the trial jury rendered guilty verdicts against plaintiff for
harassment and criminal violation of a protective order. Doc. #96-3 at 4–5; Nowacki, 155 Conn.
App. at 764.
Plaintiff was sentenced in principal part to a term of five years of incarceration,
suspended after 15 months. Plaintiff served about three weeks of this sentence before being
released on bond pending appeal in late May or early June 2012. Doc. #94 at 45–46.
Nearly three years later, plaintiff largely won his appeal before the Connecticut Appellate
Court on March 10, 2015. As to the charge of criminal violation of a protective order, the
Appellate Court initially ruled that the evidence was sufficient to support the charge.
Notwithstanding plaintiff’s claim that he had mistakenly sent the email to Sullivan (rather than
Schultz), the Appellate Court ruled that the evidence of plaintiff’s intent to send the email to
Sullivan was sufficient in light of Sullivan’s testimony that plaintiff often inundated her with

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hundreds of emails, and because a “reasonable juror could also credit Sullivan's testimony that
frequently those e-mails were about matters that had nothing to do with her and that these emails caused her severe distress.” Nowacki, 155 Conn. App. at 767. Despite the Appellate
Court’s conclusion that the evidence was legally sufficient, the court concluded that the trial
court erred when it precluded plaintiff from calling Susan Schultz as a witness and precluded
plaintiff from testifying about his relationship with Schultz and the context in which he had
intended to send the email to her. Id. at 767–77.
As to the charge of harassment, the Appellate Court ruled that the harassment statute as
applied to plaintiff’s case was unconstitutional in violation of the First Amendment. The court
reasoned that plaintiff’s conviction was impermissibly based on the content of the email that he
had sent to Waters, rather than on the basis of any surrounding conduct by plaintiff. For this
conclusion, the court heavily relied on what it called a “longstanding rule” that “if a prosecution
of a defendant under § 53a-183(a) is based entirely on content, that application of the statute
violates the first amendment and must be deemed unconstitutional as applied to that defendant’s
conduct.” 155 Conn. App. at 782–83. The court, however, acknowledged that “our Supreme
Court has modified that rule” by a decision that issued in 2013 but concluded that the rule, even
as modified, still applied to plaintiff’s case. Id. at 783–86. The court rejected the state’s argument
that “sending the single e-mail was sufficiently threatening when placed in the context of his and
Waters’ verbal altercations before the e-mail was sent.” Id. at 786.
Accordingly, the Appellate Court ordered a judgment of acquittal on the harassment
charge and a new trial on the charge of criminal violation of a protective order. Id. at 789. The
State eventually decided to dismiss the violation-of-protective-order charge rather than to re-try

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the case. On May 6, 2015, a state trial court officially entered a judgment of acquittal on the
harassment charge and dismissed the violation of protective order charge. See Doc. #95-2.
Plaintiff filed this federal lawsuit on March 10, 2016. In his second amended complaint—
now the operative complaint in this action—plaintiff alleges a wide range of federal and state
claims against the State of Connecticut as well as against the Town of New Canaan, ten
individual officers of the New Canaan Police Department, and the chairman of the New Canaan
Police Commission (collectively referred to as “the New Canaan defendants”). The complaint
runs 72 pages long with more than 200 paragraphs of allegations. It alleges federal constitutional
claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violations of the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments
(as well as a Monell claim against the Town); state constitutional claims under Article First, §§ 1,
4, 7, 8, 9, and 10 of the Connecticut Constitution; state law tort claims such as false
imprisonment, abuse of process, malicious prosecution, and infliction of emotional distress; and
a claim for indemnification under state law against the Town of New Canaan.4
Plaintiff alleges that he has endured severe emotional, psychological, and financial
distress as a result of being arrested, prosecuted, and convicted. In addition to spending three
weeks incarcerated during 2012, he was required to liquidate substantial financial resources from
his retirement account to cover his legal costs. He was prohibited from leaving Connecticut
without the court’s permission for five months. He was expelled from his country club after 27
years of membership. He suffered damage to his reputation, estrangement from his friends, and
lost valuable time with his children. Doc. #94 at 46, 67–69.

4

The second amended complaint also included a conspiracy claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1985(c), which
plaintiff has since withdrawn. See Doc. #108-1 at 30. My listing of the claims raised by plaintiff is not necessarily
exhaustive, but a more complete listing of every claim would not be consequential to the resolution of the pending
motions to dismiss.

8

All the defendants have moved to dismiss the complaint. Docs. #106, #119. The Court
has heard extensive oral arguments from plaintiff, counsel for the New Canaan defendants, and
counsel for the State of Connecticut.
DISCUSSION
The background principles governing a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss are well
established. “To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter,
accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556
U.S. 662, 678 (2009). Pro se complaints “must be construed liberally and interpreted to raise the
strongest arguments that they suggest.” Sykes v. Bank of Am., 723 F.3d 399, 403 (2d Cir. 2013).
Still, even a pro se complaint must plead enough facts—as distinct from threadbare legal
conclusions—to state a plausible claim for relief. “We have noted our obligation to construe pro
se complaints liberally, even as we examine such complaints for factual allegations sufficient to
meet the plausibility requirement.” Hill v. Curcione, 657 F.3d 116, 122 (2d Cir. 2011).
In short, my role in reviewing the motion to dismiss is to determine whether the
complaint—apart from any of its conclusory allegations and construing its pro se allegations
liberally—sets forth sufficient facts to state a plausible claim for relief. The Court may also
properly consider documents that have been referenced or appended to a plaintiff’s complaint.
N.Y. Pet Welfare Ass’n, Inc. v. City of N.Y., --- F.3d. ---, 2017 WL 816880, at *3 (2d Cir. 2017).
A. Claims against the State of Connecticut
The State of Connecticut has moved to dismiss the complaint. It argues that plaintiff did
not properly serve process on the State and that plaintiff’s claims are barred by the Eleventh
Amendment.

9

I agree with the State that the Eleventh Amendment plainly precludes plaintiff’s claims
against the State of Connecticut. The Eleventh Amendment provides that “[t]he judicial power of
the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or
prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or
Subjects of any Foreign State.” U.S. Const. amend. XI. The Eleventh Amendment bars an action
for damages by a private plaintiff against a state unless the state has waived its immunity or
unless Congress has abrogated the state’s immunity. See Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 662–
63 (1974); Dean v. Univ. at Buffalo Sch. of Med. & Biomedical Scis., 804 F.3d 178, 193 (2d Cir.
2015).
Plaintiff has made no showing that the State of Connecticut has waived its immunity for
any of the types of claims that he pursues here. Moreover, “[i]t is well-established . . . that
§ 1983 was not intended [by Congress] to override a state’s sovereign immunity,” Mamot v. Bd.
of Regents, 367 F. App’x 191, 192 (2d Cir. 2010) (citing Quern v. Jordan, 440 U.S. 332, 340–42
(1979)); see also Will v. Mich. Dep’t of State Police, 491 U.S. 58 (1989) (Congress did not
override state sovereign immunity with the enactment of 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and a state is not a
“person” that is subject to suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983).
Nor do plaintiff’s claims fall within the recognized exception to the Eleventh Amendment
for claims against a state official that seek prospective/injunctive relief. See Tsirelman v. Daines,
794 F.3d 310, 313–14 (2d Cir. 2015) (citing Ex Parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908)). Plaintiff
does not seek prospective, injunctive relief (nor could he plausibly do so in light of the absence
of any continuing tortious misconduct by the State or its officials). The complaint solely seeks
money damages for wrongs that occurred years ago when plaintiff was repeatedly arrested in
2010 and put on trial in 2012. See Doc. #94 at 71–72.

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Plaintiff asks the Court to withhold adjudication of the State’s motion to dismiss while he
continues to pursue a waiver of sovereign immunity from the State of Connecticut’s Claims
Commissioner. I am not persuaded. Under Connecticut law, “[w]henever the Claims
Commissioner deems it just and equitable, the Claims Commissioner may authorize suit against
the state on any claim which, in the opinion of the Claims Commissioner, presents an issue of
law or fact under which the state, were it a private person, could be liable.” Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4160(a). But, as the statute otherwise makes clear, the Claims Commissioner is empowered only
to authorize a lawsuit to be brought in state court, not federal court. See Estate of A.A. v. United
States, 2016 WL 7471634, at *4 (D. Conn. 2016) (citing Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4-160(d)); Doe v.
Barrett, 2006 WL 3741825, at *7 (D. Conn. 2006) (dismissing claim under Eleventh
Amendment despite plaintiff’s request for Court to withhold judgment until resolution of
plaintiff’s claim filed with Claims Commissioner); see also Sossamon v. Texas, 563 U.S. 277,
285 (2011) (noting that “a state’s consent to suit in its own courts is not a waiver of its sovereign
immunity in federal court”). Because the Claims Commissioner cannot authorize plaintiff’s
claims to be brought in this Court, it would be pointless for me to withhold adjudication of the
State’s motion to dismiss pending the outcome of any proceedings before the Claims
Commissioner.
Plaintiff also invokes the Younger abstention doctrine as grounds to abstain from
adjudicating the State’s motion to dismiss. See Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971). The
Younger abstention doctrine “generally requires federal courts to abstain from taking jurisdiction
over federal constitutional claims that involve or call into question ongoing state proceedings.”
Diamond “D” Const. Corp. v. McGowan, 282 F.3d 191, 198 (2d Cir. 2002). But “[i]n the main,
federal courts are obliged to decide cases within the scope of federal jurisdiction,” and

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“[a]bstention is not in order simply because a pending state-court proceeding involves the same
subject matter.” Sprint Commc’ns, Inc. v. Jacobs, 134 S. Ct. 584, 588 (2013).
Here, because the Claims Commissioner does not have authority to waive the State’s
Eleventh Amendment immunity from a lawsuit for money damages in a federal court, it is
evident that the proceedings in this Court do not challenge or call into question any ongoing state
proceedings before the Claims Commissioner. The very purpose of Younger abstention is to
respect the rights of the states. These purposes would be ill-served if the Younger abstention
doctrine were perversely invoked to defeat a state’s request that a lawsuit be dismissed for
reasons of sovereign immunity.
Plaintiff also argues that, if the Court grants the State’s motion to dismiss, then he will
likely be time-barred by the statute of limitations from filing a later federal lawsuit in the event
that he later obtains a waiver of sovereign immunity. But this reason does not warrant an
indefinite extension of time for plaintiff to maintain this action against the State on the basis of a
speculative possibility that the State might one day agree to waive its sovereign immunity. If the
State has sovereign immunity, it is not properly subject even to the continuing burdens of
remaining a party to litigation, much less the prospect of a later judgment against it. See, e.g.,
Puerto Rico Aqueduct & Sewer Auth. v. Metcalf & Eddy, Inc., 506 U.S. 139, 146 (1993). If
plaintiff eventually secures a waiver of sovereign immunity that would allow him to file suit
against the State in a federal court, then the Court at that time may consider how the statute of
limitations should apply and whether it should be equitably tolled during the time that plaintiff
devoted to pursuing a waiver of sovereign immunity.
In addition to arguing for dismissal on sovereign immunity grounds, the State argues that
plaintiff’s claims should be dismissed under Rule 12(b)(5) because plaintiff has not served the

12

complaint or summons on the State in accordance with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(j) and
Conn. Gen. Stat. § 52-64(a). Because I find that all of plaintiff’s claims against the State are
barred by the Eleventh Amendment, I need not resolve the question of whether service of process
was sufficient here.
B. Claims against the New Canaan Defendants
The New Canaan defendants have also moved to dismiss plaintiff’s claims. They contend
in relevant part that most of plaintiff’s federal law claims are time-barred, that defendants are
entitled to qualified immunity for any non-time-barred claims, and that the Town of New Canaan
may not properly be subject to § 1983 Monell liability. I will consider each of these arguments in
turn.
Statute of Limitations
Because plaintiff’s federal constitutional claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 form the sole
basis for federal subject matter jurisdiction in this case, I will first address the question of
whether plaintiff’s § 1983 claims are barred by the statute of limitations. A defendant may seek
dismissal pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) on statute-of-limitations grounds if the limitations
defense is apparent from the allegations of the complaint or other materials properly
considered. See Staehr v. Hartford Fin. Servs. Grp., Inc., 547 F.3d 406, 425–26 (2d Cir. 2008).
Congress has not prescribed a statute of limitations for constitutional causes of action
under § 1983. In the absence of guidance from Congress, the Second Circuit has instructed that
the statute of limitations must be borrowed from analogous state law limitations periods and that
the analogous state law limitations period for a § 1983 action in Connecticut is three years. See
Walker v. Jastremski, 430 F.3d 560, 562 (2d Cir. 2005) (citing Conn. Gen. Stat. § 52-577); see

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also Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384, 387 (2007) (“the length of the statute of limitations” for a
§ 1983 action “is that which the State provides for personal-injury torts”).
Although state law determines the length of the statute of limitations for a § 1983 action,
it is federal law that determines when the statute of limitations period begins to run. See Wallace,
549 U.S. at 388. Under federal law, a § 1983 claim accrues “when the alleged conduct has
caused the claimant harm and the claimant knows or has reason to know of the allegedly
impermissible conduct and the resulting harm.” Veal v. Geraci, 23 F.3d 722, 724 (2d Cir. 1994);
see also Singleton v. City of New York, 632 F.2d 185, 191 (2d Cir. 1980) (stating that § 1983
claim accrues “when the plaintiff knows or has reason to know of the injury which is the basis of
his action.”). To the same effect, the Supreme Court has noted “the standard rule that accrual
occurs when the plaintiff has a complete and present cause of action, that is, when the plaintiff
can file suit and obtain relief.” Wallace, 549 U.S. at 388; Smith v. Campbell, 782 F.3d 93, 100
(2d Cir. 2015) (same).
Plaintiff filed this lawsuit on March 10, 2016. Therefore, in light of the three-year statute
of limitations that governs § 1983 claims, any federal constitutional cause of action that accrued
prior to March 10, 2013, is barred by the statute of limitations.
Plaintiff’s constitutional claims include a claim for false arrest under the Fourth
Amendment. A false arrest claim under § 1983 accrues “once the victim becomes held pursuant
to [legal] process.” Wallace, 549 U.S. at 389. Here, plaintiff’s arrests were carried out pursuant
to arrest warrants. Because “the issuance of an arrest warrant represents a classic example of the
institution of legal process,” Wilkins v. DeReyes, 528 F.3d 790, 799 (10th Cir. 2008), the statute
of limitations for the false arrest claims arising from plaintiff’s arrests began to run upon his

14

arrests in February and June 2010. See Johnson v. Teague, 2014 WL 2515214, at *2 (D. Conn.
2014). Plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment false arrest claim is barred by the statute of limitations.5
Plaintiff also alleges a constitutional claim for abuse of process. Similar to a claim for
false arrest, “[u]nder federal law, a claim for abuse of process accrues at such time as the
criminal process is set in motion—typically at arrest—against the plaintiff.” Hadid v. City of
New York, 2015 WL 7734098, at *5 (E.D.N.Y. 2015); see also Duamutef v. Morris, 956 F. Supp.
1112, 1118 (S.D.N.Y. 1997) (Sotomayor, J.) (abuse-of-process claim accrues at time of arrest
absent lack of plaintiff’s knowledge at that time of any collateral or retaliatory objective for the
wrongful initiation of process). Because more than three years elapsed between plaintiff’s arrests
in 2010 and the commencement of this action in March 2016, plaintiff’s claim for abuse of
process is barred by the statute of limitations for lack of any indication that the New Canaan
defendants acted against him in 2010 for collateral or retaliatory reasons not known to plaintiff
until some point within the statute of limitations period after March 10, 2013.
Plaintiff’s complaint also alleges that the New Canaan defendants violated many other
constitutional rights under the Fifth and Ninth Amendments to “familial association,” “life,
liberty and property,” and “the non-presumption of authority.” See Doc. #94 at 52. Because these
claims are integrally intertwined with his complaints about his arrests and detention, I doubt they
are independently actionable apart from any action that may be maintained under the Fourth
Amendment. See Manuel v. City of Joliet, Ill., --- S. Ct. ---, 2017 WL 1050976, at *5 (2017)
(discussing how the Fourth Amendment is “the relevant constitutional provision to assess the

5
Plaintiff does not indicate whether he was imprisoned immediately following any of his arrests in 2010
(as distinct from his claim that he was imprisoned for about three weeks in 2012 after he was convicted and
sentenced). If plaintiff was imprisoned as part-and-parcel of any of his arrests, a claim for false imprisonment would
be subject to the same legal treatment as plaintiff’s claim for false arrest. See Russo v. City of Bridgeport, 479 F.3d
196, 204 (2d Cir. 2007).

15

deprivations of liberty—most notably, pretrial detention—that go hand in hand with criminal
prosecutions”); Russo v. City of Bridgeport, 479 F.3d 196, 208–09 (2d Cir. 2007) (same).6
Plaintiff further claims that defendants engaged in malicious prosecution in violation of
the Fourth Amendment. To prevail on a claim of malicious prosecution under § 1983, a plaintiff
must demonstrate a violation of the Fourth Amendment and also the common law elements of a
malicious prosecution claim under state law. See Roberts v. Babkiewicz, 582 F.3d 418, 420 (2d
Cir. 2009) (per curiam). In Connecticut, the elements of malicious prosecution are: “(1) the
defendant initiated or continued criminal proceedings against the plaintiff; (2) the criminal
proceeding terminated in favor of the plaintiff; (3) the defendant acted without probable cause;
and (4) the defendant acted with malice.” Ibid. (quoting McHale v. W.B.S. Corp., 187 Conn. 444,
447 (1982)).
Because favorable termination is one of the elements that a plaintiff must allege and
prove to prevail on a malicious prosecution claim, a plaintiff cannot have a complete cause of
action before the prosecution has terminated in favor of the plaintiff. Accordingly, the statute of
limitations for a malicious prosecution claim under § 1983 does not begin to run until criminal
proceedings terminate in a plaintiff’s favor. See, e.g., Manuel, 2017 WL 1050976, at *7; Murphy
v. Lynn, 53 F.3d 547, 548 & n. 1 (2d Cir. 1995).
In this case, plaintiff was prosecuted in state court for four different crimes. The charges
of disorderly conduct and illegal use of a motor vehicle terminated in plaintiff’s favor on January
24, 2012, when the jury returned a verdict of not guilty on those two charges. See Janetka v.

6

Beyond protesting his initial arrests in 2010, plaintiff also alleges that he was unlawfully imprisoned for
approximately three weeks in May 2012 after he was convicted and began serving his sentence. This post-trial
imprisonment would not implicate the Fourth Amendment but instead the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause,
see Manuel, 2017 WL 1050976, at *6–*7 & n.8. Regardless, because this post-trial imprisonment occurred more
than three years before plaintiff filed this lawsuit, any independent claim for false or wrongful imprisonment in 2012
is likewise barred by the statute of limitations.

16

Dabe, 892 F.2d 187, 190 (2d Cir. 1989) (“an acquittal satisfies the favorable termination
requirement even when there has been a conviction on a related charge, or one arising from the
same incident or event”). Plaintiff did not file this lawsuit within three years of his acquittals, and
therefore any malicious prosecution claim based on these two charges for disorderly conduct and
illegal use of a motor vehicle is barred by the statute of limitations.
By contrast, the other two charges—harassment in the second degree and criminal
violation of a protective order—did not terminate in plaintiff’s favor until more than three years
later, in May 2015, when these charges were dismissed following the Appellate Court’s decision
reversing plaintiff’s convictions. As defendants themselves concede, plaintiff’s action for
malicious prosecution on the basis of these two charges is not barred by the statute of limitations.
For these two malicious prosecution claims, I will separately consider in the next section
below whether defendants are entitled to qualified immunity. But before turning to that issue,
there is one more statute of limitations question to consider: whether plaintiff’s First Amendment
claim is untimely.
It could be argued that plaintiff’s First Amendment claim did not accrue until 2015 when
the Appellate Court ruled in his favor on this claim. But I do not agree, because the Second
Circuit has explicitly declined to rule that First Amendment claims that arise from the initiation
of criminal process should be treated like malicious prosecution claims and subject to the
favorable termination requirement. See Smith, 782 F.3d at 101 (“In this Circuit, First
Amendment claims, even those arising out of the same series of events that give rise to Fourth
Amendment claims, do not require a favorable termination in the criminal action to be
cognizable as a matter of law.”).

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Alternatively, it could be argued that even if plaintiff’s First Amendment claim was not
subject to a delayed accrual, the statute of limitations was tolled for a sufficient time to make the
filing of this lawsuit timely. The basis for a tolling argument would be that when plaintiff was
convicted in January 2012, he could no longer have maintained his First Amendment claim
because maintaining this claim would necessarily impugn his harassment conviction. In Heck v.
Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 487 (1994), the Supreme Court made clear that a plaintiff may not
maintain a § 1983 claim for money damages if “judgment in favor of the plaintiff would
necessarily imply the invalidity of his conviction,” and “the complaint must be dismissed unless
the plaintiff can demonstrate that the conviction or sentence has already been invalidated.” Id. at
487. If plaintiff’s First Amendment claim was deemed tolled by reason of the Heck rule for the
interim time period from the date of his conviction in January 2012 until the date of the favorable
termination of the harassment charge in May 2015, then plaintiff’s filing of this lawsuit in March
2016 would be timely, because it would have occurred a few months prior to expiration of the
three-year statute of limitations.7
The tolling issue is one that must be determined by reference to state law. See Wallace,
549 U.S. at 395. Still, the Supreme Court in Wallace was deeply skeptical about the wisdom of
recognizing a Heck-based tolling rule, see ibid., and the Second Circuit has more recently stated
that the Heck rule does not “operate as a toll on the statute of limitations when a criminal
conviction that would be impugned by a § 1983 action occurs after the accrual of the § 1983
action.” Smith, 782 F.3d at 101 (citing Wallace).8 Accordingly, although there is substantial
The statute of limitations clock would have run for nearly two years from plaintiff’s arrest in February
2010 until plaintiff’s conviction in January 2012 and then, after the tolling period, it would have run again for about
ten months from May 2015 to March 2016 when this lawsuit was filed.
8
Although this quoted statement from Smith could be understood out of context to categorically foreclose a
Heck-based tolling claim, to do so would overlook the Supreme Court’s statement in Wallace that tolling is
controlled by state law, not federal law (a proposition not acknowledged by the Second Circuit panel in Smith). The
Smith case arose from New York, and the Second Circuit had no occasion in that case to interpret Connecticut law
7

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reason to doubt that tolling is appropriate here, because the application of any tolling
requirements is an issue of Connecticut state law that the parties have not briefed, I will not
resolve this issue at this time, and it is unnecessary for me to do so in light of my ruling below
concerning the application of qualified immunity in this case.
In sum, I conclude that the three-year statute of limitations bars most but not all of
plaintiff’s federal constitutional claims. As to each of the time-barred constitutional claims,
plaintiff has offered no extraordinary circumstances that would warrant equitable tolling of the
statute of limitations. See Walker, 430 F.3d at 564 (equitable tolling of § 1983 civil rights claim
applies only in “rare and exceptional circumstances, where we found that extraordinary
circumstances prevented a party from timely performing a required act, and that the party acted
with reasonable diligence throughout the period he sought to toll”).9 The only federal
constitutional claims that remain are plaintiff’s claims for Fourth Amendment malicious
prosecution as to the charges for harassment and criminal violation of a protective order, and
plaintiff’s claim for a violation of his First Amendment right to free speech by means of his
arrest and prosecution on the harassment charge.
Qualified Immunity
I will next consider whether defendants are entitled to qualified immunity from those of
plaintiff’s § 1983 claims that are not time-barred. The doctrine of qualified immunity protects
government officials “from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate
clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have

concerning the tolling of statutes of limitations. In Wallace, although the Supreme Court rejected a Heck-based
tolling requirement, it did so only upon concluding that it did not know of any state law tolling rule to the contrary
and noting that petitioner had not argued for tolling below. See 549 U.S. at 394.
9
Plaintiff urges that the “finality doctrine” requires tolling the statute of limitations on all of his claims
until May 6, 2015. In support of his argument, he cites a single case, King v. New York Tel., 785 F.2d 31 (2d Cir.
1986), which deals with the time limits for suing an employer for breach of a collective bargaining agreement and
which is inapplicable here.

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known.” Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). The Supreme Court has explained that
“a defendant cannot be said to have violated a clearly established right unless the right’s contours
were sufficiently definite that any reasonable official in the defendant’s shoes would have
understood that he was violating it.” Plumhoff v. Rickard, 134 S. Ct. 2012, 2023 (2014) (citing
Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 740–41 (2011)). In this manner, “[q]ualified immunity ‘gives
government officials breathing room to make reasonable but mistaken judgments about open
legal questions.’” Lane v. Franks, 134 S. Ct. 2369, 2381 (2014) (quoting Ashcroft, 563 U.S. at
743)).
The defense of qualified immunity is a highly deferential standard, as the Second Circuit
has recently emphasized:
When a plaintiff alleges that a law enforcement officer’s official conduct renders him
personally liable in damages, our inquiry is not whether the officer should have acted as
he did. Nor is it whether a singular, hypothetical entity exemplifying the “reasonable
officer”—a creature akin to the “reasonable man” of the law of torts, see Restatement
(Second) of Torts § 283 cmt. c (Am. Law Inst. 1975)—would have acted in the same
way. It is instead whether any reasonable officer, out of the wide range of reasonable
people who enforce the laws in this country, could have determined that the challenged
action was lawful.
Figueroa v. Mazza, 825 F.3d 89, 100 (2d Cir. 2016) (emphasis in original).
The defense of qualified immunity may properly be raised at the pre-discovery, motionto-dismiss stage, because “[q]ualified immunity provides government officials ‘immunity from
suit rather than a mere defense to liability.’” Looney v. Black, 702 F.3d 701, 705 (2d Cir. 2012)
(quoting Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009)). Indeed, “[t]he driving force behind
creation of the qualified immunity doctrine [is] a desire to ensure that insubstantial claims
against government officials [will] be resolved prior to discovery.” Id. at 706.
As noted above, one of the elements of a Fourth Amendment malicious prosecution claim
is that a charge was not supported by probable cause. “Under both federal and Connecticut law,
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probable cause to arrest exists when police officers have 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.” See
Zalaski v. City of Hartford, 723 F.3d 382, 389–90 (2d Cir. 2013). Probable cause is a “fluid”
standard that “does not demand hard certainties or mechanistic inquiries”; nor does it “demand
that an officer’s good-faith belief that a suspect has committed or is committing a crime be
correct or more likely true than false.” Ibid.
In light of the deferential qualified immunity standard, a police officer has qualified
immunity from a Fourth Amendment claim for malicious prosecution if he had at least arguable
probable cause to have initiated and maintained a prosecution. See id. at 390 (dismissing false
arrest and malicious prosecution claims because officers had arguable probable cause). Arguable
probable cause “exists if either (a) it was objectively reasonable for the officer to believe that
probable cause existed, or (b) officers of reasonable competence could disagree on whether the
probable cause test was met.” Ibid. “Put another way, an arresting officer will find protection
under the defense of qualified immunity unless no reasonably competent officer could have
concluded, based on the facts known at the time of arrest, that probable cause existed.” Figueroa,
825 F.3d at 100.
Here, notwithstanding the fact that the charges against plaintiff were ultimately
dismissed, it is evident to me that the New Canaan police had at least arguable probable cause to
arrest plaintiff for harassment in February 2010 and then to arrest him again for criminal
violation of a protective order in June 2010. The fact that plaintiff offered what he believed to be
innocent explanations for his conduct did not dispel the existence of probable cause. As the
Second Circuit has recently made clear, “[p]robable cause does not necessarily disappear simply

21

because an innocent explanation may be consistent with facts that an officer views as
suspicious,” and officers are “not required to accept [a suspect’s] account on faith” but are
“entitled to weigh [the suspect’s] explanation . . . against the facts on the other side of the
ledger.” Id. at 102.
So, for example, the police still had arguable probable cause to support the arrest and
prosecution of plaintiff for criminal violation of a protective order, notwithstanding plaintiff’s
explanation upon his arrest and defense at trial that he had not intended to send an email to
Sullivan. The officers were not required to credit plaintiff’s explanation in the face of
information they had and stated in the arrest warrant affidavit concerning plaintiff’s prior history
of domestic disturbances and his recent rising aggression. Doc. #95-4 at 3. Moreover, as even the
Connecticut Appellate Court agreed, the evidence at trial was legally sufficient to support the
charge against plaintiff. All of this underscores that the police had at least arguable probable
cause to support the arrest and prosecution of plaintiff for criminal violation of the protective
order.
Moreover, plaintiff’s arguments concerning probable cause overlook the fact that the
officers arrested plaintiff only after satisfying a state court judge that they had probable cause for
an arrest. Indeed, plaintiff has chosen to include the officers’ arrest warrant affidavits as exhibits
to his own complaint, and he has not pointed to any material false statements or omissions in
these affidavits. In such circumstances, where an officer has obtained an arrest warrant in
reliance on a judge’s probable cause determination, there is no basis to conclude that the officer
did not have at least arguable probable cause or that the officer did not act objectively reasonably
and should be liable for money damages. See, e.g., Golino v. City of New Haven, 950 F.2d 864,
870 (2d Cir. 1991) (noting in part that “[n]ormally, the issuance of a warrant by a neutral

22

magistrate, which depends on a finding of probable cause, creates a presumption that it was
objectively reasonable for the officers to believe that there was probable cause”). See also
Messerschmidt v. Millender, 565 U.S. 535, 546–48 (where warrant is issued by neutral
magistrate, officer is immune from liability unless “no reasonably competent officer would have
concluded that a warrant should issue” (citing United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 922–23
(1984))).
For the same reasons, the New Canaan defendants are entitled to qualified immunity from
plaintiff’s First Amendment claim (even assuming it to be timely). The officers applied for an
arrest warrant, and they attached a copy of the email that plaintiff sent to Waters to the arrest
warrant affidavit. Notwithstanding that the Connecticut Appellate Court would conclude more
than five years later that the First Amendment foreclosed the prosecution on the basis of the
content of the email, it was not objectively unreasonable for the officers to believe at the time
that there was probable cause and a lawful basis to arrest and prosecute plaintiff for harassment,
in light of not only the email but also in light of the statement they had from Waters attesting to
her fear of threat from plaintiff.
Indeed, the Connecticut Appellate Court’s decision in plaintiff’s case principally relied
on a prior decision, State v. LaFontaine, 128 Conn. App. 546 (2011), that was not decided until
the year after plaintiff’s arrest in this case. The harassment statute had not been declared facially
invalid under the First Amendment at the time that plaintiff was arrested, and plaintiff ultimately
prevailed on appeal only by means of mounting a highly fact-specific, as-applied challenge to his
prosecution and in the face of substantial arguments by the state that the prosecution was not
impermissibly based on the content of plaintiff’s email.

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I cannot conclude that any objectively reasonable law enforcement officer should have
known at the time of plaintiff’s arrest that a prosecution of plaintiff for harassment would
amount to a violation of the First Amendment. Especially where police officers have sought a
judge’s approval for an arrest warrant and have not misled the judge about the facts relied upon
for an arrest and prosecution, the qualified immunity doctrine does not expose local police
officers to lawsuits for money damages because they are not omniscient or because they do not
have a sophisticated or clairvoyant understanding of how appellate judges might one day apply
evolving and contestable principles of free speech under the First Amendment.
In sum, I conclude that qualified immunity warrants dismissal of plaintiff’s claims
against all of the individual New Canaan defendants. The police had at least arguable probable
cause, and it was not objectively unreasonable for the police to rely upon the determinations of a
state court judge who approved the arrest warrants. Accordingly, I will dismiss plaintiff’s Fourth
Amendment malicious prosecution claims and his First Amendment free speech claim as to each
of the individual defendants.
Monell Claim
Plaintiff also alleges a Monell claim of municipal liability under § 1983 against the Town
of New Canaan. See Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658 (1978). It is well established
that a municipality cannot be held liable pursuant to § 1983 under a theory of respondeat
superior. Id. at 690–94. Instead, in order to hold a municipality liable under § 1983, a plaintiff
must establish that the municipality had a policy, custom, or practice that was intended to violate
or that was deliberately indifferent to constitutional rights, and that this policy, custom, or
practice actually caused the violation by municipal actors of plaintiff’s constitutional rights. See,
e.g., Connick v. Thompson, 563 US. 51, 60–61 (2011); Jones v. Town of East Haven, 691 F.3d

24

72 (2d Cir. 2012). The entitlement of individual defendants to qualified immunity does not
preclude Monell liability against the Town. See Vives v. City of New York, 524 F.3d 346, 350 (2d
Cir. 2008) (“[A] municipality is liable for even its good faith constitutional violations presuming
that the municipality has a policy that causes those violations.”).
Plaintiff’s complaint alleges that the Town of New Canaan “had in effect established de
facto policies, practices and customs exhibiting deliberate indifference to the constitutional rights
of citizens of the Town of New Canaan which were a direct and proximate cause of the
unconstitutional conduct of the Defendants . . . resulting in the false arrest, abuse of process and
malicious prosecution of the Plaintiff.” Doc. #94 at 48. The complaint alleges that “these de facto
policies, practices, and custom[s]” included the municipality’s failure to supervise, train, and
discipline its officers; the municipality’s failure to enforce the police department’s policy manual
and code of conduct; and the “police code of silence when police officers regularly cover-up
unlawful conduct.” Id. at 57–58.
Even assuming a violation of plaintiff’s constitutional rights, plaintiff has clearly failed to
state a Monell claim, because plaintiff has not pled any specific facts (as opposed to legal
conclusions) to point to any specific municipal policy or custom, to suggest that the municipality
acted in deliberate indifference to constitutional rights, or to allow an inference that any policy or
custom caused any of the alleged violations of plaintiff’s constitutional rights. See, e.g., Sherman
v. Platosh, 2016 WL 146431, at *3 (D. Conn. 2016) (“[T]o survive a motion to dismiss, Plaintiff
cannot, through conclusory allegations, merely assert the existence of a municipal policy or
custom, but must allege facts tending to support, at least circumstantially, an inference that such
a municipal policy or custom exists.”); Rogoz v. City of Hartford, 2012 WL 4372189, at *5 (D.
Conn. 2012) (dismissing Monell claim where “[p]laintiff alleges only vaguely that certain

25

policies, practices or customs exist—giving rise to an inference of deliberate indifference—but
fails to plead any facts in support of their actual existence.”).
In response to defendants’ argument that the complaint fails to assert any facts in support
of the Monell claim, plaintiff points to the existence of a “Policy Manual” and a “Procedures
Manual” and argues that the existence of these documents somehow supports his Monell claim.
Doc. #108-1 at 24. Plaintiff then asserts that the New Canaan Police Department had a custom of
threatening citizens for exercising their First Amendment rights but offers no facts to support that
claim besides the fact of his own arrest. This single alleged violation of plaintiff’s own rights
does not by itself establish the existence of a municipal policy or custom. See, e.g., Triano v.
Town of Harrison, N.Y., 895 F. Supp. 2d 526, 538 (S.D.N.Y. 2012) (dismissing Monell claim
where the only supporting facts relate to plaintiff’s own arrest); Newton v. City of New York, 566
F. Supp. 2d 256, 271 (S.D.N.Y. 2008) (“[A] custom or policy cannot be shown by pointing to a
single instance of unconstitutional conduct by a mere employee of the State.”). In short, plaintiff
does not allege sufficient facts in support of the Monell claim to meet the standard of facial
plausibility required on a motion to dismiss. See Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678.
State Law Claims
Plaintiff’s only remaining claims are state law claims. “It is well settled that where, as
here, the federal claims are eliminated in the early stages of litigation, courts should generally
decline to exercise pendent jurisdiction over remaining state law claims.” Klein & Co. Futures,
Inc. v. Bd. of Trade of N.Y.C., 464 F.3d 255, 262 (2d Cir. 2006). Accordingly, having concluded
that plaintiff’s federal claims must be dismissed, I will decline to exercise supplemental
jurisdiction over plaintiff’s remaining state law claims. See 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3). This ruling is

26

without prejudice to plaintiff’s right to seek any lawful and appropriate relief in the Connecticut
state courts.
Dismissal with Prejudice
I will grant dismissal with prejudice, because plaintiff has twice amended his complaint,
and I have nothing to indicate that any more amendments would not be futile. “Where it appears
that granting leave to amend is unlikely to be productive, . . . it is not an abuse of discretion to
deny leave to amend.” Apotex Inc. v. Acorda Therapeutics, Inc., 823 F.3d 51, 62 (2d Cir. 2016).
As I have explained above, plaintiff’s federal claims against the State of Connecticut are plainly
barred by the Eleventh Amendment, and his federal claims against the New Canaan individual
defendants are either time-barred or barred by qualified immunity. His Monell claim against the
Town of New Canaan is wholly conclusory, and plaintiff has not alleged any facts that might
plausibly show that his arrests and prosecutions were somehow caused by a town policy.
Because I believe that amendment would be futile in addressing these barriers to proceeding in
federal court, I will not allow leave to file a third amended complaint.
CONCLUSION
I regret that plaintiff was subject in state court to criminal prosecution on charges for
which he was either acquitted or that did not stand up on appeal. I can understand why plaintiff is
upset and has sought legal recourse. But the federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction, and
the question now before me is not whether plaintiff should have been charged and prosecuted in
the first place. The question is whether plaintiff is entitled to recover money damages in a federal
court against those he asserts are responsible. I conclude in light of well-established law that the
answer to that question is no.

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For the reasons stated above, the New Canaan defendants’ motion to dismiss (Doc. #106)
and the State of Connecticut’s motion to dismiss (Doc. #119) are GRANTED. The complaint is
dismissed with prejudice in its entirety. The Clerk of Court shall enter judgment for defendants
State of Connecticut, Town of New Canaan, Kevin Casey, James Cole, William Ferri, Joseph
Farenga, Louis Gannon, Christian Gray, Daniel Gulino, Leon Krolikowski, Edward Nadriczny,
Thomas Swindon, and Jason Kim, and close this case.
It is so ordered.
Dated at New Haven this 28th day of March 2017.
/s/ Jeffrey Alker Meyer
Jeffrey Alker Meyer
United States District Judge

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