Owens v. Perez et al
Filing
147
ORDER granting 134 Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Jurisdiction. Please see attached Ruling and Order for details. Signed by Judge Robert N. Chatigny on March 31, 2022. (Hann, L.)
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF CONNECTICUT
MARVIN E. OWENS,
Plaintiff,
v.
CAPTAIN FITZGERALD,
Defendant.
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CASE NO. 3:17-cv-657(RNC)
RULING AND ORDER
As a result of prior rulings, two claims remain in this
case brought by Marvin E. Owens, pro se (“plaintiff”), against
Bridgeport Police Captain Brian Fitzgerald (“defendant”): a
federal claim for unlawful seizure of a motorcycle; and a state
claim for defamation.
Captain Fitzgerald has moved to dismiss
the defamation claim, without prejudice to refiling in state
court, principally on the ground that it is not sufficiently
related to the unlawful seizure claim to support the exercise of
supplemental jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 1367.
I agree that
supplemental jurisdiction does not extend to the defamation
claim and therefore grant the motion to dismiss that claim
without prejudice. 1
Defendant Fitzgerald also contends that even if supplemental
jurisdiction were available with regard to the defamation claim,
dismissal would be warranted because his defenses to the claim
raise complex issues of Connecticut defamation law that should
be left to the Connecticut courts. Because I conclude that
jurisdiction is lacking, I do not reach this alternative ground
for dismissal.
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I.
The pro se complaint alleges the following.
On August 10,
2016, while serving plaintiff with a domestic violence warrant,
defendant seized a motorcycle belonging to plaintiff and his
son.
Compl. pp. 3, 10.
At some point that day, an unidentified
caller dialed 911, id. p. 11, and reported that a person was
entering or had entered the Bridgeport city annex building with
an assault rifle.
ECF No. 138 (“Opp.”) pp. 2-3.
Later that
day, defendant told a reporter either that plaintiff “was the
suspect into [the] 911 threat call,” see Compl. p. 4, or was in
fact the caller.
Opp. p. 2.
The next day, defendant told the
press that plaintiff was the 911 caller.
Id. p. 10. 2
The defendant’s answer denies that the motorcycle was
wrongfully seized and raises the affirmative defense that the
motorcycle was removed from a public street for safekeeping
because plaintiff lacked proof of ownership, registration and
insurance.
ECF No. 132 p. 2-3.
The answer also denies that
Plaintiff’s brief in opposition to the motion to dismiss
provides a somewhat different account. It suggests that on
August 10, defendant “formed a city search for Plaintiff” in
response to the 911 call, found plaintiff at his brother’s home,
and seized the motorcycle while “taking plaintiff into custody
for [the] threat call.” Id. Only while plaintiff was in
custody and being interrogated about the 911 call did defendant
serve plaintiff with the domestic violence warrant. Id. p. 5.
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plaintiff was defamed and raises affirmative defenses of truth
and qualified privilege.
Id. pp. 1, 3.
II.
The supplemental jurisdiction statute provides that a
federal court presented with both federal and state claims may
hear the state claim if it is so related to the federal claim as
to “form part of the same case or controversy under Article III
of the United States Constitution.”
28 U.S.C. § 1367(a).
Claims form part of the same case for purposes of this statute
if they “derive from a common nucleus of operative fact,” the
test adopted by the Supreme Court in United Mine Workers v.
Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 725 (1966), to place a limit on state law
claims that a plaintiff may join with a federal law claim.
See
Jones v. Ford Motor Credit Co., 358 F.3d 205, 213 and n. 7 (2d
Cir. 2004).
State and federal claims arise out of a common
nucleus of operative fact when, as a practical matter, they are
so related that the plaintiff “would ordinarily be expected to
try them all in one judicial proceeding.”
Montefiore Med. Ctr.
v. Teamsters Loc. 272, 642 F.3d 321, 332 (2d Cir. 2011)(quoting
Gibbs, 383 U.S. at 725).
Applying this test, the Second Circuit
has upheld the exercise of jurisdiction over state law claims
when “the facts underlying the federal and state claims
substantially overlapped,” or “the federal claim necessarily
brought the facts underlying the state claim before the court.”
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Lyndonville Sav. Bank & Trust Co. v. Lussier, 211 F.3d 697, 704
(2d Cir. 2000).
In contrast, it has found jurisdiction lacking
when the claims “rested on essentially unrelated facts.”
Id.
Liberally construing plaintiff’s pro se submissions, they
fall short of demonstrating that the defamation claim and the
claim based on the seizure of the motorcycle share a common
nucleus of operative fact.
The facts underlying the claim for
wrongful seizure of the motorcycle do not substantially overlap
with the facts underlying the claim for defamation.
That the
motorcycle was seized by defendant the same day he allegedly
defamed plaintiff is insufficient.
See Serrano-Moran v. Grau-
Gaztambide, 195 F.3d 68, 70 (1st Cir. 1999) (affirming district
court’s finding that it lacked supplemental jurisdiction,
because “[t]he facts and witnesses as to the two sets of claims
are essentially different . . . nor does th[is] assessment
change [depending on] whether the temporal proximity is little
or great”); cf. United States v. Clark, No. 08 C 4158, 2010 WL
476637, at *2 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 3, 2010) (dictum) (“[T]he close
temporal relationship between [two] [c]ounts . . . [is] only [a]
rough prox[y] for the required operative commonality” to support
supplemental jurisdiction).
Even if, as only plaintiff’s
opposition brief suggests, defendant was situated to seize the
motorcycle because he was seeking to take plaintiff into custody
for the 911 call, the defamation claim remains insufficiently
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related to the seizure claim to support supplemental
jurisdiction.
The most that can be said is that one of the
“officers” who joined defendant in searching for plaintiff, Opp.
pp. 4-5, might turn out to be a witness both to the motorcycle’s
seizure and to the circumstances surrounding whatever statements
defendant made about plaintiff and the 911 call.
This
speculative possibility does not support a finding that the
seizure and defamation claims are sufficiently related in terms
of facts, evidence, and witnesses that plaintiff ordinarily
would be expected to try them in one proceeding.
See Joyner v.
Alston & Bird LLP, No. 20 Civ. 10093(AT)(GWG), 2021 WL 2149316,
at *2 (S.D.N.Y. May 27, 2021), report and recommendation
adopted, No. 20 Civ. 10093(AT)(GWG), 2021 WL 4296433 (S.D.N.Y.
Sept. 21, 2021) (“[T]he district court must take all
uncontroverted facts in the complaint (or petition) as true, and
draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the party asserting
jurisdiction.
However, jurisdiction must be shown
affirmatively, and that showing is not made by drawing from the
pleadings inferences favorable to the party asserting it.”
(citations and quotation marks omitted)); Parker Madison
Partners v. Airbnb, Inc., 283 F. Supp. 3d 174, 178 (S.D.N.Y.
2017) (same).
Accordingly, the motion to dismiss is hereby granted.
So ordered this 31st day of March 2022.
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_____________________________
Robert N. Chatigny
United States District Judge
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