Chase v. Nodine's Smokehouse, Inc. et al
Filing
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ORDER regarding the Court's in camera document review. Signed by Judge Vanessa L. Bryant on 4/3/2019. (Bryan, Kelsey)
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF CONNECTICUT
NICOLE CHASE,
Plaintiff,
v.
NODINE’S SMOKEHOUSE, INC.,
CALVIN NODINE, TOWN OF
CANTON, JOHN COLANGELO,
ADAM GOMPPER, MARK J.
PENNEY, CHRISTOPHER ARCIERO,
Defendants.
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No. 3:18-CV-00683 (VLB)
April 3, 2019
RULING ON THE COURT’S IN CAMERA DOCUMENT REVIEW
On March 6, 2019, the Court held a discovery status teleconference with the
parties in this case. During the teleconference, Plaintiff and the Town Defendants
argued for and against, respectively, production of all complaints, incident reports,
and the like, relating to Defendants Colangelo and Gompper. Thereafter, the Court
ordered the Town Defendants to review and produce said documents. To the
extent Defendants had legitimate legally supported objections to production of
certain complaints and/or incident reports, the Court allowed Defendants to submit
those complaints and reports to the Court for in camera review. Accordingly, the
Town Defendants submitted three limited sets of documents to the Court for in
camera review on March 18, 2019, along with a letter brief arguing against
production. For the reasons discussed below, the Court orders production of only
one set of documents, the Investigative Report regarding Defendant Gompper.
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Discussion
Parties may obtain discovery regarding any non-privileged matter that is
relevant to any party’s claims or defenses and proportional to the needs of the
case. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). The information sought need not be admissible at
trial to be discoverable. Id.
Here, Plaintiff sought all disciplinary records and complaints against
Defendants Colangelo and Gompper.
“Plaintiffs [in civil rights cases] are
presumptively entitled to discovery of documents on prior complaints and police
histories of individual defendants because it could yield relevant information.”
Gibbs v. City of New York, 243 F.R.D. 96, 96 (S.D.N.Y. 2007) (citing King v. Conde,
121 F.R.D. 180, 198 (E.D.N.Y. 1988); Hurley v. Keenan, 1984 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16888,
at *8 (S.D.N.Y. 1984)). However, plaintiffs are not entitled to disciplinary records
and complaints unrelated to the issues in the pending case or the truthfulness of
potential witnesses, as such complaints have no relevance to the claims or
defenses. See Gross v. Lunduski, 304 F.R.D. 136, 144 (W.D.N.Y. 2014) (requiring
production of “complaints of similar misconduct”); Sowell v. Chappius, No. 07-cv6355, 2010 WL 1404004, at *1 (W.D.N.Y. Mar. 31, 2010) (holding that prior complaints
are discoverable “so long as the complaints are similar to the constitutional
violations alleged in the complaint or are relevant to the defendant’s truth or
veracity”); Henry v. Hess, No. 11 Civ. 2707, 2012 WL 4856486, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. Oct.
12, 2012) (finding “complaints of misconduct and disciplinary records against a
defendant police officer . . . that are similar to the allegations in the civil action
against him would be subject to discovery”).
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Two of the sets of documents submitted by the Town Defendants for in
camera review concern Defendant Colangelo’s fitness for duty, the particulars of
which are not relevant to the claims or defenses in this case or Defendant
Colangelo’s credibility. Accordingly, Plaintiff is not entitled to these documents.
A third set of documents submitted constitute an investigative report
concerning Defendant Gompper from 2018. In May 2018, a Canton woman emailed
a complaint to the Canton Police Department requesting that Defendant Gompper
not respond to any future calls from her home. The email alleged that Defendant
Gompper previously had a relationship with the woman’s daughter, noting that she
had seen photographs of Defendant Gompper in his police vehicle which he sent
the daughter. After the relationship ended, Defendant Gompper responded to a
domestic disturbance report at the home. His presence reportedly greatly upset
the daughter. This email precipitated an investigation into potential inappropriate
conduct by Defendant Gompper.
The investigation included a number of
interviews and documented relationships between Defendant Gompper and
several women, including another city employee, and involving communication
and conduct while Defendant Gompper was on duty. Defendant Gompper resigned
in October 2018, prior to the conclusion of the investigation.
The Court finds that these documents are relevant to the claims and
defenses in this case—Plaintiff’s equal protection and malicious prosecution
claims in particular. Plaintiff alleges that Defendants Colangelo and Gompper
denied her police protective services in choosing not to seriously consider and
investigate her sexual assault claim because of their animus towards women who
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assert such complaints. The investigative report at issue is probative of Defendant
Gompper’s motivations in handling Plaintiff’s complaint. It is most probative of
Defendant Gompper’s credibility and propensity for untruthfulness. Defendant
Gompper represented to the community and the Police Department that he was
executing his responsibilities while on duty, while at the same time engaging in
inappropriate communications and conduct—including taking and sending
photographs of himself in uniform and in his police vehicle, abusing his position
of trust and misuse of office. In addition to his misappropriation of public funds,
abuse of office and betrayal of public trust, he was unfaithful to his spouse.
Infidelity usually involves breaking one’s marriage vows and dishonesty with one’s
partner (and others), thereby implicating one’s character for truthfulness. The
Court recognizes that individuals have a privacy interest in their personnel files but
concludes that the investigative file is relevant to the case and therefore must be
produced.
Defendant suggests that the report should not be produced because he
resigned before the investigation was complete and therefore did not have an
opportunity to rebut or grieve the findings or advocate that it be removed from his
file. The report includes multiple transcripts of interviews with Defendant Gompper
discussing the alleged misconduct.
In these interviews, Defendant Gompper
admitted to much of the conduct. He then proceeded to voluntarily resign from the
police force. This does not render the investigative report undiscoverable.
Privacy concerns will be addressed via redaction and limitation on
disclosure of the documents. The report must be designated for “Attorneys’ Eyes
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Only” and may not be shown to non-counsel. Additionally, the Court will hold a
teleconference to provide clear instructions regarding allowable use of the
information in the report to address third-party privacy concerns.
Finally, Defendant argues that the documentation does not meet the
proportionality standard of Rule 26(b)(1).
This argument is unfounded.
The
proportionality limitation in Rule 26 concerns volume as well as the effort involved
in complying with a discovery request. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1), advisory
committee notes. Production of the investigative report does not implicate either
of these concerns. Defendants have already collected the investigative report,
which is quite short in length, and production will involve minimal effort on the part
of Defendant’s counsel.
Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, the Court orders Defendants to produce the 2018
investigative report concerning Defendant Gompper with the “Attorneys’ Eyes
Only” designation within 7 days of this decision. The Court will enter a calendar
notice on the docket with the date and time of a teleconference to discuss the
contours of permissible use of the information in the report.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
________/s/______________
Hon. Vanessa L. Bryant
United States District Judge
Dated at Hartford, Connecticut: April 3, 2019
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