Egan v. City Of Chicago et al

Filing 48

WRITTEN Opinion entered by the Honorable Robert M. Dow, Jr on 10/3/2012: For the reasons set forth below, Defendants motion in limine #8 is denied 30 . Mailed notice(tbk, )

Order Form (01/2005)

United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois
Name of Assigned Judge
or Magistrate Judge

Robert M. Dow, Jr.

CASE NUMBER

10 C 5518

CASE
TITLE

Sitting Judge if Other
than Assigned Judge

DATE

10/3/2012

Egan vs. City of Chicago, et al.

DOCKET ENTRY TEXT

For the reasons set forth below, Defendants’ motion in limine #8 is denied [30].

O[ For further details see text below.]

Docketing to mail notices.

STATEMENT
Defendants seek to exclude any evidence of Plaintiff’s call to 911 during the incident in question.
Defendants argue that the fact that Plaintiff may or may not have called 911 outside the presence of
Defendants after she took Defendant Vargas’s identification does not make it more or less probable that
Defendants had reason to believe that Plaintiff had committed a crime (and thus had probable cause to arrest
her). Plaintiff maintains that the 911 call goes to her belief that Defendant Vargas was not a police officer
and therefore was within her rights to take his identification and call 911. During the pre-trial conference
held on September 25, 2012, counsel for Plaintiff also represented to the Court – and defense counsel
concurred – that Defendant Vargas admitted in his deposition that he overhead Plaintiff on the phone with
911.
Because evidence will be presented at trial that Defendant Vargas heard Plaintiff on the phone with 911 and
did not arrest her until after she called 911, the fact that Plaintiff called 911 is relevant to (1) what Defendant
Vargas knew about Plaintiff’s conduct and (2) whether a reasonable police officer, based on what Defendant
Vargas knew at the time, would believe that a crime was being committed. See, e.g., Prieto v. Lopez, 2010
WL 2574227, at *4 n.4 (N.D. Ill. June 23, 2010) (officer could consider a 911 call in determining whether he
had probable cause to arrest a suspect). Typically, the use of a 911 call arises in cases in which an officer has
learned that a possible victim called 911 and also learned what was reported to the 911 operator. In those
instances, the fact of the call and what the caller said have been deemed relevant to whether the officer has
probable cause to arrest. Here, the facts are different, but these circumstances warrant the same result. What
the officer knew at the time that he made his arrest is relevant to the probable cause determination, and here,
Officer Vargas knew that Plaintiff had called 911. Therefore, Plaintiff can testify to the fact that she called
911 (and why) and, if necessary, also may introduce evidence that she did in fact call 911. To date, Plaintiff
has not indicated that she intends to elicit any testimony concerning the 911 operator’s responses, nor has
Plaintiff suggested any non-hearsay basis for admitting such testimony. Accordingly, based on the
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STATEMENT
information presented to the Court at this time, the permissible scope of inquiry at trial will be limited to the
fact that Plaintiff called 911, what Plaintiff said to the 911 operator, and her reasons for doing so.

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