CORNISH v. ATLANTIC CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT OFFICERS et al
Filing
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OPINION. Signed by Judge Renee Marie Bumb on 7/19/2011. (bdk, )
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY
HENRY L. CORNISH,
Plaintiff,
v.
ATLANTIC CITY POLICE
DEPARTMENT OFFICERS, et al.,
Defendants.
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Civil Action No. 10-6384 (RMB)
OPINION
APPEARANCES:
Plaintiff pro se
Henry L. Cornish
656508/441500B
Southern State Correctional Facility
4295 Rt. 47
Delmont, NJ 08314
BUMB, District Judge
Plaintiff, an inmate confined at Southern State Correctional
Facility in Delmont, NJ, seeks to bring this action in forma
pauperis pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging violations of his
constitutional rights.
Based on his affidavit of indigence and
the absence of three qualifying dismissals within 28 U.S.C.
§1915(g), the Court will grant Plaintiff’s application to proceed
in forma pauperis pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a) and order the
Clerk of the Court to file the Complaint.
At this time, the Court must review the Complaint to
determine whether it should be dismissed as frivolous or
malicious, for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be
granted, or because it seeks monetary relief from a defendant who
is immune from such relief.
I.
BACKGROUND
The following factual allegations are taken from Plaintiff’s
Complaint and are accepted as true for purposes of this review.
Plaintiff alleges that on or about September 24, 2006, at
the FoxManner Hotel in Atlantic City, members of the Atlantic
City Police Department conducted a search of his room without a
warrant, in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights.
Plaintiff
does not give details regarding the search but states that he was
later arrested and convicted based upon that search.
Plaintiff
states that, as a result of that conviction, he served two years
of the sentence before the conviction was overturned and he was
released.
Plaintiff asserts that since the conviction was based on a
warrantless search, he was falsely imprisoned for the two years
that he served the sentence.
Plaintiff seeks compensatory and
punitive damages.
II.
STANDARDS FOR A SUA SPONTE DISMISSAL
This Court must dismiss, at the earliest practicable time,
certain in forma pauperis and prisoner actions that are
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frivolous, malicious, fail to state a claim, or seek monetary
relief from a defendant who is immune from such relief.
See 28
U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2) (in forma pauperis actions); 28 U.S.C.
§ 1915A (actions in which prisoner seeks redress from a
governmental defendant); 42 U.S.C. § 1997e (prisoner actions
brought with respect to prison conditions).
In determining the sufficiency of a pro se complaint, the
Court must be mindful to construe it liberally in favor of the
plaintiff.
Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520-21 (1972); United
States v. Day, 969 F.2d 39, 42 (3d Cir. 1992).
The Court must
“accept as true all of the allegations in the complaint and all
reasonable inferences that can be drawn therefrom, and view them
in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.”
Morse v. Lower
Merion School Dist., 132 F.3d 902, 906 (3d Cir. 1997).
A complaint is frivolous if it “lacks an arguable basis
either in law or in fact.”
Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319,
325 (1989) (interpreting the predecessor of § 1915(e)(2), the
former § 1915(d)).
The standard for evaluating whether a
complaint is “frivolous” is an objective one.
Deutsch v. United
States, 67 F.3d 1080, 1086-87 (3d Cir. 1995).
In addition, any complaint must comply with the pleading
requirements of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
Rule 8(a)(2) requires that a complaint contain “a short and
plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled
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to relief.”
A complaint must plead facts sufficient at least to
“suggest” a basis for liability.
218, 236 n.12 (3d Cir. 2004).
Spruill v. Gillis, 372 F.3d
“Specific facts are not necessary;
the statement need only ‘give the defendant fair notice of what
the ... claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.’” Erickson
v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 93 (2007) (citations omitted).
While a complaint ... does not need detailed factual
allegations, a plaintiff’s obligation to provide the
“grounds” of his “entitle[ment] to relief” requires
more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic
recitation of the elements of a cause of action will
not do, see Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 286, 106
S.Ct. 2932, 92 L.Ed.2d 209 (1986) (on a motion to
dismiss, courts “are not bound to accept as true a
legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation”).
Factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to
relief above the speculative level ... .
Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007)
(citations omitted).
The Supreme Court has demonstrated the application of these
general standards to a Sherman Act conspiracy claim.
In applying these general standards to a § 1
[conspiracy] claim, we hold that stating such a claim
requires a complaint with enough factual matter (taken
as true) to suggest that an agreement was made. Asking
for plausible grounds to infer an agreement does not
impose a probability requirement at the pleading stage;
it simply calls for enough fact to raise a reasonable
expectation that discovery will reveal evidence of
illegal agreement. And, of course, a well-pleaded
complaint may proceed even if it strikes a savvy judge
that actual proof of those facts is improbable, and
“that a recovery is very remote and unlikely.” ... It
makes sense to say, therefore, that an allegation of
parallel conduct and a bare assertion of conspiracy
will not suffice. Without more, parallel conduct does
not suggest conspiracy, and a conclusory allegation of
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agreement at some unidentified point does not supply
facts adequate to show illegality. Hence, when
allegations of parallel conduct are set out in order to
make a § 1 claim, they must be placed in a context that
raises a suggestion of a preceding agreement, not
merely parallel conduct that could just as well be
independent action.
The need at the pleading stage for allegations
plausibly suggesting (not merely consistent with)
agreement reflects the threshold requirement of Rule
8(a)(2) that the “plain statement” possess enough heft
to “sho[w] that the pleader is entitled to relief.” A
statement of parallel conduct, even conduct consciously
undertaken, needs some setting suggesting the agreement
necessary to make out a § 1 claim; without that further
circumstance pointing toward a meeting of the minds, an
account of a defendant’s commercial efforts stays in
neutral territory. ...
Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556-57 (citations and footnotes omitted).
The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has held, in the
context of a § 1983 civil rights action, that the Twombly
pleading standard applies outside the § 1 antitrust context in
which it was decided.
See Phillips v. County of Allegheny, 515
F.3d 224, 234 (3d Cir. 2008) (“we decline at this point to read
Twombly so narrowly as to limit its holding on plausibility to
the antitrust context”).
Context matters in notice pleading. Fair notice under
Rule 8(a)(2) depends on the type of case -- some
complaints will require at least some factual
allegations to make out a “showing that the pleader is
entitled to relief, in order to give the defendant fair
notice of what the ... claim is and the grounds upon
which it rests.” Indeed, taking Twombly and the
Court’s contemporaneous opinion in Erickson v. Pardus,
127 S.Ct. 2197 (2007), together, we understand the
Court to instruct that a situation may arise where, at
some point, the factual detail in a complaint is so
undeveloped that it does not provide a defendant the
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type of notice of claim which is contemplated by
Rule 8. Put another way, in light of Twombly, Rule
8(a)(2) requires a “showing” rather than a blanket
assertion of an entitlement to relief. We caution that
without some factual allegation in the complaint, a
claimant cannot satisfy the requirement that he or she
provide not only “fair notice,” but also the “grounds”
on which the claim rests.
Phillips, 515 F.3d at 232 (citations omitted).
More recently, the Supreme Court has emphasized that, when
assessing the sufficiency of any civil complaint, a court must
distinguish factual contentions -- which allege behavior on the
part of the defendant that, if true, would satisfy one or more
elements of the claim asserted -- and “[t]hreadbare recitals of
the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory
statements.”
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949 (2009).
Although the Court must assume the veracity of the facts asserted
in the complaint, it is “not bound to accept as true a legal
conclusion couched as a factual allegation.”
Id. at 1950.
Thus,
“a court considering a motion to dismiss can choose to begin by
identifying pleadings that, because they are no more than
conclusions, are not entitled to the assumption of truth.”
Id.
Therefore, after Iqbal, when presented with a
motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim,
district courts should conduct a two-part analysis.
First, the factual and legal elements of a claim should
be separated. The District Court must accept all of
the complaint's well-pleaded facts as true, but may
disregard any legal conclusions. Second, a District
Court must then determine whether the facts alleged in
the complaint are sufficient to show that the plaintiff
has a “plausible claim for relief.” In other words, a
complaint must do more than allege the plaintiff's
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entitlement to relief. A complaint has to “show” such
an entitlement with its facts. See Phillips, 515 F.3d
at 234-35. As the Supreme Court instructed in Iqbal,
“[w]here the well-pleaded facts do not permit the court
to infer more than the mere possibility of misconduct,
the complaint has alleged-but it has not
‘show[n]’-‘that the pleader is entitled to relief.’”
This “plausibility” determination will be “a
context-specific task that requires the reviewing court
to draw on its judicial experience and common sense.”
Fowler v. UPMC Shadyside, 578 F.3d 203, 210-11 (3d Cir. 2009)
(citations omitted).
III.
SECTION 1983 ACTIONS
A plaintiff may have a cause of action under 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983 for certain violations of his constitutional rights.
Section 1983 provides in relevant part:
Every person who, under color of any statute,
ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State
or Territory ... subjects, or causes to be subjected,
any citizen of the United States or other person within
the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any
rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the
Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party
injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other
proper proceeding for redress ... .
Thus, to state a claim for relief under § 1983, a plaintiff must
allege, first, the violation of a right secured by the
Constitution or laws of the United States and, second, that the
alleged deprivation was committed or caused by a person acting
under color of state law.
West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42, 48
(1988); Piecknick v. Pennsylvania, 36 F.3d 1250, 1255-56 (3d Cir.
1994).
IV.
ANALYSIS
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Plaintiff claims that on or about September 24, 2006, police
officer and detectives of the Atlantic City Police Department
entered his room at the FoxManner Hotel and conducted a search
without a warrant, after which he was falsely arrested,
convicted, and then falsely imprisoned for two years.
must be dismissed as untimely.
This claim
See Nicholas v. Heffner, 2007 WL
933298, *2 (3d Cir. 2007) (unpubl.) (“Where the statute of
limitations defense is obvious from the face of the complaint and
no development of the factual record is required to determine
whether dismissal is appropriate, sua sponte dismissal under 28
U.S.C. § 1915 is permissible.”).
It is well established in the Third Circuit that an arrest
without probable cause is a Fourth Amendment violation actionable
under § 1983.
See Walmsley v. Philadelphia, 872 F.2d 546 (3d
Cir. 1989)(citing cases); see also, Albright v. Oliver, 510 U.S.
266, 274 (1994)(a section 1983 claim for false arrest may be
based upon an individual’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from
unreasonable seizures).
Moreover “where the police lack probable
cause to make an arrest, the arrestee has a claim under § 1983
for false imprisonment based on a detention pursuant to that
arrest.”
Groman v. Manalapan, 47 F.3d 628, 636 (3d Cir. 1995);
Palma v. Atlantic County, 53 F. Supp. 2d 743, 755 (D.N.J.
1999)(citing Groman).
The U.S. Supreme Court noted that, “False
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arrest and false imprisonment overlap; the former is a species of
the latter.”
Wallace v. Kato, 127 S.Ct. 1091, 1095 (2007).
An arrestee could file suit as soon as the allegedly
wrongful arrest occurs; the limitations period begins to run,
however, only when the allegedly false imprisonment ends.
Wallace, 127 S.Ct. at 1095-96.
Reflective of the fact that false imprisonment
consists of detention without legal process, a false
imprisonment ends once the victim becomes held pursuant
to such process - when, for example, he is bound over
by a magistrate or arraigned on charges. Thereafter,
unlawful detention forms part of the damages for the
“entirely distinct” tort of malicious prosecution,
which remedies detention accompanied, not by absence of
legal process, but by wrongful institution of legal
process. “If there is a false arrest claim, damages
for that claim cover the time of detention up until
issuance of process or arraignment, but not more. From
that point on, any damages recoverable must be based on
a malicious prosecution claim and on the wrongful use
of judicial process rather than detention itself.”
Wallace 127 S.Ct. 1096 (emphasis in original) (citations and
footnote omitted).
Similarly, any claim of constitutional
deprivation arising out of the search accrued at the time of the
search.
Civil rights claims are best characterized as personal
injury actions and are governed by the applicable state’s statute
of limitations for personal injury actions.1
1
See Wilson v.
However, “the accrual date of a § 1983 cause of action is
a question of federal law that is not resolved by reference to
state law.” Wallace v. Kato, 127 S.Ct. at 1095 (emphasis in
original).
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Garcia, 471 U.S. 261, 280 (1985).
Accordingly, New Jersey’s two-
year limitations period on personal injury actions, N.J. Stat.
Ann. § 2A:14-2, governs Plaintiff’s claims.
See Montgomery v.
DeSimone, 159 F.3d 120, 126 & n.4 (3d Cir. 1998); Cito v.
Bridgewater Township Police Dept., 892 F.2d 23, 25 (3d Cir.
1989).
Under N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2A:14-2, an action for an injury
to the person caused by a wrongful act, neglect, or default must
be commenced within two years of accrual of the cause of action.
Cito, 892 F.2d at 25; accord Brown v. Foley, 810 F.2d 55, 56 (3d
Cir. 1987).
Unless their full application would defeat the goals
of the federal statute at issue, courts should not unravel
states’ interrelated limitations provisions regarding tolling,
revival, and questions of application.
Wilson v. Garcia, 471
U.S. at 269.
New Jersey statutes set forth certain bases for “statutory
tolling.”
See, e.g., N.J.S.A. § 2A:14-21 (detailing tolling
because of minority or insanity); N.J.S.A. § 2A 14-22 (detailing
tolling because of nonresidency of persons liable).
New Jersey
law permits “equitable tolling” where “the complainant
has been induced or tricked by his adversary’s misconduct into
allowing the filing deadline to pass,” or where a plaintiff has
“in some extraordinary way” been prevented from asserting his
rights, or where a plaintiff has timely asserted his rights
mistakenly by either defective pleading or in the wrong forum.
10
See Freeman v. State, 347 N.J. Super. 11, 31 (citations omitted),
certif. denied, 172 N.J. 178 (2002).
“However, absent a showing
of intentional inducement or trickery by a defendant, the
doctrine of equitable tolling should be applied sparingly and
only in the rare situation where it is demanded by sound legal
principles as well as the interests of justice.”
Id.
When state tolling rules contradict federal law or policy,
in certain limited circumstances, federal courts can turn to
federal tolling doctrine.
(3d Cir. 2000).
See Lake v. Arnold, 232 F.3d 360, 370
Under federal law, equitable tolling is
appropriate in three general scenarios:
(1) where a defendant actively misleads a plaintiff
with respect to her cause of action; (2) where the
plaintiff has been prevented from asserting her claim
as a result of other extraordinary circumstances; or
(3) where the plaintiff asserts her claims in a timely
manner but has done so in the wrong forum.
Id. n.9.
Here, according to the allegations of his Complaint, the
limitations period began to run on Plaintiff’s claims no later
than the date of his trial.
Plaintiff states that he served a
term of imprisonment of two months as a result of that trial and
conviction.
Thus, the limitations period on Plaintiff’s claims
ran while he was confined pursuant to the later dismissed
conviction.
Plaintiff alleges no facts or extraordinary
circumstances that would permit statutory or equitable tolling
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under either New Jersey or federal law.
Thus, Plaintiff’s claims
are untimely and must be dismissed with prejudice.
V.
CONCLUSION
For the reasons set forth above, the Complaint will be
dismissed without prejudice, pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
§§ 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) and 1915A(b)(1), for failure to state a
claim.
Because it is conceivable that Plaintiff could file an
amended complaint sufficient to overcome certain deficiencies
noted herein, or because it is conceivable that the Court may
have misconstrued the claims that Plaintiff intended to include
within the complaint, Plaintiff will be granted thirty days leave
to move to reopen.
Any such motion must be accompanied by a
proposed amended complaint.
An appropriate order follows.
s/Renée Marie Bumb
Renée Marie Bumb
United States District Judge
Dated: July 19, 2011
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