ZAMPETIS v. CITY OF ATLANTIC CITY et al
Filing
97
OPINION. Signed by Judge Noel L. Hillman on 11/2/2018. (tf, )
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY
NICHOLAS J. ZAMPETIS,
Plaintiffs,
1:15-cv-01231-NLH-AMD
v.
CITY OF ATLANTIC CITY, et al.,
OPINION
Defendants.
APPEARANCES:
DAVID R. CASTELLANI
450 Tilton Road, Suite 245
Northfield, NJ 08225
Attorney for Plaintiff Nicholas J. Zampetis
TODD J. GELFAND
A. MICHAEL BARKER
VANESSA ELAINE JAMES
Barker, Gelfand & James
210 New Road
Linwood, NJ 08221
Attorneys for Defendant City of Atlantic City
MICHAEL E. RILEY
TRACY RILEY
Law Offices of Riley & Riley
100 High Street
Mt. Holly, NJ 08060
Attorneys for Defendants Ivan Lopez, Anthony Alosi,
Jr., and Mike Auble
HILLMAN, District Judge
Plaintiff, Nicholas J. Zampetis, filed a complaint against
Defendants, the City of Atlantic City, Atlantic City Police
Officers Ivan Lopez, Anthony Alosi, Jr., Mike Auble, and several
John Doe police officers claiming violation of his rights under
42 U.S.C. § 1983 and New Jersey law.
Plaintiff claims that at
about 2:00 to 3:00 a.m. on February 17, 2013 (early Sunday
morning), while celebrating a friend’s birthday at the Tropicana
Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, Defendants Lopez, Alosi,
Auble and John Doe officers arrested him without probable cause.
He claims that these Defendants also beat him and falsely
charged him with criminal charges to cover up their wrongdoing.
Plaintiff contends that the individual police officers
violated his constitutional rights to freedom from unlawful
arrest, false imprisonment, deprivation of liberty, and
excessive force.
Plaintiff also claims that Atlantic City had
knowledge of these officers’ propensity to violate a person’s
constitutional rights, as well as had policies and customs that
fostered and condoned such actions by the department’s police
officers, and are therefore liable for Plaintiff’s injuries
under Monell.
See Monell v. Dept. of Social Services of City of
New York, 436 U.S. 658, 694 (1978) (“[A] local government may
not be sued under § 1983 for an injury inflicted solely by its
employees or agents.
Instead, it is when execution of a
government’s policy or custom, whether made by its lawmakers or
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by those whose edicts or acts may fairly be said to represent
official policy, inflicts the injury that the government as an
entity is responsible under § 1983.”).
Currently before the Court are two motions filed by
Atlantic City, both of which concern its objections to
Plaintiff’s discovery requests. 1
Atlantic City argues that
discovery with regard to Internal Affairs files of non-defendant
officers relating to Plaintiff’s Monell claim should be held in
abeyance until after a trial on Plaintiff’s excessive force
claims against the individual officers.
Atlantic City argues
that Plaintiff’s Monell claims against Atlantic City would only
be necessary if Plaintiff proves that the individual police
officers violated his constitutional rights, and the discovery
of sensitive internal affairs information should not otherwise
be disclosed.
Alternatively, in the event the Court does not grant the
bifurcation of discovery, Atlantic City argues that the Internal
Affairs files Plaintiff requested, and the magistrate judge
ordered to be produced, should not be disseminated to Plaintiff
because the request is overbroad and concerns complaints of
1
Atlantic City filed a motion to bifurcate discovery and an
appeal of the magistrate judge’s ruling on Plaintiff’s discovery
requests. (Docket No. 81, 82.)
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excessive force rather than substantiated findings of excessive
force, the latter of which is required to sustain a viable
Monell claim.
The Court will decline to order the bifurcation of
discovery, and will uphold the magistrate judge’s discovery
order.
With regard to severing the issue of a police officer’s
individual liability for his excessive force from the issue of
whether a municipality is liable for fostering a custom or
policy of condoning excessive force by its police officers, this
Court has done so in other cases, but in an entirely different
procedural posture.
In those cases, after denying summary
judgment on the plaintiff’s excessive force claims because of
the existence of material disputed facts about what occurred
during the subject incident, the Court ordered the trial to be
conducted in two phases.
In the first phase, a jury would resolve the historical
facts by answering special interrogatories so that the Court
could determine whether the officer was entitled to qualified
immunity.
Depending on the outcome of phase one, the Court
would then continue to phase two with the same jury to consider
the municipality’s liability, if necessary.
The Court has found
that bifurcation of the two claims was the proper course because
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it would ultimately conserve judicial resources and allow the
Court a fuller and clearer assessment of the plaintiff’s Monell
claims after the jury resolved outstanding factual disputes
involving the individual defendant officer’s alleged wrongdoing.
See Alvarez v. City of Atlantic City, et al., 1:15-cv-02061-NLHJS, Docket No. 79 (discussing Harrison v. City of Atlantic City,
et al., 1:14-cv-06292-NLH-AMD; Norman v. Haddon Township, et
al., 1:14-cv-06034-NLH-JS); see also Taylor v. Ambrifi, et al.,
1:15-cv-3280-NLH-KMW, Docket No. 269.
Bifurcation of discovery at the initial stage of a
plaintiff’s excessive force and municipal liability case does
not present the same issue or have the same benefits, however,
as bifurcation at the post-summary judgment trial stage.
Indeed
quite the opposite, as proceeding to a jury verdict on
Plaintiff’s claims against the individual officers and then
having to restart the entire discovery process anew for his
municipal liability claims would not be convenient, avoid
prejudice, or expedite and economize the case, all of which are
the considerations for ordering separate trials. 2
That
2
A motion for separate trials is governed by Fed. R. Civ. P. 42(b),
which provides:
For convenience, to avoid prejudice, or to expedite and
economize, the court may order a separate trial of one or
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observation is particularly compelling in this case, because the
discovery Plaintiff seeks has already been prepared by Atlantic
City for production in several other cases, and in fact has
already been produced to Plaintiff in this case. 3
Moreover,
discovery on Monell claims may also inform the Court’s judgment
as to whether bifurcation at trial is warranted and even if
bifurcation at trial is ordered what the scope of permissible
evidence might be in either trial phase.
The more information
available to the parties – and the Court – the better the Court
will be able to exercise its Rule 42(b) discretion.
In sum, although this Court has found in several other
cases that a bifurcated trial on the issues of individual and
municipal liability was the best course for an expeditious and
more separate issues, claims, crossclaims, counterclaims,
or third-party claims. When ordering a separate trial, the
court must preserve any federal right to a jury trial.
Fed. R. Civ. P. 42(b).
3
Even though Atlantic City already produced the requested IA
documents to Plaintiff, the Court does not construe the issue to
be moot, as it appears that Atlantic City’s position is that
Plaintiff is not entitled to the IA documents, either in the
first phase of a bifurcated discovery process or at all,
regardless of how discovery is conducted. It appears that if
Atlantic City had prevailed on its motions, the Court would have
ordered Plaintiff to return the IA files to Atlantic City.
Because Atlantic City’s motions are unavailing, Plaintiff may
retain the IA files and use them appropriately.
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non-prejudicial resolution, the Court is not persuaded that
bifurcation of discovery yields the same positive result.
Consequently, the Court will deny Atlantic City’s motion to
bifurcate discovery.
The Court will also deny Atlantic City’s appeal of the
magistrate judge’s discovery order relating to the IA files.
Federal Civil Procedure Rule 26 is to be construed liberally in
favor of disclosure, as relevance is a broader inquiry at the
discovery stage than at the trial stage.
Government Employees
Insurance Co. v. Stefan Trnovski, M.D., 2018 WL 5281424, at *2
(D.N.J. Oct. 23, 2018) (citing Tele–Radio Sys. Ltd. v. De Forest
Elecs., Inc., 92 F.R.D. 371, 375 (D.N.J. 1981)).
A court may
order discovery of any matter relevant to the subject matter
involved in the action, and such relevant information does not
need to be admissible at trial in order to grant disclosure.
Id. (citation omitted).
The scope of discovery under the
Federal Rules is “unquestionably broad,” although discovery
requests may be curtailed to protect a person from whom
discovery is sought from “annoyance, embarrassment, oppression,
or undue burden or expense.”
Id. (citing Bayer AG v. Betachem,
Inc., 173 F.3d 188, 191 (3d Cir. 1999); Fed. R. Civ. P.
26(c)(1)).
“[D]istrict courts have broad discretion to manage
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discovery,” and a discovery ruling will not be overturned
“absent a showing of actual and substantial prejudice.”
Greene
v. Horry County, 650 F. App’x 98, 99–100 (3d Cir. 2016) (citing
Sempier v. Johnson & Higgins, 45 F.3d 724, 734 (3d Cir. 1995)).
Relatedly, a district court judge will only reverse a magistrate
judge’s opinion on pretrial matters if it is “clearly erroneous
or contrary to law.”
28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(A); Fed. R. Civ. P.
72(a); L. Civ. R. 72. 1(c)(1)(A).
Atlantic City’s arguments for why the requested IA files
are not relevant to Plaintiff’s claims and cannot serve a basis
for Plaintiff’s expert’s opinions – e.g., that complaints of
excessive force, rather than substantiated findings of excessive
force, cannot support a Monell claim against a municipality –
are best advanced in the context of summary judgment and pretrial motions.
Atlantic City has not shown that the production
of the IA files, which have already been produced in other cases
and provided to Plaintiff in this case, will cause it
substantial prejudice, annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or
undue burden or expense. 4
Whether the IA files are relevant to
4
The IA files are subject to the parties’ consent discovery
confidentiality order. (Docket No. 51.)
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Plaintiff’s Monell claim or are properly relied upon by
Plaintiff’s expert is an issue for another day.
Consequently, Atlantic City’s motions to bifurcate
discovery and reverse the magistrate judge’s order must be
denied.
An appropriate Order will be entered.
Date: November 2, 2018
At Camden, New Jersey
s/ Noel L. Hillman
NOEL L. HILLMAN, U.S.D.J.
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