Catala v. Martine et al
Filing
28
MEMORANDUM (Order to follow as separate docket entry) re 8 MOTION to Dismiss filed by John/Jane # 1 - X Doe, Aaron Simon, Anthony Martine, Joe Yannuzzi, Frank Deandrea, City of Hazleton. Signed by Honorable A. Richard Caputo on 12/3/15. (jam)
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA
EDGAR ARMANDO CATALA,
Plaintiff,
v.
CIVIL ACTION NO. 3:15-CV-00772
(JUDGE CAPUTO)
ANTHONY MARTINE, et al.,
Defendants.
MEMORANDUM
Presently before the Court is a Partial Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff Edgar Armando
Catal’s Complaint (Doc. 8) filed by Officers Anthony Martine and Aaron Simon, Chief Frank
DeAndrea, Mayor Joe Yannuzzi, John/Jane Doe #1-X, and the City of Hazleton
(“Defendants”). Plaintiff’s Complaint asserts claims for unlawful seizure, excessive force,
false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, supervisory liability, failure to intervene, civil
conspiracy, municipal liability, assault and battery, equal protection under the Fourteenth
Amendment, and failure to prevent actions pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1986. Defendants move
to dismiss the conspiracy claims on the basis that they are all part of the same
governmental unit and therefore cannot conspire among themselves because they are
considered one entity. Defendants also move to dismiss the section 1986 claim as timebarred by the one-year statute of limitations. Because Plaintiff has failed to adequately
plead his conspiracy claims, these claims will be dismissed without prejudice. Plaintiff shall
have twenty-one (21) days from the date of entry of this Memorandum to file an Amended
Complaint to properly plead his conspiracy claims. Because Plaintiff’s section 1986 claim
is time-barred by the one-year statute of limitations, this claim will be dismissed with
prejudice.
I. Background
The facts as set forth in Plaintiff’s Complaint are as follows:
In the early morning hours on October 5, 2013, Plaintiff Edgar Armando Catala,
retired to his bedroom on the second floor of his family residence to sleep before going to
work later that morning. At some point between 2:30 AM and 3:30 AM, while Plaintiff was
asleep in his bed, Plaintiff’s brother, Jonathan Garay (“Garay”), entered the family residence
and was shot to death by members of the Hazleton Police Department. Plaintiff was not
awakened by the shooting of his brother.
Following the shooting, Garay’s family members were forcibly removed by law
enforcement personnel from attending to Garay while he lay dying. All other occupants of
the residence were corralled by the Hazleton Police Department and taken to the family
room, only feet from where Garay lay dying from his wounds.
While “clearing” the home immediately following the shooting, Defendant Officers
Anthony Martine and Aaron Simon entered Plaintiff’s darkened bedroom while he was
sleeping. Martine and Simon forcefully awoke Plaintiff, pulling him out of his bed and
throwing him to the floor where he was assaulted and tased repeatedly in his back and
head. Martine and Simon then handcuffed Plaintiff with his hands behind his back and
placed him in a room in close proximity to the kitchen where his brother lay dying.
Immediately following the shooting, the Garay family was then subjected to insults
from the Hazleton Police Department, while they were held captive in their living room, only
feet away from their dying family member. Prior to the shooting and after, members of the
Hazleton Police Department harassed members of the Garay family.
Following the tasing and handcuffing of Plaintiff, Defendants Martine and Simon
falsified police reports concerning the occurrence, and falsely reported and then arrested
Plaintiff for resisting arrest. Defendant Martine falsely testified at a preliminary hearing
against Plaintiff. Defendants Martine and Simon together concocted a story that when they
observed Plaintiff in his bed, they believed he was reaching for a gun. However, no weapon
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was ever found and Defendants Martine and Simon never searched for any weapon after
they tased and arrested Plaintiff.
After the incident, Defendant Martine falsely provided the concocted story in a sworn
affidavit that was filed in support of criminal charges being brought against Plaintiff. As a
result, Plaintiff was arrested, detained in a police lockup, and incarcerated in Luzerne
County Prison until he was released on bail. Defendant Martine then falsely testified under
oath to this concocted story at a preliminary hearing before a Magistrate Judge, resulting
in the criminal charges being forwarded to the Court of Common Pleas of Luzerne County.
The charges against Plaintiff were ultimately withdrawn by the Commonwealth.
On April 20, 2015, Plaintiff filed a sixteen (16) count civil rights Complaint against
Defendants. Plaintiff’s Complaint contains the following claims: (1) Count I contains a
section 1983 unlawful seizure claim against the individual Defendants; (2) Count II contains
a section 1983 excessive force claim against the individual Defendants; (3) Count III
contains a section 1983 Fourth Amendment false imprisonment claim against the individual
Defendants; (4) Count IV contains a section 1983 Fourth Amendment malicious prosecution
claim against Defendants Martine and Simon; (5) Count V contains a state-law malicious
prosecution claim against Defendants Martine and Simon; (6) Count VI contains a section
1983 supervisory liability claim against Defendants Yannuzzi, DeAndrea, and the John Doe
Defendants; (7) Count VII contains a section 1983 failure to intervene claim against the
individual Defendants; (8) Count VIII contains a section 1983 civil conspiracy claim against
the individual Defendants; (9) Count IV contains a section 1983 municipal liability claim
against the City of Hazleton; (10) Count X contains a state constitutional violation claim
against the individual Defendants; (11) Count XI contains assault and battery claims against
Defendants Martine and Simon; (12) Count XII is a civil conspiracy claim under state law
against Defendants Martine and Simon, the City of Hazleton, and the John Doe Defendants;
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(13) Count XIII is a section 1983 Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Claim against
all Defendants; (14) Count XIV is a section 1981 claim for denial of equal rights under the
law against all Defendants; (15) Count XV is a section 1985 claim for conspiracy to interfere
with civil rights against all Defendants; and (16) Count XVI is a claim under sections 1985
and 1986 for failure to prevent actions against all Defendants. Defendants have moved to
dismiss only the conspiracy claims in Counts VIII, XII, and XV and the section 1986 claim
in Count XVI.
II. Discussion
A.
Legal Standard
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) provides for the dismissal of a complaint,
in whole or in part, for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. See Fed.
R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). When considering a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the Court's role is limited to
determining if a plaintiff is entitled to offer evidence in support of his claims.
See
Semerenko v. Cendant Corp., 223 F.3d 165, 173 (3d Cir. 2000). The Court does not
consider whether a plaintiff will ultimately prevail. Id. A defendant bears the burden of
establishing that a plaintiff's complaint fails to state a claim. See Gould Elecs. v. United
States, 220 F.3d 169, 178 (3d Cir. 2000).
A pleading that states a claim for relief must contain “a short and plain statement of
the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2). The
statement required by Rule 8(a)(2) must “‘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)
(per curiam) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007)). Detailed
factual allegations are not required. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555. However, mere conclusory
statements will not do; “a complaint must do more than allege the plaintiff's entitlement to
relief.” Fowler v. UPMC Shadyside, 578 F.3d 203, 210 (3d Cir. 2009). Instead, a complaint
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must “show” this entitlement by alleging sufficient facts. Id. While legal conclusions can
provide the framework of a complaint, they must be supported by factual allegations.
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 664 (2009). As such, “[t]he touchstone of the pleading
standard is plausability.” Bistrian v. Levi, 696 F.3d 352, 365 (3d Cir. 2012).
The inquiry at the motion to dismiss stage is “normally broken into three parts: (1)
identifying the elements of the claim, (2) reviewing the complaint to strike conclusory
allegations, and then (3) looking at the well-pleaded components of the complaint and
evaluating whether all of the elements identified in part one of the inquiry are sufficiently
alleged.” Malleus v. George, 641 F.3d 560, 563 (3d Cir. 2011).
Dismissal is appropriate only if, accepting as true all the facts alleged in the
complaint, a plaintiff has not pleaded “enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible
on its face,” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570, meaning enough factual allegations “‘to raise a
reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence of’” each necessary element.
Phillips v. Cty. of Allegheny, 515 F.3d 224, 234 (3d Cir. 2008) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S.
at 556). “The plausibility standard is not akin to a ‘probability requirement,’ but it asks for
more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678.
“When there are well-pleaded factual allegations, a court should assume their veracity and
then determine whether they plausibly give rise to an entitlement to relief.” Id. at 679.
In deciding a motion to dismiss, the Court should consider the complaint, exhibits
attached to the complaint, and matters of public record. Mayer v. Belichick, 605 F.3d 223,
230 (3d Cir. 2010) (citing Pension Benefit Guar. Corp. v. White Consol. Indus., Inc., 998
F.2d 1192, 1196 (3d Cir. 1993)). The Court may also consider “undisputedly authentic”
documents when the plaintiff's claims are based on the documents and the defendant has
attached copies of the documents to the motion to dismiss. Pension Benefit Guar. Corp.,
998 F.2d at 1196. The Court need not assume that the plaintiff can prove facts that were
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not alleged in the complaint, see City of Pittsburgh v. W. Penn Power Co., 147 F.3d 256,
263 & n.13 (3d Cir. 1998), or credit a complaint's “‘bald assertions’” or “‘legal conclusions,’”
Morse v. Lower Merion Sch. Dist., 132 F.3d 902, 906 (3d Cir. 1997) (quoting In re Burlington
Coat Factory Sec. Litig., 114 F.3d 1410, 1429–30 (3d Cir. 1997)).
B.
Plaintiff’s Conspiracy Claims
Counts VIII, XII, and XV of Plaintiff’s Complaint assert that Defendants conspired
to violate Plaintiff’s civil rights in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) and 1986. In order to
survive a motion to dismiss, Plaintiff must allege: (1) a conspiracy (2) for the purpose of
depriving, either directly or indirectly, any person or class of persons of the equal
protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws; and (3) an
act in furtherance of the conspiracy (4) whereby a person is injured in his person or
property or deprived of any right or privilege of a citizen of the United States. Farber v.
City of Paterson, 440 F.3d 131, 134 (3d Cir. 2006).
To allege a civil conspiracy for purposes of section 1983, Plaintiff must aver “a
combination of two or more persons to do a criminal act, or to do an unlawful act by
unlawful means or for an unlawful purpose.” Ammlung v. City of Chester, 494 F.2d 811,
814 (3d Cir. 1974). Plaintiff must make “factual allegations of combination, agreement,
or understanding among all or between any of the defendants [or coconspirators] to plot,
plan, or conspire to carry out the alleged chain of events.” Spencer v. Steinman, 968 F.
Supp. 1011, 1020 (E.D. Pa. 1997) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). It is
not enough that the “end result of the parties’ independent conduct caused plaintiff harm
or even that the alleged perpetrators of the harm acted in conscious parallelism.” Id.
When pleading a civil rights conspiracy, the “short and plain statement” provision of Fed.
R. Civ. P. 8 is satisfied only if the defendant is provided with the degree of particularity
that animates the fair notice requirement of the Rule. See DeJohn v. Temple University,
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No. 06-778, 2006 WL 2623274, at *4 (E.D. Pa. Sept. 11, 2006) (citation omitted).
Plaintiff’s task in pleading a civil conspiracy claim is made considerably more
difficult by the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine, which holds that the employees of an
entity cannot conspire with the entity unless they are acting in a personal, as opposed
to official, capacity in the conspiracy. Id. (citing Robison v. Canterbury Vill., Inc., 848
F.2d 424, 431 (3d Cir. 1988); see also Lande v. City of Bethlehem, 457 F. App’x 188,
193 (3d Cir. 2012) (“[A] governmental entity and its agents–such as the Department and
individual officers here–cannot conspire because they are considered one and,
therefore, the ‘two or more persons’ requirement is not met.”) (citation omitted).
Acknowledging the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine, Plaintiff concedes that his
conspiracy claims in Counts VIII, XII, and XV against individual Defendants Martine,
Simon, Deandrea, Yanuzzi, and John/Jane Doe #1-X, in their official capacities, must
be dismissed. (See Doc. 16-1, at 7.) I will therefore grant Defendants’ motion to dismiss
these claims.
However, Plaintiff maintains that he has adequately alleged conspiracy claims
against Defendants in their individual, as opposed to official, capacities. Plaintiff
correctly argues that the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine does not apply where an
employee has been sued in his individual capacity because the doctrine does not
foreclose a plaintiff from establishing a conspiracy claim under section 1985 where the
officer is acting in a personal capacity. See Revak v. Lieberum, No. 08-691, 2009 WL
1099187, at *2 (W.D. Pa. 2009) (noting that the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine does
not apply where the defendants are sued in their individual capacities). Plaintiff
emphasizes his allegation that the purported conspiracy was motivated by the personal
interests of the individual defendants to hide their wrongdoing, as opposed to a desire to
perform their official duties. Plaintiff therefore maintains that the conspiracy claims
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against the individual Defendants acting in their individual capacities survive a motion to
dismiss.
Defendants argue that Plaintiff has failed to set forth any allegations to support
the conspiracy claims against Defendants in their individual capacities. Although the
pleading standard under Fed. R. Civ. P. 8 is a liberal one, “mere incantation of the words
‘conspiracy’ or ‘acted in concert’ does not talismanically satisfy the Rule’s requirements.”
Loftus v. SEPTA, 843 F. Supp. 981, 987 (E.D. Pa. 1994). In order to withstand a motion
to dismiss, a complaint alleging a civil rights conspiracy “should identify with particularity
the conduct violating plaintiffs’ rights, the time and place of these actions and the people
responsible thereof.” DeJohn v. Temple University, Civ. A. No. 06-778, 2006 WL
2623274, at *5 (E.D. Pa. Sept. 11, 2006) (dismissing conspiracy claim where the plaintiff
failed to allege facts sufficient to establish defendants acting in their individual
capacities). Specific allegations of an agreement to carry out the alleged chain of events
is essential in stating a claim for conspiracy. Spencer v. Steinman, 968 F. Supp. 1011,
1020 (E.D. Pa. 1997).
Here, Plaintiff has not made any allegations that the Defendants, in their
individual capacities, had an agreement to carry out the alleged chain of events. This
fact is highlighted in Plaintiff’s brief in opposition to Defendants’ partial motion to dismiss
where, rather than point to specific allegations in the Complaint to demonstrate
assertions of conspiracy in Defendants’ individual capacities, Plaintiff simply refers to the
case caption and the fact that the individual Defendants were sued both in their official
and individual capacities.
Despite any reference made in the caption, a close review of the Complaint itself
demonstrates that Plaintiff specifically asserted that Defendants Martin, Simon, and
John/Jane Doe #1-X were serving, at all relevant times, in their official capacity as sworn
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officers of the Hazleton Police Department. (See Doc. 1, ¶¶ 5, 6, 9 (“ . . . is an adult
individual who, at all times relevant hereto, was serving in his capacity as a sworn officer
of the Hazleton Police Department, and was entrusted with the power to enforce the
laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the City of Hazleton. Defendant . . .
was entrusted to protect the Constitutional rights of those he encountered, and at all
times relevant hereto, was acting under the authority and color of the law”). Similarly,
Plaintiff asserted that Defendants DeAndrea and Yannuzzi were “at all times relevant
hereto, [] acting within the scope of [their] duties and authority, under color or title of
state or municipal public law or ordinance.” (See Doc. 1, ¶¶ 7-8.)
This very issue was addressed in DeJohn v. Temple University, No. 06-778, 2006
WL 2623274 (E.D. Pa. Sept. 11, 2006), where the court found that the plaintiff’s attempt
to avoid the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine by claiming that the defendant was
“clothed in his official capacity, but acting as an individual” defied common sense
because the defendant could only engage in the purported act because of his official
duty. Id. at *5. In DeJohn, the Defendant professor alleged to have conspired with other
university employees was able to cut off communications with Plaintiff and modify
Plaintiff’s enrollment status only because of his official status as a professor. Id. at *5.
Therefore, even though Plaintiff alleged that “[Defendant’s] acts were motivated by
personal, rather than professional, animus, that is not sufficient to remove an act done in
[Defendant’s] official capacity from the ambit of the intracorporate-conspiracy doctrine.”
Id. Likewise, even though Plaintiff here alleges that Defendant officers were motivated
by personal, rather than professional, animus, that is not sufficient to remove their acts
done in their official capacity form the ambit of the intracorprate-conspiracy doctrine
because they were able to “unlawfully” detain and arrest Plaintiff only because of their
official capacities as police officers.
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Plaintiff’s cases also support this conclusion. See, e.g., Robison v. Canterbury
Village, Inc., 848 F.2d 424, 431 (3d Cir. 1987) (affirming dismissal of conspiracy claim
because the plaintiff “made no allegation of any conspiracy beyond that of [Defendant]
conspiring with the corporation in his corporate capacity”); Suber v. Guinta, 902 F. Supp.
2d 591, 608-09 (E.D. Pa. 2012) (granting motion to dismiss and noting that “even to the
extent that defendant Officers are sued in their individual capacities, the [Plaintiffs] have
not alleged any actions by defendant Officers, which show, or support a reasonable
inference of an agreement among defendant Officers”); Rosembert v. Borough of East
Landsdowne, 14 F. Supp. 3d 631, 647-48 (E.D. Pa. 2014) (granting motion to dismiss
conspiracy claims where allegations do not provide sufficient facts to allow the court to
plausibly determine that specific defendants formally agreed to violate Plaintiff’s
constitutional rights); Tomino v. City of Bethlehem, Civ. A. No. 08-cv-06018, 2010 WL
1348536, at *15-*18 (E.D. Pa. Mar. 31, 2010) (granting motion to dismiss conspiracy
claims because the plaintiff failed to establish the existence of a conspiracy by alleging
an agreement to commit an unlawful act). Therefore, because Plaintiff has not
sufficiently pled a claim for conspiracy against Defendants in their individual capacities,
these claims contained in Counts VIII, XII, and XV will be dismissed without prejudice.
Plaintiff shall have twenty-one (21) days from the date of entry of this Memorandum to
re-plead these claims.
C.
Plaintiff’s Section 1986 Claims
A section 1986 claim must assert that (1) a conspiracy existed under section
1985(3); (2) the defendant had the power to prevent or at least the power to aid in
preventing a section 1985 conspiracy to interfere with civil rights; (3) the defendant failed
or refused to do so; and (4) a section 1985 wrong occurred. Johnson v. Moran, No. 12313, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 148299 (W.D. Pa. Sept. 24, 2013). Section 1986 does not
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create an independent cause of action; it relies on the viability and presence of the
section 1985 violation. Defendants argue that Plaintiff’s section 1986 claim in Count XVI
should be dismissed as time-barred by the one-year statute of limitations. See 42
U.S.C. § 1986 (providing that “no action under the provisions of this section shall be
sustained which is not commenced within one year after the cause of action has
accrued”). Plaintiff concedes this point. I will therefore grant Defendants’ motion to
dismiss this claim as time-barred.
III. Conclusion
For the above stated reasons, Plaintiff’s conspiracy claims against Defendants in
their individual capacities contained in Counts VIII, XII, and XV will be dismissed without
prejudice.
Plaintiff shall have twenty-one (21) days from the date of entry of this
Memorandum to file an Amended Complaint to properly plead these claims. Plaintiff’s
conspiracy claims against Defendants in their official capacities and Plaintiff’s section 1986
claim will be dismissed with prejudiced.
An appropriate order follows.
December 3, 2015
Date
/s/ A. Richard Caputo
A. Richard Caputo
United States District Judge
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