Robinson v. City of Providence et al

Filing 66

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER granting 40 Objection to Magistrate Judge Decision to District Court ; denying 61 Motion to Dismiss. So Ordered by Chief Judge William E. Smith on 1/31/2019. (Jackson, Ryan)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND
___________________________________
)
JOSHUA ROBINSON,
)
)
C.A. No. 16-105 WES
Plaintiff,
)
)
v.
)
)
CITY OF PROVIDENCE, by and through )
its treasurer, James J. Lombardi
)
III, alias, and DAVID D. ALLEN,
)
alias, CHRISTOPHER ZIROLI, alias, )
MARK HUBBARD, alias, SEAN LAFFERTY,)
alias, MATTHEW McGLOIN, alias,
)
MATTHEW RAMPONE, JEROME LYNCH,
)
alias, CLIFFORD TORRES, alias, and )
JOSEPH DONNELLY, alias.
)
)
Defendants.
)
___________________________________)
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
WILLIAM E. SMITH, Chief Judge.
Plaintiff

Joshua

Robinson

has

filed

a

ten-count

amended

complaint asserting various claims against the City of Providence
and several of its police officers.
58.

The

complaint

charges

See generally Compl., ECF No.

illegality

on

the

part

of

these

Defendants for their respective roles in an alleged beating and
subsequent prosecution of Robinson.

Id. ¶¶ 1–2.

All that is at

issue now, though, is the City’s motion to dismiss count ten of
the complaint.

See generally Mot. to Dismiss, ECF No. 61.

motion is DENIED.

This

In count ten, Robinson maintains that the City violated 42
U.S.C. § 1983 by creating a culture supportive of police misconduct
by

routinely

failing

officers.

Compl.

contributed

to

¶¶

his

to

adequately

115–17.

This

injuries.

Id.

discipline
culture,
This

misbehaving

Robinson

culture,

says,

moreover,

according to Robinson, is the result of a civilian-complaint
procedure

that

is

ineffectual

by

design

—

intentionally

frustrating investigation of citizens’ concerns — which results in
a miniscule number of sustained complaints every year.

Id. ¶¶ 76–

85, 115–17.
Robinson has much work to do in order to get this claim to
trial.

See e.g., Hocking v. City of Roseville, No. Civ. S-06-0316

RRB EFB, 2008 WL 1808250, at *7 (E.D. Cal. Apr. 22, 2008) (granting
summary

judgment

for

municipality

on

similar

claim

where

plaintiffs “did not present any expert testimony demonstrating
that the City is responsible for creating or maintaining a policy
whereby civilian complaints are meaningless.

Nor did [p]laintiffs

present any other evidence demonstrating that the investigations
into citizen complaints against police officers in general, or
[defendant officers] in particular, were cursory, inadequate or
meaningless.”).
But at this early stage of the litigation — where the Court
takes his averments as true and makes all reasonable inferences in
his favor, Gargano v. Liberty Int’l Underwriters, Inc., 572 F.3d
2

45, 48 (1st Cir. 2009) — his claim in count ten must be said to
state a claim upon which relief may be granted.

See, e.g., Beck

v.

(3d

City

of

Pittsburgh,

89

F.3d

966,

973–76

Cir.

1996)

(reversing judgment as a matter of law where, inter alia, citizencomplaint

procedures

were

“structured

to

curtail

disciplinary

action and stifle investigations into the credibility of the City’s
police officers”); Douglas v. City of Springfield, C.A. No. 1430210-MAP, 2017 WL 123422, at *10 (D. Mass. Jan. 12, 2017) (“If a
jury concluded that Springfield’s [citizen-complaint] process was
ineffective or weak, it could further conclude that a resulting
failure to take appropriate action in response to complaints of
excessive force might lead Springfield’s officers to believe such
conduct

would

conduct,”

the

encouragement

be

tolerated.”).

First
of

such

municipal liability.”

Circuit

“Tolerance
has

conduct

and

agreed,
is

of

unconstitutional

“is

therefore

tantamount
a

basis

to
for

Foley v. City of Lowell, 948 F.2d 10, 14–

15 (1st Cir. 1991) (quoting Skibo v. City of New York, 109 F.R.D.
58, 65 (E.D.N.Y. 1985)); accord Bielevicz v. Dubinon, 915 F.2d
845, 851 (3d Cir. 1990) (“[I]t is logical to assume that continued
official

tolerance

of

repeated

misconduct

facilitates

similar

unlawful actions in the future.”).
This Court recently said as much about an identical claim in
another case.

See Howie v. City of Providence ex rel. Lombardi,

C.A. No. 17-604-JJM-LDA, 2019 WL 320497, at *3 (D.R.I. Jan. 24,
3

2019) (McConnell, J.) (denying motion for judgment on the pleadings
where

plaintiff

alleged

“that

the

City

has

cultivated

an

environment in which Providence Police officers are undeterred
from misconduct because of the City’s lack of discipline, training,
and/or oversight”).
The City’s motion to dismiss, ECF No. 61, is DENIED for the
foregoing reasons.

Also for the foregoing reasons, the Court

modifies Magistrate Judge Lincoln D. Almond’s order, ECF No. 39,
regarding the City’s discovery obligations.

Without the benefit

of Robinson’s amended complaint, Magistrate Judge Almond limited
the responses the City was required to give to two of Robinson’s
interrogatories.

Mem. & Order 4–5.

But because answers to these

interrogatories — numbers six and ten — are relevant to the
cognizable claim in count ten, the City shall now fully respond to
them.

See Groark v. Timek, 989 F. Supp. 2d 378, 394 (D.N.J. 2013)

(“[T]he requested [citizen-complaint] files are fair game for
discovery because they are directly relevant to plaintiff’s claim
that Atlantic City's [citizen-complaint] process is a sham and
that Atlantic City failed to properly train its officers.”).
IT IS SO ORDERED.

William E. Smith
Chief Judge
Date: January 31, 2019

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