Browne v. Rivera

Background

Kendall Browne sued P.O. S. Rivera, officially and individually, and the City of Middletown based on an August 30, 2023 traffic stop. Rivera stated that he stopped the vehicle Browne was driving because the driver failed to signal and because the vehicle’s windows were completely nontransparent, allegedly violating New York Vehicle and Traffic Law §§ 1163B and 375.12-a(b)(1)-(3). Rivera issued Browne four appearance tickets. Browne later pleaded guilty to a separate traffic charge for parking on pavement; the court stated that this adjudication covered, among other things, all charges related to the four tickets.

Browne proceeded without a lawyer. He did not submit a response to Defendants’ required factual statement, but the court reviewed the record rather than treating every asserted fact as automatically admitted.

Claims and analysis

Vagueness challenge. Browne argued that Vehicle and Traffic Law § 375.12-a(a) was unconstitutionally vague because it used the phrase “other nontransparent material.” The court granted summary judgment for Defendants on this claim. It explained that Browne was not cited under subsection (a); his tinted-window tickets cited subsections (b)(1), (b)(2), and (b)(3), which address windows with less than 70 percent light transmittance. The court also held that, even if the challenged language were considered, it gave ordinary drivers enough notice of the prohibited conduct and did not improperly authorize arbitrary enforcement.

Equal-protection claim. Browne alleged that Rivera intentionally targeted him because he is a person of color, violating the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal-protection guarantee. The court granted summary judgment for Defendants. It found no evidence that Rivera knew Browne’s race before beginning the stop, because Rivera stated that he could not see the driver’s race until after the stop began. The court also found that Browne’s assertions about Rivera’s treatment of Caucasian motorists were unsupported. Rivera’s estimates indicated that he stopped drivers of different races and regularly issued tickets, while the available stop log generally did not identify drivers’ race because New York did not require officers to record it.

Substantive-due-process and seizure claim. Browne also described Rivera’s application of the window-tint law as a substantive-due-process violation. The court treated the possible claim as a Fourth Amendment claim against an unreasonable seizure because the Fourth Amendment specifically addresses traffic stops. The court granted summary judgment for Defendants, finding that Rivera had at least reasonable suspicion to stop the vehicle based on the alleged signaling and window-tint violations. The court also noted that Browne did not dispute that the vehicle’s windshield, side windows, and rear side windows were impermissibly tinted.

Municipal-liability claim. Browne claimed that the City of Middletown failed to adequately screen, train, supervise, and monitor Rivera concerning nondiscriminatory enforcement of the window-tint law. The court granted summary judgment for the City. Under the rule for municipal liability under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a plaintiff must connect the constitutional injury to an official city policy or custom. Because the court found that Browne had not shown a constitutional deprivation, it also found that the municipal-liability claim could not proceed.

Disposition

Judge Andrew E. Krause granted Defendants’ motion for summary judgment. The court directed the Clerk to terminate pending motions, enter judgment in favor of Defendants, and close the case. The court did not reach Defendants’ argument concerning the rule from Heck v. Humphrey, and it also did not decide qualified immunity or whether Browne’s request for injunctive relief was proper or moot. The opinion further states that the court did not consider Browne to have pleaded false-arrest or malicious-prosecution claims, and that Browne withdrew the state-law claims included in the original complaint.