Maldonado v. Town Of Greenburgh

Background

Nancy Maldonado, acting as administratrix of Jonathan Maldonado’s estate, sued the Town of Greenburgh, Police Officer Jean-Paul Lara, Lieutenant Gregory P. Attalienti, Police Officer Richard Maguire, and Detective/Paramedic Sean Freeman. The action asserts claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a federal civil-rights statute, and New York law.

In September 2024, the court granted the defendants’ motion for partial summary judgment but did not address one portion of the motion concerning the estate’s state-law allegations that the defendants failed to provide proper medical care. The court later denied the defendants’ request for reconsideration of its earlier ruling. This order addresses the previously unresolved portion of the summary-judgment motion concerning the sixth cause of action, which is styled as negligence.

The Negligence Claim

The sixth cause of action had four stated components: alleged excessive force during Jonathan Maldonado’s seizure; alleged deliberate indifference to his medical needs; alleged failure to intervene to prevent excessive force; and alleged denial of proper medical care despite an opportunity to provide it.

The court granted summary judgment against the excessive-force portion because, under New York law, a negligence claim cannot be based on the same conduct underlying an intentional excessive-force or assault claim. The court also ruled that the deliberate-indifference portion could not proceed to the extent it duplicated the conduct underlying an intentional-tort claim. Separately, the court concluded that the state-law deliberate-indifference theory was duplicative because the estate had been able to bring, and had brought, a medical-indifference claim under Section 1983.

The court denied summary judgment on the failure-to-intervene portion. Neither side expressly addressed that part of the claim, and the defendants had not clearly explained why it should be dismissed under New York law.

Medical-Malpractice Portion

The court treated the alleged denial of proper medical care as a medical-malpractice claim rather than ordinary negligence because deciding whether the care was appropriate required consideration of professional medical skill and knowledge. The opinion states that Freeman was both a police officer and a paramedic and that the parties described him as providing medical treatment, including checking Maldonado’s airway and administering Narcan.

The court rejected the defendants’ argument that medical-malpractice claims cannot be brought against police officers. That argument did not address Freeman’s status as a paramedic, and New York courts allow medical-malpractice suits against paramedics. The court also found that the defendants had not met their initial burden of showing that there was no departure from the applicable standard of care or that any departure did not cause injury. The court declined to consider the defendants’ cursory argument for discretionary immunity.

The court further ruled that New York’s Good Samaritan Law did not shield Freeman because, according to the opinion, he was not a volunteer; he was acting within the scope of his employment as a paramedic and police officer. Finally, the court denied summary judgment under the Barker-Manning rule because the parties disputed the cause of Maldonado’s death, and those factual disputes could affect whether that narrow rule applied.

Disposition

The court granted in part and denied in part the defendants’ motion for summary judgment on the sixth cause of action. The estate’s negligence claim based on failure to intervene and its medical-malpractice claim survive. Judge Kenneth M. Karas entered the order on July 28, 2025.