Camacho v. City of New York
- Denise Cote
- 1:19-cv-11096
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 12
In Camacho v. City of New York, Judge Cote granted the motion to strike class allegations and denied plaintiffs’ request to amend.
The ruling affects the six named plaintiffs and the proposed class of people they sought to represent by removing the class allegations from the amended complaint. It also affects the City of New York and the correction-officer defendants, whose motion to strike was granted. The opinion does not resolve the merits of the individual claims.
What happened
In Camacho v. City of New York, six plaintiffs alleged that they were falsely arrested after bringing reading materials to Rikers Island that field tests identified as synthetic marijuana. They said the charges were later dismissed and that they were barred from visiting New York City correctional facilities for periods of time.
The plaintiffs brought the case as a proposed class action. After targeted discovery, the City argued that the proposed class was too small to meet the requirement for a class action. The plaintiffs sought permission to expand the class to include people arrested for possession of solid synthetic marijuana whose charges were dismissed.
Judge Denise Cote granted the defendants’ motion to strike the class allegations and denied the plaintiffs’ request to amend their complaint. The ruling addressed the proposed class and the requested amendment, not whether the plaintiffs’ false-arrest or malicious-prosecution claims were legally valid.
The detailed version
- Camacho v. City of New York · No. 1:19-cv-11096
- Denise Cote
- July 16, 2020
Background
This proposed class action was filed on December 3, 2019. The amended complaint asserted federal and state false-arrest and malicious-prosecution claims against the City of New York and twelve correction officers. The six named plaintiffs alleged that they were unlawfully arrested while visiting a friend or relative at Rikers Island because water-damaged reading materials they brought into the facility were believed to contain synthetic marijuana, also called K2. The charges against the plaintiffs were dismissed, but they were barred from visiting New York City correctional facilities for periods ranging from six months to one year.
The City explained that the Department of Corrections used the Nark II Synthetic Cannabinoid Reagent field test to identify both liquid and solid K2. The City’s records showed that sixteen liquid-K2 cases, including the named plaintiffs’ cases, ended in dismissal; one remained open; and three ended in convictions. The records also showed thirteen dismissed cases, eleven open cases, and thirty-seven convictions involving solid K2.
Request to Amend
The plaintiffs sought permission to expand the proposed class to include Department of Corrections visitors arrested for possession of solid K2 whose charges were dismissed. Judge Denise Cote applied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16, which requires good cause and the judge’s consent to modify a scheduling order after the amendment deadline. The court denied the request, reasoning that the proposed amendment would materially change the case from one focused on an alleged campaign against visitors who brought books to Rikers Island into a different case involving solid K2 arrests. The court also found that the plaintiffs knew by early March that the same field test was used for both solid and liquid K2, before the scheduling deadline passed.
Motion to Strike Class Allegations
The defendants moved under Rule 12(f), which allows a court to strike redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous matter from a pleading. The court concluded that it was appropriate to address the class allegations before a formal class-certification motion because the early discovery showed that the proposed class, as defined in the amended complaint, could not include more than sixteen people.
Class certification requires, among other things, numerosity—the requirement that the proposed class be large enough for a class action to be appropriate. The plaintiffs did not argue that further factual development would identify enough additional members under their existing definition. Their only basis for avoiding the motion to strike was expanding the definition to include dismissed solid-K2 cases, but the court had denied permission for that amendment.
Disposition and Scope
The court granted the defendants’ request to strike the class allegations in the amended complaint. The court also denied the plaintiffs’ request for leave to amend the amended complaint. The opinion did not decide the merits of the plaintiffs’ false-arrest or malicious-prosecution claims; it ruled on the proposed class and the requested amendment.
Read the full 12-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.