Nigro v. City Of New York

Background

Michael Nigro, a professional photographer, journalist, and filmmaker, sued the City of New York and five New York City Police Department officers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a federal civil-rights law. The claims arose from Nigro’s arrest while photographing a protest against then-presidential candidate Donald J. Trump on March 19, 2016.

Nigro alleged that he was photographing police officers and other protesters when Deputy Inspector Andrew Lombardo grabbed him by the neck, with assistance from Officer Joseph Aniano, and arrested him. He was held for approximately six hours, then charged with disorderly conduct and jaywalking. The charges were later dismissed. Nigro also alleged that Lombardo targeted him because of an earlier photograph showing Lombardo at a protest.

Nigro asserted claims for false arrest, retaliatory arrest in violation of the First Amendment, interference with freedom of the press, denial of a fair trial, deliberate indifference by supervisory officials, and municipal liability against the City. The defendants moved to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), which tests whether a complaint alleges enough facts to state a legally plausible claim.

Court’s Analysis

False arrest. The court held that Nigro’s own photographs showed he had been standing in the middle of the street shortly before his arrest. Under New York’s jaywalking law, the court concluded that this supplied probable cause—or at least arguable probable cause—to arrest him. Probable cause means facts that would lead a reasonably cautious officer to believe that a person committed an offense. Because probable cause for any offense defeats a false-arrest claim, the court dismissed that claim.

Retaliatory arrest. The court stated that Nigro’s allegations appeared to fit a later Supreme Court exception allowing a retaliation claim to proceed when similarly situated people who were not engaged in protected speech were not arrested. But that exception was not clearly established when Nigro was arrested in 2016. The court therefore held that the officers were protected by qualified immunity, a legal protection for officials whose conduct did not violate clearly established law at the time, and dismissed the retaliatory-arrest claim.

Freedom of the press. The court dismissed Nigro’s press-freedom claim. It found that the complaint and photographs showed Nigro was arrested for being in the middle of the street, where the bulk of protesters were not located, rather than because of the content of his work. The court also found that the other photographer whom Lombardo did not arrest was near a crosswalk, not in the middle of the street.

Fair-trial claim. Nigro alleged that the officers submitted false information by stating that he had blocked vehicle traffic. The court did not decide whether the adjournment in contemplation of dismissal that ended the criminal case qualified as a favorable ending for this type of claim. Instead, it held that the claim failed because the photographs showed probable cause for the arrest and prosecution, meaning the alleged inaccurate statement was not likely to affect a jury’s decision. The court dismissed the fair-trial claim.

Supervisory and municipal claims. The court dismissed the deliberate-indifference claims and the City’s municipal-liability claims based on the alleged false arrest, fair-trial violation, and press-freedom violation because those underlying violations were not adequately established. It also dismissed the supervisory claim based on retaliatory arrest because the supervisory defendants were protected by qualified immunity.

The court separately dismissed the City’s claim based on an alleged policy or practice of retaliatory arrests. Nigro had cited several incidents and a report identifying 96 substantiated cases of police interference with civilians recording police activity, but the court found that these allegations did not plausibly show a widespread policy or practice of retaliating against the media at the time of his arrest.

The court allowed Nigro’s failure-to-train claim against the City to proceed. It found plausible his allegations that police training concerning encounters with the media was inadequate and that a history of officers mishandling media-related situations supported an inference that the City was deliberately indifferent to constitutional rights. The court also found that Nigro adequately alleged a direct connection between the alleged training failure and his injuries.

Disposition

The court denied Nigro leave to amend the dismissed claims because he had not requested it, had not identified additional facts that would cure the problems, and had previously been warned that he would not receive another opportunity to amend. The court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss in part and denied it in part. All of Nigro’s claims were dismissed except his failure-to-train claim against the City of New York. The City was directed to answer that remaining claim within three weeks, and all defendants other than the City were terminated as parties.