Curkin v. The City of New York

Background

Seth Curkin, Parastou Marashi, and P. Jenny Marashi sued the City of New York and ten unnamed New York City Police Department officers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. They alleged that officers entered Curkin and Jenny’s apartment in August 2015 while looking for another person, questioned Parastou, and failed to provide identifying information. The plaintiffs later complained to the New York Police Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau. They alleged that the investigation was inadequate and that information produced during the lawsuit identified Detectives Robert Graves and Matthew Murphy and Sergeant Sonia Christian.

The plaintiffs asked to amend their complaint to name Graves, Murphy, and Christian and to add claims for conspiracy, First Amendment retaliation, substantive due process, failure to investigate, access to the courts, and municipal liability under Monell v. Department of Social Services. The City opposed the amendment, arguing that the proposed claims were untimely or legally futile.

Legal standard

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15, courts generally should allow amendments when justice requires, but may deny leave for reasons including undue delay, prejudice, or futility. An amendment is futile if the proposed claim would not survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. The court therefore treated the proposed claims under the Rule 12(b)(6) pleading standard, accepting the plaintiffs’ factual allegations as true for purposes of the motion.

Statute of limitations and relation back

The court held that the plaintiffs’ illegal-search, malicious-abuse-of-process, and failure-to-intervene claims against Graves and Murphy accrued when the officers entered the apartment. The plaintiffs knew of the alleged constitutional violation at that time, even though they did not yet know all details about the warrant or the officers’ identities. The court therefore found those claims untimely.

The court held that the conspiracy and First Amendment retaliation claims involving the alleged cover-up, as well as the access-to-court claim and certain claims concerning the Internal Affairs Bureau investigation, accrued later and were timely for limitations purposes. However, the court ultimately found the access-to-court claim futile.

The court rejected equitable tolling, which can extend a filing deadline in rare circumstances, because the plaintiffs knew of the alleged unlawful entry when it occurred and pursued complaints about it. The court also held that the untimely claims could not relate back to the original complaint. Although the City had constructive notice that the officers might later be named, the plaintiffs already knew Graves’s and Murphy’s identities before filing the original complaint. Their failure to name them was therefore not a mistake that would permit relation back under the applicable New York rules. The court also held that the plaintiffs missed the deadline under Local Civil Rule 83.10 for amending the complaint to name additional defendants.

Futility of proposed claims

The court allowed the conspiracy and First Amendment retaliation claim against Christian, Graves, and Murphy to be added because the proposed complaint alleged that the officers worked together to cover up the entry and were motivated by a desire to suppress criticism by lawyers involved in police-misconduct cases.

The court denied the proposed access-to-court claim, with prejudice, because the plaintiffs alleged delay but did not adequately allege the required actual injury to a legal claim. The court denied the failure-to-investigate claim, with prejudice, because there is no standalone constitutional right to an adequate police investigation.

The court denied the substantive-due-process amendment, with prejudice, because the alleged conduct was covered by the Fourth Amendment and therefore could not be recharacterized as a substantive-due-process claim.

The court rejected the portion of the proposed Monell claim based on a City custom or practice of illegal searches and failure to train officers about those searches as untimely. But it allowed the portion of the Monell claim concerning allegedly inadequate Internal Affairs Bureau investigations and training of investigators. The court concluded that the plaintiffs had alleged a history of inadequate investigative practices and a need for better training sufficient to add that claim.

Disposition

Judge Edgardo Ramos granted in part and denied in part the plaintiffs’ motion to amend. The court denied with prejudice the proposed illegal-search, malicious-abuse-of-process, and failure-to-intervene claims against Graves and Murphy; the access-to-court claim against Graves, Murphy, and Christian; the Monell claim concerning illegal searches; and the failure-to-investigate and substantive-due-process claims. The court granted the motion as to the conspiracy claim against Christian, Graves, and Murphy; the supervisory-liability and failure-to-intervene claims against Christian; and the Monell claim concerning inadequate Internal Affairs Bureau investigations. The court directed the parties to provide a status update after their scheduled settlement conference.