Felix v. City Of New York

Background

The plaintiffs—Dorrelien Felix and others, including David Felix’s parents and estate—brought claims against the City of New York and New York Police Department Detectives Harold Carter and Vincente Matias. The claims included civil-rights claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, disability-discrimination claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act, and New York-law claims.

On April 25, 2015, Carter and Matias went to the Bridge, a residential facility for people with mental illness, to arrest David Felix for robbery and assault. A Bridge employee told them that Felix had paranoid schizophrenia. After the employee opened Felix’s apartment door, the detectives entered and saw Felix descending a fire escape. Carter later grabbed Felix in the building lobby. The parties disputed what happened during the brief struggle, but Carter fatally shot Felix.

The plaintiffs argued that the City was liable because it failed to train and supervise officers in dealing with mentally ill and emotionally disturbed people. The record showed that the New York Police Department handled more than 100,000 calls involving emotionally disturbed people each year, but detectives were not required to receive training when promoted. Carter’s last related training was in 1994, and Matias’s was in 1992. The department did not require crisis-intervention training for officers until 2015.

The plaintiffs relied in part on an expert report from Dr. Grace Telesco, a retired New York Police Department lieutenant and former chairperson of the Behavior Science Department at the New York Police Academy. She concluded that the department’s training was inadequate and that appropriate training could have led the detectives to call for backup and isolate and contain Felix rather than escalate the encounter.

Failure-to-Train Claim

A municipality cannot be held responsible for an employee’s constitutional violation merely because it employs that person. Under § 1983 and the rule commonly associated with Monell v. Department of Social Services, the plaintiff must show that a municipal policy or custom caused the violation. A failure to train can support municipal liability when the failure amounts to deliberate indifference to people’s constitutional rights.

The court held that the plaintiffs presented enough evidence for a reasonable jury to find deliberate indifference. The evidence could support findings that the City knew officers regularly encountered emotionally disturbed people, that these encounters presented heightened risks, that officers had mishandled such encounters, and that the mishandling had sometimes resulted in preventable deadly force.

The court also rejected the City’s causation arguments at the summary-judgment stage. A jury could find that the department’s policy applied to the circumstances or that the training was inadequate because it did not explain how officers should approach a person with paranoid schizophrenia suspected of a violent crime. The evidence also permitted a jury to find that the detectives could have called for a supervisor or emergency-services unit, used isolation and containment techniques, or otherwise tried to de-escalate the encounter before entering Felix’s apartment and engaging him physically.

The court further held that the plaintiffs’ allegation of intentional misconduct by the detectives did not automatically defeat causation. A jury could find that better training would have prevented the physical confrontation that increased the risk of deadly force. The court therefore denied the City’s motion for summary judgment on the failure-to-train claim.

Disability-Discrimination Claims

Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits a public entity from denying qualified people with disabilities access to its services, programs, or activities because of their disabilities. The Rehabilitation Act requires the same basic showing for the claims at issue here.

The court found that the evidence supporting the failure-to-train claim also supported an inference that the City was deliberately indifferent to the risk of disability discrimination. The detectives knew about Felix’s mental-health diagnosis and suspected violent conduct before confronting him. A reasonable jury could find that they had an opportunity to make a reasonable accommodation—such as using the measures identified in department materials and the expert report—and failed to do so.

The court rejected the City’s argument that the detectives needed to personally observe behavior showing a risk of serious injury before disability protections applied. The court explained that conduct may violate the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act even if it follows the City’s internal policies. A reasonable jury could find that Felix was a qualified person with a disability covered by those laws. The court therefore denied summary judgment on the disability-discrimination claims.

Bifurcation

The City asked the court to hold separate trials for the claims against the individual detectives and the claims against the City. The court denied that request. It concluded that the City’s arguments did not overcome the usual preference for resolving related claims in one trial. The court also concluded that separate trials could increase the burden on court resources and delay final judgment, while limiting instructions could address any risk of unfair prejudice to the detectives.

Expert Testimony

The City sought to exclude or limit testimony from Dr. Telesco. The court applied the rules governing expert evidence, which generally permit qualified experts to offer reliable opinions that help the jury understand matters beyond ordinary experience, but do not permit experts to decide legal questions or take over the jury’s fact-finding role.

The court rejected the City’s request to exclude Dr. Telesco’s testimony altogether. It found that her opinions were supported by her professional experience, her review of relevant department materials, and other sources. However, the court agreed that two opinions crossed the line into impermissible legal or ultimate causal conclusions. Dr. Telesco may not testify about the ultimate causal relationship between the department’s training and Felix’s death, or about whether emergency circumstances legally justified the detectives’ entry into Felix’s apartment.

The court therefore granted in part the City’s request to limit Dr. Telesco’s testimony and denied the request insofar as it sought to exclude her testimony altogether or bar the other challenged statements.

Disposition

The court stated that the City’s motion was granted in part and denied in part. Specifically, it denied summary judgment on the failure-to-train and disability-discrimination claims, denied the request for bifurcation, and granted in part the request to limit expert testimony. The court said it would schedule a pretrial conference by separate order.