Jones v. City of Mt. Vernon

Background

Ronald Jones brought claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a federal law allowing lawsuits against people acting under state authority for violating constitutional rights. He sued the City of Mount Vernon and individual members of the Mount Vernon Police Department: Sgt. Jason Conley, Officer Steven Alcantara, and Officer Marietta. Jones alleged violations involving arrest, prosecution, due process, intervention by fellow officers, and related state-law claims.

According to the complaint, officers arrested Jones at Levister Towers on November 14, 2018, after Alcantara brought an opened pizza box from an incinerator room. Jones was told that the box contained a firearm, a small quantity of marijuana, and two gravity knives. Jones alleged that officers later fabricated documents and evidence, including a false account of a detailed confession. He was held from his November 15, 2018 arraignment until his release on March 27, 2020. The charges were dismissed in his favor on March 4, 2020.

The defendants filed a partial motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which tests whether a complaint alleges enough facts to plausibly support a legal claim. The court treated the complaint’s factual allegations as true for purposes of that motion.

Rulings on the Claims

The court granted in part and denied in part the defendants’ partial motion to dismiss.

Claims dismissed

The court granted the motion as to Jones’s failure-to-intervene claim against the individual defendants. The court found that the complaint offered only general allegations and that Jones alleged each individual defendant directly participated in the underlying conduct. The court explained that a failure-to-intervene claim generally requires an officer to have a realistic opportunity to prevent another officer’s constitutional violation.

The court also dismissed Jones’s civil-rights conspiracy claim under § 1983. It held that the individual defendants were alleged to have acted within the scope of their employment and that the complaint did not allege they pursued personal interests separate from the City of Mount Vernon. Under the court’s discussion of the intra-corporate conspiracy doctrine, officers and employees of one entity generally cannot conspire with one another while acting within their employment roles.

The court dismissed Jones’s municipal-liability claim against the City of Mount Vernon. Jones alleged that the police department had policies or customs involving discrimination and evidence fabrication and that it failed to properly screen, hire, train, and discipline officers. The court found that the alleged investigations had no reported results in the complaint, one former officer’s guilty plea was insufficient by itself to show a widespread policy or custom, and the complaint did not adequately connect a city policy to Jones’s alleged injuries. The court also found that the failure-to-train allegations were conclusory and did not identify training the City failed to provide.

The court dismissed Jones’s negligent hiring, screening, retention, supervision, and training claim against the City. The individual defendants conceded that they acted within the scope of their employment, and the court held that New York law does not permit this type of claim when the employees acted within that scope.

Claims allowed to proceed at this stage

The court denied dismissal of Jones’s malicious-prosecution claim against all defendants. The defendants argued that the claim was untimely. The court applied New York General Municipal Law § 50-i’s one-year-and-90-day limitations period, including the 228-day COVID-19 tolling period discussed in the opinion, and concluded that Jones filed the claim on time. The court also noted that the City was required to indemnify the individual defendants in tort cases and that the defendants conceded they acted within the scope of employment.

The court denied dismissal of Jones’s claim under Article I, § 12 of the New York Constitution against the City of Mount Vernon. Jones had withdrawn that claim against the individual defendants. As to the City, he relied on a theory that the City could be responsible for employees’ conduct under respondeat superior, a doctrine that can make an employer responsible for certain employee torts. The court concluded that § 1983 did not provide the same respondeat-superior remedy against a municipality and that Jones adequately pleaded a state constitutional due-process claim based on alleged fabrication of evidence.

Withdrawn claims and amendment

The court noted that Jones withdrew his intentional- and negligent-infliction-of-emotional-distress claims against all defendants and his Article I, § 12 claim against the individual defendants.

The court granted Jones leave to file an amended complaint concerning claims that were not dismissed with prejudice. It set March 10, 2023, as the deadline for amendment and March 31, 2023, as the deadline for the defendants to answer or otherwise respond. The order states that claims dismissed without prejudice would be deemed dismissed with prejudice if Jones did not amend within the allowed time and could not show good cause for the failure.

Disposition

Judge Nelson S. Roman ordered that the defendants’ partial motion to dismiss be granted in part and denied in part. The motion was granted as to the failure-to-intervene, civil-rights conspiracy, Monell municipal-liability, and negligent hiring, screening, retention, supervision, and training claims. It was denied as to the malicious-prosecution claim against all defendants and the Article I, § 12 claim against the City of Mount Vernon.