Powell v. Harvard Club

Background

Stephen Powell alleged that employees of The Harvard Club intentionally misidentified him in surveillance video as the person who committed a theft at the Club. According to the First Amended Complaint, the employees had longstanding hostility toward Powell, knew he was not at the Club on the date of the theft, sent the video and identification to the New York City Police Department, and knowingly procured his arrest with false information. Powell alleged that he was arrested on October 16, 2019, on three grand-larceny charges. He later traveled to New York to turn himself in and alleged that he was able to show that he had not committed the thefts.

Powell asserted a false-arrest claim under New York law against The Harvard Club and a false-arrest claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Detective Gary Scollard. Both defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which tests whether a complaint alleges enough facts to present a plausible legal claim. The court treated the complaint’s well-pleaded factual allegations as true for purposes of the motions, but made no finding that those allegations were actually true.

The Harvard Club’s Motion

The Harvard Club argued that Powell’s New York false-arrest claim was barred by the one-year statute of limitations. The court rejected that argument. It held that New York executive orders issued during the relevant period tolled—that is, stopped—the limitations period through November 3, 2020. Relying on New York appellate authority, the court found that Powell’s claim was timely.

The Harvard Club also argued that Powell had not adequately alleged that it participated in or caused the arrest. For a private defendant to be liable for false arrest under New York law, the defendant must have affirmatively induced the police to act or participated with active and undue zeal so that the police were not acting on their own. The court held that Powell’s allegations that Club employees intentionally misidentified him, sent surveillance video to the police, participated in the investigation, and provided information they knew was false were sufficient to state a claim at the motion-to-dismiss stage.

The court therefore denied The Harvard Club’s motion to dismiss.

Detective Scollard’s Motion

Scollard argued that he had probable cause, or a reasonable basis supported by sufficiently trustworthy information, to arrest Powell. Probable cause is an absolute defense to a false-arrest claim because it makes the resulting confinement legally privileged.

The court concluded that, as pleaded, Scollard received an eyewitness account and corroborating evidence identifying Powell as the theft suspect. The court rejected Powell’s argument that Scollard possessed plainly exculpatory evidence in a photograph. Powell’s complaint did not allege that Scollard had actually seen the photograph; it alleged only that the photograph was accessible or could have been requested. The court explained that an officer generally does not have a duty to investigate every possible defense, although an officer may not deliberately disregard facts already known to him that would clear the suspect.

The court also noted that Powell alleged he was outside the United States when the arrest occurred and later traveled to New York to turn himself in. Thus, the complaint did not support an inference that Scollard had personally seen Powell before the arrest or had ignored readily verifiable information showing that Powell was not the person in the surveillance video.

The court therefore granted Scollard’s motion to dismiss.

Disposition

The court denied The Harvard Club’s motion to dismiss and granted Scollard’s motion to dismiss. The Clerk of Court was directed to terminate the open motions.