Williams v. Hernandez

Background

Garfield Anthony Williams sued the City of New York and New York City Police Department officers Oscar Hernandez, Joseph Ottaviano, and Ruben Leon. He alleged false arrest, failure to intervene in a false arrest, and violations of the New York Constitution. Hernandez and Ottaviano arrested Williams for suspected driving under the influence after a multi-vehicle accident on the Bronx River Parkway. Williams offered evidence that his vehicle was hit from behind, that he did not speak with the officers before his arrest, and that he showed no signs of intoxication. The charges were dismissed before he was arraigned.

The defendants moved for summary judgment, which asks whether the evidence requires a trial or instead requires judgment as a matter of law. Williams moved for sanctions concerning a police communications report and a medical treatment report.

False-Arrest Claim

The court denied summary judgment to Hernandez and Ottaviano. False arrest requires probable cause, meaning sufficient facts known at the time of arrest to reasonably support the belief that the person committed a crime. The court held that the evidence, viewed in Williams’s favor, could allow a jury to find that he showed no signs of intoxication and that the officers lacked probable cause.

The court found that the accident itself did not sufficiently show that Williams was intoxicated. It also found that the statement from another driver was made after the arrest and that the defendants had not shown Hernandez or Ottaviano knew about the 911 caller’s statement when they arrested Williams. An unnamed Emergency Service Unit officer’s statement that Williams appeared impaired or intoxicated was also potentially insufficient, particularly if a jury credited Williams’s evidence that he was sober and showed no signs of intoxication.

The court granted summary judgment to Leon on the false-arrest claim because it was undisputed that he was not present when Williams was arrested. The court also rejected Hernandez and Ottaviano’s qualified-immunity defense at summary judgment because the factual dispute about Williams’s apparent intoxication prevented the court from deciding that reasonable officers could necessarily disagree about whether probable cause existed.

Failure-to-Intervene Claim

The court denied summary judgment to Ottaviano because a jury could find that he participated in the arrest, knew or had reason to know it was unjustified, and had a realistic opportunity to stop it. The court allowed Williams to pursue both false-arrest and failure-to-intervene theories against Ottaviano in the alternative.

The court granted summary judgment to Leon on this claim. Williams withdrew the claim against Leon in his opposition to the motion.

New York Constitutional Claims

The court granted summary judgment to all defendants on the due-process portion of Williams’s third claim. Williams appeared to base that theory on the alleged failure to return his vehicle, but the First Amended Complaint did not plead that the vehicle had been taken. The court stated that a plaintiff cannot add a claim through motion papers.

For the New York constitutional search-and-seizure claim, the court granted summary judgment to the individual defendants because, where adequate common-law or federal civil-rights remedies exist, there is no private right of action under the New York Constitution for false arrest. The court denied summary judgment to the City on the remaining state constitutional theory. That claim may proceed against the City based on responsibility for Hernandez’s or Ottaviano’s conduct if either officer is found to have violated Williams’s New York constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

Sanctions

The court denied Williams’s motion for sanctions. It declined to exclude the Sprint report because the defendants timely produced it and Williams did not establish prejudice. It also declined to instruct the jury to draw an adverse inference from the missing medical treatment report because Williams did not show that the defendants had a blameworthy state of mind concerning its nonproduction. Because the evidentiary requests were denied, the request for attorney’s fees was also denied.

Disposition

The defendants’ motion for summary judgment was granted in part and denied in part. Williams’s motion for sanctions was denied. The surviving claims are the federal and state false-arrest claims against Hernandez and Ottaviano, the failure-to-intervene claim against Ottaviano, and the New York constitutional search-and-seizure claim against the City. The court also allowed the defendants to depose witness Celia Burgos for no more than three hours before trial and directed that the case be reopened administratively.