Days v. Police Department

Background

Selwyn Days brought the underlying civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 after his murder convictions were overturned and he was acquitted at a later trial. The underlying claims against Westchester County and Christopher Calabrese were narrowed by stipulation to claims based on intentional wrongdoing or reckless conduct. The Eastchester defendants settled with Days, and Westchester then sued Eastchester in a third-party action.

Westchester’s third-party complaint asserted five claims: a duty to defend, breach of contract, contractual indemnification, statutory indemnification, and contribution. Westchester relied on a 1995 agreement concerning police assistance between Westchester and the Town of Eastchester. The agreement stated that a requesting municipality must defend and indemnify the County and assisting municipalities for claims resulting from assistance, but excluded damages caused by intentional wrongdoing or reckless conduct by an assisting police force.

The assistance at issue involved Westchester officers helping Eastchester investigate a 1996 double homicide. In February 2001, after the case had remained unsolved for several years, Eastchester requested assistance, and Westchester dispatched Detectives John Doyle and Christopher Calabrese. The officers helped locate and question a person who had implicated Days. Westchester argued that this assistance fell within the 1995 agreement and triggered Eastchester’s duty to defend. Eastchester argued that the agreement applied only to emergency situations requiring a coordinated response from multiple municipalities.

Contract interpretation and defense obligation

The court found the agreement unambiguous. Reading the agreement together with the incorporated Police Mutual Aid and Assistance Plan, the court concluded that the agreement was intended for limited emergency situations requiring a coordinated, intermunicipal police response. It was not intended to cover routine assistance, such as sending two detectives to assist with an interrogation in a cold-case investigation.

The court also rejected the argument that the agreement’s provision for specialized police services applied. That provision allowed specialized services in addition to mutual-aid services, but the court concluded that the assistance provided in February 2001 did not qualify as either type of assistance covered by the agreement. The court stated that the double homicide could have constituted an emergency in 1996, but the emergency did not continue five years later when Westchester sent officers to assist with the investigation.

Because the agreement did not apply to the assistance provided, the court held that its defense and indemnification provisions did not apply. The court therefore denied Westchester’s motion for summary judgment and granted Eastchester’s motion in part as to the claims for a duty to defend, breach of contract, and contractual indemnification.

Statutory indemnification

Eastchester separately argued that statutory indemnification was unavailable because the relevant officials lacked authority under New York General Municipal Law § 209-m to request or grant police assistance. The court explained that the statute authorized a municipality’s chief executive to grant or request assistance and allowed that authority to be delegated to the police chief by local law. A police chief could act without such a delegation only if the chief executive was absent or disabled.

The court found no allegation that the relevant chief executive was absent or disabled. It also concluded that Westchester’s 1989 local law authorized the creation of mutual-aid agreements but did not itself delegate the necessary authority. Because Westchester’s arguments relied on the 1995 agreement or the 1989 local law, and neither supplied the required authority for this assistance, the court dismissed Westchester’s statutory-indemnification claim.

Contribution and disposition

Contribution is a claim that does not depend on an agreement; it generally requires a duty owed to the injured person and a breach that contributed to the injury. Eastchester challenged the contribution claim only with a conclusory argument based on the parties’ stipulation. The court found that argument insufficiently developed and denied Eastchester’s motion for summary judgment on contribution.

The final disposition was that Westchester’s motion for summary judgment was DENIED, and Eastchester’s motion for summary judgment was GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART. The court dismissed the claims for duty to defend, breach of contract, contractual indemnification, and statutory indemnification. Contribution was the sole remaining cause of action in the third-party complaint. Judge Nelson S. Roman also directed the parties to appear for a telephonic pretrial conference.