Holley v. The City of New York

Background

Anthony and Tony Holley brought claims against the City of New York and several New York City Police Department employees concerning their arrest and prosecution for gambling-related charges. Their claims included federal constitutional claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for fabrication of evidence, failure to intervene, malicious prosecution, and municipal liability. They also asserted state constitutional and tort claims, including negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

A magistrate judge recommended granting in part and denying in part the defendants’ motion to dismiss. No party objected to that recommendation. Judge Abrams reviewed it for clear error and adopted it with two modifications.

Municipal Liability

The Holleys alleged that the City had policies or customs of using information from sealed arrests to target and re-arrest members of racial or ethnic minority groups, including the Holleys, and of falsely charging them as repeat offenders. They also alleged policies or customs involving wrongful arrests, searches, seizures, and malicious prosecutions.

The court held that the municipal-liability claim was not plausibly pleaded. The Holleys did not allege an adequate connection between the alleged policies or customs and a constitutional violation. In particular, they did not allege that they were charged as repeat offenders under the identified state sentencing law. The court also found that the alleged policy or custom of malicious prosecution was conclusory and that the other cases cited did not sufficiently support the claim.

The court dismissed the municipal-liability claim with prejudice to the extent it was based on the Holleys’ false arrests. It dismissed the claim without prejudice to the extent it was based on malicious prosecution.

Claims Allowed to Continue

The malicious-prosecution claim against the individual defendants may proceed. The fabrication-of-evidence claim and failure-to-intervene claim against those defendants may also proceed to the extent they arise from the alleged malicious prosecution.

The intentional-infliction-of-emotional-distress claim against the individual defendants may proceed because the notice-of-claim requirement did not apply to those individual-capacity claims alleging intentional wrongdoing or recklessness.

Claims Dismissed

The court dismissed with prejudice the Holleys’ New York State constitutional claims against the individual defendants. It also dismissed with prejudice their negligent-infliction-of-emotional-distress claim against the City and the individual defendants.

The conclusion states that the intentional-infliction-of-emotional-distress claim against the City was dismissed with prejudice because the Holleys had not filed the required notice of claim. However, an earlier paragraph says that this claim was dismissed without prejudice. The opinion therefore contains an internal inconsistency about whether that dismissal permanently bars refiling.

Disposition

The defendants’ motion to dismiss was granted in part and denied in part. The Clerk of Court was directed to terminate the motion at Docket Number 15.