Aouatif v. City of N.Y.

ZERRAD AOUATIF, Plaintiff, v. THE CITY OF NEW YORK;NEW YORK CITY HEALTH AND HOSPITALS CORPORATION;NABIL KOTBI; AND JOHN DOES 1-10, Defendants.

07-CV-1302 (RRM) (JO)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK

May 31, 2019

MEMORANDUM & ORDER

ROSLYNN R. MAUSKOPF, United States District Judge.

Plaintiff Zerrad Aouatif filed this lawsuit, alleging deprivations of her Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights, arising from a 2005 incident in which her state-employed former psychiatrist, Dr. Nabil Kotbi, called 911 and requested that police officers transport Aouatif to a hospital for an emergency psychiatric evaluation. Before the Court is defendants' motion for summary judgment and Aouatif's opposition thereto. For the following reasons, defendants' motion is granted in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

I. Factual Background

The material facts are taken from the parties' Local Rule 56.1 statements, Aouatif's second amended complaint, and the affidavits and exhibits submitted in connection with defendants' motion for summary judgment and Aouatif's opposition thereto. The facts are uncontested, except where otherwise noted.

A. The Parties

Plaintiff Zerrad Aouatif was born in Morocco, and has resided in New York City since 1984. Aouatif received outpatient mental health treatment from doctors at various facilities from at least July 2001 until December 2007, and she has received social security income disability benefits since 2003 based on a determination that she was unable to work because of depression. (See Defs.' 56.1 (Doc. No. 52), Pl.'s 56.1 (Doc. No. 58) ¶¶ 1-6.)

Defendant Dr. Nabil Kotbi was also born and raised in Morocco, where he received a medical degree in 1996. Kotbi immigrated to the United States in 1997, and passed a series of examinations required for foreign-language doctors to practice medicine in the United States. From 2002 until 2005, Kotbi was employed as a resident in psychiatry at SUNY Downstate Medical Center and, through an affiliation with Kings County Hospital ("Kings County"), worked at Kings County and was employed by the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation ("HHC"). Kotbi received his medical license and was promoted to the position of Senior Chief Psychiatric Resident at Kings County in 2004, a position he held until he completed his residency in June 2005. (See Defs.' & Pl.'s 56.1 ¶¶ 14-27.)

HHC is a municipal corporation engaged in the business of providing medical services to the public. John Does 1-10 are unidentified police officers who responded to Kotbi's 911 call on June 11, 2005.

B. Aouatif's Treatment with Dr. Kotbi and the Events of June 11, 2005

Aouatif began experiencing depression after a 2001 incident at her former university. (See Aouatif Dep., Ex. 5 to Pl.'s Mot. (Doc. No. 59-7), Ex. K to Defs.' Mot. (Doc. No. 56-12) at 17-18.)¹ She sought psychiatric counseling, but, because of a language barrier, found it difficult to express her feelings to her counselor in English. (See Defs.' & Pl.'s 56.1 ¶ 30.) She sought treatment from a doctor who understood her culture and language and was referred to Dr. Kotbi in 2004 by her roommate, a former patient of Kotbi's. (See id. ¶ 31.) Aouatif's first formaltherapy session with Kotbi was in September 2004, and they usually saw each other on a weekly basis. (See id. ¶ 36.) Aouatif alleges that Kotbi acted inappropriately from the outset by making sexual remarks and asking her inappropriate questions of a sexual nature, and that Kotbi persisted in this behavior even after she repeatedly told him to stop. (See Aouatif Aff. (Doc. No. 59-3) ¶¶ 5-6.) During the time she was seeing Kotbi, Aouatif simultaneously received treatment from Dr. Gamal, a psychologist employed at Brookdale Hospital ("Brookdale"). (See Defs.' & Pl.'s 56.1 ¶ 37.)

In their private sessions, Dr. Kotbi found Aouatif to be soft-spoken. (See Kotbi Dep., Ex. 7 to Pl.'s Mot. (Doc. No. 59-8), Ex. L to Defs.' Mot. (Doc. No. 56-13) at 25.) He diagnosed Aouatif with several psychiatric conditions, including "ideation of being psychotic," borderline personality disorder, and "a rule out of schizophrenia of the chronic paranoid type." (See id. at 25-26). An intake evaluation conducted by a doctor at Kings County notes that Aouatif reported an incident of suicide ideation in 2002. (See Kings County Medical Record, Ex. N to Defs.' Mot. (Doc. No. 56-15) at 7.) Kotbi also testified that Aouatif had experienced suicidal ideas and gestures in the past. (See Kotbi Dep. at 29.) In Kotbi's first formal session with Aouatif, he noted in the medical record that she told him she attempted to jump off the roof of her school in 2001 after learning she was expelled. (See Defs.' & Pl.'s 56.1 ¶ 36; Kings County Medical Record at 12.) Although Aouatif states in this action that she has never attempted to jump off a building, and that she has never told Kotbi otherwise, (see Aouatif Aff. ¶ 12), the Court notes that in her 56.1 Statement, Aouatif does not affirmatively disavow the medical record memorializing her first session with Kotbi, and only appears to dispute the date of that session. (See Pl.'s 56.1 ¶ 36.) The parties stipulated to the admissibility of Aouatif's psychiatric recordsfrom Kings County, as well as her psychiatric records from Brookdale for June 11-13, 2005. (See Joint Pretrial Order, Ex. H to Defs.' Mot. (Doc. No. 56-9) at 10.)

At the time she was seeing Kotbi for treatment, Aouatif was pursuing a lawsuit against her former university regarding the 2001 incident at school, alleging discrimination based on her Arab ethnicity. (See Defs.' & Pl.'s 56.1 ¶ 10.) Specifically, she alleged, inter alia, that her professor, who was also of Arab ethnicity, pushed her to the floor and barred her from the classroom. (See id. ¶ 11.) Aouatif thought that her medical records from Kotbi would be useful in that suit, and so she signed documents authorizing Kotbi to turn those records over to her lawyer. (See Aouatif Aff. ¶¶ 8-9.) However, she did not authorize him to speak with her lawyer. (See id. ¶ 9.) According to Aouatif, Kotbi refused to turn over the documents and, against Aouatif's wishes, called her lawyer. (See id.)

Upset that Kotbi had disobeyed her wishes, Aouatif called his cell phone in the early afternoon on Saturday, June 11, 2005, to confront him. (See id.; Defs.' & Pl.'s 56.1 ¶ 43.) This was the first time that Aouatif had ever called him on his cell phone.² (See Defs.' & Pl.'s 56.1 ¶ 44.) According to Aouatif's account of the conversation, Kotbi told her that she had signed a release for him to call the lawyer, whereupon Aouatif explained that she only authorized Kotbi to send medical records to the lawyer - not to speak to her. (See Aouatif Aff. ¶ 10.) Aouatif stated that Kotbi then began laughing at her and mocking her, (see id.), and that he indicated he was going to call 911 to have her taken to the hospital for an emergency evaluation. (See Defs.' & Pl.'s 56.1 ¶¶ 45, 47.) Aouatif admits that she raised her voice at Kotbi, characterizing herself as "mad." (See Aouatif Dep. at 106.) She told Kotbi that he had no right to call 911, threatened to sue him if he did so, (see Defs.' & Pl.'s 56.1 ¶ 48), and accused Kotbi of making impropersexual comments during therapy sessions and of spreading false rumors about her and her roommate being gay, (see Aouatif Dep. at 107-08; Kotbi Dep. at 25).³ The conversation lasted between 15 and 20 minutes, at which point Aouatif hung up on Dr. Kotbi. (See Aouatif Dep. at 105, 112; Aouatif Aff. ¶ 11.)

Dr. Kotbi's account of the phone call largely coincides with Aouatif's, although he testified that he felt she was delusional and was saying "things that were irrational." (Kotbi Dep. at 33-34.) Kotbi stated that in the past, Aouatif had expressed the belief that "there was a conspiracy against her," (id. at 34), and that on the phone, she accused him of spreading lies and rumors, including "telling the Moroccan community in Queens that she was a lesbian." (Id. at 25.) Kotbi believed Aouatif was possibly hallucinating, (id. at 26, 34), as she continuously told him to stop laughing at her when he was not, (id. at 26, 28). He testified that Aouatif "sounded psychotic," was "screaming on the phone," and acting "absolutely different than . . . how she acted in [his] office in almost a year of therapy." (Id. at 25, 28.) Kotbi became concerned with "the intensity of the paranoia"; Aouatif's display of anger and "pressured" speech was out of keeping with her typical soft-spoken demeanor, and she was acting in a "very, very unusual" manner. (Id. at 25, 60.) Worried that Aouatif was experiencing a psychotic episode and fearing that she posed a "very high risk for danger," (id. at 34), Kotbi asked Aouatif whether she felt like hurting herself or anyone else, (see id. at 28). Kotbi stated that Aouatif did not directly answer him, instead telling him to stop laughing at her. (See id.) From Kotbi's observation of Aouatif on the phone, he detected a "change in [her] mental status," felt she had "poor judgment" at the time, and that she "needed to be evaluated" because "her judgment put[] her at a high risk for danger to [her]self or others[,] whether willingly or unwillingly." (Id. at 27-29.) Kotbi believedshe might be "having a psychotic decompensation" or a "complex partial seizure," among other possibilities. (Id. at 26.) He explained that when patients in "psychotic decompensation . . . feel the world is a threat," they may "do something that results in danger to the patient or to others." (Id. at 29.) Kotbi pleaded with Aouatif to go to the hospital for an emergency evaluation, which she refused. (See id. at 26.) Kotbi testified that this was an emergency situation, (id. at 33), and that he felt "it was [his] duty to protect her from any harm that would be the result of her psychiatric illness" by having her "further assessed to make sure she [was] safe." (Id. at 36, 51.)

After Aouatif hung up the phone on Kotbi, he called 911 and...