Haligas v. City of Chi.

609 F.Supp.3d 619

Melissa HALIGAS, Plaintiff,

v.CITY OF CHICAGO, Richard McCallum, and Juan Delgado, Defendants.

No. 22 C 313

United States District Court, N.D. Illinois, Eastern Division.

Signed June 29, 2022

Tom Kayes, The Civil Rights Group, LLC, Chicago, IL, Alison R. Leff, Law Office of Thomas R. Kayes, LLC, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff.

Maxwell Evan Lisy, City of Chicago Department of Law, Chicago, IL, for Defendant City of Chicago.

Jessica L. Griff, Michele Marie McGee, City of Chicago Department of Law, Chicago, IL, for Defendants Richard McCallum, Juan Delgado.

Memorandum Opinion & Order

Elaine E. Bucklo, United States District Judge

Chicago Police Officers Richard McCallum and Juan Delgado (the "Officers") arrested plaintiff Melissa Haligas after responding to a complaint that plaintiff was violating a child custody order. Plaintiff brings this lawsuit against the Officers pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming false arrest, excessive force, and failure to intervene, and against the City of Chicago (the "City") pursuant to § 1983 and Monell v. Dep't of Soc. Servs. , 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978), claiming unconstitutional policies of escalating police encounters with non-threatening suspects and failure to train officers adequately. Plaintiff also brings a state law claim against the City for indemnification. Before me is defendants’ motion to dismiss each of plaintiff's claims for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). For the following reasons, the motion is denied.

I.

For purposes of this motion, I accept the factual allegations in the complaint as true and draw all permissible inferences in plaintiff's favor. Marion Diagnostic Ctr., LLC v. Becton Dickinson & Co. , 29 F.4th 337, 349 (7th Cir. 2022) (citation omitted). On the afternoon of January 30, 2020, plaintiff was at home caring for her sick three-year-old. Compl., Dkt. No. 1 ¶¶ 10–11. Under a court order, plaintiff shares custody of the child with the child's father, who arrived at plaintiff's apartment building to pick up the child. Id. ¶¶ 12–13. Plaintiff asked the father to wait in the building lobby until the child woke up from a nap, but the father instead called the Chicago Police, claiming that plaintiff was violating the court order. Id. ¶¶ 15–16, 18–19. When the Officers arrived, the father showed Officer McCallum a document on his cell phone that he claimed supported his accusation. Id. ¶¶ 20–21. Officer McCallum found the document "confusing," but he declined the father's offer to email the document to Officer McCallum to review. Id. ¶¶ 22–23.

The Officers proceeded to plaintiff's apartment, where they accused her of violating the court order and threatened to arrest her and bring her to jail. Id. ¶¶ 24, 28, 33, 37. Plaintiff asked the Officers to keep their voices down, explaining that her son was sick and was asleep. Id. ¶ 26. They refused and continued to threaten her loudly, even as she showed the Officers her son's bag, packed and ready to go to his father's home, and offered to show them the order to prove that allowing her son to awaken naturally before releasing him to his father was not inconsistent with its terms. Id. ¶¶ 27–31, 33. The Officers declined her offer to produce a copy of the order and continued to threaten her with arrest and jail. Id. ¶¶ 30, 32–33. Feeling threatened, plaintiff asked the Officers to leave her apartment and told them she was going to call 911. Id. ¶ 35. Officer McCallum then tried to grab plaintiff's cell phone from her, striking her hand in the process. Id. ¶ 36. Officer McCallum advanced toward plaintiff as she backed away, then handcuffed her and pulled her to the floor, where she screamed in fear and pain. Id. ¶¶ 39–40. The Officers then grabbed plaintiff's wrists and arms, pulling her to her feet as she shouted that they were hurting her. Id. ¶¶ 41–42. With plaintiff handcuffed in her apartment, Officer Delgado brought the child downstairs to his father, allowing the two of them to leave. Id. ¶¶ 47–48.

Officer McCallum led plaintiff out of her apartment building and into a squad car, where she remained for hours in her nightgown. Id. ¶¶ 49–50. When the Officers’ supervisor arrived on the scene and learned what had happened, he expressed shock, asked the Officers if their body cameras were rolling, then turned his own body camera off. Id. ¶¶ 52–53. Plaintiff was ultimately released without booking or charge. Id. ¶ 51.

In the instant suit, plaintiff brings § 1983 claims for false arrest (Count I) and excessive force (Count II) against both Officers, alleging that their conduct violated her Fourth Amendment rights. In addition, she brings a § 1983 claim against Officer Delgado for failure to intervene (Count III). Against the City, she asserts two claims under Monell v. Dep't of Soc. Servs. , 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978) —one for an unconstitutional custom of escalating police encounters with suspects (Count IV) and one for failure to train (Count V)—as well as a state law indemnification claim under 745 ILCS 10/9-102 (Count VI). Plaintiff seeks damages for the mental, emotional, and physical harm she claims resulted from her encounter with the Officers. Compl. ¶ 54. Defendants move to dismiss all claims against them.

I have jurisdiction over plaintiff's 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claims under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 and over her state law indemnification claim under 28 U.S.C. § 1367.

II.

"To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’ " Ashcroft v. Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly , 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) ). "A claim is facially plausible ‘when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.’ " Law Offs. of David Freydin, P.C. v. Chamara , 24 F.4th 1122, 1128 (7th Cir. 2022) (quoting Iqbal , 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937 ). I "accept well-pleaded facts as true and draw all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff[’s] favor," Shipley v. Chi. Bd. of Election Comm'rs , 947 F.3d 1056, 1060–61 (7th Cir. 2020) (citation omitted), but I am "not bound to accept legal conclusions as true," Burger v. County of Macon , 942 F.3d 372, 374 (7th Cir. 2019) (citing Iqbal , 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937 ).

As an initial matter, I must determine whether I may consider video footage from the Officers’ body-worn cameras ("BWCs"), which defendants submit in support of their motion. See Dkt. Nos. 18, 20. Generally, a court may not consider extrinsic evidence while deciding a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss without converting that motion to a Rule 56 motion for summary judgment. Tierney v. Vahle , 304 F.3d 734, 738 (7th Cir. 2002). But a court may consider such materials on a motion to dismiss "if they are referred to in the plaintiff's complaint and are central to [the] claim." Brownmark Films, LLC v. Comedy Partners , 682 F.3d 687, 690 (7th Cir. 2012) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Defendants cite Brownmark Films and Hyung Seok Koh v. Graf , No. 11-CV-02605, 2013 WL 5348326 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 24, 2013), to argue that I may appropriately consider the BWC footage.

Plaintiff urges me to reject this argument, insisting that her complaint makes only passing reference to the BWC footage, which captures only a portion of the events at issue; reflects only the officers’ perspectives; and is not central to her claims. Moreover, plaintiff observes, her claims are wholly unlike those asserted in Brownmark Films —a copyright infringement case in which the court considered videos of the original and allegedly infringing works in dismissing the plaintiff's claims based on the defense of fair use. See id. at 689.

It is true that the BWC footage is not integral to plaintiff's claims in the same sense as the videos in Brownmark Films , which were indeed "the only two pieces of evidence needed to decide the question of fair use." Id. at 690. Hyung Seok Koh is more closely on point, as that decision involved a motion to dismiss the plaintiff's § 1983 claims against police officers. The court considered video evidence of the plaintiff's interrogation on the authority of Scott v. Harris , 550 U.S. 372, 127 S.Ct. 1769, 167 L.Ed.2d 686 (2007), which the court construed to support consideration of video evidence that a defendant claims "utterly discredit[s]" the plaintiff's account of the facts. Hyung Seok Koh , 2013 WL 5348326, at *9 (citing Scott , 550 U.S. at 380–81, 127 S.Ct. 1769 ). The court acknowledged that Scott was decided at summary judgment but noted that the Seventh Circuit has applied similar reasoning at the motion to dismiss stage. Id. (citing Bogie v. Rosenberg , 705 F.3d 603, 608–09, 610–12 (7th Cir. 2013) ). Accordingly, it considered the video the defendants submitted in support of their motion but viewed it in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, as is required at the pleading stage. Id. at *10.

That approach is sensible here, too. Although plaintiff argues that her complaint makes only cursory reference to the BWC footage, she does not dispute that some of her allegations—specifically, those describing the Officers’ encounter with her son's father in the lobby of her building—assert facts she knows only because she viewed that footage. See Compl. ¶¶ 18–24. As to those allegations, at least, the footage is arguably central to her claims. In any event, having viewed the footage myself, I conclude that it largely supports, rather than discredits, plaintiff's allegations. Accordingly, she is not prejudiced by my considering it at this stage.

III.

Defendants seek to dismiss plaintiff's false arrest claim on the ground that plaintiff's own allegations and the BWC footage establish probable cause for her arrest. See Neita v. City of...