Harley v. City of N.J. City

FLOYD HARLEY, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF NEW JERSEY CITY, et al., Defendants.

Civil Action No. 16-5135

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY

June 27, 2017

Not for Publication

OPINION

John Michael Vazquez, U.S.D.J.

The present matter comes before the Court on Defendants'¹ motion to dismiss the Complaint for failure to state a claim. Plaintiff opposes the motion.² This case concerns allegations of a deprivation of Plaintiff's constitutional rights, racial discrimination, defamation, and conspiracy in connection with the release of a document containing, as it pertains to Plaintiff, a racial slur. This motion was decided without oral argument pursuant to Federal Rule of CivilProcedure 78 and Local Civil Rule 78.1. The Court has considered the parties' submissions and grants Defendants' motion.

I. INTRODUCTION

In 2010, Plaintiff was involved in a motor vehicle accident in Jersey City (or the "City"). As a result, a Jersey City Police Department ("JCPD") accident report (the "Report") was created. The Report contained vulgar and derogatory terms, including referring to Plaintiff with a contemptible racial slur. Plaintiff is, and was at the time of the accident, a messenger for the City. The Report also attributed vulgar and derogatory language to a police officer involved in the accident. The Report, moreover, contained profanity and a pejorative description of the lead investigator. As far as the Court can determine, the Report maligned at least four persons: Plaintiff, the officer involved in the accident, a woman driver also involved in the accident, and the lead investigator of the accident. The officer whose name appears as the author of the Report strenuously denied any involvement in drafting the inappropriate language, noting that the signature was not his and that a variety of persons had access to the computer from which the Report was generated.

In 2014, the officer involved in the crash filed a grievance over the contents of the Report. As a result, EEO launched a confidential investigation and interviewed several persons, including Plaintiff. The City also submitted the report to outside law enforcement agencies, hoping to find forensic evidence that would reveal the culprit. The Report, however, was also published on a non-city website. How the Report fell into the hands of the person or entity who posted it online is not clear, although Plaintiff claims that it was disclosed in response to an Open Public Records Act ("OPRA") request.

Plaintiff thereafter instituted the current action against the officer whose name appears on the report, Jersey City, the City's Department of Public Safety and its police department, Jersey City's Office of Equal Opportunity ("EEO"), the mayor, the public safety director, and two representatives of EEO. Plaintiff's Complaint contains numerous deficiencies. Plaintiff conflates the words derogatory, discriminatory, and defamatory, seemingly using them in an interchangeable (and not entirely consistent) fashion. Plaintiff also mistakes proper policy as proof of some nefarious intent. Plaintiff further makes arguments that are inherently contradictory. For example, on the one hand, Plaintiff argues against the EEO confidential investigation while, on the other, he claims that Defendants failed to take corrective and remedial action when they learned of the Report.

Plaintiff has every right to be concerned (indeed, outraged) that the Report was generated in the first place and then later posted on the internet. However, as pled, Plaintiff's Complaint must be dismissed for a myriad of reasons.

II. BACKGROUND³

Plaintiff is employed by Jersey City as a messenger. Compl. ¶ 20. Plaintiff alleges that on May 27, 2010, while he was working, he was riding in a car driven by JCPD Officer Michael Maietti. They were involved in an automobile accident with another car being driven by a female. Id. ¶ 24. After the accident, the Report, formally called a Crash Investigation Report, wasgenerated. Id. ¶ 25. Defendant Sergeant Terrence Crowley is indicated as the author of the Report. The allegedly racially offensive and gender-based discriminatory language in the Report is the basis for this lawsuit. Id. ¶ 27.

The "Conclusion and Recommendation" Section of the Report states as follows:

The primary cause of the accident was the inattention of P.O. Maietti eating a sandwich while driving n***** Floyd around the city. Officer Maietti stated "the f***** dumb b**** just stopped and I hit the c***!" P. O. Maietti should be credited for saving the female[']s life, because his boy Floyd wanted "to put a cap in her a**!" The ultimate Buffoon arrived on the scene as the accident investigator and totally f***** that up, so I couldn't tell you who the f*** is at fault.

Compl. Ex. B. Plaintiff alleges that on or about June 3, 2010, Crowley gave Maietti the Report. Id. ¶ 26. Subsequently, Maietti gave the Report to his commanding officer, Captain Joseph Ascolese. Id. ¶ 28. Crowley then issued a memorandum in which he claimed that the Report was a fake, that the signature on the Report was not his, that he authored a legitimate (and non-controversial) report, and that his report and the Report were generated from an "unsecured" office computer. Id. ¶ 30. On December 30, 2014, over four years later, Maietti lodged a formal grievance against Crowley with EEO regarding the Report. Id. ¶ 33. After the Report was created, but prior to Plaintiff's knowledge of it, the EEO/Affirmative Action Liaison Officer ("EEO/AA Officer"), Jenna Abuan, began an investigation. Id. ¶ 34. The investigation was "handled on a confidential basis." Id.

Plaintiff alleges that during the investigation, Defendants released the Report to other law enforcement agencies. Id. ¶ 41. Specifically, in furtherance of the investigation, Defendants sent the Report for laboratory testing and handwriting analysis. Id. ¶ 40. Additionally, Plaintiff asserts that the Report was released pursuant to OPRA to private citizens and an internet blogger. Id. ¶¶41-42. On March 24, 2016, Plaintiff became aware of the Report when it was published on the website realjerseycity.com. Id. ¶ 43.

Following the public release of the Report, Plaintiff alleges that he "received (and continues to receive) comments and questions from family members, friends, co-workers, acquaintances and others regarding the defamatory and racially discriminatory report." Id. ¶ 44. Other than the contents of the Report, Plaintiff does not allege that he has been subject to any additional derogatory or discriminatory comments or actions. There is also no indication that Plaintiff's job position has changed in any manner since the accident or since the public posting of the Report. Nonetheless, Plaintiff alleges that he has "continued to work in a hostile work environment." Id. ¶ 46.

III. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Plaintiff filed his Complaint on August 22, 2016 alleging eight causes of action: (1) Hostile Work Environment Violation, 42 U.S.C. § 1981; (2) Fourteenth Amendment Violation, 42 U.S.C. § 1983; (3) Monell Liability (Fourteenth Amendment), 42 U.S.C. § 1983; (4) Conspiracy to Interfere with Civil Rights, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1985, 1986; (5) New Jersey Civil Rights Act ("NJCRA"), N.J.S.A. 10:6-2, et seq.; (6) New Jersey Law Against Discrimination ("NJLAD"), N.J.S.A. 10:5.1, et seq.; (7) Common Law Defamation; and (8) Civil Conspiracy.⁴ In lieu of answering, Defendants filed their motion to dismiss on October 12, 2016. Def. Br. Plaintiff opposes this motion. Pl. Opp'n.

IV. STANDARD OF REVIEW

Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure permits a defendant to move to dismiss a count for "failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted[.]" To withstand a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), a plaintiff must allege "enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007). A complaint is plausible on its face when there is enough factual content "that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). Although the plausibility standard "does not impose a probability requirement, it does require a pleading to show more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully." Connelly v. Lane Const. Corp., 809 F.3d 780, 786 (3d Cir. 2016) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). As a result, a plaintiff must "allege sufficient facts to raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will uncover proof of [his] claims." Id. at 789.

In evaluating the sufficiency of a complaint, a district court must accept all factual allegations in the complaint as true and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff. Phillips v. Cty. of Allegheny, 515 F.3d 224, 231 (3d Cir. 2008). A court, however, is "not compelled to accept unwarranted inferences, unsupported conclusions or legal conclusions disguised as factual allegations." Baraka v. McGreevey, 481 F.3d 187, 211 (3d Cir. 2007). If, after viewing the allegations in the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, it appears that no relief could be granted under any set of facts consistent with the allegations, a court may dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim. DeFazio v. Leading Edge Recovery Sols., LLC, No. 10-2945, 2010 WL 5146765, at *1 (D.N.J. Dec. 13, 2010).

V. DISCUSSION

Before addressing the specific counts, the Court notes at the outset that Plaintiff appears to confuse or conflate the contents of the Report in general with the specific, inappropriate statementsthat relate to him. The Report uses a racial slur in referring to Plaintiff, attributes to him a particular comment (slang language to describe a potential shooting), and refers to Plaintiff as Officer Maietti's "boy." The remaining, objectionable comments concern Officer Maietti, the female driver of the other car, and the accident investigator - not Pl...