Matthews v. Sweeney

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LUKE MATTHEWS; CARLOS GOMEZ; GENTL BONDS; ROBERT SMITH; and KASIEM CHAVES, Plaintiffs, v. L. SWEENEY, Clinton Corr. Sergeant; MICHAEL GUYNUP, Clinton Corr. Lieutenant; CORR. EMERGENCY RESPONSE TEAM “CERT” OFFICER 44-3; CERT OFFICER 44-4; CERT OFFICER 44-5; CERT OFFICER 44-23; and CERT OFFICER 44-29; Defendants.

No. 9:17-CV-0503 (GTS/ML)

United States District Court, N.D. New York

April 10, 2024

BEDLOCK, LEVINE & HOFFMAN OF COUNSEL: DAVID B. RANKIN ESQ., JONATHAN C. MOORE, ESQ., MARC A. CANNAN, ESQ. Counsel for Plaintiffs

HON LETITIA A. JAMES OF COUNSEL: DAVID C. WHITE, ESQ., THOMAS A CULLEN, ESQ., MARK G. MITCHELL, ESQ. Counsel for Defendants

DECISION AND ORDER

GLENN T. SUDDABY, United States District Judge.

Currently before the Court, in this prisoners civil rights action filed by the five above-captioned individuals (“Plaintiffs”) against the seven above-captioned employees of the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (“Defendants”), are the following: Plaintiffs' cross-motion for spoliation sanctions (Dkt. No. 318, Attach. 4); and those portions of Defendants' motion for summary judgment (Dkt. No. 308) on which decision was reserved in the Decision and Order dated March 28, 2023 of Senior U.S. District Judge Thomas J. McAvoy, from whom this case has been reassigned (Dkt. Nos. 329, 356). For the reasons set forth below, Plaintiffs' cross-motion for spoliation sanctions is denied without prejudice, and the remaining portions of Defendants' motion for summary judgment are denied.

I. RELEVANT BACKGROUND

A. Parties' Pre-Spoliation Hearing Briefing

Generally, in their pre-hearing brief, Defendants essentially assert three arguments: (1) Defendants Guynup and Sweeney played no role in creating or maintaining any of the spoliated materials sought by Plaintiffs, and CERT Officer 44-5 and CERT Officer 44-23 played no role in maintaining control of any of the relevant CERT documentation sought by Plaintiffs (nor where they even present during the constitutional violations alleged by Plaintiffs); (2) although the material in question was within the possession and control of CERT Lieutenant Michael Harms and CERT Officer 44-3, their explanation will show that any withholding or destruction of that material was not intentional or even negligent, but was caused by the unprecedented circumstances surrounding the underlying escape of two inmates from Dannemora Correctional Facility in June 2015; and (3) under the circumstances, the testimony and evidence provided by Defendants will show that, to the extent a sanction is warranted, it is not the most-severe sanction sought by Plaintiffs (striking Defendants' Answer) but a lesser one that is molded to serving the prophylactic, punitive, and remedial rationales underlying the spoliation doctrine. (Dkt. No. 337, Attach. 1.)

Generally, in their pre-hearing brief, Plaintiffs assert three arguments: (1) because Defendants fail to point to any reasonable steps they took to preserve the binder and electronic case file containing inmate interview information, and strip search forms (and indeed they fail to explain why the relevant evidence is not available), and because the lost evidence is highly relevant to Plaintiffs' claims, the circumstances support a reasonable inference that Defendants acted intentionally; (2) at the spoliation hearing, Plaintiffs will examine both CERT Defendant 44-3 and Lieutenant Harm regarding their explanation of their spoliation the CERT recorder notes and CERT inmate cell removal assignment sheets, and in so doing Plaintiffs will show that, at the very least, the spoliation that occurred supports a reasonable inference of intentional conduct; and (3) as a result, the Court should either (a) strike Defendants' Answer (or issue another curative spoliation sanction) or (b) deny Defendants' motion for summary judgment. (Dkt. No. 338.)

Generally, in their supplemental pre-hearing brief, Defendants assert two arguments: (1) Plaintiffs' cross-motion for spoliation sanctions should be denied in its entirety because it seeks the drastic remedy of an Order striking Defendants' Answer, which is not warranted because Defendants, most of whom were not responsible for the loss or destruction of the evidence in question, did not act intentionally; and (2) Plaintiffs cannot demonstrate the elements of a culpable state of mind and prejudice sufficient to support an award of even lesser sanctions for five reasons: (a) the inmate interview sheets demanded by Plaintiffs have now been disclosed, eliminating any prejudice to Plaintiffs resulting from the loss of those documents; (b) any prejudicial effect caused by the loss of the Certificate of Search forms has been mitigated by Defendants' production of the names of the officers who transported Plaintiffs to Upstate Correctional Facility on June 15-16, 2015 (obtained from the Commanders logbook and a list of the incarcerated individuals who were transported on those dates); (c) the loss of the CERT recorder notes and the CERT inmate cell removal assignment sheets was inadvertent, caused by an unprecedented emergency of the utmost severity for DOCCS in 2015, which gave rise to a complicated, multi-agency manhunt in the rain; (d) Defendants' failure to preserve electronically stored information was excusable in light of the diligence with which they searched for that information, the ordinary custom and practice of OSI in 2015, and the location and disclosure of the Commanders logbook and inmate interview records; and (e) Defendants were not culpable for the reasons stated in their original pre-hearing brief. (Dkt. No. 346, Attach. 1.)

Generally, in their supplemental pre-hearing brief, Plaintiffs assert two arguments: (1) Defendants' belated production of Jeffrey Joswick's scanned copies of the inmate interview information establishes that they willfully withheld that information in bad faith, because Defendants' counsel did not bother to interview Mr. Joswick (the person who had been in charge of implementing and managing the inmate interrogation operation and ask him if he had information to identify which correction officers interviewed which inmates) during nearly seven-and-a-half years of litigation; and (2) Defendants' belated production of the inmate interview information does not cure the prejudice suffered by Plaintiff Carlos Gomez, because (a) it caused him to spend several years of an inordinate amount of time and money to take depositions, make discovery demands, and make discovery motions to try and obtain that information, and (b) had Defendants timely produced this information, Plaintiff Gomez would have been able to timely identify the persons responsible for his injuries, make them a party to this lawsuit, depose them while their memories of the incident were still intact, and timely locate other witnesses to support his claims, which he cannot now given that the three-year statute of limitations expired more than five years ago. (Dkt. No. 348.)

B. Spoliation Hearing and Post-Hearing Briefing

A 140-minute spoliation hearing was held on February 28, 2024. (Text Minute Entry dated Feb. 28, 2024.) At the hearing, four witnesses testified: (1) Correctional Emergency Response Team (“CERT”) Lieutenant Michael Harms; (2) CERT Defendant 44-3; (3) former Clinton Correctional Facility Crisis Intervention Unit (“CIU”) Team Leader Jeffrey Joswick; and (4) New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (“DOCCS”) Office of Special Investigations (“OSI”) Deputy Chief Investigator Mark Doherty.

In addition, nine exhibits were received into evidence: (1) Exhibit D-1 containing the Affidavit of DOCCS Associate Counsel, Marat Skholnik, dated November 6, 2023; (2) Exhibit D-2 containing an undated statement by DOCCS Assistant Deputy Chief Investigator Mark Doherty; (3) Exhibit D-3 containing a List of Inmate Interviews listing inmates interviewed at the Clinton County Correctional Facility as part of the Matt and Sweat investigation, with the investigator and/or unit who performed the interviewed (Bates Stamped 5817 - 5888); (4) Exhibit D-4 containing Inmate Interviews of inmates interviewed at the Clinton County Correctional Facility as part of the Matt and Sweat investigation, served on Plaintiffs' counsel on November 2, 2023 (Bates Stamped 5895 - 6199); (5) Exhibit D-5 containing the Commander's logbook from June 15-16, 2015, listing the officers who transported incarcerated individuals to Upstate Correctional Facility (Bates Stamped 2017 - 2021); (6) Exhibit D-6 containing a list of the incarcerated individuals who were transported to Upstate Correctional Facility on June 15-16, 2015 (Bates Stamped 1905 - 1907); (7) Exhibit P-1 containing excerpts from the Guidelines for CERT Operations (i.e., the cover-page and Index at Bates Stamped 2015 - 2016, the “Frisk and Search Procedures” at Bates Stamped 1845 - 1849, and the “Draft Procedures” at Bates Stamped 1861 - 1864); (8) Exhibit P-2 containing a July 13, 2015, CERT Memorandum regarding a Clinton Escape Deployment Report (Bates Stamped 2030 - 2032); and (9) Exhibit P-3 containing a blank calendar page printout for June 2015.

Generally in their post-hearing brief, Plaintiffs repeat arguments made in their pre-hearing briefs. (Compare Dkt. No. 361 with Dkt. No. 318, Attach. 4 and Dkt. No. 338 and Dkt. No. 348.) Refined arguments worthy of mention are (1) Plaintiffs' argument that the hearing witnesses' testimony does not explain the spoliation of inmate cell removal assignment sheets and recorder notes from the draft that occurred on the evening of June 16, 2015 (which was after the CERT team's last foray through the swamps earlier that day), and (2) Plaintiffs' argument that the purportedly “mitigating” documents...