Rowe v. City of Fort Lauderdale

8 F.Supp.2d 1369

Robert R. ROWE, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF FORT LAUDERDALE, et al., Defendants.

No. 97-6832-Civ.

United States District Court, S.D. Florida.

May 6, 1998.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Kenneth J. Kavanaugh, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, for plaintiff.

Dieter K. Gunther, Adorno & Zeder, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, Clark J. Cochran, Jr., Hal B. Anderson, Billing, Cochran, Heath, Lyles & Mauro, P.A., Ft. Lauderdale, FL, Bohdan Neswiacheny, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, Martin A. Feigenbaum, Joseph Kalbac, Kubicki Draper, Miami, FL, Maxine S. Ryan, Office of Attorney General, Civil Litigation Division, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, for defendants.

OMNIBUS ORDER

HIGHSMITH, District Judge.

THIS MATTER comes before the Court upon the following motions: (1) Defendant Ledegang's Motion to Dismiss Count V of the Complaint; (2) Defendants State Attorney Michael Satz, Joel Lazarus, Florida Department of Children and Family Services and Sharon Anderson's Motion to Dismiss and Motion to Strike; (3) Defendant City of Fort Lauderdale's Motion to Dismiss Amended Complaint; (4) Defendant Ron Cochran's Motion to Dismiss; (5) Defendant Cynthia Doss's Combined Motions to Dismiss, for More Definite Statement, and to Strike; and (6) Defendant Ron Cochran's Alternative Motion to Dismiss Amended Complaint for Failure to Substitute.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

According to the Amended Complaint, in 1984 Rowe was investigated and charged in Broward County Circuit Court with capital sexual battery relating to his natural child ("the alleged victim"). Following a jury trial, Rowe was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Thereafter, in July 1994, Rowe's conviction and sentence were apparently vacated after an evidentiary hearing relating to the denial of his constitutional rights. The State of Florida decided not to retry Rowe.

On or about September 10, 1997, Plaintiff Robert Rowe ("Rowe") filed the instant seven-count Amended Complaint against more than a dozen defendants. The first five of the seven counts are brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The last two counts are brought pursuant to Florida law.

In Count I, Rowe asserts a claim against Defendant Ron Cochran ("Cochran"), Defendant City of Fort Lauderdale's ("the City") former Chief of Police.¹ In Count II, Rowe asserts a claim against the City. In Count III, Rowe asserts what appears to be a conspiracy claim against Defendant Police Officers, Assistant State Attorney Defendant Joel Lazarus ("Lazarus"), Defendant Sharon Anderson ("Anderson"), an employee of Defendant Florida Department of Children and Family Services ("FDCFS"), and Cynthia Rowe n/k/a Cynthia Doss ("Doss"), the alleged victim's mother. In Counts IV and V, Rowe asserts substantive and conspiracy claims (respectively) for malicious prosecution against Defendant Police Officer Sandra Ledegang ("Ledegang"), Lazarus, Anderson, and Doss. In Counts VI and VII, Rowe asserts state law claims of spoilation of evidence and negligent supervision and training (respectively) against the City, State Attorney Defendant Michael Satz ("Satz"), and FDCFS.

Currently, the Court addresses the various motions to dismiss and other related motions filed by the defendants.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

To state a claim, Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a) requires, inter alia, "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief." The court must "take the material allegations of the complaint and its incorporated exhibits as true, and liberally construe the complaint in favor of the Plaintiff." Burch v. Apalachee Community Mental Health Services, Inc., 840 F.2d 797, 798 (11th Cir.1988) (citation omitted), aff'd, 494 U.S. 113, 110 S.Ct. 975, 108 L.Ed.2d 100 (1990). The law in this Circuit is well-settled that "the `accepted rule' for appraising the sufficiency of a complaint is `that a complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief.'" SEC v. ESM Group, Inc., 835 F.2d 270, 272 (11th Cir.1988) (quoting Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957)), cert. denied, 486 U.S. 1055, 108 S.Ct. 2822, 100 L.Ed.2d 923 (1988). The moving party bears a heavy burden. St. Joseph's Hosp. Inc. v. Hosp. Corp. of Am., 795 F.2d 948, 953 (11th Cir.1986).

DISCUSSION

I. Motions to Dismiss

A. Count II

In Count II of the Amended Complaint, Rowe alleges that the City violated 28 U.S.C. § 1983 by being deliberately indifferent to his constitutional rights in the training and supervision of its police officers with regard to the collection, accounting and preservation of evidence. Rowe claims that, as a result, the City violated the search and seizure clause of the Fourth Amendment; the bail clause of the Eighth Amendment; and the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.² The Court will address each issue in turn.

1. To the Extent that Rowe's § 1983 Claim Invokes the Fourth and Eighth Amendments, It Is Barred by the Statute of Limitations

In its motion to dismiss, the City asserts that, to the extent that Rowe's § 1983 claim relates to the Fourth and Eighth Amendments, it is barred by the statute of limitations. The statute of limitations for § 1983 actions is borrowed from the forum state's general (or residual) statute of limitations. Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261, 276, 105 S.Ct. 1938, 85 L.Ed.2d 254 (1985); Owens v. Okure, 488 U.S. 235, 249-50, 109 S.Ct. 573, 102 L.Ed.2d 594 (1989). In Florida, the applicable statute of limitations period is four years. Fla.Stat. § 95.11(3). According to the Amended Complaint, Rowe was convicted on December 14, 1984, and incarcerated thereafter. All conduct on the part of the City of which Rowe complains occurred before this conviction date. Hence, Rowe's § 1983 claim, to the extent that it invokes the Fourth and Eighth Amendments, against the City expired with the end of the four year limitations period and cannot be raised thirteen years later in this 1997 action.³

a. Fourth Amendment

It is axiomatic that, in complaining of the City's evidence handling policies and practices, Rowe only has standing to invoke the Fourth Amendment as to the seizure and handling of property that belonged to him. Moreover, any suit for improper seizure of such property necessarily accrued at the time of the seizure. "[A] suit for damages attributable to an allegedly unreasonable search may lie even if the challenged search produced evidence that was introduced in a state criminal trial resulting in ... conviction. Because ... such a § 1983 action, even if successful, would not necessarily imply that the plaintiff's conviction was unlawful." Heck, 512 U.S. at 487 n. 7, 114 S.Ct. 2364 (1994) (internal citations omitted). Thus, the Fourth Amendment component of Rowe's § 1983 claim against the City, accrued not later than the time of his conviction and is, therefore, barred by the statute of limitations.⁴

b. Eighth Amendment

Rowe's effort to invoke the Eighth Amendment right to bail is, similarly, barred by the four year statute of limitations. The facts surrounding his pretrial detention, including what evidence was seemingly fabricated or allegedly not produced from his home, were known or should have been known at that time. The deprivation ended with his conviction and incarceration when the right to bail ceased to apply. Moreover, a denial of the right to bail does not necessarily impugn his conviction so as to trigger the bar to suit under Heck. Rather, the denial of bail is a deprivation of liberty that precedes conviction. It bears no necessary relationship to the propriety of the later conviction. Thus, Heck did not act as a bar to this portion of Rowe's claim against the City. Accordingly, the cause of action arose not later than Rowe's December 14, 1984, conviction. Therefore, the statute of limitations bars the Eighth Amendment component of Rowe's § 1983 claim.

2. Rowe's § 1983 Claim Fails to Implicate Actionable Violations of the Fourteenth Amendment

Rowe also asserts a claim pursuant to § 1983 against the City based on alleged violations of the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court will address each issue in turn.

a. The Due Process Clause

i. Substantive Due Process

There is no substantive due process right to be free from investigation or even from prosecution on less than probable cause. See Albright v. Oliver, 510 U.S. 266, 268, 114 S.Ct. 807, 127 L.Ed.2d 114 (1994). Similarly, the Due Process Clause does not recognize an unlawful arrest as a constitutional injury for which damages are recoverable under § 1983. In Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137, 99 S.Ct. 2689, 61 L.Ed.2d 433 (1979), the Court observed that "[t]he Constitution does not guarantee that only the guilty will be arrested. If it did, section 1983 would provide a cause of action of every defendant acquitted...." Id. at 145, 99 S.Ct. 2689. The Baker Court went on to explain that, for the purposes of the Due Process Clause, a claimant's innocence of the charge for which he was arrested is "largely irrelevant." Id. Thus, even if any mishandling of the evidence against Rowe resulted in his unlawful arrest, there is no cognizable due process claim for this alleged harm.

Moreover, any constitutional defects in the prosecution of Rowe, such as the alleged violation of his rights under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), were eliminated by the invalidation of his conviction. As explained by the Sixth Circuit in McCune v. City of Grand Rapids, 842 F.2d 903, 907 (6th Cir.1988), when reviewing similar Brady accusations in a § 1983 suit for allegedly erroneous conviction:

Because the underlying criminal proceeding terminated in [plaintiff's] favor, he has not been injured by the act of wrongful suppression of exculpatory evidence. Therefore, [plaintiff] has failed to state an independent claim...