Soukaneh v. Andrzejewski

112 F.4th 107

Basel M. SOUKANEH, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Nicholas ANDRZEJEWSKI, Defendant-Appellant.^*

Docket No. 21-2047

August Term, 2022

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit

Argued: October 28, 2022

Decided: August 12, 2024

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, No. 19-cv-1147, Janet Bond Arterton, Judge.

Joseph A. Mengacci (Daniel J. Foster, on the brief), Office of the Corporation Counsel, Waterbury, CT, for Defendant-Appellant.

John R. Williams, New Haven, CT, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Michael T. Jean, Hadan W. Hatch, for Amicus Curiae National Rifle Association of America, Inc., in support of Plaintiff-Appellee.

Before: Lynch, Lee, and Robinson, Circuit Judges.

Eunice C. Lee, Circuit Judge:

Defendant-Appellant Nicholas Andrzejewski, an officer of the Waterbury, Connecticut police department, appeals from the judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (Arterton, J.) denying in part his motion for summary judgment on the grounds that his purported conduct was not shielded by qualified immunity. The evidence, taken in the light most favorable to Plaintiff-Appellee Basel Soukaneh, would permit a reasonable jury to find that in the course of a routine traffic stop, Andrzejewski unlawfully and violently handcuffed and detained Soukaneh in the back of a police vehicle for over half an hour and conducted a warrantless search of Soukaneh's vehicle after Soukaneh presented a facially valid firearms permit and disclosed that he possessed a firearm pursuant to the permit. On appeal, Andrzejewski argues that we should reverse the district court's denial of qualified immunity because the presence of the lawfully owned firearm in the vehicle gave him the requisite probable cause to detain Soukaneh, search the interior of his car, and search his trunk.

Drawing all permissible factual inferences in Soukaneh's favor, as we must on summary judgment, we agree with the district court. The evidence would support a finding that Andrzejewski violated Soukaneh's Fourth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizure when he detained Soukaneh in the manner, and for the length of time, that he did, and when he conducted the warrantless searches of Soukaneh's car and trunk. Andrzejewski is not entitled to qualified immunity for such conduct and, accordingly, the district court properly denied his motion for summary judgment.

We therefore AFFIRM the judgment of the district court and REMAND the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Facts¹

At approximately 8:43 p.m. on November 12, 2018, Basel Soukaneh stopped his car with the engine running on the side of a street in Waterbury, Connecticut. Soukaneh's iPhone GPS, located in a holder mounted to the car's dashboard, was frozen, and he stopped his car to fix it. The area "was dark and [known as] a high crime area well known for prostitution, drug transactions and other criminal activity." Joint App'x at 9. Within seconds after Soukaneh stopped his car, Officer Nicholas Andrzejewski approached the vehicle, knocked on the driver's side window, and according to Soukaneh, loudly demanded Soukaneh's driver's license. The interior vehicle light was on, so although the area was dark, Andrzejewski could see the activity inside of the car when he approached the window. As Soukaneh complied and handed his license over, he also provided Andrzejewski with a facially valid firearms permit. While doing so, Soukaneh also disclosed to Andrzejewski that, per the permit, he was in lawful possession of a pistol that was located in the driver's side door compartment.

Following that exchange, Andrzejewski ordered Soukaneh out of the vehicle. According to Soukaneh's description, Andrzejewski then violently "dragged [him] out of the car," pushed him to the ground, yelled and screamed at him, handcuffed him, and pat-searched his person, recovering neither a weapon nor contraband.² Joint App'x at 37. Andrzejewski then "shoved [Soukaneh] into the rear area of [Andrzejewski's police] cruiser," and left Soukaneh "bent over and partially on the floor of the vehicle." Id. at 38. Soukaneh remained "in that position, facing down and unable to see, until another police officer came along several minutes later and helped him sit up." Id. at 38-39.

Once the other officer repositioned Soukaneh in the cruiser, Soukaneh saw Andrzejewski search his "entire car, both front and rear," as well as the car's trunk. Id. at 39. After the search, Andrzejewski returned to the cruiser and kept Soukaneh handcuffed and detained in it for an additional half hour, during which time "a group of seven to ten police officers gathered." Id. At one point, Andrzejewski began writing on his onboard computer and turned to a fellow officer who had arrived at the scene and asked, "What should I write him up for?" Id. The other officer laughed and the sergeant, who had also since arrived, told Andrzejewski what to write.³

Both parties agree that at some unspecified point during Soukaneh's handcuffed detention while in the vehicle, Andrzejewski ran a check on Soukaneh's firearm permit and confirmed that the permit was validly held.⁴ Soukaneh was subsequently released.

B. Proceedings Below

On July 25, 2019, Soukaneh filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut. He principally alleged that Andrzejewski's actions deprived him of his Fourth Amendment right to be free from "unreasonable and warrantless arrest and/or detention," and "warrantless and unreasonable search and seizure of his person, vehicle and effects," and sought compensatory and punitive damages pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1988. Joint App'x at 2-3. On December 31, 2020, Andrzejewski moved for partial summary judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(a), arguing that his actions were justified because he had reasonable suspicion and probable cause, or alternatively, that he was entitled to qualified immunity as to the claims asserted against him because if any rights were violated, they were not "clearly established." Id. at 89.

On August 6, 2021, the district court granted Andrzejewski's motion for summary judgment in part and denied it in part. Soukaneh v. Andrzejewski, No. 3:19-CV-1147 (JBA), 2021 WL 3475700 (D. Conn. Aug. 6, 2021). The district court granted Andrzejewski's motion for summary judgment with regard to the initial stop. It concluded that since "[Andrzejewski's] basis for stopping [Soukaneh's] vehicle was that the car was stopped at night in the roadway with the engine running in an area known for drugs and prostitution," it was reasonable for Andrzejewski to believe that Soukaneh was committing a traffic violation, "giving him reasonable suspicion to stop [Soukaneh], check his driver's license, and require him to step out of the car." Id. at *3. However, the district court denied summary judgment on the remaining issues related to (1) handcuffing and detaining Soukaneh in the police cruiser, (2) searching the interior of Soukaneh's car, and (3) searching the car's trunk. Id. at *3-7. The district court reasoned that Andrzejewski did not possess the requisite arguable probable cause to justify this conduct, explaining that a reasonable officer would not believe that Soukaneh was committing a crime, or "posed a meaningful threat of being 'armed and dangerous'" for merely disclosing the presence of the firearm and its accompanying permit. Id. at *6 (quoting Knowles v. Iowa, 525 U.S. 113, 118, 119 S.Ct. 484, 142 L.Ed.2d 492 (1998)). That was especially true in light of Soukaneh's compliant and non-threatening behavior, and "the absence of any articulable reason for Defendant to believe the [gun] permit was counterfeit or otherwise invalid." Id. at *4. The district court concluded that "[a]ny contrary holding would make it practically impossible for the lawful owner of a firearm to maintain a Fourth Amendment right to privacy in his or her automobile." Id. at *6. Accordingly, the district court determined that Andrzejewski was not entitled to qualified immunity on these issues, and thus denied Andrzejewski's motion for summary judgment in remaining part. Id. at *5-7.

Andrzejewski timely appealed the district court's rejection of his qualified immunity defense.

II. LEGAL STANDARDS

A. Jurisdiction and Standard of Review

This Court typically does not have appellate jurisdiction over a denial of summary judgment. See Plumhoff v. Rickard, 572 U.S. 765, 771, 134 S.Ct. 2012, 188 L.Ed.2d 1056 (2014) ("An order denying a motion for summary judgment is generally not a final decision within the meaning of [28 U.S.C.] § 1291 and is thus generally not immediately appealable."); see also Golino v. City of New Haven, 950 F.2d 864, 868 (2d Cir. 1991) (same proposition). Under the collateral order doctrine, however, a district court's denial of a summary judgment motion is appealable when the decision denies qualified immunity. See Plumhoff, 572 U.S. at 771, 134 S.Ct. 2012 (noting that the rule requiring a final judgment for appellate jurisdiction "does not apply when the summary judgment motion is based on a claim of qualified immunity"); Washington v. Napolitano, 29 F.4th 93, 103 (2d Cir. 2022) (same proposition). That is because "[q]ualified immunity 'is an immunity from suit rather than a mere defense to liability,' and therefore its denial is immediately appealable under the collateral order doctrine." Reyes v. Fischer, 934 F.3d 97, 102 (2d Cir. 2019) (quoting Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 526, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985)). This Court has jurisdiction over a denial of qualified immunity on a summary judgment motion only to the extent that it was denied as a matter of law. Terebesi v. Torreso, 764 F.3d 217, 229 (2d Cir. 2014).

We ordinarily review a district court's summary judgment ruling de novo to determine whether the evidentiary submissions "show[] that there is no genuine dispute...