Syrjala v. Town of Grafton

WILLIAM SYRJALA, Plaintiff, v. TOWN OF GRAFTON, CHIEF NORMAND A. CREPEAU,NEIL MINARDI, JOHN J. BENOIT, MARK R. BENOIT,JAMES M. O'BRIEN, JOHN J. ROPIAK,THOMAS J. FARRELL, THOMAS J. MICHNIEWICZ,LIAM F. O'ROURKE, DANIEL M. WENC and, JAMES C. CROSBY, Defendants.

CIVIL ACTION NO. 18-40019-TSH

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

March 24, 2020

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION AND ORDER

HILLMAN, D.J.

Background

William Syrjala ("Syrjala" or "Plaintiff") has filed suit against the Town of Grafton ("Town"), Chief Normand A. Crepeau (Chief Crepeau"), Neil Minardi ("Minardi"), John J. Benoit, Mark R. Benoit, James M. O'Brien ("O'Brien"), John J. Ropiak, Thomas J. Farrell, Thomas J. Michniewicz, Liam F. O'Rourke, Daniel M. Wenc ("Wenc") and James C. Crosby ("Crosby" and, together with the Town and other individually named officers "Defendants") asserting various federal and state law claims arising out of their response to numerous emergency/non-emergency calls he and his father made to the Grafton Police Department culminating with his eviction from his parents' residence.

Specifically, Plaintiff alleges the following claims: against the Town under 42 U.S.C. §1983 ("§ 1983") for maintaining a municipal policy or custom of disregarding clearly established unspecified constitutional rights of disabled adults in domestic disturbance and/or by denying Plaintiff "the benefit of a mandated report" (Count I); against the Town under Title II of the American with Disabilities Act, ("ADA"), 42 U.S.C. § 12132 (Count II); against the Town and Chief Crepeau for supervisory gross negligence in violation of § 1983 (Count III)¹; against all Defendants under § 1983 for violation of his procedural due process rights to life, liberty and bodily integrity (Count IV); against the Town under the Massachusetts Tort Claims Act, for negligent infliction of emotional distress (Count V)²; against the individual Defendants in their personal capacity for violation of his unspecified constitutional rights under § 1983 for violating of the mandatory reporting law (Count VI); against the individual Defendants under § 1983 for violation of his substantive due process rights (Count VII); against all Defendants for violation of the Due Process Clause of the 14^th Amendment (Count VIII); against all Defendants forMassachusetts Civil Rights Act ("MCRA") , Mass.Gen.L. ch. 12, §§11H, 11I (Count IX); and against the individual Defendants for conspiracy under 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3)(Count X)³.

This Memorandum and Order of Decision addresses Defendants' motion for summary judgment (Docket No. 64), Defendants' motion to strike Plaintiff's affidavit (Docket No. 72), and Defendants' motion to strike Plaintiff's statement of 340 additional facts (Docket No. 73). For the reasons set forth below, the Defendants' motions are granted.

THE MOTIONS TO STRIKE

The Motion To Srike Plaintiff's Affdavit

Defendants seek to strike the Aff. of Plaintiff William Syrjala In Supp. Of Opp. To Defs' Mot. For Sum. J. ("Syrjala Aff."), attached as Ex. 8 to Pl's Controverted Statement of Defs' Material Facts and Pl's Statement of Material Fact in Dispute (Docket No. 70-1). Defendants assert that for the most part, the factual assertions made in the affidavit which Plaintiff submitted in support of his statement of disputed facts and additional facts contradicts testimony he gave at his deposition.

A party cannot submit an affidavit in opposition to a summary judgment motion which contradicts prior sworn testimony in order to create a genuine issue of material fact:

It is settled that "'[w]hen an interested witness has given clear answers to unambiguous questions, he cannot create a conflict and resist summary judgment with an affidavit that is clearly contradictory, but does not give a satisfactory explanation of why the testimony has changed.'"

Torres v. El Dupont De Nemours & Co., 219 F.3d 13, 20 (1^st Cir. 2000)(citation to quoted case omitted)(alteration in original); sere also Mandarini v. Accurate Engineered Concrete, Inc. Civ.No. 17-11123-LTS, 2019 WL 7371942 (D.Mass. Dec. 31, 2019)(law does not permit interested witness to contradict sworn deposition testimony or sworn interrogatory answers by submitting affidavit that is clearly contradictory). The reason for this is obvious: sworn statements contradicting or expounding on prior testimony submitted after the filing of a motion for summary judgment are oftentimes "inappropriate attempts to manufacture issues of fact and should be stricken." Escribano-Reyes v. Professional Heap Certificate Corp., 817 F.3d 380 (1^st Cir. 2016). At the same time, " '[a] subsequent affidavit that merely explains, or amplifies upon, opaque testimony given in a previous deposition is entitled to consideration in opposition to a motion for summary judgment.' " Reynolds v. Steward St. Elizabeth's Medical Center of Boston, Inc., 364 F.Supp.3d 37, 52 (D.Mass. 2019)(citation to quoted case omitted)(alteration in original).

Syrjala asserts that nothing in his affidavit is "intended" to contradict his deposition testimony, rather he is supplementing his interrogatory answers to "clarity certain disputable facts or alleged inconsistencies in his deposition testimony, and to correct what [he] believe[s] to be misstatements or misunderstandings by Defendants of statements [he] made, or material facts about which [he has] personal knowledge, that relate to [his] cause of action." Syrjala Aff. at p. 1, ¶2. First, there are procedures in place to correct alleged misstatements made in answers to interrogatories or deposition questions. More specifically, this Court's rules of procedure provide that a party must supplement or correct its interrogatory disclosure or responses "in a timely manner if the party learns that is some material respect the disclosure or response is incomplete or incorrect ...." Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(e)(1)(A). As to depositions, the deponent has thirty days after the transcript becomes available to review it and if there are any changes, to sign a statementlisting the changes and the reasons for making them, i.e., deponent has thirty days to produce an errata sheet. Syrjala did not avail himself of these procedural methods for making the substantial changes to his sworn testimony which he attempts to accomplish by way of his affidavit. Substantially all of the factual assertions contained in his affidavit contradict prior testimony, are based on nothing more than sheer speculation, contain impermissible legal conclusions, or are completely irrelevant to his claims. Under the circumstances, the Court is not going to parse line by line to determine those few statements which are not violative of the so-called "sham affidavit" rule. The bottom line is that Syrjala cannot by way of an affidavit filed contemporaneously with his opposition to a previously filed motion for summary judgment attempt to manufacture genuine issues of material fact. The motion to strike the affidavit is granted.⁴

The Motion To Srike Plaintiff's Statement of Additional Facts

As part of his opposition to Defendants' Statement of Material Facts in Support of their Motion for Summary Judgment, Plaintiff has included a statement of 340 additional material facts he alleges are in dispute citing, in part, to the Syrjala Aff. as evidentiary support. The Defendants request that Plaintiff's additional 340 statements of fact be stricken. First, Syrjala's statement of additional facts must and will be stricken for failure to follow this Court's LR., D.Mass. 7.1 which require court filings be double spaced. Plaintiff utilized single line spacing on 33 of the 44 pages of his filing. Substantively, if Plaintiff's additional facts do not violate LR, D.Mass. 56.1 (requiring that the parties set forth a concise statement of the material facts indispute) outright, they clearly violate the spirit of the rule. More significantly, however, the Plaintiff has included facts and materials that under the broadest interpretation of "relevancy" are not germane to the case. For these reasons, the motion to strike is granted.

DEFENDANTS' MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

Standard of Review

Summary Judgment is appropriate where, "the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories and admissions on file, together with affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Carroll v. Xerox Corp., 294 F.3d 231, 236 (1^st Cir. 2002) (citing Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)). "'A "genuine" issue is one that could be resolved in favor of either party, and a "material fact" is one that has the potential of affecting the outcome of the case." Sensing v. Outback Steakhouse of Florida, LLC, 575 F.3d 145, 152 (1^st Cir. 2009) (quoting Calero-Cerezo v. U.S. Dep't. of Justice, 355 F.3d 6, 19 (1^st Cir. 2004)).

When considering a motion for summary judgment, the Court construes the record in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party and makes all reasonable inferences in favor thereof. Sensing, 575 F.3d at 153. The moving party bears the burden to demonstrate the absence of a genuine issue of material fact within the record. Id., at 152. "'Once the moving party has pointed to the absence of adequate evidence supporting the nonmoving party's case, the nonmoving party must come forward with facts that show a genuine issue for trial.'" Id. (citation to quoted case omitted). "'[T]he nonmoving party "may not rest upon mere allegations or denials of the [movant's] pleading, but must set forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue of material fact as to each issue upon which [s/he] would bear the ultimate burdenof proof at trial." Id. (citation to quoted case omitted). The nonmoving party cannot rely on "conclusory allegations" or " improbable inferences". Id. (citation to quoted case omitted). " ' The test is whether, as to each essential element, there is "sufficient evidence favoring the nonmoving party for a jury to return a...