Taylor v. City of Buffalo

215 N.Y.S.3d 636

229 A.D.3d 1125

Dean TAYLOR, Plaintiff-Respondent,

v.CITY OF BUFFALO, City of Buffalo Police Department, Commissioner Byron C. Lockwood, Police Officer Kyle T. Moriarity, Police Officer Christopher Bridgett and John Does 1-10, Defendants-Appellants.

Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Fourth Department, New York.

Entered: July 3, 2024

Appeal from an order of the Supreme Court, Erie County (Craig D. Hannah, J.), entered February 21, 2023. The order denied the motion of defendants for summary judgment dismissing the complaint.

CAVETTE A. CHAMBERS, CORPORATION COUNSEL, BUFFALO (RYAN M. SOLLENNE OF COUNSEL), FOR DEFENDANTS-APPELLANTS.

SHAW & SHAW, P.C., HAMBURG (BLAKE J. ZACCAGNINO OF COUNSEL), FOR PLAINTIFF-RESPONDENT.

PRESENT: WHALEN, P.J., CURRAN, GREENWOOD, NOWAK, AND KEANE, JJ.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

It is hereby ORDERED that the order so appealed from is unanimously modified on the law by granting the motion in part, dismissing the complaint against defendants City of Buffalo Police Department, Commissioner Byron C. Lockwood, and John Does 1-10, dismissing the 4th, 5th, 6th and 11th causes of action, and dismissing the claim for punitive damages, and as modified the order is affirmed without costs.

Memorandum: Plaintiff commenced this action seeking damages stemming from plaintiff’s arrest by defendants Police Officer Kyle T. Moriarity and Police Officer Christopher Bridgett for making a video recording of police officers at a crime scene. Defendants appeal from an order that denied their motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint.

[1] We agree with defendants that Supreme Court erred in denying those parts of their motion seeking to dismiss the complaint against defendants City of Buffalo Police Department, Commissioner Byron C. Lockwood, and John Does 1-10 (John Doe defendants). First, inasmuch as the City of Buffalo Police Department is merely an administrative unit of defendant City of Buffalo, it cannot be independently sued (see generally Village of Brockport v. County of Monroe Pure Waters Div., 75 A.D.2d 483, 486-487, 429 N.Y.S.2d 931 [4th Dept. 1980], affd 54 N.Y.2d 678, 442 N.Y.S.2d 510, 425 N.E.2d 898 [1981]), and we therefore modify the order accordingly.

[2, 3] Similarly, the court erred in denying that part of the motion seeking to dismiss the complaint against Lockwood, and we therefore further modify the order accordingly. Plaintiff has not asserted any theory of liability against Lockwood and his name appears nowhere in the complaint save for the caption. Furthermore, Lockwood is not sued in his individual capacity and there are no allegations that he was personally involved in the incident. Thus, even assuming, arguendo, that the complaint states claims against Lockwood in his official capacity, they must be dismissed as duplicative of the claims against the City of Buffalo (see Kanderskaya v. City of New York, 11 F.Supp.3d 431, 435 [S.D.N.Y. 2014], affd 590 Fed.Appx. 112 [2d Cir. 2015]; Reinhardt v. City of Buffalo, 2021 WL 2155771, *5 [W.D.N.Y., May 27, 2021, No. 1:21-cv-206]).

[4] We further agree with defendants that the complaint against the John Doe defendants must be dismissed, and we therefore further modify the order accordingly. Defendants established that plaintiff did not identify and effect service upon the John Doe defendants within the relevant statute of limitations period, and plaintiff failed to raise a triable issue of fact in response (see Lepore v. Town of Greenburgh, 120 A.D.3d 1202, 1204, 992 N.Y.S.2d 329 [2d Dept. 2014]). Inasmuch as the John Doe defendants are the only defendants being sued in their individual capacity and plaintiff sought "[p]unitive [d]amages against all individual defendants" only, plaintiff’s claim for punitive damages must also be dismissed. We therefore further modify the order by granting that part of the motion seeking to dismiss the claim for punitive damages.

[5–7] Contrary to defendants’ contention, the court properly denied their motion insofar as it sought dismissal of plaintiff’s first cause of action against Moriarity and Bridgett, sounding in excessive force. "Claims that law enforcement personnel used excessive force in the course of an arrest are analyzed under the Fourth Amendment and its standard of objective reasonableness …. Because of its intensely factual nature, the question of whether the use of force was reasonable under the circumstances is generally best left for a jury to decide" (Wright v. City of Buffalo, 137 A.D.3d 1739, 1742, 29 N.Y.S.3d 723 [4th Dept. 2016] [internal quotation marks omitted]; see Snow v. Schreier, 193 A.D.3d 1346, 1347, 147 N.Y.S.3d 274 [4th Dept. 2021]; Bridenbaker v. City of Buffalo, 137 A.D.3d 1729, 1730, 28 N.Y.S.3d 545 [4th Dept. 2016]; Combs v. City of New York, 130 A.D.3d 862, 864-865, 15 N.Y.S.3d 67 [2d Dept. 2015]). Here, the evidence submitted by defendants, including the body camera footage of the incident and the deposition testimony of Moriarity, who testified that he punched plaintiff in the head while effecting plaintiff’s arrest, raise a triable issue of fact concerning "the degree of plaintiff’s resistance, the threat [he] posed, and the degree of force [Moriarity and Bridgett] used" (Snow, 193 A.D.3d at 1348, 147 N.Y.S.3d 274).

[8] For the same reason, we reject defendants’ contention that the court erred in denying their motion insofar as it sought dismissal of plaintiff’s seventh, eighth, and ninth causes of action against Moriarity and Bridgett, sounding in assault, battery, and battery committed in performance of a public duty. By submitting the deposition testimony of plaintiff and Moriarity and the bodycam videos, defendants’ initial submission created triable issues of fact with respect to those causes of action "without regard to the sufficiency of the opposing papers" (Rivera v. Rochester Gen. Health Sys., 173 A.D.3d 1758, 1760, 103 N.Y.S.3d 225 [4th Dept. 2019]; see generally Alvarez v. Prospect Hosp., 68 N.Y.2d 320, 324, 508 N.Y.S.2d 923, 501 N.E.2d 572 [1986]; Winegrad v. New York Univ. Med. Ctr., 64 N.Y.2d 851, 853, 487 N.Y.S.2d 316, 476 N.E.2d 642 [1985]).

[9–11] Contrary to defendants’ contention, the court properly denied their motion with respect to the 10th cause of action against Moriarity and Bridgett, for false imprisonment, inasmuch as defendants failed to establish that there was probable cause to arrest plaintiff. " ‘The existence of probable cause serves as a legal Justification for [an] arrest and an affirmative defense to [a] claim’ for … false imprisonment" (Shaw v. City of Rochester, 200 A.D.3d 1551, 1552, 161 N.Y.S.3d 536 [4th Dept. 2021], appeal dismissed 38 N.Y.3d 1181, 174 N.Y.S.3d 687, 195 N.E.3d 520 [2022], quoting Martinez v. City of Schenectady, 97 N.Y.2d 78, 85, 735 N.Y.S.2d 868, 761 N.E.2d 560 [2001]). Whether the defendants have probable cause to effect a plaintiff’s arrest is generally a question of fact to be decided by the jury, and should "be decided by the court only where there is no real dispute as to the facts or the proper inferences to be drawn surrounding the arrest" (MacDonald v. Town of Greenburgh, 112 A.D.3d 586, 586-587, 976 N.Y.S.2d 189 [2d Dept. 2013]; see Orminski v. Village of Lake Placid, 268 A.D.2d 780, 781, 702 N.Y.S.2d 181 [3d Dept. 2000]). Defendants’ submissions in support of the motion create a triable issue of fact whether there was probable cause to arrest plaintiff (see generally Shaw, 200 A.D.3d at 1553, 161 N.Y.S.3d 536; MacDonald, 112 A.D.3d at 587, 976 N.Y.S.2d 189), and thus, because defendants failed to meet...