Tobin v. McLeod

1

THOM TOBIN, Plaintiff v. CHRISTIAN MCLEOD et al., Defendants

No. 22 CV 7080

United States District Court, N.D. Illinois, Eastern Division

November 28, 2023

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

JEREMY C. DANIEL, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Plaintiff Thom Tobin filed suit against the City of Chicago, several members of the Chicago Police Department (the “Defendant Officers” and, together with the City of Chicago, the “City Defendants”),^[1]Illinois Masonic Medical Center (“Illinois Masonic”), and two of its employees, Elizabeth Byrne and Katie Tselepis (together with Illinois Masonic, the “Hospital Defendants”), alleging constitutional violations under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 as well as state law respondeat superior and indemnification claims. R. 1. The City Defendants and the Hospital Defendants have each filed a motion to dismiss the complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). For the reasons below, the Court denies the City Defendants' motion, R. 27, and grants the Hospital Defendants' motion. R. 37.

BACKGROUND^[2]

On December 16, 2020, Plaintiff was asleep in his apartment when the Defendant Officers knocked on his front door. R. 1 ¶ 7. When Plaintiff opened the door, the Defendant Officers entered his apartment, pointed “AK-47 weapons” at his head, and ordered him to put his hands up. Id. ¶ 9. Plaintiff complied with the Defendant Officers' orders and put his hands over his head despite having a dislocated right shoulder. Id. ¶ 11. The Defendant Officers handcuffed Plaintiff's hands behind his back and brought him downstairs to an ambulance waiting outside. Id. ¶¶ 11-12.

Although Plaintiff refused medical treatment, the Defendant Officers transported him in a police vehicle to Illinois Masonic where Bryne and Tselepis signed a petition for his involuntary admission. Id. ¶¶ 12-14. Plaintiff remained in the custody of Illinois Masonic until his release on December 18th. Id. ¶ 15. Upon returning to his apartment, Plaintiff discovered that it had been searched by the Defendant Officers and left in disarray with all of his drawers and cabinets opened. Id. ¶¶ 16, 38. Plaintiff alleges that the Defendant Officers had neither an arrest nor search warrant. Id. ¶ 7.

Plaintiff brought an eight-count complaint against the City Defendants and the Hospital Defendants based on the above allegations. See R. 1. The first six counts arise under § 1983. Count I alleges that the Defendant Officers illegally seized and/or falsely arrested Plaintiff without probable cause in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Count II alleges the Defendant Officers used excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Counts III and IV allege that the Defendant Officers failed to intervene to stop the underlying constitutional violations alleged in Counts I and II. Count V alleges that the Defendant Officers illegally searched Plaintiff's apartment in violation of the Fourth Amendment. And Count VI alleges a civil conspiracy based on an alleged agreement between the Defendant Officers and the Hospital Defendants to violate Plaintiff's constitutional rights under the Fourth Amendment. The remaining counts raise state-law respondeat superior (Count VII) and indemnification claims (Count VIII) against the City of Chicago.

The City Defendants move to dismiss Plaintiff's complaint under Rule 12(b)(6) on grounds that: (1) Plaintiff's complaint does not meet the federal pleading requirements under Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure; (2) Plaintiff has failed to state a claim for false arrest failure to intervene, and conspiracy; and (3) Plaintiff's derivative state-law claims must be dismissed for the failure to state an underlying constitutional claim. R. 27. The Hospital Defendants also move to dismiss the complaint under Rule 12(b)(6) on grounds that Plaintiff cannot plausibly plead that they conspired to illegally seize and unlawfully detain him by way of involuntary admission. R. 37.

LEGAL STANDARD

A motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) challenges the sufficiency of the complaint, not its merits. Gibson v City of Chi., 910 F.2d 1510, 1520 (7th Cir. 1990). In considering a motion to dismiss, the Court accepts as true all well-pleaded facts in the complaint and draws all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff's favor. See Berger v. Nat'l Collegiate Athletic Ass'n, 843 F.3d 285, 290 (7th Cir. 2016). Although the plaintiff need not plead “detailed factual allegations” to survive a motion to dismiss, mere “labels and conclusions” or “formulaic recitation[s] of the elements of a cause of action will not do.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007). Rather, “[t]o survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.'” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570).

ANALYSIS

I. Hospital Defendants' Exhibits

Before turning to the Defendants' respective arguments in support of dismissal, the Court first notes that the Hospital Defendants attached four exhibits to their motion to dismiss: (1) the petition for involuntary admission (Exhibit A); (2) Plaintiff's alcohol test results (Exhibit B); (3) the inpatient certificate (Exhibit C); and (4) Plaintiff's application for voluntary admission (Exhibit D). R. 37 at 11-14.^[3]The Hospital Defendants argue that the Court can consider these documents because Plaintiff has placed the facts and circumstances of his hospital admission directly at issue. Id. at 3. Further, the City Defendants, in their reply brief, likewise argue that the Court may consider the Hospital Defendants' exhibits with respect to their motion because they pertain to the same factual issues that they raised regarding Plaintiff's claims. R. 50 at 7. The Hospital Defendants and the City Defendants point to these exhibits in support of their respective arguments that Plaintiff cannot show that his civil rights were violated because they were acting in response to a report received from Plaintiff's brother that Plaintiff was suicidal. R. 37 at 3; R. 50 at 6; R. 61 at 2 (Exhibit A) (“[patient] call[ed] his brother and stat[ed] ‘I've got a glock and I'm going to blow my brains out.'”).

Generally, in deciding a motion to dismiss, the court may not consider evidence outside the pleadings without converting the motion into a Rule 56 motion for summary judgment. Tierney v. Vahle, 304 F.3d 734, 738 (7th Cir. 2002); Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(d). One exception to the conversion rule is for matters of which the court may take judicial notice. Fosnight v. Jones, 41 F.4th 916, 922 (7th Cir. 2022). The judicial notice exception is reserved for matters of the public record and facts that “can be accurately and readily determined from sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned.” Id. (citing Fed.R.Evid. 201(b)(2)). None of the parties argue that the Court may take judicial notice of the Hospital Defendants' exhibits, nor does the Court find that Plaintiff's medical records would qualify under this exception.^[4]

This leaves the incorporation-by-reference doctrine. Under this exception to the conversion rule, courts may consider documents attached to a motion to dismiss if they are referred to in the plaintiff's complaint and are central to his claim. Brownmark Films, LLC v. Comedy Partners, 682 F.3d 687, 690 (7th Cir. 2012). Out of the four documents attached to the Hospital Defendants' motion to dismiss, only one-the petition for involuntary admission (Exhibit A)-was mentioned in Plaintiff's complaint. The remaining exhibits (Exhibits B-D) do not fall within the purview of the incorporation-by-reference doctrine.

Accordingly, the petition for involuntary admission is the only document that the Court may consider in ruling on the Defendants' motions to dismiss. Even so, the Court “is not bound to accept the pleader's allegations as to the effect of the exhibit, but can independently examine the document and form its own conclusions as to the proper construction and meaning to be given to the material.” Burke v. 401 N. Wabash Venture, LLC, 714 F.3d 501, 505 (7th Cir. 2013) (citations omitted). With this in mind, the Court now turns to the merits of the Defendants' respective arguments.

II. Rule

At the outset, the City Defendants move to dismiss all counts against the Defendant Officers (Counts I through VI) on grounds that Plaintiff's complaint neither satisfies Rule 8's notice pleading requirements, nor the “personal involvement” requisite for § 1983 claims. R. 27 at 3-6. According to the City Defendants, Plaintiff inappropriately relies on “group pleading,” a practice of collectively defining subgroups of defendants. Id.

“There is no ‘group pleading' doctrine, per se that either permits or forbids allegations against defendants collectively.” Robles v. City of Chi., 354 F.Supp.3d 873, 875 (N.D. Ill. 2019). That said, the City Defendants correctly note that liability under § 1983 “is premised on the wrongdoer's personal responsibility.” Kuhn v. Goodlow, 678 F.3d 552, 555-56 (7th Cir. 2012). Rule 8, however, is “not so rigid that it requires a plaintiff, without the benefit of discovery, to connect every single alleged instance of misconduct in the complaint to every single specific officer.” Gray v. City of Chi., No. 18 C 2624, 2019 WL 3554239, at *5 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 1, 2019) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Notice and plausibility remain the benchmarks. Fulton v. Bartik, 547 F.Supp.3d 799, 810 (N.D. Ill. 2021). Group pleading is therefore permissible “so long as it provides notice to each defendant of the contours of the alleged deprivation and that he or she is alleged to have participated in it.” Id. (citing Brooks v. Ross, 578 F.3d 574, 581-82 (7th...