Opinion
Civil Action No. 01-1329, Section "L" (1)
October 1, 2002
ORDER REASONS
Before the Court is defendants' Motion to Dismiss for Failure to State a Cause of Action pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6). For the reasons set forth below, the defendants' Motion to Dismiss is DENIED.
Although defendants' motion is filed on behalf of defendants Jenell Godfrey, the City of Kenner, Glenn Synigal, Nick Congemi, and the City of Kenner Police Department, the plaintiffs have named only Godfrey and the City of Kenner as defendants in their second amended complaint and are no longer pursuing claims against the others in this action.
BACKGROUND
On June 26, 2000, defendant Jenell Godfrey, a police officer for the City of Kenner, Louisiana, obtained a search warrant to search the home of the plaintiffs, Joseph Clark, Tina Clark, and Herbert Clark, Jr. According to the plaintiffs' second amended complaint, Godfrey represented in her affidavit accompanying the request for a search warrant that she and another detective, William Sandino, met with a confidential informant who told the officers that a woman named "Tina" was selling marijuana and prescription pills from a house that was identified as plaintiffs' address. Godfrey further represented that she and the detective sent the informant to the house to purchase drugs and picked him up when he left the house. The warrant application stated that the informant entered the house at 8:15 p.m. but was picked up outside the house at 6:25 p.m; no explanation was given for the apparent discrepancy in the times. Godfrey also stated that when she met with the informant upon his leaving the plaintiffs' house, he had three bags of marijuana and six Lortab pills, which the informant claimed to have purchased from Tina Clark.
Based on this information, Godfrey was given the warrant allowing her to search plaintiffs' home. On June 9, 2000, at 5:45 a.m., armed with the warrant, Godfrey and several other members of the Kenner Police Department searched plaintiffs' home. Godfrey allegedly demanded that plaintiff Herbert Clark turn over 80 Vicodin ES tablets Clark claims had been prescribed for him. Godfrey also allegedly found a bag of marijuana in Tina Clark's bedroom. Plaintiffs allege that this bag was planted by Godfrey who allegedly threatened Tina Clark stating that if she said anything, Clark's child would "end up floating in the canal." In any event, the three plaintiffs were arrested for marijuana possession and detained for 14 hours. In January, 2001, the Jefferson Parish District Attorney's office nolle prossed the charges against the plaintiffs.
At the time the charges were dismissed, Godfrey had been arrested and pled guilty to malfeasance charges stemming from allegations that she stole narcotics from the police evidence room. Plaintiffs filed the present suit claiming damages for violations of their Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment Rights, an action recoverable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Plaintiffs allege that Godfrey lied and misrepresented the truth in her application for the search warrant. Specifically, they point to the discrepancies in the times indicated on the warrant, the fact that Detective Sandino was not with Godfrey at the time she met with the confidential informant, and the fact that plaintiffs deny having any visitors in their home at the time the informant allegedly visited them.
In addition to a Section 1983 claim, plaintiffs also sued Godfrey on state law claims for false arrest, malicious prosecution, and battery. Additionally, the City of Kenner was named as a defendant under the doctrine of respondeat superior for Godfrey's state law torts. This Court previously granted plaintiffs leave to file an amended complaint, which they did. Defendants moved under Rule 7(a) to compel the plaintiffs to reply to their answer, and this motion was granted in part by the magistrate judge. After filing their reply under Rule 7(a), this Court also granted plaintiffs leave to file a second amended complaint, which the defendants are moving to dismiss in this motion under Rule 12(b)(6).
Defendants Godfrey and City of Kenner bring this motion arguing that plaintiffs have failed to state a cause of action because they have failed to allege enough facts under the heightened pleading requirements for Section 1983 cases. The failure to allege enough facts, they argue, means that defendant Godfrey enjoys qualified immunity for her actions.
ANAIYSIS
Motion to Dismiss Standard
When considering a motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, a district court must accept the factual allegations of the complaint as true and resolve all ambiguities or doubts regarding the sufficiency of the claim in favor of the plaintiff. See Fernandez-Montes v. Allied Pilots Ass'n, 987 F.2d 278, 284 (5th Cir. 1993). Unless it appears "beyond a doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim," the complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim. Id. at 284-285 (quoting Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 102, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957)). However, conclusory allegations or legal conclusions masquerading as factual conclusions will not defeat a motion to dismiss. See Blackburn v. City of Marshall, 42 F.3d 925, 931 (5th Cir. 1995) (citing Fernandez-Montes, 987 F.2d at 284).
Requirements to maintain an action under Section 1983
42 U.S.C. § 1983 creates a cause of action for an individual whose constitutional rights are violated by a person acting under color of state or federal law. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The Supreme Court has described the purpose of Section 1983 as deterring "state actors from using the badge of their authority to deprive individuals of their federally guaranteed rights and to provide relief to victims if such deterrence fails." Wyatt v. Cole, 504 U.S. 157, 161, 112 S.Ct. 1827, 1830 (1992).
State actors are permitted to defend themselves by claiming they have qualified immunity for their actions "as long as their actions could reasonably have been thought consistent with the rights they are alleged to have violated." Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 638, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3038 (1987). When this defense has been pled, the court is required at the outset of the litigation to determine whether it is dispositive of the issue, since qualified immunity acts as a bar to litigation allowing a defendant to avoid the costs of protracted litigation. See Saucier v. Katz, 593 U.S. 194, 200, 121 U.S. 2151, 2155-56 (2001). The Supreme Court in Saucier v. Katz fashioned a two-step analysis to determine the merits of a qualified immunity defense. The "threshold question" for courts to consider is whether the facts pled, taken in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, show that the government official's actions (a police officer in this case) violated a constitutional right. Id. at 201. The second inquiry is to determine whether this right was "clearly established." Id.
In this case, the plaintiffs have alleged violations of their Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights resulting from the unreasonable search and seizure of their home. In Hart v. O'Brien, 127 F.3d 424 (5th Cir. 1997), the Fifth Circuit recognized that a police officer is not immune from suit where he obtains a search or arrest warrant recklessly using false information to support his affidavit and where that information is essential to probable cause. Id. at 449. Thus, the plaintiffs have alleged that they enjoy a specific constitutional protection from unreasonable searches and seizures and that Section 1983 provides a remedy when these rights are violated. Next, it must be determined whether the plaintiffs have set forth sufficient facts in their complaint to allege such a violation.
The plaintiffs' second amended complaint notes that the search warrant obtained by defendant Godfrey set forth the following grounds for obtaining the warrant: first, that the confidential informant had told Godfrey that plaintiffs were selling drugs; second, that the defendant officer and another police officer watched the informant go into the house to purchase the drugs; third, that upon leaving the plaintiffs house, the informant had drugs in his possession that he stated came from the house. Plaintiff rebuts these statements by pointing out the following: first, that the other officer never accompanied defendant Godfrey to plaintiffs' house; second, a time discrepancy exists because the warrant states that the informant exited the house two hours before he allegedly entered it; and third, the plaintiffs allege that no one entered the house on the date that the informant supposedly purchased drugs from them. Plaintiffs further allege that these inaccuracies are the result of knowingly false statements made by defendant Godfrey.
To further establish a violation, the Court must find that Godfrey's false allegations in the warrant were pertinent to the issue of probable cause. Probable cause for searches, seizures, and arrests depends on "the totality of facts and circumstances within a police officer's knowledge at the moment of arrest [that] are sufficient for a reasonable person to conclude that the suspect had committed or was committing an offense." United States v. Wadley, 59 F.3d 510, 512 (5th Cir. 1995). The reasonable person standard depends on the expertise and experience of law enforcement officials. Garcia, 179 F.3d at 268. Finally, probable cause does not need to rise to the level sufficient to support a conviction, although it must be more than a "bare suspicion." Id. at 269. Rather, probable cause has been held to mean a "fair probability" that a crime has been committed. Id. That fair probability, in turn, need not reach the fifty percent mark. Id.
Assuming the plaintiffs' allegations regarding Godfrey's misconduct are true, none of the facts alleged in the application for the search warrant are valid. Every item relied on by the officer to support her showing of probable cause has been rebutted. Most telling is the plaintiffs allegation that no one visited their home on the night the warrant says someone did. A reasonable officer could not have found probable cause in this instance. At the very least, the defendant Godfrey was reckless in preparing a warrant with such obvious flaws; at the most, the defendant misrepresented the truth to the judicial officer who signed the search warrant. In any event, the Court finds that plaintiffs have alleged sufficient facts, which if proven at trial, would demonstrate that defendant violated their constitutional rights by recklessly or falsely including inaccurate information relevant to a finding of probable cause in an application for a search warrant.
The second step of the test is to determine if the constitutional violation alleged was "clearly established" at the time it was committed. Anderson, 483 U.S. at 639. "The contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right. . . . In the light of pre-existing law the unlawfulness must be apparent." Id. at 640. This Court finds that plaintiffs have easily established this prong of the test. The Supreme Court's opinion in Anderson, as well as the Fifth Circuit's decisions in Hart and Spiller v. City of Texas City, 130 F.2d 162 (5th Cir. 1997), all establish that violations of the Fourth Amendment for unlawful searches and seizure are proper subjects for litigation under Section 1983. A reasonable police officer has sufficient information from these cases to know that his or her intentional inclusion of false or misleading facts in an application for a search warrant will subject that officer to civil liability. All that is required is that plaintiffs set forth enough facts in their complaints to establish the cause of action and clear the initial hurdle posed by qualified immunity. As noted above, the plaintiffs' second amended complaint achieves this goal, and the case may proceed.
CONCLUSION
The Court finds that plaintiffs have sufficiently pled enough facts that, if proven, show a violation of a clearly established constitutional right, the right to be free from unlawful searches and seizures under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. Accordingly, the defendants' Motion to Dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) is DENIED.