Case ID: f-appx_622/html/0012-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Janie Marie FARLAND, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Defendant-Appellee.
    No. 14-4436.
    United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
    Nov. 10, 2015.
    Janie Marie Farland, Farmingdale, N.Y., pro se.
    James H. Knapp and Varuni Nelson, Assistant United States Attorneys, for Kelly T. Currie, Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Central Islip, N.Y., for Defendant-Appellee.
    PRESENT: PETER W. HALL, RAYMOND J.- LOHIER, JR., Circuit Judges, CHRISTINA REISS, Chief District Judge.
    
      
       The Honorable Chief Judge Christina Reiss, of the United States District Court for the District of Vermont, sitting by designation,
    
   SUMMARY ORDER

Appellant Janie Marie Farland, proceeding pro se, appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the United States on her medical malpractice claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, the procedural history of the case, and the issues on appeal.

Farland has abandoned appellate review of her medical malpractice claim by explicitly disavowing that claim in her brief. See LoSacco v. City of Middletown, 71 F.3d 88, 92-93 (2d Cir.1995). However, because “the submissions of a pro se litigant must be construed liberally and interpreted to raise the strongest arguments that they suggest,” Triestman v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons, 470 F.3d 471, 474 (2d Cir.2006) (per curiam) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted) (emphasis omitted), we construe Farland’s filings in the district court to raise a battery claim.

We review de novo a district court’s grant of summary judgment, with the view that “[sjummary judgment is appropriate only if the moving party shows that there are no genuine issues of material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Miller v. Wolpoff & Abramson, L.L.P., 321 F.3d 292, 300 (2d Cir.2003) (citing Lane Capital Mgmt., Inc. v. Lane Capital Mgmt, Inc., 192 F.3d 337, 343 (2d Cir.1999)). We are required to resolve all ambiguities and draw all inferences in favor of the non-movant. Nationwide Life Ins. Co. v. Bankers Leasing Ass’n, 182 F.3d 157, 160 (2d Cir.1999). Summary judgment is appropriate “[wjhere the record taken as a whole could not lead a rational trier of fact to find for the non-moving party.” Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986).

Upon review, we conclude that the district court properly granted summary judgment in favor of the United States. Farland failed to produce any evidence to suggest the examining physician had an intent to cause bodily contact that a reasonable person would find offensive, an element required to make out a battery claim. See Armstrong ex rel. Armstrong v. Brookdale Univ. Hasp. & Med. Ctr., 425 F.3d 126, 134 (2d Cir.2005). She also failed to submit competent medical testimony that would allow a trier of fact to find that her examination breached the applicable standard of care. See Sitts v. United States, 811 F.2d 736, 739 (2d Cir.1987). Accordingly, even were we to consider Farland’s medical malpractice claim, we would affirm for substantially the same reasons stated in the district court’s thorough order.

We have considered all of Farland’s remaining arguments and find them to be without merit. The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.