Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-13-03795/USCOURTS-ca7-13-03795-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
City of Chicago
Appellee
Glenn Mathews
Appellee
Joseph A. Rossi
Appellant

Document Text:

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 13-3795

JOSEPH A. ROSSI,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

CITY OF CHICAGO and GLENN MATHEWS,

Defendants-Appellees.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 07 C 6399 — Edmond E. Chang, Judge

____________________

ARGUED JANUARY 22, 2015 — DECIDED JUNE 22, 2015

____________________

Before EASTERBROOK, MANION, and WILLIAMS, Circuit 

Judges.

MANION, Circuit Judge. Joseph Rossi was assaulted by 

several persons, one of whom was an off-duty Chicago 

police officer. Glenn Mathews, a detective with the Chicago 

Police Department, was assigned to investigate. For six 

weeks, Mathews did practically no work on the case; he 

followed zero leads, did not inspect the crime scene, and

questioned no witnesses other than Rossi. Aside from taking 

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some messages and filing perfunctory reports, he exerted no 

discernible effort. He then closed his investigation. 

Rossi sued Mathews under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that 

he violated his constitutional right to judicial access because 

his failure to investigate led to the spoilage of evidence in his 

civil suit against the assailants. He also brought a Monell suit 

against the City of Chicago for perpetuating a “code of 

silence” that shields police officers from investigation and 

promotes misconduct by police. The district court granted 

summary judgment for the defendants on the grounds that 

Rossi was not denied judicial access because the police did 

not conceal from him any facts which prevented him from 

obtaining legal redress from his assailants. The court also 

dismissed Rossi’s Monell claims for lack of evidence of 

widespread practices on the part of the police department. 

We affirm. 

I. Background

On November 11, 2006, Jose Garcia (Jose), president of 

Garla Trucking and Excavation Company, arranged a 

meeting at the company’s premises with Joseph Rossi. Rossi 

believed that Jose wanted to meet with him in order to pay 

him for work that Rossi had previously done for Garla. But 

Jose had other designs: he sought to question Rossi about a 

Bobcat construction vehicle that had disappeared from 

Garla’s lot. Jose believed that Rossi knew the whereabouts of 

the Bobcat and was determined to get him to speak about it, 

by any means necessary. 

What followed resembled less a business meeting than a 

scene from a gangster film. When Rossi arrived at Garla, 

Jose, Roberto Garcia (Jose’s brother), and two other Garla 

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No. 13-3795 3

employees bound him with electrical cord and duct tape and 

began beating him. Three hours later, Catherine Doubek, a 

Chicago Police Officer and the wife of Jose, arrived at Garla’s 

premises to find the crew interrogating Rossi. Instead of 

intervening, Doubek made a dramatic show (according to 

the complaint) of removing her police badge to show Rossi 

that his interrogators could assault him with impunity. After 

that, Doubek acted as a lookout, utilizing her police radio to 

monitor activity to ensure that the beating went undetected 

by police. For the next several hours, Rossi remained tied to 

the chair while Jose and his associates alternated between 

questioning him about the Bobcat and beating him. 

Rossi eventually escaped in the early morning by sending 

Doubek on a “wild goose chase”—telling her that the 

Bobcat was located at an equipment yard on the west side of 

Chicago. When Doubek left to visit that site, Rossi, finally

alone, managed to chew through his restraint and escape 

barefoot to the nearby home of a stranger where he called an 

ambulance. In total, Rossi spent six hours bound to a chair; 

in his haste to escape, he left behind his car keys and other 

personal items at the scene of the crime. 

Hours after the incident, Detective Glenn Mathews, a 

Chicago Police Detective, interviewed Rossi while he was 

still at the hospital receiving treatment for his injuries. In a 

five-minute interview, Rossi recounted the incident to 

Mathews, including that a Chicago police officer was one of 

his assailants. However, because Rossi did not know 

Doubek’s name but only knew that she was the wife of Jose 

Garcia, he initially identified her by the name “Garcia.” 

Rossi learned of the identity of each of his assailants in 

the next three days. He called Mathews but was not able to 

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reach him; instead, he left a message furnishing the name 

“Catherine Doubek” as the police officer involved in the 

assault. He also supplied her home address, which (as 

expected) was the same address as that of Jose Garcia.

Having been provided with Doubek’s address, Mathews

needed only to enter it into the police database—a standard 

practice in all investigations—to learn that Doubek resided 

at that address and was married to Jose Garcia. He failed to 

do this. 

Mathews’s indolence did not stop there. Despite 

knowing their names and where they worked, Mathews

never attempted to question the suspects. He never visited 

Garla’s premises even though he knew from his initial 

interview with Rossi that this is where the assault occurred. 

He never returned Rossi’s phone calls, and he never reached 

out to additional witnesses. Instead, several weeks later—on 

December 29, 2006—he filed a Supplementary Report in 

which he spelled Doubek’s name as “Dubinek” and then 

stated that he could not find any such name in the police 

roster. Mathews requested a suspension of the investigation, 

ostensibly because he could not ascertain the identity of the 

police officer. 

Because a police officer was reported to have been 

involved in the assault, the Internal Affairs Division 

conducted its own investigation—at least in appearance. 

Officer Dennis Chengary was assigned to this investigation 

but did not attempt to contact Rossi until December 11, 2006, 

when he tried to visit him at his apartment. He failed at this 

because the address listed in the police report was incorrect; 

in fact, the reported address did not exist. Chengary located 

Rossi’s landlord who provided him with a correct address, 

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No. 13-3795 5

but Chengary did not visit him there. Instead, he attempted 

to mail a certified letter to Rossi, but proceeded to send it to 

the incorrect address listed in the police report (which he 

had tried to visit but failed). Weeks later, Chengary closed 

the Internal Affairs investigation for lack of evidence. 

Frustrated with the lack of effort by police, Rossi told his 

story to the media who reported it as a police cover-up. 

Faced with negative publicity, the police finally conducted a 

thorough investigation in April 2007. When they searched 

Garla’s premises—five months after the assault—the police 

found that the room in which the interrogation occurred had 

been cleaned and re-carpeted. They gathered fingerprints, 

DNA and blood samples, and took photos. Rossi contends 

that, despite these efforts, the majority of evidence was lost: 

a rope that was placed around Rossi’s neck as a noose; beer 

cans and other refuse; the chair to which Rossi was bound; 

the extension cord used to bind Rossi; and Rossi’s personal 

property such as his shoes and socks. 

Officer Doubek was not interviewed about her role in the 

assault until three years later in February 2010. Jose and 

Roberto Garcia were convicted in state court of aggravated 

battery and unlawful restraint in connection with the 

incident. Doubek, however, was not charged; nor was she 

disciplined by the police department. 

Rossi brought civil claims against each of the assailants 

and those have subsequently settled. He received $80,000 

from the Garla defendants and an undisclosed amount from 

Doubek. The only remaining claims are those against 

Mathews and the City of Chicago. These claims allege that 

Mathews’s failure to investigate violated his civil rights 

under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and led to the spoilage of evidence 

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that he could have used favorably in his civil suit against his 

assailants. He also brought a Monell suit against the City, 

alleging that the police force cultivated, and the City 

allowed, a “code of silence” that shields police officers from 

investigation and promotes a culture of misconduct among 

police that contributed to his assault. 

The district court granted summary judgment for the 

defendants because Rossi had not demonstrated that the 

defendants violated a clearly established constitutional right 

as is required to prevail on a § 1983 claim. Specifically, the 

district court found that Mathews did not deny Rossi judicial 

access because his failure to investigate did not prevent 

Rossi from discovering the identities of the assailants—he 

already knew who assaulted him and was able to recover for 

his injuries in a civil suit against them. Additionally, the 

district court granted summary judgment against Rossi’s 

Monell claim because he did not submit evidence suggesting 

widespread practices by the police of failing to adhere to 

ethical conduct. 

Following the denial of Rossi’s motion for 

reconsideration, the district court awarded the City $7,443 in 

costs as the prevailing party. 

II. Analysis

To survive a summary judgment motion, a plaintiff suing 

under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 must show that there is a genuine 

issue of material fact (that is, a fact capable of affecting the 

outcome) about one or more of the essential elements of the 

action. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322 (1986). We 

review the district court’s grant of summary judgment de 

novo, construing all facts and reasonable inferences in Rossi’s 

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No. 13-3795 7

favor. Smiley v. Columbia College Chicago, 714 F.3d 998, 1001 

(7th Cir. 2013). To obtain relief under § 1983, Rossi must

demonstrate that a person acting under color of state law 

deprived him of a right, privilege, or immunity secured by 

either the Constitution or by federal law. Rather than acting 

as a source of rights, § 1983 serves as a vehicle for 

“vindicating federal rights elsewhere conferred.” Graham v. 

Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 393–94 (1989). 

A. Right to Judicial Access

The First and Fourteenth Amendments protect the rights 

of individuals to seek legal redress for claims that have a 

reasonable basis in law and fact. Christopher v. Harbury, 536 

U.S. 403, 414–15 (2002). Interference with the right of court 

access by state agents who intentionally conceal the true 

facts about a crime may be actionable as a deprivation of 

constitutional rights under § 1983. Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 

817, 822 (explaining that judicial access must be “adequate, 

effective, and meaningful”). 

Here, Rossi claims that Detective Mathews violated his 

right to judicial access by failing to investigate the crime 

scene and purposefully concealing Doubek’s identity. 

Mathews, in turn, argues that Rossi was not denied judicial 

access because he was able to obtain settlements from each 

of his assailants. Absent a constitutional violation, Mathews, 

as a public official, is shielded from liability by qualified

immunity. Viilo v. Eyre, 547 F.3d 707, 709 (7th Cir. 2008). 

We note at the outset that Rossi does not have a 

constitutional right to have the police investigate his case at 

all, still less to do so to his level of satisfaction. See, e.g., 

DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, 

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489 U.S. 189, 196 (1989) (holding that the Constitution 

“generally confer[s] no affirmative right to governmental 

aid, even where such aid may be necessary secure life, 

liberty, or property interests of which the government itself 

may not deprive the individual.”). While DeShaney does not 

address police behavior specifically, the implication is clear: 

mere inactivity by police does not give rise to a 

constitutional claim. For this reason, the operative question 

is not whether Rossi’s case would have been better had the 

police conducted a worthy investigation, but whether their

failure to do so limited his ability to obtain legal redress to 

such degree that it constituted a denial of judicial access. 

Our analysis in this case is guided by two decisions of 

this court where we examined police cover-ups of varying 

orders of magnitude. The first case is Bell v. City of 

Milwaukee, 746 F.2d 1205 (7th Cir. 1984), and involved an 

egregious police cover-up that effectively denied a plaintiff 

judicial access. Eleven years later, we examined another 

police cover-up in Vasquez v. Hernandez, 60 F.3d 325 (7th Cir. 

1995), but held that the plaintiff was not denied judicial 

access notwithstanding a faulty initial investigation. We 

examine each in turn. 

In Bell, police officers shot and killed Daniel Bell after a 

brief chase. They then planted a knife in his hand and 

created a fictitious story that Bell had threatened them with 

the knife. An internal investigation ensued which cleared the

officers of wrongdoing and contributed to the decision of 

Bell’s father to settle his lawsuit with the city for a meager 

sum (though he never cashed the check). Two decades later, 

information surfaced that revealed that the police officers 

had fabricated the story and planted the knife on Bell. The 

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No. 13-3795 9

family filed another lawsuit and a jury awarded them a 

substantially greater sum in damages. 

The facts in Vasquez are similar in kind but not degree. In 

Vasquez, the plaintiff, a young girl, was struck in the ear by a 

stray bullet fired by her neighbor, an off-duty police officer, 

who was intoxicated at the time. The police investigated—

half-heartedly, by all appearances—and found nothing. A 

separate task force of state and federal officials then

investigated and identified the police officer as the shooter. 

After the investigation by the task force—and before the 

statute of limitations had expired—the plaintiff sued the 

original investigating officers, alleging that they denied the 

plaintiff’s right to judicial access by covering up for the offduty police officer. 

We recognized a constitutional violation for denial of 

judicial access in Bell but not in Vasquez. We did so based on

the differing effects that the alleged cover-ups had on the 

ability of the respective plaintiffs to achieve legal redress

despite the lack of cooperation by police. In Bell, the coverup effectively foreclosed the ability of Bell’s father to learn 

the facts of his case and to seek relief for any injury. Bell, 746 

F.2d at 1261 (“Though [the father] filed a wrongful death 

claim in state court soon after the killing, the cover-up and 

resistance of the investigating police officers rendered 

hollow his right to seek redress”). In so holding, we factored 

heavily the interval between the initial investigation and the 

disclosure of the true facts; after two decades, the period of 

limitations had run and the possibility of timely legal redress 

had been permanently thwarted by the cover-up. 

In contrast, the cover-up in Vasquez merely delayed but 

did not ultimately prevent the plaintiff from receiving legal 

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redress. The six-month interim between the shooting and the 

identification of the shooter still allowed sufficient time for 

the plaintiff to file a civil action before the expiration of the 

limitations period. Further, the subsequent investigation by 

the task force aided the plaintiffs in their civil tort case. 60 

F.3d at 329 (“Unlike the twenty year delay in Bell, the actual 

circumstances surrounding the shooting here were revealed 

publicly within six months of the incident .... Hence, the 

delay, albeit frustrating for the Vasquezes, has not been 

without some benefit to them.”). 

We agree with the district court that the facts of this case 

more closely resemble those of Vasquez than Bell. First, there 

is the order of magnitude of the misbehavior—in Bell police 

officers shot a man under questionable circumstances, 

conspired to plant a knife on him, and then engineered an 

investigation designed to conceal rather than reveal the 

truth. Having secured its bargaining position, the city then 

forced the father of the deceased to accept a lowball 

settlement. By contrast, the misbehavior of police here (and 

in Vasquez) did not so damage the plaintiff’s litigation 

posture that it precluded adequate relief. Mathews did not 

conceal any facts about the incident that were not already 

known to Rossi. Nor was Rossi reliant on Mathews to 

discover facts necessary to fill in gaps in his knowledge. He 

knew who the perpetrators were, where the incident 

occurred, and he had full access to much of the evidence 

required to prevail in a civil suit: witnesses, medical records, 

police reports, and other documentary evidence. All of this 

was available to Rossi and was not contingent on a rigorous 

police investigation. 

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Finally, there were the curative measures. In this case, as

in Vasquez, a proper investigation was conducted within 

months of the crime and before the expiration of the 

limitations period. Like Vasquez, Rossi was able to use the 

findings of these investigations in his civil suit against his 

assailants. To be sure, Rossi’s case would likely have been 

stronger had Mathews conducted a prompt search of Garla’s 

premises, but this fact, standing alone, is not sufficient to 

support the conclusion that Mathews’s actions denied Rossi 

an opportunity to achieve sufficient redress through a civil 

action. 

Whether a cover-up (or a clear failure to investigate) 

occurred is merely one, albeit important, factor in 

determining whether a denial of judicial access occurred; the 

plaintiff must also show that the police’s actions harmed his 

ability to obtain appropriate relief. This will depend on 

factors such as whether the plaintiff was able to discover the 

facts on his own, whether a proper investigation was later 

conducted, and whether the true facts are disclosed prior to 

the expiration of the limitations period. 

Rossi was not denied judicial access because he knew all 

of the relevant facts of his case and was free to pursue legal 

redress at all times. In so concluding, we are reminded of 

our decision in Thompson v. Boggs, 33 F.3d 847 (7th Cir. 1994), 

where we arrived at the same result despite different facts. 

In Thompson, a police officer fractured the vertebrae of a 

plaintiff while arresting him after a high-speed chase. The 

plaintiff sued for denial of access to justice because the 

officer did not include any details about his use of force in 

the police report. We concluded that the plaintiff had not 

been denied access to justice because “the facts known to 

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[him] concerning the arrest were sufficient to enable him to 

promptly file the instant lawsuit unlike Bell, where the true 

facts were concealed.” Thompson, 33 F.3d at 852.

The actions of Detective Mathews—defensible or not—in 

no way prevented Rossi from exercising his right to seek 

legal redress. For this reason, Rossi failed to establish a 

violation of his constitutional right to judicial access and 

Mathews is shielded from liability by qualified immunity. 

B. Monell Claims

Rossi also appeals the district court’s grant of summary 

judgment to the City on his Monell claim. A government 

entity can be held liable under § 1983 when the execution of 

a government policy or custom is deemed to inflict an injury 

on a plaintiff. Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs. of New York, 436 

U.S. 658, 694 (1978). But a municipality cannot be held liable 

solely on the grounds of respondeat superior. Id at 691. The 

Supreme Court has recognized three particular grounds on 

which a municipality can be held liable under § 1983. There 

must be: (1) an express policy that would cause a 

constitutional deprivation if enforced; (2) a common practice 

that is so widespread and well-settled that it constitutes a 

custom or usage with the force of law even though it is not 

authorized by written law or express policy; or (3) an 

allegation that a person with final policy-making authority 

caused a constitutional injury. Lawrence v. Kenosha County, 

391 F.3d 837, 844 (7th Cir. 2004). 

Finding that Rossi had not offered sufficient evidence to 

support his Monell claims, the district court granted 

summary judgment for the City. The court first examined 

Rossi’s contention that the City engaged in a widespread 

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No. 13-3795 13

practice of allowing police officers to consort with convicted 

felons despite an official policy prohibiting such 

associations. Rossi’s evidence was limited to deposition 

testimony from a Chicago police lieutenant who claimed 

that he investigated numerous allegations of improper 

relationships between Chicago police officers and felons. 

Significantly, the plaintiff did not elicit any testimony about 

the quantity, frequency, or nature of the relationships 

investigated. Given the lack of context, the lieutenant’s 

testimony served more as a passing comment than evidence

demonstrating a widespread practice of inappropriate 

relationships by police in contravention of an official policy. 

The district court rightly rejected this evidence. 

Rossi’s second contention is closer to the mark as it 

alleges a “code of silence,” namely a failure on the part of 

the police department to discipline and train officers 

regarding ethical conduct. The district court ruled against 

Rossi on evidentiary grounds, not because this theory was 

defective. Indeed, the facts of this case—where Mathews and 

Chengary conducted superficial investigations and Doubek 

faced no official discipline for her actions—raise serious 

questions about accountability among police officers. But a 

Monell claim requires more than this; the gravamen is not 

individual misconduct by police officers (that is covered 

elsewhere under § 1983), but a widespread practice that 

permeates a critical mass of an institutional body. In other 

words, Monell claims focus on institutional behavior; for this 

reason, misbehavior by one or a group of officials is only 

relevant where it can be tied to the policy, customs, or 

practices of the institution as a whole. 

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Rossi failed to do that here. He did not retain a defense 

expert for his case and his pre-trial disclosures failed to 

identify any expert reports addressing this particular issue. 

Rossi did offer three expert reports that were submitted in a 

separate case, Obrycka v. City of Chicago, 2012 WL 601810 

(N.D. Ill. Feb. 23, 2012). The district court declined to 

consider these reports because they did not comply with the 

disclosure requirements of the Federal Rules of Civil 

Procedure. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(e)(2). The exclusion of nondisclosed evidence is “mandatory under Rule 37(c)(1) unless 

non-disclosure was justified or harmless.” Musser v. Gentiva 

Health Servs., 356 F.3d 751, 758 (7th Cir. 2004). In the context 

of this case, the non-disclosure was neither harmless nor 

justified because it deprived the city of any opportunity to 

retain its own experts to analyze the merits of the factual 

claims of the expert reports. The district court, therefore, did 

not abuse its discretion in declining to consider the expert 

reports. 

The remaining evidence submitted by Rossi is anecdotal 

and does not establish a tie between the actions of the 

individual officers and the police department as a whole. He 

submitted various remarks by district judges critical of the 

Chicago Police Department but the district court rightly 

declined to consider these as the judicial comments do not 

qualify as evidence. Rossi’s other evidence is likewise 

unavailing. He cites to the Independent Police Review 

Authority but fails to articulate how the existence of this 

body demonstrates anything about widespread practices on 

the part of a large and diverse institution such as Chicago 

Police Department. 

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For these reasons, the district court did not err in 

granting summary judgment for the City on Rossi’s Monell 

claims. 

C. Award of Costs

Rule 54 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides 

that, in the absence of a federal statute, rule, or court order 

directing otherwise, courts should award costs to the 

prevailing party. Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(d)(1). The district court 

complied with this rule and awarded costs to the City. 

Rossi objects because he is unable to pay costs due to his 

financial condition. His claim could have some merit in light 

of the protracted litigation, however he failed to provide an

affidavit or any other documentary evidence to support his 

claim. The burden of proving financial hardship falls on the 

objecting party, who must provide the court with sufficient 

documentation such as affidavits, statements of assets and 

income, and a schedule of expenses. Rivera v. City of Chicago, 

469 F.3d 631, 635 (7th Cir. 2006). Because Rossi provided no 

such evidence, the district court acted within its discretion to 

award costs to the City. 

III. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the grant of 

summary judgment by the district court. 

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