IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS

EASTERN DIVISION

JACQUES RIVERA, )

Plaintiff, ) No. 12 CV 04428

 )

v. ) Judge Joan B. Gottschall

 ) Magistrate Judge Mary M. Rowland

REYNALDO GUEVARA, et al., )

Defendants. )

DEFENDANT OFFICERS’ MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION 

Defendants Daniel Noon, Joseph Fallon, John Guzman, Russell Weingart and Rocco 

Rinaldi (collectively, the “five Defendants”), by and through their attorneys, pursuant to Fed. R. 

Civ. P. 59(e), respectfully move for reconsideration of this Court’s May 17, 2018 Order (Dkt. 

436) because of manifest error of law and fact, and in support state: 

BACKGROUND

1. On May 11, 2018, this Court issued its Memorandum Opinion & Order (“Opinion”), 

granting in part Defendants’ summary judgment motion (Dkt. 373). In that Opinion, the Court 

granted summary judgment in favor of the five Defendants on Plaintiff’s § 1983 claims for 

fabrication and Brady. Dkt. 373 at p. 96. 

2. Specifically, with respect to the supervisor Defendants, the Court found that Weingart 

and Rinaldi’s mere approval of their subordinates’ reports was insufficient under the law to 

provide a basis for civil liability in the absence of any evidence from which it could be inferred 

that they knew of or participated in any misconduct allegedly committed by other Defendants. 

Id. at 60-63 (emphasis added). Similarly, this Court concluded that with respect to three of the 

Gang Crimes Specialists, Defendants Fallon, Guzman, and Noon, their mere “presence .... on 

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lists of additional arresting officers in police reports does not, without more, create a fact issue 

on their personal involvement.” Id. at 63-64. 

3. On May 15, 2018, the five Defendants filed a Motion for Clarification on the scope of 

the Court’s Order with respect to the five Defendants. 

4. On May 17, 2018, this Court issued an Order reiterating its earlier finding that the five 

Defendants lacked sufficient personal involvement to be held liable under § 1983 for 

participating directly in the alleged substantive constitutional violations. Dkt. 436. Conversely, 

the Order also stated that the five Defendants were still are part of the pending action because 

they could be held liable “for another defendant’s acts taken in the scope of and in furtherance of 

the conspiracy or failing to intervene” (Id. at p. 4) and because Defendants abandoned any 

argument in support of summary judgment on the failure to intervene and conspiracy claims. Id. 

at 2. 

LEGAL STANDARD

5. A rule 59(e) motion will be successful only where the movant clearly establishes that 

the court committed a manifest error of law or fact. Cincinnati Life Ins. Co. v. Beyrer, 722 F. 3d 

939, 954 (7th Cir. 2013). 

ARGUMENT

6. This Court’s May 17 ruling is premised on a misapprehension of facts and law, and 

hence makes a manifest error of fact and law. The Court’s finding that the five Defendants could 

be held liable “for another defendant’s acts taken in the scope of and in furtherance of the 

conspiracy or failing to intervene” cannot be reconciled with its May 11 Opinion that found the 

five Defendants lacked the requisite personal involvement in the Valentin investigation to be 

liable under § 1983. Similarly, the Court’s finding that the five Defendants abandoned the 

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contention that their lack of involvement defense applied to the conspiracy and failure to 

intervene claims as well as to the Brady and fabrication claims (Dkt. 436 at p. 2) is manifestly 

incorrect and inconsistent with the Court’s own decision on summary judgment.

 7. Initially, there was no abandonment. The five Defendants’ lack of involvement 

defense was not directed to any particular claim or claims, but rather, was directed across the 

board to any claim for any form of civil liability based on the absence of any evidence that they 

either participated in or had any knowledge of any other Defendant’s alleged misconduct. Dkt.

304 at pp. 19-21; Dkt.333 at pp. 24-26. In response, Plaintiff did not even argue that the five 

Defendants’ lack of involvement defense applied only to some claims but not others. Dkt. 314-1

at pp. 38-51. And, in finding that Defendants abandoned certain arguments on Plaintiff’s 

conspiracy and failure to intervene claims, this Court’s initial ruling on summary judgment never 

suggested that the lack of personal involvement defense only applied to certain claims, and not 

others. Dkt. 373 at p. 60.

8. To the contrary, the Court’s initial summary judgment ruling predicated its analysis 

of the five Defendants’ lack of involvement defense specifically on the absence of evidence to 

support liability on the same failure to intervene claim which its most recent ruling revived as to 

these Defendants. Indeed, likely because Plaintiff did not even attempt to argue that any of the 

five Defendants did anything directly to Plaintiff, the Court began its analysis by stating: 

“a police officer acting under color of state law can be liable under § 1983 for failing to intervene 

in a constitutional violation perpetrated by another person when the ‘defendant actually had 

notice, opportunity, and the ability to prevent the other person from inflicting harm, Sanchez v. 

City of Chicago, 700 F.3d 919, 928 (7th Cir. 2012) Failing to intervene in the suppression of 

evidence can give rise to liability for suppressing evidence in contravention of Brady. See Jones 

v. City of Chicago, 856 F.2d 985, 992-93 (7th Cir. 1988) (finding evidence sufficient to impose 

liability on supervisors). 

Dkt. 373, pp. 60-61 

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9. It was against that backdrop that the Court determined that there is no evidence that 

the five Defendants knew of or participated in any of the misconduct allegedly committed by 

Defendant Guevara and other Defendants whose involvement was deemed sufficient to warrant a 

trial. Dkt. 373 at p. 60-64. With respect to the three gang crimes detectives, Noon, Guzman, and 

Fallon, this Court specifically noted that “[u]nchallenged evidence in the record shows that at the 

time, it was common practice to list every police officer involved in the investigation as an 

arresting officer to give the widest possible credit-even if the officer rode along on only one 

night of the investigation. Accordingly, the presence of these officers’ names on the lists of 

additional arresting officers in police reports does not, without more, create a fact issue on their 

personal involvement.” Id. at 63. 

10. Similarly, with respect to the supervisors, this Court found that “[e]ven in the light 

most favorable to Rivera, the summary judgment record does not permit the . . . conclusion [that] 

Rinaldi and Weingart knew about their subordinates’ chicanery.” Additionally, this Court noted 

that Plaintiff has not demonstrated that Weingart had “knowledge of specific steps his 

subordinates took to frame Rivera.” Id. at 62. 

11. Accordingly, the Court’s analysis of the lack of involvement defense was based on 

the absence of any evidence that the five Defendants’ knew about any misconduct, which is the 

essential element of both conspiracy and failure to intervene claims which permits the imposition 

of liability against defendants who do not participate directly in the alleged misconduct.1 United 

States v. Barrios-Ramos, No. 16-1798, 2018 WL 2095486, at *2 (7th Cir. May 7, 2018)

(conspiracy); Sanchez v. City of Chicago, 700 F.3d 919, 928 (7th Cir. 2012) (failure to 

 

1

 The Court correctly explained that liability for failure to intervene and/or conspiracy “can rest on 

separate, and less direct, evidence of participation in the alleged constitutional violations” than is required 

for the substantive claims. Dkt. 436 at p.3. But that expanded potential liability is still essentially 

premised upon a Defendants’ knowledge of their colleague’s or subordinate’s misconduct, which is 

precisely what this Court concluded was absent as to the five Defendants. 

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intervene). As a result, the conspiracy and failure to intervene claims must be dismissed against 

the five Defendants, because, consistent with this Court’s ruling about their lack of personal 

involvement, there is insufficient evidence that the five Defendants knew about or ever reached 

an agreement to harm Plaintiff. 

CONCLUSION

12. The five Defendants respectfully submit that this Court made a manifest error of fact 

and law in its Order on May 17, 2018. The five Defendants’ lack of personal involvement in the 

substantive constitutional violations and lack of knowledge of other Defendants’ actions was the 

specific basis for the Court’s initial ruling in their favor on summary judgment and necessitates

the dismissal of Plaintiff’s failure to intervene and conspiracy claims against those officers. 

 WHEREFORE, for the foregoing reasons, the five Defendants request this Court grant 

the motion for reconsideration and dismiss Plaintiff’s failure to intervene and conspiracy claims 

against the five Defendants. 

Respectfully Submitted, 

/s/ Jeffrey N. Given 

JEFFREY N. GIVEN 

One of the Attorneys for Individual Defendants 

James G. Sotos 

Jeffrey N. Given 

Caroline P. Golden 

Joseph M. Polick 

David A. Brueggen 

The Sotos Law Firm. P.C. 

550 E. Devon Avenue, Suite 150 

Itasca, IL 60143. 

Tel: (630)735-3300 

jgiven@jsotoslaw.com

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CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

I hereby certify under penalty of perjury pursuant to 28 U.S.C.A. § 1746 that on May 18, 2018, I 

electronically filed the foregoing Defendant Officers’ Motion For Reconsideration with the 

Clerk of the Court using the CM/ECF system which will send notification of such filing to the 

following CM/ECF participants below. 

Attorneys for Plaintiff Attorneys for City of Chicago

Arthur R. Loevy Eileen E. Rosen

Jonathan I. Loevy Stacy A. Benjamin

Elizabeth N. Mazur Catherine M. Barber

Russel Ainsworth Theresa B. Carney

Michael I. Kanovitz Rock Fusco & Connelly, LLC

Steven E. Art 321 N. Clark Street, Suite 2200

Anad Swaminathan Chicago, IL 60654

Rachel Brady (312)494-1000

311 N. Aberdeen (312)494-1001(fax)

Chicago, IL 60607 erosen@rfclaw.com

(312)243-5900 sbenjamin@rfclaw.com

(312) 243-5902 (Fax) cbarber@rfclaw.com

loevylaw@loevy.com tcarney@rfclaw.com

jon@loevy.com

Elizabethm@loevy.com

russell@loevy.com Attorneys for Reynaldo Guevara

mike@loevy.com Thomas M. Leinenweber

steve@loevy.com James V. Daffada

annad@loevy.com Kevin E. Zibolski

Brady@loevy.com Leinenweber Baroni & Daffada, LLC

120 N. La Salle Street, Suite 2000

J. Samuel Tenenbaum (312)663-3003

Bluhm Legal Clinic thomas@ilesq.com

375 East Chicago Avenue jim@ilesq.com

Chicago, IL 60611 kevin@ilesq.com

(312)503-4808

s-tenenbaul@law.northwestern.edu

Locke E. Bowman, III

Alexa Van Brunt

Roderick MacArthur Justice Center

Northwestern University School of Law

375 East Chicago Aveneu

Chicago, IL 60611

(312)503-0844

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(312)503-1272 (fax)

l-bowman@law.northwestern.edu

a-vanbrunt@law.northwestern.edu

/s/ Jeffrey N. Given 

JEFFREY N. GIVEN, Attorney No. 6184989

One of the Attorneys for Individual Defendants

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