2012 Decisions

Opinions of the United

States Court of Appeals

for the Third Circuit

4-26-2012

Larry Stanley v. City of Pittsburgh

Precedential or Non-Precedential: Non-Precedential

Docket No. 11-2235

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Recommended Citation

"Larry Stanley v. City of Pittsburgh" (2012). 2012 Decisions. Paper 1096.

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NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

___________

No. 11-2235

___________

LARRY STANLEY,

Appellant

v.

CITY OF PITTSBURGH; PITTSBURGH BUREAU OF POLICE;

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY; LT. SIPPEY

_______________________

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Pennsylvania

D.C. Civil Action No. 2-09-cv-01450

(Honorable Donetta W. Ambrose)

______________

Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)

April 17, 2012

Before: SCIRICA, AMBRO and SMITH, Circuit Judges.

(Filed: April 26, 2012)

_________________

OPINION OF THE COURT

_________________

SCIRICA, Circuit Judge.

After arrest and withdrawn prosecution for homicide, Larry Stanley filed a 

complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging the City of Pittsburgh’s prior policy 

permitting a single officer to submit an Affidavit of Probable Cause without requiring 
2

further review violated his Fourth Amendment rights. The District Court granted 

summary judgment to the defendant. We will affirm.

I.

On June 16, 2003, Stanley was involved in a bar brawl in Pittsburgh that resulted 

in the stabbing death of Ronald Barber, Sr. Based on the testimony of an eyewitness

alleging Stanley held Barber while another man stabbed him and identifying Stanley from 

a photo array, Detective Joseph Myers submitted an Affidavit of Probable Cause to the 

county coroner, who issued a warrant for Stanley’s arrest for criminal homicide. Stanley 

alleges he was not involved in Barber’s death and claims Myers’s Affidavit ignored 

exonerating statements that contradicted the eyewitness testimony. Stanley was charged 

with criminal homicide but, in the course of a bench trial, the charges were withdrawn 

with prejudice.

Stanley then filed this claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in the Western District of 

Pennsylvania, alleging that the City of Pittsburgh’s policy at the time of his arrest 

permitting an officer to submit an Affidavit of Probable Cause without any review and on 

the strength of a single witness violated his Fourth Amendment rights. The District Court 

granted summary judgment to the defendant on the ground that Stanley had presented no 

evidence that the policy had caused the alleged constitutional violation. Stanley v. City of 

Pittsburgh, No. 9-1450, 2011 WL 1327634 (W.D. Pa. Apr. 6, 2011). Stanley timely 

appealed.1

 1 The District Court exercised jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 & 1343. We exercise 

jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. 
3

II.2

Section 1983 provides a cause of action for constitutional violations committed 

under color of state law. Under § 1983, a municipality may not be held vicariously liable 

for the actions of its employees, but may be responsible when a municipal policy or 

custom itself caused the violation in question. Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 

658, 694-95 (1978). To establish liability based on a municipal policy or custom, the 

plaintiff must demonstrate the municipality was “the ‘moving force’ behind the injury 

alleged” by showing that there was a “direct causal link between the municipal action and 

the deprivation of federal rights.” Bd. of Cnty. Comm’rs v. Brown, 520 U.S. 397, 404 

(1997). A plaintiff must also establish that the municipal decision “reflects deliberate 

indifference to the risk that a violation of a particular constitutional or statutory right will 

follow the decision.” Id. at 411. This is a “stringent standard of fault” that “requir[es] 

proof that a municipal actor disregarded a known or obvious consequence of his action.” 

Id. at 410.

Stanley’s conclusory allegations cannot satisfy this standard here. Even if we 

entertain the questionable assertion that the coroner lacked probable cause and Stanley’s 

constitutional rights were violated, Stanley has offered no evidence that this violation 

resulted from the City of Pittsburgh’s policy. As the District Court noted, neither the 

 2 We exercise plenary review over a district court’s grant of summary judgment. 

N.A.A.C.P. v. N. Hudson Reg’l Fire Rescue, 665 F.3d 464, 475 (3d Cir. 2011). Summary 

judgment is proper when the movant demonstrates there is no genuine dispute as to any 

material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 

56(a). We view all facts in the light most favorable to the non-moving party and draw all 

inferences in that party’s favor. Doe v. Indian River Sch. Dist., 653 F.3d 256, 275 n.7 (3d 

Cir. 2011).
4

practice of allowing a coroner to assess probable cause nor the policy permitting a single 

officer to submit an affidavit can be considered the “moving force” behind the alleged 

constitutional violation where Stanley has not shown how these particular policies were 

directly responsible for the issuance of the arrest warrant. Nor do Stanley’s allegations 

satisfy the “stringent” deliberate indifference standard. Stanley has offered no evidence 

that the harm he suffered was a known or obvious consequence of the City of 

Pittsburgh’s policy, which did not itself violate any constitutional requirements. At best,

Stanley urges us to find municipal liability based on the “generalized . . . risk” that the 

policy made “a violation of rights more likely.” Brown, 520 U.S. at 410. But the 

Supreme Court has already stated that such a showing alone does not satisfy the 

deliberate indifference standard, id. at 410-11, and Stanley’s attempt to impute the 

actions of Myers and the coroner to the City of Pittsburgh threatens to collapse the wellestablished distinction between municipal liability and respondeat superior liability. 

Because of these legal shortcomings, Stanley’s municipal liability claim fails.

III.

For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the District Court’s grant of summary 

judgment to the defendant.