Opinion ID: 200002
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Officer Carchedi

Text: 18 Wilson's principal argument on appeal is directed to the refusal of the trial court to permit the jury to consider theories of excessive force liability involving Carchedi directly or indirectly. That Carchedi had sprayed Wilson (and Crosby) with pepper gas during the scuffle in the cellblock was not late-breaking news. Wilson's April 29, 1997 presentment letter to the Town of Mendon asserted that Carchedi had maced him in the face, causing him to fall face-first to the floor, allegations that were repeated in the complaint. 14 Carchedi (and Tagliaferri) were, however, portrayed in the presentment letter and complaint as brave officers who had come forward with the truth, only to be ridiculed, harassed, ostracized, and silenced for their temerity. Neither Carchedi nor Tagliaferri was named as a defendant in the complaint. 19 As previously noted, Magistrate Judge Swartwood had bifurcated the individual claims against the defendant officers from Wilson's claims against the municipal defendants. In this regard, the court was treading a familiar path. Without a finding of a constitutional violation on the part of a municipal employee, there cannot be a finding of section 1983 damages liability on the part of the municipality. Heller, 475 U.S. at 798-99, 106 S.Ct. 1571. Thus, a defendant's verdict in a bifurcated trial forecloses any further action against the municipality, resulting in less expense for the litigants, and a lighter burden on the court. 15 On the other hand, a verdict against the municipal employee will almost always result in satisfaction of the judgment by the municipality because of the indemnification provisions typically found in bargaining agreements between municipalities and their employee unions. 20 There is, however, nothing to prevent a plaintiff from foregoing the naming of an individual officer as a defendant and proceeding directly to trial against the municipality. Something of the sort happened in Beck v. City of Pittsburgh, 89 F.3d 966, 967 (3d Cir.1996), where, after bifurcation, the plaintiff's phase one case against the defendant officer ended in a mistrial. Plaintiff then dismissed the case against the officer, and was permitted to proceed against the city on the claim that it had tolerated a custom and policy of condoning the use of excessive force by its officers, among them the original defendant. 16 21 The added expense aside, the reasons that plaintiffs almost never choose to proceed against the municipality directly are self-evident. The predicate burden of proving a constitutional harm on the part of a municipal employee remains an element of the case regardless of the route chosen and is much easier to flesh out when the tortfeasor is a party amenable to the full powers of discovery. The burden of placing that harm in the context of a causative municipal custom and policy is significantly more onerous than the task of simply proving that an actionable wrong occurred. And finally, an abstract entity like a municipality may present a much less compelling face to a jury than a flesh and blood defendant. 22 The counter-argument advanced by appellees rests on the proposition that a court may not permit the adjudication or determination of the rights or liabilities of a person unless that person is actually or constructively before it. See, e.g., Brown v. American Nat. Bank, 197 F.2d 911, 914 (10th Cir.1952) (It is a familiar rule of frequent enunciation that judgment may not be entered with binding effect against one not actually or constructively before the court.). From this truism, appellees extract the falsity that because Wilson failed to name Carchedi as a defendant, he cannot now complain that the court refused to permit the jury to make a factual determination regarding her conduct. The reason that this second assertion is wrong is that Wilson was not seeking an adjudication of Carchedi's rights, nor a judgment binding on her personally. Wilson rather was seeking a factual finding regarding the implications of Carchedi's conduct for the possible liability of the Town of Mendon as her employer. 17 The issue remains, however, whether Wilson, under the circumstances of this case, should have been permitted to seek a finding against Carchedi as a fulcrum to use against the Town of Mendon in a subsequent trial.