Opinion ID: 3183090
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Grants of Summary Judgment

Text: Lastly, Albanese contends that the trial justice erred by granting summary judgment in favor of defendants. This Court views summary judgment as an “extreme remedy” that “should be granted only when ‘the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.’” Stewart v. Sheppard, 885 - 11 - A.2d 715, 719 (R.I. 2005) (quoting Plunkett v. State, 869 A.2d 1185, 1187 (R.I. 2005)). Accordingly, the Court has noted that: “The function of the motion justice considering a proposed summary-judgment motion is not to cull out the weak cases from the herd of lawsuits waiting to be tried. Rather, only if the case is legally dead on arrival should the court take the drastic step of administering last rites by granting summary judgment.” Mitchell v. Mitchell, 756 A.2d 179, 185 (R.I. 2000). Still, this extraordinary remedy is appropriate when the nonmoving party relies only on “mere allegations or denials in the pleadings, conclusory statements, or legal opinions” to sustain the action. O’Brien v. Laroche, 711 A.2d 1125, 1127 (R.I. 1998). To ward off summary judgment, the nonmoving party must “set forth specific facts.” Lynch v. Spirit Rent-A-Car, Inc., 965 A.2d 417, 424 (R.I. 2009) (quoting Providence Journal Co. v. Convention Center Authority, 774 A.2d 40, 46 (R.I. 2001)). Reviewing the grant of summary judgment de novo, this Court “appl[ies] the same standards as those used by the trial court.” Kinder v. Westcott, 107 A.3d 321, 324 (R.I. 2015) (quoting Hazard v. East Hills, Inc., 45 A.3d 1262, 1268 (R.I. 2012)). Like the trial court, we construe “the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party,” id. (quoting Long v. Dell, Inc., 93 A.3d 988, 995 (R.I. 2014)), and do not “pass[] upon the weight or credibility of the evidence,” Reniere v. Gerlach, 752 A.2d 480, 482 (R.I. 2000). Because Albanese challenges the grants of summary judgment on each of the six counts of the complaint, we address them seriatim. We first consider her dual claim for assault and battery, which alleges the use of excessive force during an arrest by defendant police officers. We analyze this claim through the lens of excessive-force jurisprudence under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. See Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 395 (1989). - 12 - The Fourth Amendment guarantees “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons    against unreasonable    seizures.” A police officer’s application of excessive force during an arrest violates that right, regardless of whether the force was exercised in good faith. See Graham, 490 U.S. at 396-97. The determination of whether the level of force used by an arresting officer was objectively reasonable—and thus not impermissibly excessive—under the Fourth Amendment demands “a careful balancing of the ‘nature and quality of the intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests’ against the countervailing governmental interests at stake.” Id. at 396 (quoting Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1, 8 (1985)). The balancing test of objective reasonableness is inherently “fact-intensive,” because it “depends on ‘the facts and circumstances of each particular case.’” Newman v. Guedry, 703 F.3d 757, 761 (5th Cir. 2012) (quoting Graham, 490 U.S. at 396). Factors to consider “includ[e] the severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight.” Graham, 490 U.S. at 396. “In other words, the factfinder must determine whether, in light of the totality of the circumstances faced by the arresting officer, the amount of force used was objectively reasonable at the time.” Amnesty America v. Town of West Hartford, 361 F.3d 113, 123 (2d Cir. 2004) (Sotomayor, J.) (emphasis added). Therefore, “[g]iven the fact-specific nature of the inquiry, granting summary judgment against a plaintiff on an excessive[-]force claim is not appropriate unless no reasonable factfinder could conclude that the officers’ conduct was objectively unreasonable.” Id.; see also Gregory v. County of Maui, 523 F.3d 1103, 1106 (9th Cir. 2008) (“[S]ummary judgment    ‘should be granted sparingly’ in cases involving claims of excessive force.” quoting Drummond v. City of Anaheim, 343 F.3d 1052, 1056 (9th Cir. 2003)). - 13 - Turning to the case at bar, we note that the evidence before the Superior Court on summary judgment was sparse. Because Albanese had failed to produce any materials in support of her objection to the motion for summary judgment before the hearing on January 31, 2014,7 the material before the Superior Court was limited to the documents submitted by defendants— the police report and Albanese’s interrogatory responses. Our careful review of the allegations in Albanese’s pleading and her answers to the interrogatories reveals that Albanese focuses her excessive-force claim only on the events that transpired from the time she exited her vehicle to when she arrived with Sgt. Favreau and Lt. Sutton at her apartment. Lieutenant Sutton, who recounted this interaction in a narrative contained in the police report, indicated that Albanese had been sitting in her car with her dog at the officers’ direction just before the events in question occurred. According to Lt. Sutton: “[Sergeant] Favreau    advised Albanese that she was going to be arrested   . Albanese continued to yell and became more agitated. [Sergeant] Favreau asked [Albanese] if she would like to put the dog in the apartment or leave it in the car for the time being. She continued to shout and after being asked a second time she grabbed the dog by the collar and began to walk toward the apartment. [Sergeant] Favreau and I followed her to her apartment door. She opened the door and began to walk inside.” Albanese tells a different tale. According to the answers Albanese provided to defendants’ interrogatories, Sgt. Favreau “yank[ed] [her] out of the car and put [her] jacket overhead. The other officer raised [her] other arm and dragged [her] to [her] apartment.” The differences in the accounts are substantial, since Lt. Sutton’s narrative does not mention that he 7 After summary judgment was granted in this case, Albanese filed with the court her own sworn affidavit and two letters from physicians, along with a handwritten note. Since these materials were not properly before the Superior Court at the time of summary judgment, we decline to consider them. - 14 - and Sgt. Favreau physically escorted Albanese from her car to her apartment—the allegation giving rise to the crux of Albanese’s claim of excessive force. Viewing these competing narratives in the light most favorable to Albanese, we now apply the fact-specific balancing test required for determining whether Sgt. Favreau and Lt. Sutton’s actions were objectively reasonable under the circumstances. Here, Albanese was under arrest for simple assault for having “charged” into Arrico. Albanese, 970 A.2d at 1217 n.2. Neither Arrico nor the other witnesses interviewed at the scene by the officers had suggested that Albanese had used a weapon or any other deadly force. There is no evidence that the car was running or that Albanese was attempting to flee at the time of the arrest. Thus, when viewed in the light most favorable to Albanese, the officers had no objective reason to believe that Albanese’s presence in the car posed an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or the public or that she was trying to flee the scene. Although Lt. Sutton asserts that Albanese was “agitated” and “shout[ing],” nothing on the summary-judgment record implies that she was trying to resist arrest or threatening physical violence. Although scant, the evidence in this case raised a genuine dispute as to the propriety of the officers’ use of force, if such force in fact was used. These are jury questions. A reasonable jury could accept Albanese’s account over the contradictory narrative provided by Lt. Sutton and infer that the level of force applied by the officers was excessive in light of the circumstances. Accordingly, the assault-and-battery claim was not fit for resolution by summary judgment. None of Albanese’s other claims withstand summary judgment. Her false-arrest claim fails because “[t]he existence of probable cause is a complete defense.” Horton v. Portsmouth Police Department, 22 A.3d 1115, 1122 (R.I. 2011) (quoting Henshaw v. Doherty, 881 A.2d 909, 919 (R.I. 2005)). An officer has probable cause to arrest a suspect “when the facts and - 15 - circumstances within the police officer’s knowledge and of which he has reasonably trustworthy information are sufficient to warrant a reasonable person’s belief that a crime has been committed and that the person to be arrested has committed the crime.” Id. (quoting State v. Girard, 799 A.2d 238, 249 (R.I. 2002)). According to Lt. Sutton’s narrative, the officers were dispatched to Driftwood after receiving a report that Albanese had assaulted Arrico and fled the scene. Upon their locating Albanese on a nearby street, Albanese immediately approached Lt. Sutton and asked, “Did he call the cops on me? All we did was bump into each other   .” Shortly thereafter, she changed her story and said it was Arrico who had “‘banged’ into her.” Once back at Driftwood, officers spoke to Arrico and another witness who confirmed Arrico’s account that Albanese, unprovoked, had “‘rushed past’ him, got about three feet in front of him[,]    turned and looked at him[,]    ‘lifted her hand and lunged [her] body [and] shoulders at [him] to knock [him] down.’” As the officers attempted to question the witnesses, Albanese repeatedly yelled and exited her car, despite having been ordered by the officers “to stay by her vehicle.”8 The consistent statements of Arrico and the other witnesses, Albanese’s admission—before even being questioned by the officers—that a physical contact between Arrico and herself had occurred, and her erratic behavior all demonstrated the existence of probable cause to arrest Albanese for simple assault. Summary judgment therefore was appropriate. Albanese’s claims of gross negligence and misconduct also fail. She alleges that defendants harassed and intimidated her. However, there is no evidence on the summaryjudgment record to back this contention, except her general allegations in the complaint and the 8 Albanese later returned to the vehicle, where she was sitting just before the interaction giving rise to the assault-and-battery claim allegedly occurred. - 16 - conclusory statement in her answer to defendants’ interrogatories that the civilian defendants “constantly belittled [her] and made fun of [her] handicaps and [her] efforts on behalf of the other tenants who were suffering [as a result of] the mold caused by the management.” She identifies no specific instances of harassment or intimidation, nor does she name or describe the persons who allegedly harassed her. There was no triable issue of fact with respect to this count.9 The negligence per se claim for defendants’ purported failure to uphold and enforce state and municipal codes related to mold fares no better. Albanese’s claim is doomed by her own assertions in her pleading and interrogatory answers, in which she assails defendants for condemning her apartment as a result of the mold. This admission, combined with the absence of any evidence beyond her conclusory allegations that defendants failed to respond to her complaints, defeats her claim on summary judgment. Since Albanese’s claim for the intentional infliction of emotional distress is predicated on the alleged failure of defendants to respond to her complaints of mold, this claim suffers the same fate. Albanese’s claim for punitive damages similarly fails. Punitive damages are available to a plaintiff “only when a defendant’s conduct requires deterrence and punishment over and above that provided in an award of compensatory damages, such as when a defendant ‘act[s] with malice or in bad faith.’” Pier House Inn, Inc. v. 421 Corp., 812 A.2d 799, 803 (R.I. 2002) (quoting Palmisano v. Toth, 624 A.2d 314, 318 (R.I. 1993)). Even on her reinstated claim for 9 In her response to defendants’ interrogatories, Albanese averred that reports by the building inspector and the Narragansett Police Department constituted the only evidence aside from her interrogatory answers to support her allegation of harassment and intimidation by defendants. Albanese declared that the reports “indicate an obsessive concern with the activities of the handicapped and elderly tenants of the Driftwood Apartments.” The reports were not on the record before the Superior Court or even before this Court on appeal. Nonetheless, based on Albanese’s description, it is unlikely that they would have furthered her claim even had they properly been before the Superior Court on summary judgment. - 17 - assault and battery for excessive police force, Albanese has failed to make such a showing. The arrest was proper. Albanese has alleged only that Sgt. Favreau and Lt. Sutton “yank[ed]” her out of her car, pulled her jacket over her head, and “dragged” her to her apartment. Even when viewed in the light most favorable to Albanese, the actions alleged are insufficient to support an award of punitive damages.