Opinion ID: 761518
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Meehan's State Law Malicious Prosecution Claim

Text: 25 In the present case, the district court found that probable cause existed, thereby defeating Meehan's state and federal malicious prosecution causes of action. The district court found, under the rule in Broussard v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., 324 Mass. 323, 86 N.E.2d 439, 440 (Mass.1949), that it had been conclusively determined that probable cause existed to arrest Meehan. 4 In Broussard, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held that: 26 the law of this Commonwealth has been that conviction of the accused by a tribunal to which the complaint was made, although reversed on appeal, conclusively establishes the existence of probable cause, unless the conviction was obtained solely by false testimony of the defendant charged with malicious prosecution or is impeached on the ground of fraud, conspiracy or subornation in its procurement. 27 Id. at 440 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). 28 We agree with the district court's application of the Broussard rule with regard to Meehan's state law malicious prosecution cause of action. Meehan was clearly convicted of trafficking in cocaine, even though his conviction was reversed. Thus, unless the false testimony exception applies, Broussard operates to bar Meehan's state law malicious prosecution claim. 29 Meehan has not succeeded in creating a genuine issue of fact as to whether his conviction was obtained solely by the false testimony of the defendants. First, Meehan has not provided sufficient admissible evidence that defendants' testimony was in fact false. Meehan's claims that the defendants perjured themselves tend to be conclusory. Meehan's brief on appeal is replete with assertions that Curtis' affidavit and testimony were perjured because, for example, even though Meehan had never sold drugs of any kind, Curtis stated that various reliable informants had seen him selling cocaine at Driscoll's Cafe. Accepting for the sake of argument Meehan's claim that he has never sold drugs, this fact still does not establish that Curtis perjured himself, but only that the informants that Curtis relied on were not as reliable as he thought them to be. Similarly, in response to Curtis' testimony that there were numerous drug-related arrests of Driscoll's Cafe patrons before Meehan's arrest, Meehan argues in his brief that he knows this statement to be untrue. However, he makes no effort to offer evidence that contradicts Curtis' testimony and therefore fails to demonstrate that Curtis' testimony in this regard was false. 30 Second, even if Meehan could demonstrate that every piece of testimony he attacks was in fact perjured, he still could not demonstrate that his conviction was based solely on that testimony. As demonstrated more fully in the next section, there was substantial undisputed evidence that implicated Meehan in the crime of which he was convicted. That undisputed evidence includes Meehan's association with Turk, his possession of large amounts of currency, and the discovery of a cuff list either on Meehan's person or relatively near him in the bar. Accordingly, no reasonable fact-finder could conclude that Meehan's conviction was based solely on the false testimony of the defendants. Therefore, the exception to the Broussard rule does not apply, and the district court was correct in granting summary judgment against Meehan's state law malicious prosecution claim.