Opinion ID: 202546
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: the unpled claims

Text: 38 There is one more leg to our journey. Calvi objects to the district court's determination that she failed properly to plead certain claims (and, therefore, waived them). We turn now to that objection. 39 The essential facts are as follows. In her opposition to the defendants' motions for summary judgment, Calvi for the first time asserted a false arrest claim against Smith and failure to intervene claims against McLaughlin and Gracie. None of these newly minted claims had been articulated, or even vaguely insinuated, in Calvi's complaint. The magistrate judge deemed the claims waived, Calvi, 2006 WL 890687, at , and the district judge agreed. 40 Calvi argues, in effect, that the Civil Rules require only notice pleading, and that notice of the incident subsumes within it notice of any and all claims arising out of the described nucleus of operative facts. The first part of her premise is correct; this court has held that there are no heightened pleading standards for civil rights cases and that, therefore, notice pleading rules apply to such actions. See Educadores Puertorriqueños en Acción v. Hernández, 367 F.3d 61, 66-67 (1st Cir. 2004). Thus, a plaintiff's complaint need only contain a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief. Id. at 66 (citing Fed. R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2)). 41 The second part of Calvi's premise is incorrect. Notice pleading rules do not relieve a plaintiff of responsibility for identifying the nature of her claim. See Gooley v. Mobil Oil Corp., 851 F.2d 513, 514 (1st Cir.1988) (explaining that although the requirements of Rule 8(a)(2) are minimal, minimal requirements are not tantamount to nonexistent requirements). Consequently, the statement of claim must, at a bare minimum, give the defendant fair notice of what the plaintiff's claim is and the grounds upon which it rests. Educadores, 367 F.3d at 66 (quoting Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957)). This means that, in a civil rights action, as in any other civil action subject to notice pleading requirements, the statement of claim must at least set forth minimal facts as to who did what to whom, when, where, and why. Id. at 68. 42 As the district court recognized, Calvi's complaint offends these rudimentary principles insofar as her unpled claims are concerned. In her complaint, she alleges that with reckless and deliberate disregard for [her] rights, Smith physically abuse[d] her and treat[ed] her cruelly and callously, using force far in excess of that necessary under the circumstances, all in violation of her rights. This language is sufficient to plead an excessive force claim but not a false arrest claim. At no point in the complaint did Calvi say anything to place Smith on notice that she was claiming false arrest. 43 Calvi's argument that her false arrest claim is implicit in her excessive force claim lacks merit. Other courts have held that an excessive force claim is not implicit in a false arrest claim but, rather, must be stated distinctly. See, e.g., Bashir v. Rockdale County, 445 F.3d 1323, 1331-32 (11th Cir.2006); cf. Iacobucci v. Boulter, 193 F.3d 14, 19 (1st Cir.1999) (recognizing that false arrest and excessive force are separate and distinct claims). We think that the reverse is equally true: a false arrest claim is not implicit in an excessive force claim but, rather, must be stated distinctly. 44 Much the same is true of Calvi's nascent failure to intervene claims. Her complaint named McLaughlin and Gracie as defendants but limned only claims of excessive force against them. Neither a duty to intervene nor a breach of that duty was alluded to in any way, shape, or form. Calvi's argument rests, therefore, on the proposition that a failure to intervene claim is implicit in an excessive force claim directed at multiple defendants. We reject that proposition. 45 The short of it is that, as the district court held, Calvi was not entitled to raise new and unadvertised theories of liability for the first time in opposition to a motion for summary judgment. See Torres-Rios v. LPS Labs., Inc., 152 F.3d 11, 15-16 (1st Cir.1998). 46