Opinion ID: 761518
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Absence of Probable Cause Element

Text: 15 In order to state a cause of action for malicious prosecution, a plaintiff must allege that criminal proceedings were initiated against him without probable cause and for an improper purpose and were terminated in his favor. Landrigan v. City of Warwick, 628 F.2d 736, 745 n. 6 (1st Cir.1980) (citation omitted). Thus, a § 1983 malicious prosecution action based upon a deprivation of Fourth Amendment rights requires a showing of the absence of probable cause to initiate proceedings, see Montgomery v. De Simone, 159 F.3d 120, 124 (3d Cir.1998), as does the parallel state tort claim of malicious prosecution, see, e.g., Lincoln v. Shea, 361 Mass. 1, 277 N.E.2d 699, 702 (Mass.1972).
16 Before we proceed any further, we feel compelled to delineate exactly what Meehan's § 1983 malicious prosecution claims consist of, in order to more easily undertake the proper probable cause inquiry. The district court stated that an element of Meehan's malicious prosecution cause of action was that there was no probable cause to initiate the criminal charge against Meehan, but what the court purported to find was that it had been conclusively determined that defendants had probable cause to arrest Meehan. August 20, 1997 Memorandum and Order, at 16, 18. For the following reasons, we believe that the proper inquiry in this case is whether the defendants had probable cause to initiate the criminal charge against Meehan, not whether they had probable cause to arrest him. 17 From Meehan's arguments throughout this litigation, it is clear that he attempts to raise dual malicious prosecution claims based upon two events: (1) his arrest; and (2) his prosecution. As early as his opposition to the motion to dismiss the first amended complaint, Meehan argued that his malicious prosecution causes of action were based upon the malicious arrest and prosecution by defendants. Plaintiff's Opposition to Defendants' Motion to Dismiss, at 10. In his second amended complaint, Meehan continued with these dual bases for his malicious prosecution claims, repeatedly arguing that defendants arrested and charged Meehan without probable cause and that [t]he arrest and prosecution violated his constitutional rights. Second Amended Complaint, pp 88-91. In his brief on appeal, Meehan argues that: 18 [a]n arrest is the initial stage of a criminal prosecution, and the Application for Criminal Complaint and the Complaint itself is the issuance of criminal process and the institution of criminal proceedings. Pomeroy drafted and executed the Application for the Criminal Complaint, thereby instituting this criminal process knowing he had no probable cause. Appellant's Br. at 34. Meehan continues: 19 Rogers clearly instituted or instigated this criminal process with the arrest without probable cause. Rogers knew that Meehan had no cocaine on him at both times when Meehan was searched. Accordingly, there was absolutely no probable cause to arrest and charge Meehan with any crime. 20 Appellant's Br. at 37. 21 However, Meehan may not bring a malicious prosecution claim based upon his arrest because his arrest does not constitute the initiation of proceedings against Meehan. We have previously noted that the lines between malicious prosecution and false arrest have become blurred, to the extent that a malicious prosecution claim may be predicated on an arrest made pursuant to a warrant that was issued without probable cause. See Calero-Colon, 68 F.3d at 3-4. In the present case, however, Meehan's arrest was not made pursuant to an arrest warrant. 3 Meehan cites no authority for the proposition that a malicious prosecution cause of action may be based upon a warrantless arrest. As we noted in Calero-Colon: 22 [t]he critical inquiry that distinguishes malicious prosecution from false arrest in the present context is whether the arrests were made pursuant to a warrant. As a general rule, an unlawful arrest pursuant to a warrant will be more closely analogous to the common law tort of malicious prosecution. An arrest warrant constitutes legal process, and it is the tort of malicious prosecution that permits damages for confinement pursuant to legal process. On the other hand, wrongful warrantless arrests typically resemble the tort of false arrest. 23 Id. at 4 (citations omitted)(emphasis added). Meehan cannot base a malicious prosecution claim on his warrantless arrest, because it did not constitute legal process. Consequently, we examine only Meehan's malicious prosecution claims based upon the institution of criminal charges against him. Because the absence of probable cause element is concerned with whether the defendants had probable cause to take the challenged action, and because the challenged action here is prosecution, not arrest, the proper inquiry is whether there was probable cause to institute criminal charges against Meehan. 24
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.
Malicious Prosecution Claim 31 We do not believe, however, that the district court was correct in entering summary judgment against Meehan's § 1983 malicious prosecution cause of action on the basis of Broussard. The district court applied Broussard in the federal context, but Broussard 's applicability to § 1983 malicious prosecution claims has heretofore been left unresolved in this circuit. See Earle v. Benoit, 850 F.2d 836, 850 n. 14 (1st Cir.1988) (expressing doubt, but leaving open the question of whether the Broussard rule would be dispositive as to the constitutionally mandated probable cause standard). Because the undisputed facts of this case demonstrate that the defendants had probable cause to initiate the criminal charge against Meehan, we find it unnecessary to reach that issue and leave it for another day. 32 We find that no genuine issue exists regarding the question of whether defendants had probable cause to prosecute Meehan. Even if we disregard the testimony of the officers that Meehan disputes as perjured, 5 including testimony that the cuff list belonged to Meehan, there was still probable cause to prosecute Meehan. It is undisputed that Meehan had frequented Driscoll's Cafe over a long period of time. It is undisputed that substantial amounts of illegal narcotics activity had been taking place at Driscoll's Cafe. 6 It is undisputed that Meehan was seen associating with Turk, who was undeniably in possession of cocaine, on the night of his arrest. It becomes even more likely that Meehan was involved in that trafficking activity when one considers the undisputed fact that Meehan carried thousands of dollars in a concealed location at the time of his arrest. Even the appellate court that reversed Meehan's conviction noted that one could infer from this concealed currency that Meehan was engaged in activities associated with drug dealing. See Meehan, 597 N.E.2d at 1386. Even though this evidence was held to be insufficient to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Meehan was conspiring with Turk to traffic the cocaine that was found in her possession, it is at least enough to establish probable cause to believe that he had done so. Cf. Roche, 81 F.3d at 255 ([T]he quantity and quality of proof necessary to ground a showing of probable cause is not the same as the quantity and quality of proof necessary to convict.). Because there was probable cause to believe that Meehan was involved in drug trafficking at the time he was charged with that crime, the district court properly granted summary judgment against both his state and federal malicious prosecution claims. 7