Opinion ID: 2605
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Gravamen of the Complaint

Text: It is well-settled in this Circuit that we may not affirm the dismissal of [a plaintiff's] complaint because [he has] proceeded under the wrong theory `so long as [he has] alleged facts sufficient to support a meritorious legal claim.' Hack v. President & Fellows of Yale College, 237 F.3d 81, 89 (2d Cir.2000) (quoting Northrop v. Hoffman of Simsbury, Inc., 134 F.3d 41, 46 (2d Cir.1997)), cert. denied, 534 U.S. 888, 122 S.Ct. 201, 151 L.Ed.2d 142 (2001). In considering an appeal such as this one from a district court's grant of the defendants' Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, `[f]actual allegations alone are what matter[].' Northrop, 134 F.3d at 46 (quoting Albert v. Carovano, 851 F.2d 561, 571 n. 3 (2d Cir.1988) (en banc) (citing Newman v. Silver, 713 F.2d 14, 15 n. 1 (2d Cir. 1983))). [17] We are, moreover, required to read the factual allegations in a complaint as a whole. See Shapiro v. Cantor, 123 F.3d 717, 719 (2d Cir.1997); see also Aldana v. Del Monte Fresh Produce, N.A., Inc., 416 F.3d 1242, 1252 n. 11 (11th Cir. 2005) (per curiam), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 596, 166 L.Ed.2d 431 (2006); Goldwasser v. Ameritech Corp., 222 F.3d 390, 401 (7th Cir.2000). The allegations contained in Arar's complaint include assertions, which must be treated as established facts for present purposes, that: 1) Arar was apprehended by government agents as he sought to change planes at JFK Airport; he was not seeking to enter the United States; 2) his detention, based on false information given by the government of Canada, was for the purpose of obtaining information from him about terrorism and his alleged links with terrorists and terrorist organizations; 3) he was interrogated harshly on that topicmostly by FBI agentsfor many hours over a period of two days; 4) during that period, he was held incommunicado and was mistreated by, among other things, being deprived of food and water for a substantial portion of his time in custody; 5) he was then taken from JFK Airport to the MDC in Brooklyn, where he continued to be held incommunicado and in solitary confinement for another three days; 6) while at the MDC, INS agents sought unsuccessfully to have him agree to be removed to Syria because they and other U.S. government agents intended that he would be questioned there along similar lines, but under torture; 7) thirteen days after Arar had been intercepted and incarcerated at the airport, defendants sent him against his will to Syria. The defendants intended that he be questioned in Syria under torture and while enduring brutal and inhumane conditions of captivity. This was, as alleged, all part of a single course of action, conceived of and executed by the defendants in the United States. Its purpose: to make Arar talk. Not until deep in its opinion, though, does the majority come to address, the heart of the matter: Arar's treatment by defendants while he was present in the United States. When it finally does, the opinion disposes of the issue by describing only some of the pleaded facts: [W]hile in the United States, it says, Arar was subjected to `coercive and involuntary custodial interrogations ... conducted for excessively long periods of time and at odd hours of the day and night' on three occasions over thirteen days; `deprived of sleep and food for extended periods of time'; and, thereafter, was `held in solitary confinement, chained and shackled, [and] subjected to [an] invasive strip-search[].' Ante at 189. Having thus limited its consideration to only a portion of the acts Arar complains of, the majority blandly concludes: These allegations, while describing what might perhaps constitute relatively harsh conditions of detention, do not amount to a claim of gross physical abuse necessary to support a conclusion that his due process rights had been infringed. Id. at 189. But the majority reaches its conclusion by eliding, among other things, the manner in which Arar was taken into custody and the manner in which defendants disposed of him when their efforts to obtain information from him here proved fruitless. Arar was, in effect, abducted while attempting to transit at JFK Airport. And when he failed to give defendants the information they were looking for, and he refused to be sent voluntarily to Syria, they forcibly sent him there to be detained and questioned under torture. It is true that after setting forth his allegations of fact in detail in his complaint, Arar structures his claims for relief to charge knowing or reckless subjection to torture, coercive interrogation, and arbitrary detention in Syria (counts two and three) separately from, among other things, arbitrary detention and coercive and involuntary custodial interrogation in the United States (count four). See Arar, 414 F.Supp.2d at 257-58. The pleading's form may have contributed to the majority's erroneous separation of the decision to send Arar to Syria to be interrogated under torture from his domestic physical mistreatment. But, as noted, `[f]actual allegations alone are what matter[].' Northrop, 134 F.3d at 46 (quoting Albert, 851 F.2d at 571 n. 3). The assessment of Arar's alleged complaint must take into account the entire arc of factual allegations that Arar makeshis interception and arrest; his questioning, principally by FBI agents, about his putative ties to terrorists; his detention and mistreatment at JFK Airport in Queens and the MDC in Brooklyn; the deliberate misleading of both his lawyer and the Canadian Consulate; and his transport to Washington, D.C., and forced transfer to Syrian authorities for further detention and questioning under torture.