Court Opinion

ID: 9476383
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:54:43.751911+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:17.451649
License: Public Domain

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
This case is before the court solely on the allegations of the complaint. According to that document, a black man from another state, “lawfully operating his automobile” on an interstate highway at night, was stopped by an Illinois State Police officer. The officer, according to the complaint, “verbally assaulted and abused plaintiff Patton and made insulting and derogatory racial remarks.” The complaint continues to allege that Mr. Patton was arrested because of an outstanding warrant for the arrest of an “Alexander Patton” in Cook County. Despite Mr. Patton’s constant protestations that he was a different “Alexander Patton” and despite obvious discrepancies between the data on the arrest warrant and the data on Mr. Patton’s license and registration, Mr. Patton was arrested and held by Illinois authorities for eight days before he was taken before a magistrate. According to the complaint, those eight days were somewhat more than just an unpleasant hiatus in Mr. Patton’s life. He alleges that he was beaten severely by the inmates of Cook County jail. Cf Rascón v. Hardiman, 803 F.2d 269 (7th Cir.1986) (section 1983 suit brought against corrections officials for the fatal beating of a pre-trial detainee). He also alleges that he lost his job.
The court quite correctly notes that the allegations set forth in this complaint present quite a different situation than that presented to the Supreme Court of the United States in Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137, 99 S.Ct. 2689, 61 L.Ed.2d 433 (1979). Here, the person arrested was not the person named in the warrant. Nor, according to the allegations of this complaint, was this a mere “detention of three days over a New Year’s weekend____” Id. at 145, 99 S.Ct. at 2695. Certainly, Johnson v. Miller, 680 F.2d 39 (7th Cir.1982), involving a negligent bureaucratic foul-up, is hardly controlling precedent for a case in which the complaint alleges willful malfea*702sanee, perhaps racially-based, on the part of state officials which resulted in an eight day incarceration before the citizen was brought before a magistrate.
A single principle of law should control the disposition of this case:
At this stage of the litigation, we must accept petitioner’s allegations as true. A court may dismiss a complaint only if it is clear that no relief could be granted under any set of facts that could be proved consistent with the allegations.
Hishon v. King & Spaulding, 467 U.S. 69, 73, 104 S.Ct. 2229, 2232, 81 L.Ed.2d 59 (1984) (citing Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 101-02, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957)). The decision to dismiss a complaint “is not a decision for the district court to make lightly.” Gomez v. Illinois State Bd. of Educ., 811 F.2d 1030, 1039 (7th Cir.1987). The district court “must accept the well-pleaded allegations of the complaint as true. In addition, the court must view these allegations in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.” Id.
We must take the allegations in the complaint to be true and view them, along with the reasonable inferences to be drawn from them, in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs____ A complaint should be dismissed for failure to state a claim only if it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff is unable to prove any set of facts that would entitle the plaintiff to relief____ A plaintiff need not set out in detail the facts upon which a claim is based, but must allege sufficient facts to outline the cause of action____
Doe v. St. Joseph’s Hosp. of Fort Wayne, 788 F.2d 411, 414 (7th Cir.1986) (citations omitted); see also Ellsworth v. City of Racine, 774 F.2d 182, 184 (7th Cir.1985), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 106 S.Ct. 1265, 89 L.Ed.2d 574 (1986); Benson v. Cady, 761 F.2d 335, 338 (7th Cir.1985).
Despite these well-settled principles, the majority — with only the complaint before it — determines the reasonableness of the particular arresting officer’s conduct, the credibility of the allegation that the arresting officer caused the plaintiff’s further detention, and the reasonableness of the conduct of the officers who held the plaintiff for eight days without justifying their actions to a magistrate. It dismisses, by, pure ipse dixit, the complaint’s allegation that this lengthy detention was part of a “custom, practice and policy,” of the Cook County Sheriff’s Office. Further proceedings may well establish that the plaintiff cannot maintain this cause of action. Perhaps there was no willful violation of his federal rights, no racial animus, no federally-forbidden pattern, practice or policy. Perhaps the same procedures would have been followed if a Northbrook housewife had been traveling on that road that night. Perhaps.
When legal historians encounter this case in the pages of the Federal Reporter, the facts alleged in the complaint will no doubt remind them — as they should remind us — of an earlier period in American history when such occurrences were quite frequent. Indeed, it was to correct such abuses, taken “under the color of state law,” that the statute upon which this action is predicated was enacted. The practice of casting state tort law claims as federal civil rights actions is indeed a pernicious one. See, e.g., Jackson v. City of Joliet, 715 F.2d 1200, 1203-06 (7th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1049, 104 S.Ct. 1325, 79 L.Ed.2d 720 (1984). This court has enjoyed a good deal of success in curtailing that practice. See, e.g., Kompare v. Stein, 801 F.2d 883, 888 (7th Cir.1986); Sudeikis v. Chicago Transit Auth., 774 F.2d 766, 770 (7th Cir. 1985). However, we do not serve that cause well when we act precipitously and uncritically. If we permit such a judicial methodology to become commonplace (and this case will certainly encourage such a trend), we risk blinding ourselves to the valid civil rights complaint — a situation incompatible with the role assigned us by the Constitution and, through statutory implementation, by the Congress.