Court Opinion

ID: 9480029
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:35:48.410083+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:26.269806
License: Public Domain

MILTON POLLACK, Senior District Judge:
(Dissenting).
I respectfully dissent.
The majority opinion characterizes the procedure in the district court as impaired in critical respects affecting the jury’s consideration of the case. However, there are too many defects to be cured to accept the result as serving the ends of justice.
In my opinion, the inadequacy and the inconsistency of the jury’s responses cannot be overlooked or explained away successfully. The case was tried at a single trial on a single count complaint asserting a rolled-up liability of the defendant for various reasons scattered in the complaint but not differentiated into separate “counts.” The predicate for a “guilty” finding of malicious prosecution and of violation of civil rights, namely, that the jury had found the absence of probable cause, was reported by the jury as not having been found (whether by disagreement, refusal or other failure is not known). The jury reported that it “cannot unanimously agree ... on the following counts [sic]: Assault, false arrest, excessive force.”
There was no predicate reported to support the finding of “violation of civil rights.” In paragraph “thirty-fifth” of the complaint, the plaintiff charged in one summary sentence that “[t]he above stated acts of assault, false arrest and imprisonment, and malicious prosecution were undertaken by Defendants Laporte and Colon under color of state law....”
In paragraph “thirty-ninth” of the complaint, the plaintiff asserted “[t]he above described acts of Defendants Laporte and Colon, committed under color of state law and under color of their authority as Correction Officers of Defendant City of New York, and with the implicit or tacit authorization, approval, or encouragement of the Correction Department and Defendant City of New York, were wanton, unprovoked, unlawful_” However, as mentioned below, evidence thereof was lacking.
The district judge gave a rolled-up charge covering all the asserted conduct as though it was all one tort and did not request or require separate verdicts. The jury indicated its confusion concerning its task. It asked “What are the specific charges?”. The Judge repeated in substance the various claims of the complaint but added “excessive force” to the civil rights allegations which was not expressed in words in the complaint. The jury returned again and the same routine followed except this time “excessive force” was not reiterated by the Judge. The jury erroneously referred to the matters in their report as separate “counts,” which they were not.
The declared inability, failure or refusal (whichever one chooses to believe) to find lack of probable cause for an arrest permeated and undermined all allegations of *697the complaint. The charge of malicious prosecution cannot be sustained in limbo in the face of the announced failure of the jury to find lack of probable cause for an arrest, a prerequisite for the jury’s response of guilty of malicious prosecution and guilty of violation of civil rights.1 During its deliberations, the jury clearly requested the Court to “Please define malicious prosecution.” The Judge then reread the portions of the charge that deal with malicious prosecution. The jury was instructed therein that:
In order to recover, the plaintiff must prove that at the time the prosecution was initiated, defendant did not have probable cause to believe plaintiff guilty of assault in the third degree and harassment and that in initiating the prosecution the defendant acted maliciously. ... the fact that plaintiff was acquitted after trial is not evidence that defendant lacked probable cause at the time the prosecution was initiated, the question on the issue of probable cause is not whether plaintiff was, in fact, guilty or innocent or defendant was, in fact, mistaken or correct, but whether on the facts as they reasonably appeared to the defendant a reasonably prudent person would have believed the plaintiff guilty.
The civil rights claim cannot be sustained in limbo. The Court’s charge was insufficient, and there was insufficient, indeed, none of the essential evidence as a foundation for such a claim. The double parking leading to the altercation was a personal gripe completely unrelated to any conceivable functions of a corrections officer in a parking lot matter, in that locality. Carrying of an off duty revolver does not necessarily impose color of state law status on defendant. Although the majority intimates that the dispute was private, they say “the arrest and the use of excessive force was unquestionably action under col- or of law.” The difficulty, however, is that a lawful arrest would not ground a civil rights claim, and there is no finding that it was other than lawful and it cannot be presumed to have been unlawful. Moreover, the jury expressly announced it was unable (or unwilling) to find that “excessive force” had been used; no other basis was submitted to the jury or is to be found in the evidence.
At a minimum, albeit in the absence of a formal request for a new trial, the guilty verdicts are irreconcilably inconsistent with the jury’s announced failure to report, refusal or inability to find, lack of probable cause for defendant’s acts. It would be a travesty on justice to allow the faulty structure on which the reported jury response stands; it is part of an appellate court’s duty of oversight not to overlook or excuse such plain error. United States v. Vater, 259 F.2d 667, 672 (2d Cir.1958) (“Of course, where it is in the interest of justice, we will consider a point on appeal even though counsel through negligence or inadvertence has failed below to claim his client’s strongest point.”); see also, Hormel v. Helvering, 312 U.S. 552, 557, 61 S.Ct. 719, 721, 85 L.Ed. 1037 (1941) (“Rules of practice and procedure are devised to promote the ends of justice, not to defeat them. A rigid and undeviating judicially declared practice under which courts of review would invariably and under all circumstances decline to consider all questions which had not previously been specifically urged would be out of harmony with this policy.”); Ricard v. Birch, 529 F.2d 214, 216 (4th Cir.1975) (“Ordinarily, of course, we do not pass on questions that were not presented to or considered by the district court, but orderly rules of procedure do not require sacrifice of the rules of fundamental justice.”); Franki Foundation Co. v. Alger-Rau & Assoc., Inc., 513 *698F.2d 581, 586 (3d Cir.1975) (Issues not raised below are ordinarily not heard on appeal, “[b]ut this rule is only a rule of practice and may be relaxed whenever the public interest or justice so warrants.”).
I would order a new trial of this case on all issues. The limited new trial ordered by the district judge was insufficient relief.

. See, Colon v. City of New York, 60 N.Y.2d 78, 82, 455 N.E.2d 1248, 468 N.Y.S.2d 453, 455 (1983):
The elements of an action for malicious prosecution are (1) the initiation of a proceeding, (2) its termination favorably to plaintiff, (3) lack of probable cause, and (4) malice [citations omitted];
2 New York Pattern Jury Instructions — Civil, PJI 3:50 at 795 (1968):
In order to recover [for malicious prosecution], plaintiff must prove that at the time the prosecution was initiated, defendant did not have probable cause to believe plaintiff guilty of [the crime charged] and that in initiating the prosecution, defendant acted maliciously.