Court Opinion

ID: 9839834
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-14 15:01:03.208597+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:41:35.050022
License: Public Domain

21-1091-cv
    Ashley v. City of Bridgeport et al.

                           UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                               FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

                                          SUMMARY ORDER
RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY
ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF
APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER
IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN
ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING TO A SUMMARY
ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.

                   At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held
    at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York,
    on the 14th day of September, two thousand twenty-three.

    PRESENT:
                JOSÉ A. CABRANES,
                MYRNA PÉREZ,
                MARIA ARAÚJO KAHN,
                      Circuit Judges.
    _____________________________________

    Malcolm O. Ashley,

                               Plaintiff-Appellant,

                      v.                                                       No. 21-1091

    City of Bridgeport, Ronald Mercado, Lt.,
    individually and as a Lt. of the Bridgeport Police
    Department, Roderick Doda, P.O., individually and
    as an Officer of the Bridgeport Police Department,
    Marie Cetti, P.O., individually and as an Officer of
    the Bridgeport Police Department, St. Vincent’s
    Medical Center,

                      Defendants-Appellees.
    _____________________________________

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FOR PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT:                             Malcolm O. Ashley, pro se, New Haven,
                                                     CT.
FOR DEFENDANTS-APPELLEES
CITY OF BRIDGEPORT, RONALD
MERCADO, RODERICK DODA, AND
MARIE CETTI:                                         Richard J. Buturla & Ryan P. Driscoll,
                                                     Berchem Moses PC, Milford, CT.

FOR DEFENDANT-APPELLEE
ST. VINCENT’S MEDICAL CENTER:                        Paul D. Williams, John W. Cerreta, &
                                                     Andrew M. Ammirati, Day Pitney LLP,
                                                     Hartford, CT.

       Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut

(Alvin W. Thompson, J.).

       UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND

DECREED that the March 31, 2021 judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.

       Plaintiff-Appellant Malcolm Ashley, proceeding pro se, appeals the district court’s

judgment as to his lawsuit against Defendant-Appellee St. Vincent’s Medical Center (“St.

Vincent’s”) and individual Defendants-Appellees Ronald Mercado, Roderick Doda, and Marie

Cetti (together with St. Vincent’s, “Defendants”) in connection with an alleged unlawful stop and

search, a false arrest, and involuntary hospitalization and sedation. We assume the parties’

familiarity with the underlying facts, the procedural history of the case, and the issues on appeal,

which we reference only as necessary to explain our decision to affirm.

       This Court reviews a district court’s dismissal under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) de novo,

“accepting as true all of the complaint’s well-pleaded facts.” Washington v. Barr, 925 F.3d 109,

113 (2d Cir. 2019). This Court also reviews orders granting summary judgment de novo and
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considers whether the district court properly concluded that there was no genuine dispute as to any

material fact and the moving party was entitled to judgment as a matter of law. See Sotomayor v.

City of N.Y., 713 F.3d 163, 164 (2d Cir. 2013) (per curiam). This Court reviews “the district

court’s evidentiary rulings underlying a grant of summary judgment” for abuse of discretion and

reverses only for manifest error. Picard Tr. for SIPA Liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Inv. Sec.

LLC v. JABA Assocs. LP, 49 F.4th 170, 180–81 (2d Cir. 2022); LaSalle Bank Nat’l Ass’n v. Nomura

Asset Cap. Corp., 424 F.3d 195, 205 (2d Cir. 2005).

I.   The District Court Properly Granted Defendants’ Motions to Dismiss

        We find that the district court properly granted Defendants’ motions to dismiss. We

address two claims that Ashley appears to directly challenge on appeal. First, we conclude that

the district court properly dismissed Ashley’s Fourth Amendment claim against St. Vincent’s

because it is not a state actor. See McGugan v. Aldana-Bernier, 752 F.3d 224, 229–30 (2d Cir.

2014) (concluding that a private hospital was not a state actor when it engaged in “forcible

medication and hospitalization”). Second, the district court properly dismissed Ashley’s claim

that his due process rights were violated when his knife was seized.            “[A]n unauthorized

intentional deprivation of property by a state employee does not constitute a violation of the

procedural requirements of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment if a meaningful

postdeprivation remedy for the loss is available.” Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 533 (1984).

Here, Ashley could sue in state court for conversion of his knife. See Alexandre v. Cortes, 140

F.3d 406, 411 (2d Cir. 1998) (where plaintiff alleged that police officer failed to return confiscated

property, reasoning that New York state tort law was an adequate remedy because the deprivation

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 was random and unauthorized); Conn. Gen. Stat. § 54-36a (procedure for return of property seized

 by law enforcement).

II.   The District Court Properly Granted Defendants’ Motions for Summary Judgment

         As an initial matter, Ashley’s arguments that the district court erred in admitting and

 considering certain evidence in its decisions to grant summary judgment are without merit. First,

 he failed to point to any evidence supporting his assertion that Defendants fabricated the Police

 Emergency Examination Request (“PEER”) report by forging a doctor’s signature. See Gorzynski

 v. JetBlue Airways Corp., 596 F.3d 93, 101 (2d Cir. 2010) (“[A] plaintiff must provide more than

 conclusory allegations to resist a motion for summary judgment.”). Moreover, contrary to what

 Ashley believes, St. Vincent’s did not admit in its motion to dismiss that the PEER report was

 fraudulent. Ashley mistakes St. Vincent’s recitation of his own factual allegations, which must

 be “assume[d] as true” “[i]n evaluating a motion to dismiss,” for an admission that the document

 is fraudulent. See Kolbasyuk v. Cap. Mgmt. Servs., LP, 918 F.3d 236, 239 (2d Cir. 2019).

 Second, as to Ashley’s claims that the district court improperly relied on statements that were not

 authenticated, we find there was no authentication requirement where he had not challenged the

 authenticity of the relevant documents in the district court. See H. Sand & Co. v. Airtemp Corp.,

 934 F.2d 450, 454 (2d Cir. 1991).

         We also conclude that the district court properly granted Defendants’ summary judgment

 motions because, “construing the evidence in the light most favorable to [Ashley], ‘there is no

 genuine dispute as to any material fact.’” Doninger v. Niehoff, 642 F.3d 334, 344 (2d Cir. 2011)

 (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a)). As supplemented below, we affirm for substantially the same

 reasons stated by the district court.

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        Regarding his false arrest claim against Mercado and Doda, Ashley argues that the

evidence showed the officers forced him onto a gurney. However, whether Ashley was forced

was not a material dispute because the district court properly assumed that Ashley was transported

involuntarily to the hospital. See Ashley v. City of Bridgeport, Civil No. 3:17-cv-724(AWT),

2021 WL 1215657, at *7 (D. Conn. Mar. 31, 2021) (“[V]iewing the evidence in the light most

favorable to the plaintiff . . . the court assumes for purposes of this motion that the plaintiff was

involuntarily transported to St. Vincent’s.”); see also Hancock v. Cnty. of Rensselaer, 882 F.3d 58,

64 (2d Cir. 2018) (“In determining whether there is a genuine dispute as to a material fact, we must

resolve all ambiguities and draw all inferences against the moving party.” (quoting Marvel

Characters, Inc. v. Kirby, 726 F.3d 119, 135 (2d Cir. 2013))).

        The district court also correctly reasoned that St. Vincent’s was entitled to summary

judgment on Ashley’s assault and battery claims. Under Connecticut law, “a patient can recover

for assault and battery” if, relevant to this case, a doctor “fails to obtain any consent to the particular

treatment.” Godwin v. Danbury Eye Physicians & Surgeons, P.C., 757 A.2d 516, 519 (Conn.

2000). However, “a physician’s duty to secure informed consent is not an absolute one, but rather

is contingent on the particular context in which it arises.” Wood v. Rutherford, 201 A.3d 1025,

1044 (Conn. App. Ct. 2019). For example, a physician may not have to obtain informed consent

if “an emergency makes it impractical to obtain consent,” such as “in an emergency situation where

the patient is in immediate danger.” Id. at 1045 (quoting Andersen v. Khanna, 913 N.W.2d 526,

537 n.4 (Iowa 2018) and Wheeldon v. Madison, 374 N.W.2d 367, 375 (S.D. 1985)). “[T]he

emergency exception ‘comes into play when the patient is unconscious or otherwise incapable of

consenting, and harm from a failure to treat is imminent and outweighs any harm threatened by

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the proposed treatment.” Id. (quoting Canterbury v. Spence, 464 F.2d 772, 788 (D.C. Cir. 1972)).

Here, the district court considered the circumstances as a whole, including that Ashley was taken

to the hospital by police officers based on concerns for his mental health and that his agitation

prevented the doctor from examining him.

       We have considered Ashley’s remaining arguments and find them to be without merit.

Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.

                                            FOR THE COURT:
                                            Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court

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