Moses v. Mele , 711 F.3d 213 ( 2013 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 12-1729
CRYSTAL MOSES,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
MARK MELE,
Defendant, Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
[Hon. Paul J. Barbadoro, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Lynch, Chief Judge,
Souter,* Associate Justice,
and Selya, Circuit Judge.
Brian R. Marsicovetere, with whom Griffin, Marsicovetere &
Wilkes, P.C. was on brief, for appellant.
Daniel J. Mullen, with whom Ransmeier & Spellman Professional
Corporation was on brief, for appellee.
March 27, 2013
*
Hon. David H. Souter, Associate Justice (Ret.) of the Supreme
Court of the United States, sitting by designation.
SELYA, Circuit Judge. Plaintiff-appellant Crystal Moses
seeks damages for what she alleges was false arrest and malicious
prosecution attributable to defendant-appellee Mark Mele. In a
thoughtful opinion, the court below concluded that the defendant
was protected by qualified immunity under federal law and official
immunity under New Hampshire law. Moses v. Mele, No. 10-CV-253,
2012 WL 1416002, at *4 (D.N.H. Apr. 24, 2012). Consequently, it
granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment. Id. at *8.
After careful consideration, we affirm.
The anatomy of the case is easily delineated. At the
times material hereto, the plaintiff, her son Kyle, and Kyle's
twenty-one year-old girlfriend, Catherine Sims, lived together. On
July 12, 2008, Kyle was the operator of a motor vehicle that was
involved in an accident in Lebanon, New Hampshire. The defendant
was among the Lebanon police officers who responded to the scene.
After investigating the matter, the police placed Kyle under arrest
for reckless conduct, simple assault, and criminal threatening.
Sims, a passenger in Kyle's car, witnessed the accident and gave a
written statement.
Three days later, the defendant contacted Sims, expressed
doubts about the accuracy of her written statement, and requested
that she meet with him at police headquarters. Sims agreed, on the
condition that the plaintiff accompany her.
-2-
The plaintiff drove Sims to the police station in her
Jeep. Upon their arrival, the two women sat together in the lobby.
When the defendant appeared and asked Sims to follow him to an
interview room, the plaintiff attempted to accompany her. The
defendant demurred, stating that he wanted to interview Sims alone.
With Sims in tow, the defendant stepped into a hallway.
He told Sims that her statement about the accident contained
inconsistencies and that he would not speak to her in the presence
of the plaintiff (the driver's mother). He suggested that the
plaintiff had come to the station not to protect Sims but, rather,
to safeguard Kyle's interests. Sims replied that she would not
speak to the officer alone and would have to call her mother. The
defendant warned Sims against leaving the police department and
threatened to obtain a warrant for her arrest if she left.
When Sims returned to the lobby, the plaintiff advised
her that she did not have to speak with the defendant alone and
that she should either call her mother or depart. According to the
plaintiff, the defendant became strident and reiterated that he
would arrest Sims if she tried to leave. Notwithstanding this
admonition, the plaintiff put her arm around Sims and escorted her
out of the police station. As the plaintiff ushered Sims toward
her Jeep, the defendant repeatedly told Sims that she should not
leave the premises. The plaintiff, however, continued to counsel
-3-
Sims to leave because the defendant "was being a threatening
bully."
The defendant called for assistance and several officers
responded. He then explained the situation to his supervisor,
Corporal Gerald Brown, who instructed another officer to arrest the
plaintiff.
On July 20, the defendant filed a criminal complaint
charging the plaintiff with witness tampering. See N.H. Rev. Stat.
Ann. § 641:5(I)(b). The Lebanon District Court held a hearing and
found probable cause for the arrest. An indictment followed.
In due course, the plaintiff moved to dismiss the
indictment, arguing that the witness tampering statute was
unconstitutional. The motion was never heard because the
prosecutor elected to dismiss the case. This action was never
fully explained, but on the face of the indictment there is a
notation dated June 15, 2009, stating "Nol prossed due to witness
problems."
The dismissal of the criminal charge did not end the
matter. In June of 2010, the plaintiff sued the defendant in the
United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire.
Invoking 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the district court's supplemental
jurisdiction, 28 U.S.C. § 1367, she asserted both constitutional
claims and pendent state-law claims. After some preliminary
-4-
skirmishing not relevant here,1 the plaintiff's suit narrowed to
two causes of action: that the defendant was liable for (i) false
arrest under the Fourth Amendment, see U.S. Const. amend. IV, and
(ii) malicious prosecution under state law, see State v. Rollins,
533 A.2d 331, 332 (N.H. 1987). The defendant moved for summary
judgment. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). The plaintiff opposed the
motion, but the district court granted it. Moses, 2012 WL 1416002,
at *8. The court did not reach the merits of the plaintiff's
claims; instead it grounded its decision on a conclusion that, as
a matter of law, the defendant was entitled to qualified immunity
on the federal constitutional claim and official immunity on the
state-law claim. Id. at *4. This timely appeal ensued.
In the adjudication of appeals, starting from scratch and
building a rationale from the ground up is sometimes an extravagant
waste of judicial resources. To minimize such idle exercises, we
have noted that when a trial court accurately takes the measure of
a case, persuasively explains its reasoning, and reaches a correct
result, it serves no useful purpose for a reviewing court to write
at length in placing its seal of approval on the decision below.
See, e.g., Marek v. Rhode Island, 702 F.3d 650, 653 (1st Cir.
2012); Eaton v. Penn-Am. Ins. Co., 626 F.3d 113, 114 (1st Cir.
1
Along the way, the plaintiff dropped a gallimaufry of other
claims, including claims for unlawful seizure, interference with
rights of speech and association, violation of her substantive due
process rights, and common-law false arrest.
-5-
2010); Seaco Ins. Co. v. Davis-Irish, 300 F.3d 84, 86 (1st Cir.
2002); Ayala v. Union de Tronquistas de P.R., Local 901, 74 F.3d
344, 345 (1st Cir. 1996); In re San Juan Dupont Plaza Hotel Fire
Litig., 989 F.2d 36, 38 (1st Cir. 1993). Because this is such an
instance, we affirm the entry of summary judgment substantially on
the basis of Judge Barbadoro's thoughtful opinion. We add only
three comments.
First. As said, the district court terminated the
plaintiff's section 1983 claim on the basis of qualified immunity.
The doctrine of qualified immunity protects a state actor from
liability for damages under section 1983 as long as his conduct did
not violate clearly established constitutional or federal statutory
rights. See Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982); Díaz
v. Díaz Martínez, 112 F.3d 1, 3 (1st Cir. 1997). The official's
actions are gauged by a standard of objective reasonableness. See
Harlow, 457 U.S. at 818-19.
To obtain the benefit of qualified immunity, a police
officer need not follow an unquestionably constitutional path. The
case at hand exemplifies this point; where, as here, a section 1983
action rests on a claim of false arrest, the qualified immunity
standard is satisfied "so long as the presence of probable cause is
at least arguable." Ricci v. Urso, 974 F.2d 5, 6-7 (1st Cir. 1992)
(internal quotation marks omitted).
-6-
The plaintiff argues that the district court erred in
granting summary judgment because there are numerous disputed
issues of material fact. She describes several instances in which
her version of the facts paints the defendant's conduct in a less
attractive light. But this argument misapprehends the nature of
the qualified immunity inquiry. The mere fact that the parties
espouse differing versions of the truth does not preclude summary
judgment on the basis of qualified immunity. What counts is
whether the undisputed facts, together with the nonmoving party's
version of any disputed facts, suffices to remove the shield of
qualified immunity.
Of course, if the success or failure of the qualified
immunity defense turns on a question of fact that is unresolvable
on the summary judgment record, summary judgment is improper. See,
e.g., Morelli v. Webster, 552 F.3d 12, 19, 25 (1st Cir. 2009);
Buenrostro v. Collazo, 973 F.2d 39, 43 (1st Cir. 1992). Here,
however, the district court avoided this pitfall by accepting as
true and in its entirety the plaintiff's account of the facts. See
Moses, 2012 WL 1416002, at *4 (supportably finding, on the
plaintiff's version of the facts, that probable cause for the
arrest was at least arguable). In other words, the court assumed
for argument's sake that all disputes about material facts should
be resolved in the plaintiff's favor. When a court takes such a
cautious approach and the record, so viewed, nevertheless supports
-7-
a grant of qualified immunity, summary judgment is appropriate.
See Martinez v. Colon, 54 F.3d 980, 983-84 (1st Cir. 1995); Brennan
v. Hendrigan, 888 F.2d 189, 194 (1st Cir. 1989); see also Cox v.
Hainey, 391 F.3d 25, 29 (1st Cir. 2004) (explaining that "in the
absence of a genuine issue of material fact, a defendant's right to
qualified immunity presents a question of law").
Second. The plaintiff's suggestion that the district
court erred in granting summary judgment on the malicious
prosecution claim need not detain us. This suggestion is
ephemeral: on appeal, the plaintiff casts aspersions in this
direction but she does not offer any developed argumentation
concerning the dispositive issue — the district court's application
of the state-law doctrine of official immunity. It is a bedrock
principle that appellate arguments must be presented face-up and
squarely; and given the lack of development on this issue, we deem
abandoned any challenge to the entry of judgment on the malicious
prosecution claim. See United States v. Zannino, 895 F.2d 1, 17
(1st Cir. 1990).
Third. The defendant argues that the prior state
proceedings, including the probable cause determination and the
return of the indictment, preclude the plaintiff from arguing that
probable cause was lacking. The district court declined to reach
this preclusion argument in light of its immunity determinations.
See Moses, 2012 WL 1416002, at *4. Because we find these
-8-
determinations fully supportable, it would be gratuitous for us to
venture into the complexities of the preclusion issue. Courts
should take pains not to decide issues when there is no real reason
to do so.
We need go no further.
Affirmed.
-9-