Smith v. the City of New York

16-3731
Smith v. The City of New York 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 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, at 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on
the 19th day of September, two thousand seventeen.
Present: ROBERT A. KATZMANN,
Chief Judge,
ROBERT D. SACK,
PETER W. HALL,
Circuit Judges.
________________________________________________
KENNETH SMITH,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v. No. 16-3731
THE CITY OF NEW YORK, P.O. DANIEL PANTALEO,
SH. 13923, P.O. JOSEPH TORRES, P.O. CHRISTIAN
CATALDO, P.O. GREGORY HOWARD, KRISTEN
WHITE, P.O. PHILIP VACARINO, P.O. GREGORY
HERBERT, P.O. HENRY CHERNYAVSKY, SGT.
IGAZIO CONCA, LT. SCOTT SWEENEY, CAPTAIN
MARK MOLINARI, P.O., 1-5 JOHN DOE,
Defendants-Appellees.
_____________________________________________
For Plaintiff-Appellant: MICHAEL J. COLIHAN, Brooklyn, NY.
For Appellee: EMMA GRUNBERG (Richard Dearing and Claude S. Patton, on
the brief), of Counsel, for Zachary W. Carter, Corporation
Counsel of the City of New York, New York, NY.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
(Ramos, J.).
ON CONSIDERATION WHEREOF, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED,
and DECREED that the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.
Plaintiff Kenneth Smith appeals from a judgment of the United States District Court for
the Southern District of New York (Ramos, J.) granting summary judgment to the defendants-
appellees on Smith’s claim for false arrest brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. In February 2012,
Smith was arrested outside his apartment building for fifth-degree criminal possession of
marijuana and unlawful possession of marijuana. The charges were dismissed at Smith’s
arraignment and Smith subsequently initiated this action. We assume the parties’ familiarity with
the underlying facts, the procedural history of the case, and the issues on appeal. For the reasons
that follow, we affirm.
We review a grant of summary judgment de novo, “view[ing] the facts in the light most
favorable to the non-moving party and resolv[ing] all factual ambiguities in its favor.” Coppola
v. Bear Stearns & Co., 499 F.3d 144, 148 (2d Cir. 2007). For summary judgment to be
warranted, the movant must “show[] that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and
the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a).
On appeal, Smith contends that the district court erred in ruling that the various police
reports and related documents submitted by the defendants in support of their motion for
summary judgment were admissible under the business-records or public records exceptions to
the hearsay rule. See Fed. R. Evid. 803. We review “a district court’s evidentiary rulings
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underlying a grant of summary judgment” for abuse of discretion. Porter v. Quarantillo, 722
F.3d 94, 97 (2d Cir. 2013). We need not resolve whether the documents fall within either the
business-records exception or the public-records exception to the hearsay rule because, in any
case, material relied on at summary judgment need not be admissible in the form presented to the
district court. Rather, so long as the evidence in question “will be presented in admissible form at
trial,” it may be considered on summary judgment. Santos v. Murdock, 243 F.3d 681, 683 (2d
Cir. 2001) (per curiam); see also Fraser v. Goodale, 342 F.3d 1032, 1036 (9th Cir. 2003) (“At
the summary judgment stage, we do not focus on the admissibility of the evidence’s form. We
instead focus on the admissibility of its contents.”). Here, the documents in question could
readily be reduced to admissible form at trial through the testimony of the defendant officers as
to the underlying events in question. As for the statements made by the confidential informant on
which the officers relied in arresting Smith, they are not implicated by the hearsay rule because
they would not be offered for the truth of the matter asserted. See Fed. R. Evid. 801(c) (defining
hearsay as an out-of-court statement that “a party offers in evidence to prove the truth of the
matter asserted in the statement”). Rather, those statements would be offered for the fact that
they were made to the defendants and were thus relevant to the probable cause inquiry.
Having resolved that the district court did not err in considering the documentary
evidence before it, we have no trouble concluding that the district court properly granted the
defendants’ motion. Probable cause to arrest “is a complete defense to an action for false arrest,
whether that action is brought under state law or under § 1983.” Amore v. Novarro, 624 F.3d
522, 536 (2d Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks omitted). “Probable cause exists if at the time
of the arrest the facts and circumstances within the officer’s knowledge and of which he had
reasonably trustworthy information were sufficient to warrant a prudent man in believing that the
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suspect had committed or was committing an offense.” Id. (internal quotation marks and
alterations omitted). Here, the officers were acting on information from a reliable confidential
informant and had recovered fifteen bags of marijuana from what the informant had asserted was
Smith’s bedroom pursuant to a search warrant executed the day of the arrest. Smith contends that
there is no evidence demonstrating the specific knowledge of the arresting officers. Under the
collective knowledge doctrine, however, “an arrest . . . is permissible where the actual arresting
. . . officer lacks the specific information to form the basis for probable cause . . . but sufficient
information to justify the arrest . . . was known by other law enforcement officials initiating or
involved with the investigation.” United States v. Colon, 250 F.3d 130, 135 (2d Cir. 2001). The
arresting officers were therefore entitled to rely on the information Sergeant Chernyavsky
obtained from the informant and the results of the search of the apartment. These circumstances
were sufficient to create probable cause to arrest Smith for criminal possession of marijuana in
the fifth degree, N.Y. Penal Law § 221.10.
Finally, the district court did not abuse its discretion in granting summary judgment to the
defendants despite Smith’s contemporaneous objection that insufficient discovery had taken
place for Smith to meaningfully oppose the defendants’ motion. While the Federal Rules provide
that a court “may” defer consideration of a motion for summary judgment (or deny it) if “a
nonmovant shows . . . it cannot present facts essential to justify its opposition,” Fed. R. Civ. P.
56(d), Smith has not made the required showing. See Miller v. Wolpoff & Abramson, L.L.P., 321
F.3d 292, 303 (2d Cir. 2003) (“[A] party resisting summary judgment on the ground that it needs
discovery in order to defeat the motion must submit an affidavit showing (1) what facts are
sought [to resist the motion] and how they are to be obtained, (2) how those facts are reasonably
expected to create a genuine issue of material fact, (3) what effort affiant has made to obtain
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them, and (4) why the affiant was unsuccessful in those efforts.” (internal quotation marks
omitted)).
We have considered all of the plaintiff’s arguments on this appeal and find in them no
basis for reversal. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.
FOR THE COURT:
CATHERINE O’HAGAN WOLFE, CLERK
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