DocketNumber: Nos. X01 CV 93 0146667, X01 CV 93 0147230, X01 CV 93 0147229
Citation Numbers: 1998 Conn. Super. Ct. 14151
Judges: HODGSON, JUDGE.
Filed Date: 12/10/1998
Status: Non-Precedential
Modified Date: 4/17/2021
The plaintiffs claim that on February 12, 1992, officers employed by the Norwalk police department stopped without probable cause a car driven by Michael Towns, pursued it along Interstate Route 95 at high speeds for several miles until it came to a stop after hitting a tree on a traffic island off an exit ramp, and shot into the car when it backed up, wounding Towns. Allegedly, the car, which also contained as passengers two minors, Shamon Clark, who was wounded in the shoulder, and Corey Jones, then crashed into a creek after fleeing from the police gunfire. It is alleged that a State Trooper pulled Clark from the water but that Towns and Jones drowned.
The plaintiffs allege, variously, deprivation of civil rights in violation of
The defendants seek summary judgment arguing that the facts do not give rise to liability for violations of civil rights and that the remaining claims are barred by the doctrine of municipal immunity for the performance of governmental functions of a discretionary nature.
The defendants' motion for summary judgment is accompanied by a number of documents: excerpts from the depositions of Shamon Clark and defendants Lowe and Lysobey, interrogatory responses filed on behalf of the plaintiffs, unsworn reports by various police officers, and correspondence from a medical examiner and a state's attorney.
In deciding a motion for summary judgment, the trial court must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Doty v. Mucci, supra,
Practice Book §
A motion for summary judgment shall be supported by such documents as may be appropriate, including but not limited to affidavits, certified transcripts of testimony under oath, disclosures, written admissions and the like.
Practice Book §
Supporting and opposing affidavits shall be made on personal knowledge, shall set forth such facts as would be admissible in evidence, and shall show affirmatively that the affiant is competent to testify to the matters stated therein. Sworn or certified copies of all papers or parts thereof referred to in an affidavit shall be attached thereto.
The movants have included in their brief over fifty pages of narrative claiming to state the facts, but they have not supported this long narrative with materials authorized by the applicable sections of the rules of practice. They have submitted no affidavits whatsoever.
The various reports appended to the defendants' motion are clearly hearsay in nature. Section 17-46 permits use of reports but makes it clear that affidavits must be provided to CT Page 14154 authenticate them. The reports appended to the movants' brief are not accompanied by any affidavit that identifies or authenticates them. While § 17-46 permits the use for purposes of a motion for summary judgment of documents authenticated in an accompanying affidavit or "sworn or certified copies" of documents referred to in an affidavit, it does not authorize reliance on documents as to which there is no foundation or authentication provided by an affidavit. The movants apparently have assumed that counsel, in a brief, may tell the court what the documents are. Such a procedure is not authorized by the rules of practice. The reports and letters submitted are not sworn or certified, nor are they identified in any sworn affidavit. Therefore, in deciding the merits of the defendants' motions, the court may not rely upon the reports.
The remaining procedural issue, then, is whether the excerpts of the deposition testimony of plaintiff Clark and defendants Lowe and Lysobey, the only materials that conform with the requirements of Practice Book §
The plaintiffs take the position that the excerpts from the certified transcripts of depositions may not support summary judgment because such depositions would not be admissible if presented by the defendants at trial. While some trial judges have ruled that certified excerpts from depositions are not sufficient to support or oppose a motion for summary judgment, see Balderston v. Shoals Construction, Inc.,
In Schratwieser v. Hartford Casualty Insurance Co.,
It is difficult to see why an affidavit prepared for the express purpose of supporting or opposing a motion for summary judgment may be considered by the court while testimony taken under oath at a deposition may not be, providing the sworn testimony is in a form that demonstrates the material facts. Distinctions based on the general purposes of discovery depositions, as opposed to depositions taken to perpetuate testimony, have not been adopted in the Practice Book sections applicable to summary judgment. Indeed, it is the content of the particular sworn testimony, not generalizations about kinds of depositions, that is determinative of the adequacy of such support of the legal principles advanced in the motion. A party whose deposition testimony is at odds with the testimony that party intends to present at trial has an opportunity to file an affidavit in connection with the motion for summary judgment, since deposition testimony has not been held to be a conclusive judicial admission. See Conn. Gen. Stat. §
This court finds that the excerpts from the three depositions, for which both the cover page and court reporter's certifications are supplied, are submissions authorized by § 17-45 for use in supporting a motion for summary judgment. The other materials have not been authenticated or certified, and the court will not consider them in connection with this motion. Obviously, the court will not rely on narrative in briefs that is not supported by these sworn statements.
Clark stated that the police officer who stopped them in Norwalk looked into the car before Towns sped off, that Towns failed to stop even though the Norwalk police car and a state police car pursued the Towns car with lights and siren activated the entire way from Norwalk to Bridgeport, and that the police did not shoot until the Towns car started backing up after it hit the tree at the traffic island. As far as the excerpts submitted reveal, Clark was not asked at his deposition about anything having been raised to the window after the collision with the tree at the traffic island, nor was he asked about guns in the car. He has not filed any affidavit to contradict the police officers' version of the events in the deposition transcripts appended to the defendants' motion.
Plaintiff Jones states in the final paragraph of her brief that "[t]here are substantial questions of fact to be determined in this action." She does not set forth what those claimed genuine issues of fact are, and the only document appended in CT Page 14157 opposition to the motion for summary judgment is a copy of the counterclaim filed by the defendants. The text of the Jones brief indicates that the dispute is not one of fact but one of law: whether the conduct of the police at each stage was objectively reasonable in view of the circumstances, and whether it violated any rights of the plaintiff or constituted a breach of any duty by the defendants.
Plaintiff Hawthorne states in his brief that "there are a host of material disputed facts in contention in this litigation;" however, each of the items in the list that follows this statement is either an issue of law or a query as to a detail that is not put in dispute by any affidavit or other submission in form required by §§ 17-45 and 46:
1. Did Off[icer] Lowe set this entire tragedy in motion based upon reasonable suspicion, probable cause or upon a motive grounded in his own desire to exert his power bereft of any legal justification?
2. Was there any evidence that the plaintiffs had taken any aggressive action?
3. Did the plaintiffs have the right to travel freely upon the highways, roads and streets of Norwalk in a lawful manner?
4. Were the plaintiffs travelling upon the highways, roads and streets of Norwalk in a lawful manner prior to being stopped by Off[icer] Lowe?
5. Where were the police standing at the time the gun fire began?
6. Was the left rear passenger window of the car in which the plaintiffs were located rolled down or up?
7. Was Lowe negligent and/or reckless and in violation of accepted police practice when he approached the plaintiff's car and thereby sandwiched himself between his own cruiser and Mr. Towns' car?
8. During the 25 minute chase from Norwalk to Bridgeport was there enough time to notify the towns of Westport, Fairfield and Bridgeport of the chase and enlist their CT Page 14158 support to safely bring it to a conclusion?
9. Was the amount of deadly force utilized reasonable under all of the circumstances?
The only submission proffered by Hawthorne that meets the requirements of the applicable Practice Book sections is a portion of the transcript of the testimony of Shamon Clark. That testimony confirms that the Towns car in which he was riding on the night in question had a broken steering column and was not being operated with an ignition key. The remainder of the excerpts concern Clark's opinions and emotional reactions: for example, "Q. Did you feel as though you were getting a message that you were unwelcome in Norwalk? A. Yeah."
The only item in the above list that could potentially be characterized as a material fact is the position of the police when the gun fire began. Nothing in the deposition excerpts of Clark negates the deposition testimony of Lowe and Lysobey: Clark did not testify that Lowe was not between the Towns car and his own squad car; rather, Clark testified he saw one police car parked behind the Towns car and one officer approaching from the rear of the Towns car before the car backed off the traffic island. Since all plaintiffs allege, apparently based on Lowe's own testimony, that Lowe fired shots toward the Towns car, there is plainly no issue of fact that Lowe was present, whether or not Clark could testify as to his location in the vicinity of the traffic island.
Like plaintiff Hawthorne, plaintiff Clark lists a number of issues that he characterizes as factual disputes. The listed items are instead legal issues concerning the reasonableness of police conduct after the Towns car crashed at the traffic island:
What is accepted police procedure at the conclusion of a police chase?
Should the two officers in attendance (Lysobey and Lowe) (have) waited for back up?
Did the officers call out to the occupants to get out of the car with their hands raised? Should they have done so?
What was the nature of the damage to defendant Lowe's police vehicle? CT Page 14159
Was it minor, and what does that tend to show about the Cadillac's movement off the traffic island?
What is the evidence, if any, of aggressive action from the occupants of the vehicle?
Was the passenger window up or was it rolled down?
What was the defendants' purpose in firing at the front passenger window of the Cadillac, hitting Shamon Clark?
Did other defendants act unreasonably in joining in the gunfire at that point or seconds thereafter?
Was the type of gunfire appropriate; should it have been directed at the tires of the vehicle?
Was the amount of deadly force used by the defendants reckless and irrational, since the parties were located on a "dead end" street, in a commercial area, bounded by a creek, and Long Island Sound?
Was defendant Lowe negligent when he parked his vehicle at a right angle behind the Cadillac?
Was defendant Lowe reckless and in violation of accepted police practice when he approached the plaintiff's car before other police were in a back up position and prior to making any attempts at verbal contact with the occupants?
At the conclusion of his brief, plaintiff Clark summarizes the claimed areas of factual dispute: "the nature of the conduct of the defendants at the traffic island, and the amount of gunfire used in the incident are issues of fact which preclude summary judgment on these claims."
Even as to the enumerated issues that could be characterized as factual issues, rather than legal determinations, plaintiff Clark has not submitted any affidavits or other materials in support of his position that material facts are in dispute. The only excerpt from his own deposition that he has appended to his brief in opposition to the motion for summary judgment is the single page in his testimony concerning Towns' invitation to him to go for a ride and his selection of the back seat for that CT Page 14160 ride. Clark has submitted nothing to contradict the Lowe and Lysobey testimony as to the number of shots fired or what, if anything, the officers said at the traffic island.
1. the initial stop of the Towns car in Norwalk;
2. the pursuit of the Towns car from Norwalk at high speed;
3. the shooting at the Towns car when it backed up at the traffic island.
The court will discuss the plaintiffs' constitutional claims with regard to each of these phases of the events.
Between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. on February 12, 1992, Shamon Clark, CT Page 14161 age thirteen, and Corey Jones, age 12, were passengers in a 1980 black Cadillac with New York license plates driven by Michael Towns, an adult male. A police car driven by defendant Lowe, an officer in the Norwalk Police Department, pulled Towns over on a side street in Norwalk near an entrance to Interstate 95 when the Towns car "quickly change(d) directions" after its driver noticed the police officer. Officer Lowe noticed as he followed the car that the trunk was `bouncing" and not secured, an indication of car theft, and that the windows were so heavily tinted they were almost opaque. Officer Lowe radioed in the New York license plate number and learned that the police database did not list the car as stolen. Officer Lowe approached the stopped Cadillac and looked in, decided that he should call for assistance, and then returned to his police car. His report does not indicate that he said anything to Towns, who did not wait, but drove away. Lowe pursued the Towns car with lights and siren flashing. It did not stop but continued on to Interstate 95.
Lowe and other police cars pursued the Towns car at high speeds from Norwalk to exit 26 off of Interstate 95 in Bridgeport. Clark's deposition testimony was that the Towns car then went on to a traffic island and hit a tree, that Towns restarted the car after it stalled and backed it up at a high rate of speed. Clark testified that gunfire began from police officers as the car backed up. Clark stated that Jones yelled that he wanted to get out of the car but that Towns did not stop the car. Clark, the front seat passenger, testified that he was hit in the shoulder by a bullet, and that Towns said, as he was fleeing from the traffic island, that he had been hit as well. Towns sped on, and the car slid into a fence and then into a creek, from which Clark was rescued by a State Trooper and in which Towns and Jones drowned.
Only with regard to the claim that defendants Lysobey and Lowe used excessive force by shooting with the purpose of harming, not simply of stopping the occupants of the car, have material issues of fact been shown to exist with regard to the plaintiffs' constitutional claims.
This court concludes that no reasonable jury could find that the initial stop constituted a violation of the plaintiffs' right not to be subject to unreasonable seizure. Plaintiff Hawthorne's theory that the stop interfered with Michael Towns' constitutional right to travel merely rephrases the claim that the stop was a seizure, that is, an interruption of his freedom of movement.
As the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit observed in Medeiros v. O'Connell,
As to the portion of the pursuit up to the point of the police firing shots, the plaintiffs in the present case allege merely a long and persistent pursuit. The factual submissions establish that the pursuit from Norwalk until the shooting began involved no conduct that could be characterized by a reasonable jury as "shocking the conscience," since the Supreme Court has acknowledged that the courts should not announce a principle that in some cases a suspect is free to ignore a lawful police command to stop (a request made by Officer Lowe's continued signals as he pursued the car). "[A]ny suggestion that suspects may ignore a lawful command to stop and then sue for damages sustained in an ensuing chase might cause suspects to flee more often, increasing accidents of the kind which occurred here."
In County of Sacramento, supra, the Supreme Court noted that police officers are not liable for violations either of the Fourth or of the Fourteenth Amendment unless their conduct goes beyond recklessness and is so arbitrary that it is "shocking to CT Page 14164 the conscience." The Court confined this standard, however, to conduct that had only the result, but not the purpose, of harming those pursued: "[a]ccordingly, we hold that high speed chases with no intent to harm suspects physically or to worsen their legal plight do not give rise to liability under the Fourteenth Amendment, redressible by actions under § 1983." County ofSacramento v. Lewis,
The defendants' reliance on cases such as Medeiros v.O'Connell, supra,
There is plainly a material issue, as to the claims that relate to the use of gunfire, concerning the purpose and intent of defendants Lowe and Lysobey. As the Connecticut Supreme Court stated in Suarez v. Dickmont Plastics, supra,
All of the actions that the plaintiffs allege in their common law claims against the City of Norwalk are claims of negligence or other deficiencies in the operation of the police department and overseeing of the activities of the police officers. A municipality is immune from liability for the performance of its discretionary governmental functions. Conn. Gen. Stat. §
In addition to their common law claims, the plaintiffs have asserted that the City of Norwalk violated their constitutional rights by failing to train and supervise its police officers adequately and appropriately. The City acknowledges that a city may, indeed, be found liable upon such a claim, but it argues that the plaintiffs have not demonstrated what was deficient in the training or supervision involved in the events at issue. CT Page 14166
The City overlooks the requirement that the party moving for summary judgment establish the facts that entitle it to judgment as a matter of law. Nothing in the submissions of the City indicates what training was provided to the defendant officers concerning the use of gunfire where a person fails to obey a police order to stop. The party that seeks summary judgment has the duty of showing what the facts are and that the facts entitle the movant to judgment as a matter of law. Practice Book §
The City has failed to show what the facts are with regard to the adequacy of training and supervision, and has therefore failed to establish that it is entitled to judgment on the constitutional claims based on those allegations.
The issue of intent precludes summary judgment as to the conduct of defendants Lowe and Lysobey on the latter exception. As has been discussed above in connection with the claim of violation of the right to substantive due process arising from use of excessive force, the height of the shots fired would arguably support an inference that the purpose of these two officers was to harm the occupants of the car, not simply to stop the progress of the car.
With regard to the claims of negligence against defendants McIndoe, LaBianca, and Schwartz, the plaintiffs claim that these defendants were in a position to prevent the use of excessive CT Page 14167 force and failed to do so. The Connecticut Supreme Court has ruled that where the claimed duty of a police officer is a general duty to the public, immunity applies. Where, however, the circumstances are such that the police officer may have a duty to a particular person that duty arises out of the foreseeability of imminent harm to an identifiable person if the officer does not intervene, the Court recognized a private duty and found that a directed verdict on a defense of governmental immunity was inappropriate. See Shore v. Stonington,
With regard to the common law claims against the other police officers, the movants have simply failed to submit any materials of the kind approved in § 17-45 that establish the facts regarding the conduct of defendants McIndoe, LaBianca, and Schwartz. None of these defendants has filed an affidavit averring what his actions were, and the depositions of Lowe and Lysobey do not state any observations concerning their conduct. The burden upon a motion for summary judgment is on the movant to show what the facts are and that they entitle the movant to judgment as a matter of law. Because of the lack of any documentary submissions concerning the participation of McIndoe, LaBianco and Schwartz, this court has no factual basis with which it can determine whether the principles of immunity apply, or whether the defendants breached a private duty under the circumstances. The situation was one in which the occupants of the car could be seen as persons in imminent danger of harm from the officers who had drawn their guns, and there is therefore a possibility that a private duty, rather than a governmental duty, existed.
The movants have undertaken no legal analysis of the claims for wrongful death, intentional infliction of emotion distress, and assault and battery against the individual police officers. In the absence of any affidavits or other competent submissions to establish what the facts are as to the claims against the individual police officers, this court cannot agree with the movants' conclusion that they are entitled to judgment as a matter of law, especially since principles of governmental immunity do not apply to intentional torts. Evon v. Andrews,
1. All of the plaintiffs' civil rights claims against defendants Lowe and Lysobey arising from the initial motor vehicle stop and the police chase up to the point the car came to rest on a traffic island.2. All civil rights claims against defendants Schwartz, McIndoe and LaBianca.
3. All claims against the City of Norwalk other than the claim of constitutional violations arising from negligent training and supervision.
4. The claims of negligence against defendants Lowe and Lysobey.
The motion for summary judgment is denied with regard to all other claims.
Beverly J. Hodgson Judge of the Superior Court Complex Litigation Docket
joanne-medeiros-individually-and-as-administratrix-of-estate-of-joshua , 150 F.3d 164 ( 1998 )
Sestito v. City of Groton , 178 Conn. 520 ( 1979 )
D.H.R. Construction Co. v. Donnelly , 180 Conn. 430 ( 1980 )
Shore v. Town of Stonington , 187 Conn. 147 ( 1982 )
Hannon v. Waterbury , 106 Conn. 13 ( 1927 )
Terry v. Ohio , 88 S. Ct. 1868 ( 1968 )
Tennessee v. Garner , 105 S. Ct. 1694 ( 1985 )
California v. Hodari D. , 111 S. Ct. 1547 ( 1991 )