Daniel DeFazio v. City of Westport et al. (2013)

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION RE MOTION TO STRIKE (Motion # 103.00)

The defendant, City of Bridgeport by Motion dated January 3, 2013 has moved to strike the Plaintiff's Complaint dated October 1, 2012 because it fails to state any cognizable cause of action against this defendant.   This matter appeared on the February 19, 2013 short calendar.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

On or about October 1, 2012, the pro se plaintiff, Daniel J. Defazio, initiated this action against the City of Bridgeport and co-defendant Westport Police Department.   The Complaint, in letter format, describes two incidents.   The first two paragraphs of the letter are bracketed with the notation “Bridgeport City Defendant.”   The second paragraph of the letter is bracketed with the notation “City of Westport Defendant.”

As to the City of Bridgeport the plaintiff alleges he was arrested while at the Bridgeport YMCA after pulling a smoke alarm and appeared in court without an attorney and pleaded guilty to the charges although he was innocent.   Subsequent disclosure by the plaintiff indicates that he pleaded quality to charge of disorderly conduct on June 21, 1990.   The Complaint claims that the plaintiff “would like to sue for wrongful misconduct.”   The Complaint does not identify any agent or employee of the City of Bridgeport who was involved in the incident, nor does it indicate why the defendants' conduct was “wrongful” in any way, or identify any legal theory of recovery.

Previously, on May 10, 2011, the plaintiff filed a Complaint identical to this one alleging identical claims against the Bridgeport Police Department.   (Complaint dated March 3, 2011.   The Court (Tyma, J.), granted the Bridgeport Police Department's Motion to Strike the Complaint (No. 101), stating that “[e]ven under the most liberal construction, the plaintiff's allegations against the Bridgeport Police Department fail to state a legally recognizable and sufficient cause of action.”  Order No. 101.

LEGAL ARGUMENT

A motion to strike challenges the legal sufficiency of a pleading and requires no factual findings on the part of the trial court.   The facts alleged in the complaint are accepted and construed in the manner most favorable to sustaining its legal sufficiency.   See Ventres v. Goodspeed Airport, LLC, 275 Conn. 105, 154 (2005).  “In ruling on a motion to strike, the court is limited to the facts alleged in the complaint.”  Faulkner v. United Technologies Corp., 240 Conn. 576, 580 (1997).  “A motion to strike is properly granted if the complaint alleges mere conclusions of law that are unsupported by the facts alleged.”  Novametrix Medical Systems, Inc. v. The BOC Group, Inc., 224 Conn. 210, 215 (1992).

This court adopts a permissive approach to pro se pleadings, but as stated by Judge Tyma's prior ruling striking this identical pleading, the plaintiff's Complaint in this case fails to identify any facts or legal theories that could be characterized as a cause of action.   No statutory or common-law cause of action is identified.   The plaintiff has indicated two court dates related to his claims.   It appears that he entered a guilty plea to disorderly conduct on June 21, 1990.   However, the plaintiff does not allege that any agent or employee of the City of Bridgeport was an actor involved in this incident.   He simply alleges that he was arrested and that the arrest occurred in Bridgeport.   Assuming for the purpose of this motion that Bridgeport police arrested plaintiff, he further does not describe any conduct by the police that could by any interpretation rise to a legal claim.   Simply indicating that he was arrested and that he was innocent of the charges does not describe any act or omission that would form the basis for a cause of action against the City of Bridgeport.   Further, while the plaintiff alleges he was “detained excessively” at North Avenue jail, he does not indicate the circumstances which constitute the alleged excessive detention for any claim that any agent of any City department was at all involved in any aspect of this claim following his arrest.

The City of Bridgeport suggests in its memorandum that an extremely generous interpretation of the plaintiff's claim might indicate that he attempts to state a cause of action for false arrest ¹ .  “False imprisonment, or false arrest, is the unlawful restraint by one person of the physical liberty of another ․ In the case of a false imprisonment the detention must be wholly unlawful ․ To prevail on a claim of false imprisonment, the plaintiff must prove that his physical liberty has been restrained by the defendant and that the restraint was against his will, that is, that he did not consent to the restraint or acquiesce in it willingly.”  LoSacco v. Young, 20 Conn.App. 6, 19 (1989) (rev'd on other grounds, 210 Conn. 503 (1989)).  “One element the plaintiff [has] to prove was that [his] arrest was unlawful ․ Thus, in order to prevail on [his] complaint, the plaintiff [has] the burden of proving that the arresting officer did not have probable cause to arrest [him].”  Beinhom v. Saraceno, 23 Conn.App. 487, 491 (1990).

The plaintiff has not alleged any facts in his Complaint to indicate that there was no probable cause to arrest him.   In fact, his allegations prove that probable cause did exist to arrest him.   His unexplained statement that he is “confident that I am innocent of the charge” is followed by the explicit allegations that he “pleaded guilty” to the charges against him.   Exhibit A. This allegation not only fails to allege probable cause, but actually alleges facts that are entirely inconsistent with that element of a false arrest claim.   A criminal defendant who pleads guilty to the charges against him cannot later claim that his arrest for those charges lacked probable cause.   See White v. Martel–Moylan, 586 F.Sup.2d 63, 69 (D.Conn.2008), where the court granted summary judgment in favor of the arresting police officers because “the plaintiff cannot overcome the fact that he pled guilty to charges arising out of the incident for which he was arrested and, for that reason, cannot challenge the existence of probable cause.”   The plaintiff's own allegations completely negate a required element of any false arrest cause of action because he admits that he pleaded guilty to the charges against him.   For that reason, he cannot prevail on any claim of false arrest for the incident described in his complaint.

Finally, the court notes that plaintiff's own disclosure indicates that at least some of the alleged actual factual bases for his claims relate to his entry of a guilty plea at a court appearance on June 21, 1990 and entry of a finding against him for failure to appear in court on January 14, 1991.   Whatever the plaintiff's claims, if they are related to these dates, they are too remote in time to support a legal cognizable cause of action.

As this court has already held in an identical matter, this plaintiff's complaint states no legally cognizable cause of action.   The court agrees that to the extent a liberal interpretation construes his complaint as one of false arrest, the plaintiff's own allegations fail to state and in fact defeat the legal elements of the cause of action.

WHEREFORE, the Court grants the Motion to Strike on the grounds that the plaintiff has failed to state a cause of action.

SOMMER, J.

FOOTNOTES

FN1. The defendants contend, however, that even a liberal interpretation in this case still does not reach the level of a cognizable claim..  FN1. The defendants contend, however, that even a liberal interpretation in this case still does not reach the level of a cognizable claim.

Sommer, Mary E., J.