United States Third Circuit

In plaintiff's 42 U.S.C. section 1983 action against a detective and others, claiming unlawful seizure and unlawful search under the Fourth Amendment and related state law violations arising from a criminal complaint against plaintiff for falsely reporting a crime of sexual assault and robbery while working as a cashier at a convenience store (these were later dropped after a serial rapist was captured and confessed to the crimes), a grant of defendants' motion for summary judgment is affirmed in part, vacated in part, reversed in part, and remanded where: 1) district court erred in granting summary judgment to the detective on plaintiff's Fourth Amendment unlawful seizure claim and her related federal and state law claims, as no reasonably competent officer could have concluded at the time of plaintiff's arrest that there was probable cause for the arrest; 2) summary judgment on detective's defense of qualified immunity cannot stand as the availability of the defense must be decided after fact finding by the jury to determine whether the facts as recounted by the detective or by plaintiff are more credible; 3) district court erred in granting summary judgment to the detective on plaintiff's unlawful search claim; 4) district court's grant of summary judgment as to all claims against the officer and the public safety director are affirmed; and 5) district court's grant of summary judgment as to plaintiff's intentional infliction of emotional distress claim, against the officer and the safety director is affirmed.

Appellate Information

• Argued 03/11/2010
• Decided 08/02/2010
• Published 08/02/2010

Judges

• JORDAN

Court

• United States Third Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• David V. Weicht, Charles W. Craven