Plaintiff may sue NYC in alleging that officers are directed to submit false reports against arrestees

The plaintiff in this case was arrested during a Black Lives Matter protest in New York City. The charges against him for disorderly conduct were dropped, and he sued the arresting officer and the City under the Fourth Amendment. The district court dismissed the claims, but the Court of Appeals revives them on the basis that the district court did not properly review the complaint in assessing the claim. This Iqbal plausibility case is good for plaintiffs, and unless something better comes along, this is the case of the year for false arrest plaintiffs.

The case is Lynch v. City of New York, issued on March 4. The case was dismissed under Rule 12, which means the trial court did not think plaintiff alleged a plausible claim under the Supreme Court's seminal Iqbal ruling from 2009, which requires plaintiffs to assert enough factual allegations to give rise to a plausible and non-conclusory claim for relief. Iqbal made it easier for courts to dismiss claims, but the Court of Appeals here says this case is Iqbal-proof.

First, the Court of Appeals (Kearse, Pooler and Winter) reminds us that Iqbal does not impose a probability requirement but a plausibility requirement, which is more favorable to plaintiffs than probability. Also, trial courts cannot choose between two plausible inferences raised by the allegations in the complaint. Instead, the court must "construe all reasonable inferences that can be drawn from the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff." The language in this decision on Iqbal plausibility is useful for plaintiffs trying to repel motions to dismiss.

Under this standard of review, the district court improperly assumed that plaintiff did not have a false arrest claim. The district court said the police had probable cause to arrest plaintiff for obstructing traffic during the protest even though the complaint does not concede that plaintiff was among the crowd that was actually in the road when the police instructed the protesters to disperse. While some marchers were in the road, plaintiff was not among them. Careful review of the complaint shows that plaintiff was one of the marchers who were not given that instruction. This holding reminds us that complaints must be reviewed carefully to determine if the plaintiff has pled himself out of federal court. A detailed complaint may contain sufficient allegations to make out a claim, and the fact that plaintiff was among lawbreakers does not mean he was a lawbreaker and that he ignored a lawful order to get off the street and onto the sidewalk.

The more interesting holding involves plaintiff's claim against the City. You cannot win a Section 1983 case against a municipality unless you can show your unlawful arrest resulted from an unlawful municipal policy and practice. That is difficult to do in false arrest cases, even against small municipalities. Plaintiff said he was arrested pursuant to an unofficial "False Observation" practice in which New York City officers are allegedly instructed to write out fake facts to justify arresting a plaintiff. Plaintiff's allegations in this regard are not conclusory. He details how, in other lawsuits, the False Observation Practice has resulted in the unlawful arrests of mass protesters. This evidence come in the form of deposition testimony from a police officer in another case, and the fact that federal judges said in that case that an officer had complied with the False Observation directive in the contest of 2004 Republican National Convention protests, and that this was not an isolated event. Plaintiff in this case also alleges this practice is ongoing. These allegations are enough to permit plaintiff to develop this theory in discovery. While the district court said these allegations are faulty because other lawsuits cannot be used to prove your case, the appellate court says that doctrine does not apply in Rule 12 motion practice. The Second Circuit concludes:

Accepting as true the Complaint's allegations that the City at least in 2004 and seven or eight years thereafter in fact engaged in the False Observation Practice and that at least two NYPS officers have so testified, the Complaint allows the inference that . . . the City knowingly did not end that practice.