Sexual harassment and assault at Suffolk County jail may violate Section 1983

This case is disturbing on several levels. It involves inmates at the Suffolk County jail who claim one of the correction officers got away with sexually harassing and assaulting them for years because jail management knew about it but looked the other way. The primary question raised on appeal involves whether the plaintiffs can prove municipal liability under Section 1983. The Court of Appeals says they can.

The case is Lucente v. County of Suffolk, issued on November 17. The offending officer's name is Joseph Foti. The Court of Appeals (Kearse, Carney and Bianco) lays out the allegations. After Internal Affairs investigated, it found that Foti had violated departmental guidelines in the course of sexually assaulting the inmates. But prior to Foti's ultimate retirement (which he claimed had nothing to do with the Internal Affairs report), none of his supervisors ever spoke to him about this. Yet, the district court dismissed this Section 1983 case against the County, holding that Foti was merely a rogue officer whose actions cannot give rise to the "policy and practice" that plaintiffs need to prove municipal liability under Monell v. Dept. of Social Services, the seminal Supreme Court ruling on this issue from 1978. The district court also excluded allegations of Foti's misconduct from the 1990s as time-barred, and ruled that no county policymaker had knowledge of Foti's actions. The district court also ruled that plaintiffs cannot sue the county, focusing on whether management knew about the assaults rather than the allegations of sexual harassment. The Court of Appeals reverses, rejecting the district court's analysis in its entirety.

First, there was nothing isolated about Foti's misconduct, the Court says, because "the record is replete with evidence of inappropriate touching and/or other sexual harassment of female inmates on a regular basis by Foti" over the course of 18 months. And it was not limited to the six plaintiffs in this case. The evidence suggests this harassment was "open and notorious" as others at the jail saw Foti as an "accident waiting to happen." Foti also created opportunities for himself to get the female inmates alone so he could engage in the inappropriate behavior. This was not isolated behavior but severe, persistent, and pervasive, "executed in a manner that would have been difficult to conceal from supervisory personnel at the Riverhead facility, including policymakers."

Plaintiffs' case is strengthened by evidence that the Sheriff knew about Foti's sexual misconduct from the 1990s outside the jail. Off-duty conduct may be relevant in proving a Monell claim, as per Vann v. City of New York, 72 F.3d 1040 (2d Cir. 1995). Internal affairs reports from the 1990s involving jail-related sexual misconduct also support plaintiffs' claims. While some supervisors were aware of sexual harassment but not sexual assault, their knowledge of the harassment can hold the County liable for the overall sexual misconduct because even sexual harassment violates the Equal Protection Clause. These officials knew about Foti's unconstitutional misconduct, and that is enough under Monell. 

Finally, we have a statute of limitations issue. The district court rejected evidence that fell outside the three-year limitations period, but the Court of Appeals finds the older harassment constitutes the kind of continuing violation that is unique to sexual harassment claims, as the harassment as a whole was part of the overall policy and practice. We associate this principle with employment discrimination claims, but the Court of Appeals notes that it applies in other contexts as well, including land-use claims under Section 1983.