Another false arrest case bites the dust

For the second time this month, the Court of Appeals has reversed the trial court in finding that false arrest plaintiff cannot sue law enforcement due to qualified immunity -- even though charges against the plaintiff were dropped.

The case is Sarcaza v. City of New York, issued on March 11. Plaintiff was arrested for allegedly assaulting a teenage girl on a New York City bus. While video footage of the encounter was inconclusive, the girl was in distress at the time and later identified the plaintiff from a photo array. The case against plaintiff was dismissed on speedy trial grounds; hence this false arrest lawsuit.While the district court allowed this case to proceed to trial on the basis that the video footage did not show physical contact between plaintiff and the girl, as well as some inconsistencies in the girl's account, the Court of Appeals (Chin and Perez) reverses, on grounds familiar to Section 1983 lawyers who handle these cases.

The police can prove they had probable cause to arrest if the evidence was reasonably trustworthy that the guy committed a crime. If so, then no false arrest lawsuit. The low probable cause standard kills off many such lawsuits. But we also have to consider qualified immunity, which also lets the police off the hook if they had "arguable probable cause," which means that even probable cause did not exist, reasonable jurors might find the officers had a good faith basis to make the arrest anyway.

Here is the takeaway quote: "Unless exculpatory evidence or circumstances that raise doubts as to the alleged victim's veracity arise, probable cause is present where a police officer relies on such victim's identification of the suspect and statement of the alleged crime." In other words, to win a false arrest case against the police, the plaintiff has to essentially show the police had nothing on him, a lack of evidence that makes it clear they were setting up the plaintiff for arrest or just did not know what they were doing. You don't need "hard certainties" or a belief that, more likely than not, a crime has been committed.

Under these principles, plaintiff loses the case even before trial. The Court of Appeals writes:

Based on the undisputed facts in the record, a reasonable police officer in [Detective] Friedman’s position could have found probable cause that Sacaza had touched the Complainant inappropriately. While the Complainant's statements and identifications of Sacaza served as Friedman's principal basis for finding probable cause, the MTA Footage and other information provided objective evidence for a reasonable police officer to arrest and charge Sacaza.

The record contains the following undisputed evidence to support the conclusion that Sacaza sexually assaulted the Complainant: (1) the Complainant reported the alleged assault to her school and the police almost immediately; (2) the Complainant identified Sacaza as her assailant on two separate occasions, including once in-person; (3) Friedman learned that Sacaza was a person of interest in other public lewdness incidents; (4) the MTA Footage shows the Complainant being uncomfortable and looking back several times while Sacaza is positioned directly behind her for more than a minute; (5) the MTA Footage shows that the Complainant felt the need to and did take videos of Sacaza, which she later shared with Friedman; and (6) the MTA Footage shows that the Complainant was so visibly disturbed by Sacaza that a nearby passenger felt the need to console her. Based on this evidence, a reasonable police officer could have believed that Sacaza committed a crime justifying arrest.