Opinion
21-2656
06-15-2023
Tyson Poulos, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. County of Warren, Warren County Sheriff's Department, Dustin Spring, Corrections Officer, in his individual and official capacities, Charlene Maday, Corrections Officer, in her individual and official capacities, Matthew Hubbard, Corrections Officer, in his individual and official capacities, Christopher Perilli, Corrections Officer, in his individual and official capacities, Barrett Spring, Sergeant, in his individual and official capacities, Christopher Hatin, Investigator, in his individual and official capacities, Warren County District Attorney's Office, Matthew Burin, Assistant District Attorney, in his individual and official capacities, Defendants-Appellees, Kathleen Hogan, Warren County District Attorney, in her official capacity, Defendant.
FOR PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT: Tyson Poulos, pro se, Comstock, NY. FOR DEFENDANTS-APPELLEES: Gregg T. Johnson, Hannah Hyde Hage, Johnson & Laws, LLC, Clifton Park, NY.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
SUMMARY ORDER
RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT'S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION "SUMMARY ORDER"). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.
At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the 15th day of June, two thousand twenty-three.
Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York (D'Agostino, J.).
FOR PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT: Tyson Poulos, pro se, Comstock, NY.
FOR DEFENDANTS-APPELLEES: Gregg T. Johnson, Hannah Hyde Hage, Johnson & Laws, LLC, Clifton Park, NY.
PRESENT: ROSEMARY S. POOLER, RICHARD C. WESLEY, MICHAEL H. PARK, Circuit Judges.
UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED in part and VACATED in part, and the matter is REMANDED for further proceedings.
Appellant Tyson Poulos, formerly counseled but now pro se, appeals the district court's dismissal of his complaint. On January 20, 2014, Poulos was arrested on drug related charges. He was detained at the Warren County Jail, where he claims the officers harassed him. Poulos protested by flooding his cell which, followed by a contested series of events, led to him being charged and convicted for aggravated harassment by an incarcerated individual under New York Penal Law § 240.32. Poulos's harassment conviction was overturned on appeal, see People v. Poulos, 144 A.D.3d 1389, 1392 (3d Dep't 2016), and Poulos was acquitted at the retrial on January 29, 2018. By that point, he had been convicted of the drug charges and received a 33-year sentence.
Poulos sued several Warren County officials and corrections officers (collectively, "Defendants") for malicious prosecution, false imprisonment, Monell liability, falsification and spoliation of evidence, and deprivation of a right to fair trial under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Poulos alleges that he was framed for harassment as part of a conspiracy by Defendants to enhance his parallel drug prosecution. Poulos also alleges that he was released on his own recognizance on the drug charges in April 2014 when a prosecutor failed to appear for the hearing. He was not convicted of the drug charges until 2016. Thus, Poulos alleges, for a period of over 20 months, he was detained solely for the harassment charges. The district court granted Defendants' motion to dismiss, concluding that several of Poulos's claims were time-barred or otherwise insufficiently pled. The court also determined that several of his claims failed, reasoning that the harassment charges did not deprive Poulos of his liberty because he would have been incarcerated based on the drug charges alone. Poulos v. Cnty. of Warren, No. 1:21-CV-96, 2021 WL 4307508, at *5 (N.D.N.Y. Sept. 22, 2021). Poulos appealed. We assume the parties' familiarity with the remaining underlying facts, the procedural history of the case, and the issues on appeal.
We review de novo a district court's dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6). See Hamilton v. Westchester Cnty., 3 F.4th 86, 90 (2d Cir. 2021). To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient facts, accepted as true and with reasonable inferences drawn in the plaintiff's favor, to state a plausible claim to relief. Id. at 90-91. Although pro se filings are liberally construed to raise the strongest arguments they suggest, see McLeod v. Jewish Guild for the Blind, 864 F.3d 154, 156 (2d Cir. 2017), Poulos's main appellate brief and his filings in district court were all counseled.
I. Spoliation, Conspiracy, and Monell Claims
We agree with the district court that Poulos's spoliation, conspiracy, and Monell claims fail. First, his spoliation claim fails because there is no independent spoliation tort claim under New York Law. See Ortega v. City of New York, 9 N.Y.3d 69, 82 (2007). Second, his Monell claim fails because his conclusory allegations about Defendants' role in the alleged constitutional violations, and about the policies or customs that may have given rise to their actions, amount to an insufficient "formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). Finally, Poulos failed to plead a plausible meeting of the minds required to sustain a conspiracy claim. See Beechwood Restorative Care Ctr. v. Leeds, 436 F.3d 147, 154 (2d Cir. 2006).
II. False Imprisonment Claim
The district court correctly found that Poulos's false-imprisonment claim is time-barred. The statute of limitations for a false-imprisonment claim "begins to run at the time the claimant becomes detained pursuant to legal process." Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384, 397 (2007). This occurs "when, for example, he is bound over by a magistrate or arraigned on charges." Id. at 389. Poulos alleges that he was detained pursuant to legal process in 2014. His false-imprisonment claim was brought in 2021, well after the three-year statute of limitations for § 1983 claims in New York. See Milan v. Wertheimer, 808 F.3d 961, 963-64 (2d Cir. 2015).
III. Malicious Prosecution, Falsification of Evidence, and Fair Trial Claims
The district court erred, however, by dismissing Poulos's claims for malicious prosecution, denial of fair trial, and falsification of evidence because he adequately alleged a deprivation of liberty. The district court concluded that Poulos failed to allege a deprivation of liberty because he was incarcerated on drug charges before he was charged with harassment, and he remained incarcerated after he was acquitted of the harassment charges. It is true that a plaintiff does not allege a deprivation of liberty when he was already incarcerated for an unrelated crime before the contested charges were brought and would have remained incarcerated for that crime regardless of the contested charges. See Singer v. Fulton Cnty. Sheriff, 63 F.3d 110, 116 (2d Cir. 1995) ("A plaintiff asserting a Fourth Amendment malicious prosecution claim under § 1983 must . . . show some deprivation of liberty consistent with the concept of 'seizure.'"); see also Curry v. Yachera, 835 F.3d 373, 380 (3d Cir. 2016) ("When McClure's charges were dropped, Curry was still in jail. As a result, McClure never deprived Curry of his liberty as a consequence of the charges McClure brought against Curry. Curry's liberty had already been deprived." (internal quotation marks omitted)).
Here, however, Poulos sufficiently alleged a deprivation of his liberty because-between his release on the drug charges in 2014 and his conviction on those charges in 2016-he claims that he was detained solely on the harassment counts. [ See App'x at A26 (alleging that "Plaintiff was released on his own recognizance on the drug possession charges" after the April 2014 hearing); id. at A28 (alleging that the "sole basis for Plaintiff's custody and wrongful imprisonment in the New York State prison system at that time were his wrongful convictions for aggravated harassment of an employee by an inmate"). Accepting Poulos's allegations as true, he would not have been detained during this period but for the harassment charges. Poulos has thus adequately alleged a deprivation of liberty stemming from his pretrial detention between his 2014 release and 2016 conviction for the drug charges. We need not reach Poulos's alternative theories on how his liberty might have been deprived.
Defendants argue that Poulos's alleged deprivation of liberty is hypothetical and that in the absence of harassment charges, the prosecutor would have appeared for the 2014 drug charge hearing, so Poulos would not have been released. Appellees' Br. at 16-17. At the motion to dismiss stage, we cannot consider such arguments.
In addition, Poulos's fair-trial and fabrication-of-evidence claims are not time-barred. The limitations period for a § 1983 fabrication-of-evidence claim does not accrue until a favorable termination of the underlying criminal proceedings. See McDonough v. Smith, 139 S.Ct. 2149, 2154-55 (2019). Poulos's claim accrued on January 29, 2018, so his fair-trial and fabrication-of-evidence claims, brought on January 27, 2021, are timely.
Defendants discuss testimonial immunity, but we do not interpret Poulos's claims as relying entirely on Defendants' testimony. If § 1983 claims "exist[] independently of the [] testimony" then they are not immunized. Coggins v. Buonora, 776 F.3d 108, 113 (2d Cir. 2015).
Defendants also argue that dismissal was proper based on immunity. Defendant Burin is shielded by prosecutorial immunity for his actions that took place after Poulos was charged with harassment. See Warney v. Monroe Cnty., 587 F.3d 113, 121 (2d Cir. 2009). To the extent that Poulos alleges that Burin was responsible for directing the harassment to occur, however, he would have only qualified immunity. See Hill v. City of New York, 45 F.3d 653, 661 (2d Cir. 1995).
Defendants did not raise qualified immunity below, although they do so now. We decline to reach this issue in the first instance because the record is not sufficiently developed. See Burns v. Martuscello, 890 F.3d 77, 94 n.4 (2d Cir. 2018).
We have considered all of Poulos's remaining arguments and find them to be without merit. For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court is affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded for further proceedings.