PHILADELPHIA – A federal appellate court’s panel has reinstated some claims to and remanded the case of a Philadelphia police detective who alleged misconduct on the part of a City assistant district attorney, and believes he was then unlawfully retaliated against by that same attorney.
Derrick Jacobs is a detective with the Philadelphia Police Department. He filed an amended complaint asserting various federal and state-law claims against four defendants, the City of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, District Attorney Lawrence S. Krasner and Assistant District Attorney Tracy Tripp.
Jacobs’ claims pertain to his participation in the investigation of a shooting by a police officer. Jacobs claimed, among other things, that Tripp presented false information to a grand jury in order to obtain the indictment of the officer involved.
Jacobs further alleged that, when he attempted to expose that alleged misconduct, Tripp retaliated against him by filing criminal charges falsely accusing him of leaking grand jury material – which she later withdrew.
In response to the complaint, the defendants filed a motion to dismiss Jacobs’s amended complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), for failure to state a claim.
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania granted that motion, dismissed all of Jacobs’s federal claims with prejudice, declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over a state law claim that Jacobs asserted under Pennsylvania’s whistleblower statute and further dismissed that claim without prejudice.
Jacobs appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. His appeal was considered by Third Circuit judges Thomas L. Ambro, David J. Porter and Anthony J. Scirica, who issued a per curiam ruling to Jacobs’ appeal on Dec. 1.
The Third Circuit decided it would vacate and remand for further consideration of three of Jacobs’s claims, mostly due to Jacobs’s claim that the defendants filed false criminal charges against him in retaliation for his exercise of First Amendment rights.
“Thus, we will vacate the dismissal of Jacobs’s First Amendment retaliation claim and remand for the District Court to allow Jacobs to further amend his complaint unless it finds that amendment would be inequitable or futile,” the Third Circuit concluded.
“In light of this ruling, we also will vacate the District Court’s dismissal of Jacobs’s Section 1983 claim of conspiracy and his claim under the Pennsylvania whistleblower statute. We will affirm the District Court’s dismissal of all other claims, including Jacobs’s Section 1983 claims of defamation and of malicious prosecution under the Fourth Amendment.”
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit case 20-1967
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania case 2:19-cv-04616
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com