PHILADELPHIA – A federal appeals court panel has decided that a trial court ruling of summary judgment will stand in a civil rights lawsuit filed by a former police chief who was targeted for investigation and faced criminal charges, subsequent to his firing.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit Judge David J. Porter issued an opinion on behalf of his colleagues on Feb. 9 affirming summary judgment in the case of plaintiff William DeForte, versus the Borough Of Worthington, its Mayor Kevin Feeney, Worthington Police Officer Gerald Rodgers, Acting Commissioner of the Pennsylvania State Police Col. Tyree C. Blocker and Pennsylvania State Police Officer Joseph R. Zandarski.
After DeForte’s firing and at the request of Borough officials, Pennsylvania State Police officers Joseph Murphy and Joseph Zandarski of the Pennsylvania State Police investigated a series of suspicious events that occurred during and after DeForte’s tenure as Chief of Police.
The state police investigated: (1) Firearms purchases and transfers that DeForte made as Chief of Police; (2) The disappearance of police radios during DeForte’s tenure; (3) Theft of cash from the police evidence locker after DeForte was fired; and (4) Theft of DeForte’s personal files after he was fired.
Due to the investigation, a local prosecutor charged DeForte with several theft-related crimes, but those charges were eventually dropped.
DeForte then sued the Borough of Worthington, Borough officials and Pennsylvania State Police officials, asserting a fabrication of evidence claim under 42 U.S.C. Sections 1983 and 1988 and state law claims for malicious prosecution and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The District Court granted summary judgment to all defendants, and DeForte timely appealed in response – charging that the District Court erred by finding that there were no genuine disputes of material fact that precluded summary judgment, and failing to alert DeForte to the deficiencies in his summary judgment briefing.
“DeForte fails to support his claim of error with citations to legal authority or facts in the record. The lack of record citations is particularly problematic here because DeForte maintains that the District Court ignored evidence that would create genuine disputes of material fact precluding summary judgment,” Porter said.
“DeForte’s argument contains 23 citations to the joint appendix [and] half of those citations are to the District Court’s opinion and not facts in the record. DeForte fails to explain how the remaining citations are relevant to his legal claims…and fails to explain how this fact has any bearing on his allegations that the defendants fabricated evidence, maliciously prosecuted him or intentionally caused him emotional distress. He makes it impossible to conduct any meaningful review of his arguments.”
Porter ultimately ruled to uphold the District Court’s decision to grant summary judgment.
“Next, DeForte argues that the District Court erred by ‘failing to alert DeForte’s counsel about the disastrous state of his responses to the defendants’ statement of undisputed material facts.’ He cites no legal authority for the proposition that the District Court is required to supervise his counsel’s legal filings. And we are not aware of any such authority. A District Court is not obliged to provide unsolicited advice that could compromise its impartiality,” Porter stated.
“DeForte also argues that dismissal would be a severe sanction because his counsel is a ‘solo practitioner facing off against well-represented defendants.’ He relies on a concurrence from one of our cases that noted a ‘substantial disparity between the parties, in terms of their financial resources and the competency of their counsel.’ That passing observation neither excuses DeForte’s counsel’s shortcomings in the District Court nor relaxes the summary judgment standard that we must apply. For these reasons, we will affirm the District Court’s order granting summary judgment.”
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit cases 19-1755 & 19-1762
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com