PHILADELPHIA – A federal judge has denied a motion to dismiss from Pottstown Hospital and Tower Health, which sought to throw out a Chester County woman’s litigation for excessive force injuries she claims she sustained in an arrest at the hospital almost three years ago by Pottstown police officers.
Christine Caporaletti of Spring City first filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on July 23 versus Chief Michael Markovich, Police Officers Peter Yambrick, Matthew Maciejewski, John Does 1-99, Dylan Heckart, Jane Doe, the Borough of Pottstown, Pottstown Hospital and ABC Security Company of Pottstown, plus Tower Health of West Reading.
“At all relevant times, Michael Graeff lived with plaintiff, Caporaletti, in her residence, and plaintiff considered him to be ‘like a son.’ On Thursday, July 25, 2019, Graeff was overwhelmed by a mental health crisis. Concerned for his safety, at approximately 1:22 p.m., plaintiff placed a phone call to 9-1-1 so that Graeff could receive a mental health evaluation,” the suit said.
“Sergeant Edward Ciacik of the Limerick Police Department was the first to respond and arrive at plaintiff’s home. Next, the paramedics arrived to take Graeff to Pottstown Hospital for an initial examination to determine if he should be admitted for involuntarily mental health treatment, as per Pennsylvania law and local laws/policies. Plaintiff and her daughter followed the ambulance to Pottstown Hospital.”
After going to the hospital and inquiring as to Graeff’s whereabouts, defendant Heckart [a hospital security guard] approached plaintiff and claimed, without any basis in fact, that Graeff did not want to see her and demanded that she leave the hospital. Caporaletti said she later found that this remark was false.
When the Pottstown Police defendants arrived to the hospital, the plaintiff said they arrested her in front of her daughter and roughly put her into handcuffs, just three months after she underwent arm surgery.
“Defendants Yambrick, Maciejewski and/or Doe, ignored plaintiff’s cries for help to relieve the pain in her right arm. After transporting the plaintiff to the Pottstown Police Department, an unknown police officer informed defendants Yambrick, Maciejewski and Doe, that they improperly handcuffed plaintiff. Plaintiff was charged with a singular summary count of Disorderly Conduct,” per the suit.
“As a direct and proximate result of the aforementioned acts and failures to act of defendants Markovich, Yambrick, Maciejewski, and/or Does 1-99, plaintiff suffered from the following non- exhaustive list of harms:
• Violation of her clearly established and well-settled constitutional rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution to be free from the use of unreasonable or excessive force;
• Full thickness tear of the rotator cuff involving the posterior fibers of the supraspinatus and anterior fibers of the infraspinatus;
• Moderate tendinopathy;
• Tendinopathy in the intra-articular portion of the biceps tendon;
• Bicipital tendinitis;
• Complete tear of right rotator cuff; and
• S/P arthroscopy of right shoulder.”
Pottstown Hospital and Tower Health moved to dismiss the case on Sept. 24, countering that the plaintiff hadn’t adequately pled her case, but that dismissal motion was rendered moot by the filing of an amended complaint on Oct. 15.
On Oct. 29, Pottstown Hospital and Tower Health filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted.
“While plaintiff’s amended complaint now alleges, for the first time, a mother-son relationship between her and Mr. Graeff, plaintiff continues to fail to plead a legally cognizable claim of negligence as she is unable to establish a causal connection between the alleged acts of Jane Doe and/or Mr. Heckart and her purported injuries,” the dismissal motion said.
“More specifically, the alleged use of excessive force by the officers of the Pottstown Police Department constitutes an intervening act breaking the causal chain of events between moving defendants’ alleged negligence and plaintiff’s injuries. Accordingly, plaintiff’s claims against moving defendants fail as a matter of law. Alternatively, if any of plaintiff’s claims as to moving defendants are deemed legally sufficient, then plaintiff’s claim for punitive damages should be dismissed for failure to plead grounds upon which this requested relief may be granted.”
According to the moving defendants, Caporaletti “failed to establish a causal connection between these allegedly negligent acts and her purported injury.”
“Plaintiff alleges that she was injured as the result of the co-defendant officers of the Pottstown Police Department purportedly engaging in excessive force during plaintiff’s arrest outside of Pottstown Hospital. Neither Jane Doe nor Mr. Heckart attempted to detain plaintiff, attempted to physically remove her from the hospital, or were involved in any manner in plaintiff’s arrest,” the motion stated.
UPDATE
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Joel H. Slomsky denied the Pottstown Hospital and Tower Health defendants’ dismissal motion in a judicial order on May 17.
“Moving defendants do not dispute but-for causation, but instead contend that plaintiff cannot show proximate causation. Put differently, moving defendants do not challenge the theory that, but for Heckart and Doe calling the police, plaintiff would not have been arrested and injured. Rather, moving defendants refute the idea that, ‘Specifically, moving defendants propose that the causal chain was severed between the alleged negligent acts of moving defendants’ agents and plaintiffs’ injuries by the actions of the police officers, because the officers’ ‘alleged use of unprovoked excessive force is so extraordinary that it could not have been foreseeable’ by either Doe or Heckart when they called the police,” Slomsky stated.
“At this stage, however, plaintiff has pled facts to support proximate causation, and her claims of negligence and vicarious liability in Counts 11 and 12 against moving defendants will survive the motion to dismiss for this reason. The amended complaint alleges that the agents of moving defendant, either or both Heckart and Doe, contacted the police and lied to them about plaintiff’s conduct. Moreover, the alleged lie to the police was that plaintiff was acting in a disorderly manner, by ‘banging on the emergency room doors and pushing through doctors.’ As noted by plaintiff, a jury may find that ‘it is foreseeable that by lying to the police and causing them to come to the hospital,’ plaintiff would be arrested and possibly injured as the police were carrying out the arrest. Likewise, a jury could find that the recalcitrant behavior complained of is the type of behavior for which it is foreseeable that excessive force would be used.”
Slomsky continued that while many arrests require the use of force, there are “sufficient facts from which reasonable minds can differ as to whether plaintiff’s injuries were foreseeable to Heckart and Doe” and that “while a jury may find that the police officers’ alleged use of force ‘was so extraordinary’ that it broke the causal chain to preclude proximate cause, such a finding by the Court at the pleadings stage would be inappropriate.”
As to punitive damages, Slomsky similarly felt that throwing out that claim at this stage would be premature.
“Here, viewing the allegations in the amended complaint in the light most favorable to plaintiff, the amended complaint alleges that moving defendants’ agents intentionally lied when they called the police to come to Pottstown Hospital and described plaintiff engaging in disruptive conduct, and that plaintiff was arrested and injured as a result. These allegations, if proven, may support a claim for punitive damages. Although discovery may nevertheless reveal that punitive damages are not appropriate, dismissal of the punitive damages claim at the pleadings stage would be premature,” Slomsky said.
For counts of excessive force, supervisor liability, bystander liability, conspiracy, assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, joint participation, negligence, reckless endangerment, vicarious liability and a Monell claim, the plaintiff is seeking compensatory and punitive damages as to all defendants, reasonable attorney’s fees and costs as to all defendants, such other relief as may appear just and appropriate and a jury trial as to all claims asserted.
The plaintiff is represented by Alan E. Denenberg and Thomas Bruno II of Abramson & Denenberg, in Philadelphia.
The defendants are represented by Connie Henderson and Sheryl Lynn Brown of Siana Law in Chester Springs, Chilton G. Goebel III and Stephen J. Fleury Jr. of Saxton & Stump in Malvern and Philip D. Priore of McCormick & Priore, in Philadelphia.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania case 2:21-cv-03293
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com