Following a visual inspection of property, Castanza was told that he needed to remove items that were improperly stored in his front and side yards. The items of concern to the town included lawnmowers, wood, windows, scrap metal and concrete. Castanza told the inspector that he would “take care of it,” and approximately 20 days later he was served with a Notice of Order directing him to remove “existing litter,” specifying the items to be removed and the timeframe in which the task was to be completed. The plaintiff was also informed that his failure to comply would result in town action to remove the items, with the costs charged to him. Once time for compliance had expired, town employees cleaned up the subject property, removing a collection of landscaping tools and debris. Castanza was billed $2,531.36 for the clean up, and then he brought an action federal court for violations of his rights under, among other things, the Fourth, Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, violations of 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985 and state tort claims of intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress and trespass. Named in his suit were the Town of Brookhaven, and Town officials in both their official capacity and as individuals. The defendants moved for summary judgment on all of the claims. Summary judgment was granted to the defendants on all but one of the plaintiff’s claims.
The plaintiff’s official capacity claim was dismissed because the Town was named as a party in the complaint, noting that an official capacity claim will be considered duplicative of the complaint against the government entity when the entity is a named party. In addressing the plaintiff’s claims against the defendants as individuals, the court again granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment on the grounds that in order to recover damages for alleged constitutional violations there must be personal involvement by the defendant in the deprivation of rights. Personal involvement will be found where a) the defendant participated directly in the Constitutional violation; b) the defendant had knowledge of the violation and failed to remedy it; c) the defendant created a policy or custom under which unconstitutional practices occurred or allowed the continuance of such a policy or custom; d) the defendant was grossly negligent in supervising subordinates who committed the wrongful acts; or 5) the defendant exhibited deliberate indifference to the rights of the plaintiff by failing to act on information that unconstitutional acts were occurring. The plaintiff claimed that he was unable to provide evidence concerning misconduct by town officials because he had not deposed the defendants. However, the court deemed the possibility that impropriety might be revealed by any deposition was speculative and not adequate to support the plaintiff’s claim. Further, the court noted that even if Castanza was able to prove that a town official participated in a Constitutional violation, the town officials would be protected from personal liability by the doctrine of qualified immunity. Qualified immunity applies to government officials performing discretionary functions so long as “their conduct was objectively reasonable or if reasonably competent individuals could agree as to the reasonableness of the challenged conduct.” The court noted that it is objectionably reasonable for town employees to enter, inspect and remove litter from private property in accordance with town code.
The plaintiff sued the Town Board Members because they voted in favor of or enacted the town code or voted in favor of the clean-up of the subject property, but because these actions were legislative in nature the Board members were deemed immune from the civil rights lawsuit because the challenged actions are legislative in nature. Local legislators, such as members of town boards are immune from civil rights lawsuits provided that the actions for which they are being sued are legislative.
A claim of a violation of protections provided under the Fourth Amendment requires the plaintiff to demonstrate a reasonable expectation of privacy in the location of the search. Since the conditions existing on Castanza’s property were in plain view and because the actions taken to rectify those conditions were a valid exercise of police power, the court found that there was no violation of the Fourth Amendment. The Court deemed Castanza’s Fifth Amendment claim unripe because he had not exhausted administrative or state remedies before seeking relief under federal law. The Eighth Amendment claim was dismissed because the Amendment’s protections from excessive punishment is usually applicable only to criminal convictions and here Castanza was not criminally prosecuted nor found guilty, nor had he presented evidence that the punishment for violation of town code was cruel and unusual, so the alleged violation of the Amendment was not sustained. Castanza’s Fourteenth Amendment equal protection claim failed to withstand the defendant’s motion for summary judgment because he did not allege membership in a protected class or group or that he was treated differently from similarly situated people.
The plaintiff’s claim that right to procedural due process was violated was not allowed to go forward, while his claim of a violation of substantive due process was sustained for further fact finding. A claim of violation of procedural due process requires demonstration that the plaintiff lacked either a notice of the proceeding or a chance to voice his perspective on the issue. Here it was determined that the plaintiff had adequate notice of the proceeding; he acknowledged receiving the Notice of Order and his failure to contact the Town thereafter. The Town’s failure to conduct a hearing prior to the clean-up of the property was not a violation of procedural due process because Castanza could have brought about a hearing by contacting the Town or using the mechanisms set in place by the Town code to challenge the designation of his property as one requiring remediation. Further, the court noted that a hearing may be held after-the-fact, without a violation of due process, if logic so demands.
A substantive due process claim will withstand summary judgment if the plaintiff is able to identify a valid property interest that has been infringed upon by the defendant in an arbitrary or irrational manner. The plaintiff was able to establish that he had a valid property interest in the landscaping tools that were removed by the Town employees because, as a landscaper by trade, he was deprived of the equipment by which he earned his livelihood. While there was no evidence that the Town was reckless in its removal of the tools, a question of material fact existed as to whether the there was any recklessness. Therefore, the court did not grant the defendants’ motion for summary judgment on this issue.
Castanza’s § 1985 conspiracy claims were denied because conspiracy was deemed by the court and supporting case law to be a legal impossibility where employees are acting within the scope of their employment, unless the individuals are conspiring in pursuit of “personal interests wholly separate and apart from the entity. Since the plaintiff had not provided any evidence that the defendants were acting outside of the scope of employment or were pursuing personal interests via these actions the defendants’ motion for summary judgment was granted.
The plaintiff challenged the constitutionality of the Town Code provisions under which the violations regarding his property were brought. The Court said that in enacting the Town Code, the Town had acted pursuant to its statutorily delegated police power; codes enacted pursuant to police power are presumed to be valid and are subject to rational basis review. To demonstrate that the Town’s nuisance abatement ordinance is not a valid exercise of police power the plaintiff must provide evidence that the ordinance’s means are not reasonably necessary to the accomplishment of its purpose. The Court note that the plaintiff provided no evidence of such.
Castanza v. Town of Brookhaven, 2010 WL 1049238 (E.D.N.Y. 3/22/2010).
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