Traweek v. Gusman

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA

JOHNNY TRAWEEK CIVIL ACTION

v. NO. 19-1384

MARLIN GUSMAN, ET AL. SECTION "F"

ORDER AND REASONS

Before the Court is the plaintiff Johnny Traweek’s motion for

reconsideration of the Court’s January 20, 2021 dismissal of his

false imprisonment claims. For the reasons that follow, the motion

is DENIED.

Background

This Order and Reasons assumes familiarity with the Court’s

January 20, 2021 Order and Reasons on the defendants’ motion for

summary judgment. In that decision, the Court detailed its basis

for dismissing Traweek’s false imprisonment claims against

defendants Tracy DiBenedetto, Ashley Jones, and James LeBlanc.

See Traweek v. Gusman, 2021 WL 199387, at *7 & n.7 (E.D. La. Jan.

20, 2021).

I.

Because it merely seeks reconsideration of a discrete ruling

within a broader order, Traweek’s motion is governed by Federal

Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b). See Edwards v. Take Fo’ Records,

1

Inc., 2020 WL 3832606, at *11 n.11 (E.D. La. July 8, 2020) (“When

a party seeks to revise an order that adjudicates fewer than all

the claims among all the parties, [] Rule 54(b) controls.”). Rule

54(b) provides that “any order or other decision . . . that

adjudicates fewer than all the claims . . . may be revised at any

time before the entry of a judgment adjudicating all the claims

and all the parties’ rights and liabilities.” FED. R. CIV. P. 54(b).

Under Rule 54(b), the Court “is free to reconsider and reverse its

decision for any reason it deems sufficient, even in the absence

of new evidence or an intervening change in or clarification of

the substantive law.” Lavespere v. Niagara Mach. & Tool Works,

Inc., 910 F.2d 167, 185 (5th Cir. 1990), abrogated on other grounds

by Little v. Liquid Air Corp., 37 F.3d 1069, 1075 n.14 (5th Cir.

1994) (en banc) (per curiam).

II.

A.

In urging the Court to reverse its dismissal of his false

imprisonment claims, Traweek argues that the Court misapprehended

and misapplied Louisiana law. In particular, he takes issue with

the Court’s generalized definition of the tort of false

imprisonment – which the Court drew from Traweek’s own complaint

- as “restraint without color of legal authority.” See Traweek,

2021 WL 199387, at *7 (first quoting Kyle v. City of New Orleans,

2

353 So. 2d 969, 971 (La. 1977); then quoting Third Am. Compl.,

¶ 103) (internal quotation marks omitted).

In Traweek’s view, “this interpretation is contrary to all

authority holding that false imprisonment claims are not barred

against persons simply because those persons are acting under color

of state authority.” See Mot. at 3 (emphasis omitted). Instead,

Traweek suggests, “the touchstone of false imprisonment is not

whether [] the actor was acting under color of law, but rather

whether the detention was the result of legal process.” See id.

(emphasis omitted) (citing Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384, 389

(2007)).1 Traweek cites a number of Louisiana and federal cases

for the propositions that “the proper analysis is whether the

imprisoner had authority to detain, not whether the imprisoner was

a private or public actor,” and that “Louisiana courts routinely

permit false imprisonment claims to proceed against persons acting

under color of state law.” See id. at 3–4.

1 Traweek’s reliance on Wallace is misplaced, as the United

States Supreme Court is surely no arbiter of Louisiana tort law.

In Wallace, the Court was tasked with ascertaining “the common

law’s . . . treatment of the torts of false arrest and false

imprisonment” in order to determine the accrual date of the

plaintiff’s § 1983 claim for alleged violations of the Fourth

Amendment to the Federal Constitution. The Court did not purport

to distill Louisiana false imprisonment law, which clearly governs

the claims at issue here.

3

B.

For sake of analysis, the Court accepts Traweek’s newfound

characterizations of Louisiana false imprisonment law.2 Even on

this friendlier legal terrain, Traweek cannot state a plausible

claim for false imprisonment against DiBenedetto, Jones, and

LeBlanc on the developed factual record at hand.

For one, as the defendants note, Traweek “neither

acknowledges nor distinguishes” the Court’s observation that, at

the very least, Traweek’s “is not the paradigmatic case of false

imprisonment, in which a shopkeeper or other private citizen

wrongfully restricts a plaintiff’s movement against his will.”

See Traweek, 2021 WL 199387, at *7 n.7; Opp’n at 2.

More fundamentally, however, all of the supposedly analogous

cases Traweek cites in his present motion are clearly

distinguishable from the situation here – even when characterized

in Traweek’s own terms. See Mot. at 4. Indeed, where the

plaintiffs in Brown and Trahan were jailed without any cause or

basis whatsoever, Traweek was jailed for an offense to which he

admittedly pled guilty. Compare Brown v. City of Monroe, 135 So.

3d 792, 794 (La. Ct. App. 2d Cir. 2014), and Trahan v. City of

2 It bears noting that Traweek did not make any such arguments

in opposing the underlying motion for summary judgment and that

the Court applied the definition of false imprisonment that Traweek

deployed in his own complaint.

4

Scott, 802 So. 2d 24, 28 (La. Ct. App. 3d Cir. 2001), with Third

Am. Compl., Gf 4-5. And where the plaintiffs in Hayes and Ross

had good false imprisonment claims against the sheriff, deputies,

and police who physically imprisoned them, Traweek seeks to hold

administrative officials in the Louisiana Department of Public

Safety and Corrections liable for false imprisonment. Compare

Hayes v. Kelly, 625 So. 2d 628 (La. Ct. App. 3d Cir. 1993), and

Ross v. Sheriff of Lafourche Par., 479 So. 2d 506 (La. Ct. App.

lst Cir. 1985), with Third Am. Compl., 25-27, 103-06.

* * *

Put simply, Traweek offers the Court no basis for concluding

that his overdetention in Orleans Parish Prison supplies him with

plausible false imprisonment claims against bureaucrats inhabiting

offices and cubicles and exerting no physical control over his

detention or release. Because no reasonable jury could find

otherwise under the Louisiana law cited by Traweek in the operative

complaint and in the motion at hand, the Court declines to reverse

its dismissal of Traweek’s false imprisonment claims.

Accordingly, IT IS ORDERED: that the plaintiff’s motion for

reconsideration is DENIED.

New Orleans, Louis) na ruary 10, 2021

MARTIN | C. FELDMAN

UNITED STAT DISTRICT JUDGE