Martinez v. City of New York

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK

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ROSIE MARTINEZ

Plaintiff, MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

16-CV-79 (NRM) (CLP)

-against-

CITY OF NEW YORK, Police Officer ERIC

RYAN, Lieutenant DAVID CAMHI, Sergeant

JOSEPH DIGENNARO, and Sergeant KEITH

LALIBERTE,

Defendants.

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NINA R. MORRISON, United States District Judge:

Now pending before this Court are Defendants’ remaining motions following

a trial at which the jury awarded Plaintiff compensatory and punitive damages on

claims that her civil rights were violated while she was physically injured in police

custody in January 2015. Defendants seek judgment as a matter of law pursuant to

Rule 50 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure on Plaintiff’s assault and battery

claim against the City of New York and her deliberate indifference claims against

the four individual officer-defendants; they also seek an order of remittitur under

Rule 59 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, arguing that the jury’s award of

$100,000 in punitive damages against each individual officer-defendant was

excessive. In addition, Defendants argue that all four individual officers are

entitled to qualified immunity on Plaintiff’s deliberate indifference claims. The

Court has considered the parties’ oral pre-verdict motions made on December 9,

2023, the parties’ oral post-verdict motions made on December 13, 2023, as well as

written briefs on Defendants’ Rule 59 motion. For the reasons outlined herein,

Defendants’ Rule 50 motions and Rule 59 motion are each DENIED.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Sometime after 7:30 PM on January 22, 2015, Plaintiff Rosie Martinez

(“Plaintiff”), who was employed at the time as a housecleaner for a private family in

Manhattan, returned from work to find a number of officers of the New York City

Police Department (“NYPD”) standing in her apartment in Queens.1 Trial

Transcript (“Tr.”) 447:10–21; 1001:8–14; 1003:7–10; 1005:21–1006:6; 1038:8–11.

Earlier that evening, NYPD officers had effectuated a search on Plaintiff's home

and discovered that Danny Rivera, Plaintiff’s then-boyfriend, possessed a quantity

of heroin which, at the time of the search, was in a box next to a couch in Plaintiff’s

living room. Tr. 148:15–20, 173:8–174:12; 222:13–21; 247:5–248:7; 350:24–351:18;

1024:14–16. Plaintiff and Rivera had, at that time, been dating for several months;

she testified that they did not live together, but that she had given Rivera

temporary access to her apartment that day so that he could install a new washing

machine while she was at work. Tr. 350:9–23; 366:1–13; 1024:8–1025:1.

Upon her arrival, the officers arrested Plaintiff and subsequently transported

her to the 107th Precinct in Queens, New York, where she was detained until the

following morning. Tr. 248:8–21; 352:21–23; 1010:25–1011:3. At some point while

1 The Court assumes the parties’ familiarity with the facts of the case and

summarizes only those facts relevant to the pending motions.

in custody, Plaintiff suffered an injury to her hand—an injury so serious that, when

she was later escorted from the 107th Precinct to Central Booking in the early

hours of January 23, 2015, she could not be placed in a single pair of handcuffs due

to her pain and swelling. Tr. 1052:4–14. Upon her arrival at Central Booking, the

officers on duty immediately directed Plaintiff’s escorting officers to take Plaintiff to

the hospital. Tr. 1052:25–1053:3.

Plaintiff filed this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and related provisions of

New York state law on January 7, 2016, asserting that two NYPD officers

deliberately injured her while she was in handcuffs after she told them during an

interrogation that she did not know anything about Mr. Rivera’s drugs, including

where he had acquired his heroin. ECF No. 1, ¶¶ 12–17; ECF No. 99, ¶¶ 34–39.

Throughout the course of this litigation, Defendants have disputed Plaintiff’s

version of events, asserting that she injured herself while in custody.

, 16-cv-79, 2018 WL 604019 (E.D.N.Y. Jan. 24, 2018)

(summarizing Defendants’ exhibits and deposition testimony supporting the

contention that Plaintiff’s injuries were self-inflicted). After years of substantial

delay—attributable largely to discovery misconduct by the City of New York so

egregious that then-Chief Magistrate Judge Cheryl Pollak recommended sanctions

that included the entry of a default judgment against the Defendants2—the action

proceeded to trial.

2 For additional details on the parties’ factual allegations and the procedural

history of this case, see , 2018 WL 604019 (then-Chief Magistrate Judge

Pollak’s Report and Recommendation to Judge Ann M. Donnelly);

At trial, the jury was presented with constitutional claims under Section

1983 against four defendant officers, and a state law claim of assault and battery

against the City of New York. Specifically, Plaintiff brought excessive force claims

against Defendants Eric Ryan, Joseph DiGennaro, Keith Laliberte, and David

Camhi; failure to intervene claims against these four defendants; claims of

deliberate indifference to medical needs against these four defendants; and an

assault and battery claim against the City of New York under the doctrine of

.

Jury selection began on November 30, 2022. On December 1, 2022, the jury

was impaneled, and the parties presented opening arguments. Plaintiff began her

case-in-chief on December 5, 2022. Minute Entries dated November 30,

December 1, and December 5, 2022.

Over five days, Plaintiff elicited lay testimony from defendants Ryan,

DiGennaro, Laliberte, and Camhi; from non-defendant Paul Valerga, another officer

with the NYPD; and from Mr. Rivera, who was also in custody at the 107th Precinct

on the night of Plaintiff’s alleged assault. Plaintiff also introduced expert testimony

from former NYPD lieutenant Joseph Pollini and medical testimony from Dr.

Thomas Scolaris and Dr. Mark McMahon. Defendants cross-examined each of

Plaintiff’s witnesses and presented testimony from their own medical expert, Dr.

, 16-cv-79, 2018 WL 1835935 (E.D.N.Y. Apr. 18, 2018) (Judge

Donnelly’s Order partially adopting Judge Pollak’s Report and Recommendation);

, 564 F. Supp. 3d 88 (E.D.N.Y. 2021) (Judge Kovner’s

Order partially granting and partially denying Defendants’ motion for summary

judgment).

Salvatore Lenzo. On December 8 and 9, 2022, Plaintiff herself testified.

Minute Entries dated December 6, 7, 8 and 9, 2022.

From these witnesses, the jury heard sharply conflicting accounts as to the

cause and scope of the injuries that Plaintiff suffered on the night of January 22,

2015.3 Plaintiff introduced evidence, in the form of both testimony and exhibits,

supporting her claim that she was unlawfully assaulted by two New York City

police officers while she was restrained in handcuffs. During her own testimony,

Plaintiff described how, after she was arrested on January 22, 2015, she was tightly

handcuffed by her left hand to a bench in the juvenile room of the 107th Precinct.

Tr. 1011:17–20; 1012:8–11; 1019:3–10. Shortly thereafter, officers escorted her to

speak with defendant DiGennaro, who attempted to get information from her as to

where Mr. Rivera acquired his heroin. Tr. 1023:15–1024:7. When she told the

officers that she did not know anything about his drugs or the source(s) from which

he had obtained the drugs, Tr. 1025:16–1026:9, she was handcuffed again to a

bench in the juvenile room, Tr. 1026:16–1027:3, at which point the next several

minutes developed, in Plaintiff’s words, “like a horror movie.” Tr. 1035:19–22. Two

officers entered the room and again demanded that Plaintiff tell them “whatever

[she] knew about Mr. Rivera.” Tr. 1028:19–1029:1; 1032:20–23. When Plaintiff

again told the officers that she did not know anything about Mr. Rivera’s drugs,

3 Plaintiff was taken into custody at the 107th Precinct on the night of

January 22, 2015 but was not brought to Central Booking until the early hours of

January 23, 2015. It is therefore unclear from the record whether Plaintiff suffered

injuries on January 22 or January 23—that is, whether she was injured before or

after midnight. For ease of reference, this opinion will refer to “January 22, 2015”

as the date on which all relevant events took place at the 107th Precinct.

including any information about his supplier, the officers proceeded to choke her,

slap her, stomp on her feet, pull her hair, and bend back her right thumb in

retaliation for her failure to tell the officers the information they wanted to hear.

Tr. 1032:24–1037:25.

Defendants, for their part, offered a sharply different account of the events

that took place on January 22, 2015—presenting the jury with a stark credibility

dispute as to what transpired at the 107th precinct that night. Defendants testified

that they did not remember much from that night. Tr. 97:15–98:10; 106:5–11;

108:19–21; 145:3–5; 171:12–22; 176:3–5; 180:9–12; 201:15–19; 294:2–5; 300:1–14;

303:14–25; 305:16–20; 320:11–15; 330:16–18; 331:4–13; 405:15–23; 412:12–17;

414:24–415:16; 417:12–17; 433:12–16. But they claimed to remember clearly that

no one interrogated or even questioned Plaintiff about any aspect of the NYPD’s

investigation into Mr. Rivera’s drug dealing while she was in custody (other than

defendant DiGennaro, who claimed he attempted to “debrief” her for a few “seconds”

but immediately walked away when she declined to speak with him). Tr. 178:23–

179:9; 220:5–22; 252:15–253:4; 321:24–322:7; 475:16–476:3. Defendants also

claimed to clearly remember that no officer assaulted Plaintiff. Tr. 190:9–192:23;

264:24–265:18; 328:2–329:6; 416:13–19. Instead, they testified, Plaintiff was so

angry about having been arrested that she injured while in custody.

According to Defendants, while Plaintiff was handcuffed in the juvenile room, they

witnessed her repeatedly punch her right hand against a wall—backwards and over

her head—without provocation. Tr. 174:19–175:3; 179:10–24; 180:13–16; 236:7–21;

238:18–24; 402:24–403:8; 474:3–9; 477:1–479:1; 493:6–25. Defendants DiGennaro

and Camhi further claimed that they specifically saw Plaintiff inflict these injuries

on herself by jamming her thumb against the wall as she punched her right hand

backwards. Tr. 238:18–24; 402:24–403:8.

The parties also disagreed about the extent and causation of Plaintiff’s

physical injuries, as well as whether there was any indication that she required

medical care while in custody. Plaintiff introduced evidence that her hand was

visibly swollen and that she frequently cried out in pain during the nearly five-hour

period after her injury and before officers transported her to Central Booking. Tr.

354:21–355:24; 1041:23–1043:19. Mr. Rivera testified that Plaintiff, shortly after

sustaining her injury, was crying uncontrollably, could not initially be fingerprinted

without experiencing extreme pain, and had visible “finger marks” on her neck. Tr.

356:8–15; 362:10–363:9; 362:15; 363:13–18; 397:23–25. Plaintiff elicited testimony

from defendant Camhi acknowledging that other officers had noted that Plaintiff

had “some visible swelling” on her hand when she was transported to Central

Booking. Tr. 424:21–25; 484:10–14. Plaintiff testified that, after her assault, she

informed “literally . . . everybody” that entered the juvenile room that she was in

need of medical attention. Tr. 1042:25–1043:3. Plaintiff also introduced evidence

that, after she was transported out of the 107th Precinct, the officers who processed

her at Central Booking immediately directed that she be taken to the hospital for

treatment of her injuries. Tr. 1052:21–1053:3.

Defendants, for their part, testified that although it took them roughly five

hours after Plaintiff sustained an injury to take her to Central Booking and then to

Queens General Hospital, Tr. 418:11–21, this delay was unremarkable because

Defendants frequently checked on Plaintiff and concluded that she was not visibly

injured, and because Plaintiff at no point informed the officers that she was in need

of medical attention. Tr. 107:4–18; 180:17–181:9; 260:21–261:17; 480:9–481:7;

492:23–493:5. Defendants further claimed that far from being an unusual

occurrence, they have observed arrestees punch walls with great frequency (with

one officer claiming this was almost “a daily occurrence” and another estimating he

had observed it “a thousand” times), but that the “vast majority” of arrestees do not

suffer any injury. Tr. 109:1–10; 260:6–20; 322:19–323:10; 482:23–483:2.

Although Defendants testified that the lack of documentary evidence of

Plaintiff’s injury from when she was in custody suggests that no assault ever took

place, Plaintiff introduced evidence supporting the inference that such lack of

documentation was merely further evidence of an attempted cover-up by the

individual defendants, and that the log book entries and other contemporaneous

records that did support the officers’ account were falsely prepared in furtherance of

that cover-up. For example, Plaintiff testified that Defendants delayed in bringing

Plaintiff from the 107th Precinct to Central Booking in an attempt to cover up the

assault, hoping that the swelling on Plaintiff’s injuries would subside so that the

officers could present Plaintiff to Central Booking in better shape. Tr. 1040:15–

1041:12. Plaintiff also introduced an audio recording of a phone call that defendant

Camhi made to the Internal Affairs Bureau (“IAB”) on at roughly 9:00 a.m. on

January 23, 2015 regarding Plaintiff’s injuries after Central Booking directed the

officers to take Plaintiff to the hospital. In the call, defendant Camhi informed IAB

that Plaintiff experienced self-inflicted injuries while in custody, and emphasized to

IAB that Plaintiff’s injury “wasn’t caused by MOS” ( ., by any “members of

service”). Tr. 422:22–423:1. Yet Plaintiff also elicited testimony demonstrating that

no contemporaneous documentation existed to support this account, Tr. 300:17–

301:20; 304:1–305:7; 401:24–402:8; 413:22–415:5, despite the fact that an arrestee’s

injuries must, according to Plaintiff’s expert Joseph Pollini (a former lieutenant

commander of the NYPD cold case homicide squad and former commanding officer

of the NYPD 81st Detective Squad, Tr. 499:11–15), be documented in the precinct’s

command log, Tr. 518:9–22. Plaintiff also noted that defendant Camhi made this

phone call nine hours after Plaintiff sustained her injuries and three hours after

defendant Camhi testified he first learned that Plaintiff had sustained an injury.

Tr. 411:5–21. Defendant Camhi claimed that he waited so long to call IAB because

he could not get in touch with Plaintiff’s escorting officers, who could not get cell

phone reception at the hospital. Tr. 489:11–24. But on summation, Plaintiff

challenged the credibility of defendant Camhi’s claimed reason for the delay in

making this report, in light of the amount of time that elapsed (approximately nine

hours between Plaintiff’s injury and defendant Camhi’s call to IAB). Tr. 1392:6–10.

Finally, Plaintiff challenged the defendant officers’ credibility through

evidence that defendant Laliberte had, on two previous occasions, lied to NYPD

investigators about arrests that he conducted, including one arrest in 2015 during

which he punched an arrestee, Tr. 314:9–317:16; evidence that defendant

DiGennaro had stated in a previous deposition that Plaintiff was present when Mr.

Rivera purchased narcotics, when in fact she was not, Tr. 228:9–19; and evidence

that defendant Ryan prepared a document riddled with false information to

effectuate the arrest of a civilian in a different criminal case, Tr. 160:4–162:19.

Defendants, for their part, asserted that they had not knowingly lied in those

instances and had attempted to remedy these inaccurate statements at the

appropriate times, Tr. 162:20–163:1; 188:21–189:23, 229:2–9, though defendant

Laliberte acknowledged that his initial statement to investigators regarding the

2015 arrest was in fact false, and that he only admitted to having punched the

arrestee once he was confronted with video evidence documenting his actions. Tr.

314:9–315:3; 317:9–16.

Prior to and at trial, Plaintiff had consistently alleged that only two officers

had assaulted her. However, she brought claims of excessive force against all four

officers, pleading their identities as her assailants in the alternative.

ECF No. 99, ¶¶ 91–93. Because Defendants did not move for summary judgment on

Plaintiff’s excessive force claim, the claim proceeded against all four named

defendants, , 564 F. Supp. 3d at 92–93, even though all parties agreed

that, as a logical matter, only two of the four defendants, at most, could be liable on

this claim. On direct examination, Plaintiff—who had, in the preceding week, sat in

the same room as the four officers for the first time since her night in custody nearly

eight years earlier—identified defendants Camhi and Laliberte as her assailants.

Tr. 1029:7–1032:6. When asked by her counsel if she could name these officers,

Plaintiff responded “I don’t know them by name but I recognize their faces.” Tr.

1029:6. On cross-examination, however, Defendants confronted Plaintiff with an

affidavit she had signed in opposition to summary judgment in 2020 asserting that

defendant Ryan was one of her assailants, and in which she further stated that she

believed the other assailant was either defendant Laliberte, DiGennaro, or Camhi.

Tr. 1225:4–1226:5. Plaintiff conceded that her signature was indeed at the bottom

of that affidavit. Tr. 1225:8–15.

On December 9, 2022, Plaintiff rested,4 Tr. 1307:12–13, and the parties

raised various motions for judgment as a matter of law under Rule 50(a) of the

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Defendants first moved to dismiss Plaintiff’s deliberate indifference claims

against all four defendants. Tr. 1312:19–21. Defendants argued that Judge Rachel

P. Kovner, to whom this action was previously assigned and who decided

Defendants’ motion for summary judgment, had “treated this claim as one asserting

a delay of treatment and not a denial of medical treatment,” Tr. 1312:21–23; that

the alleged delay in Plaintiff’s medical treatment was “at most five hours” which “is

not a sufficiently lengthy delay under the circumstances to rise to a constitutional

violation,” Tr. 1313:2–5; that Plaintiff’s injury was “not sufficiently serious to rise to

4 For scheduling reasons, Defendants’ one witness, Dr. Salvatore Lenzo, was

called during Plaintiff’s case-in-chief. ECF Minute Entry dated December 8,

2022. The parties therefore rested simultaneously. Tr. 1307:12–1308:4.

a constitutional violation,” Tr. 1313:7–8; that the medical records in evidence do not

support Plaintiff’s assertion that she was experiencing extreme pain, Tr. 1313:9–18,

1314:18–1315:3; and that no evidence in the record suggests that Plaintiff’s

condition worsened due to the delay in treatment, Tr. 1313:19–24. Defendants

further argued that they are entitled to qualified immunity on this claim, both

because there exists no clearly established law that a failure to provide medical

attention for Plaintiff’s asserted injury rises to a constitutional violation, and

because the defendant officers could have been reasonably mistaken about the

extent of Plaintiff’s injury and pain. Tr. 1321:15–17, 1321:25–1322:17.

Defendants then moved to dismiss Plaintiff’s excessive force claims against

defendants Camhi and Laliberte. Tr. 1315:17–20.5 Specifically, Defendants argued

that no reasonable jury could credit Plaintiff’s in-court identification of defendants

Camhi and Laliberte as her two assailants, arguing that Plaintiff’s description of

the two officers’ appearance was inconsistent with that of defendants Camhi and

Laliberte. Tr. 1315:21–22. Defendants also argued that the medical records in

evidence did not support Plaintiff’s claim that she was assaulted. Tr. 1315:22–

1316:13, 1317:8–24. Defendants also moved to dismiss Plaintiff’s failure to

intervene claims against defendants Ryan and DiGennaro, arguing that there was

“no evidence” in the record that these defendants knew about Plaintiff’s alleged

assault or had the opportunity to intervene even if they did. Tr. 1320:9–1321:13.

5 During the same colloquy, the Court, on consent from both parties,

dismissed Plaintiff’s excessive force claims as against defendants Ryan and

DiGennaro. Tr. 1315:10–16, 1326:17–1327:1.

Plaintiff then moved under Rules 50(a) and 54(b) for judgment as a matter of

on her claim of assault and battery against the City of New York. Tr. 1323:3–4,

1324:14–24. Plaintiff directed the Court’s attention to the City of New York’s

extensive history of discovery violations in this action, which then-Chief Magistrate

Judge Pollak summarized in an opinion recommending terminating sanctions to

then-presiding Judge Ann Donnelly. ECF No. 113. Plaintiff argued that

although Judge Donnelly declined to enter terminating sanctions against

Defendants, she wrote that she “would consider additional appropriate sanctions” at

trial if the defendants “claim a lack of memory” when testifying about the alleged

incident, which is indeed in part how the individual defendants testified at trial.

Tr. 1323:7–1324:7. In light of these trial developments, Plaintiff’s argued that

judgment as a matter of law on her assault and battery claim against the City of

New York was the “proper[] remedy.” Tr. 1324:15. The Court reserved judgment on

both parties’ motions. Tr. 1322:18–21, 1325:1–2.

On December 13, 2022, the jury returned its verdict. The jury found that one

or more New York City police officers had indeed assaulted Plaintiff on the night of

January 22, 2015, and that all four individual defendants had been deliberately

indifferent to Plaintiff’s serious medical needs in the hours after that event. ECF

No. 237 at 2–4. However, the jury returned a verdict for Defendants on Plaintiff’s

excessive force claims. ECF No. 237 at 1. Prior to deliberations, the jury had been

instructed (and the parties agreed) that the elements of an excessive force claim

under Section 1983 are identical to those required to find liability for assault and

battery under New York law—except for the fact that in the former (§ 1983) claim,

the jury must also find that Plaintiff had proven the personal involvement of each

individual officer-defendant by a preponderance of the evidence, whereas on

Plaintiff’s state law claim, the jury need find only that NYPD officer or other

City employee, whether or not his or her identity was known, had committed the

acts in question. Tr. 1425:15–1426:4. Thus, the jury’s verdict apparently reflects

its conclusion that Plaintiff had indeed met her burden of proving that she was

physically assaulted by one or more NYPD officers while in police custody on the

night in question—in other words, that it credited Plaintiff’s account, and

disbelieved Defendants’ claim that she “injured herself” while at the 107th

precinct—but had not established the identities of her individual assailant(s).

Further, in keeping with the Court’s instructions that there can be no Section 1983

liability for failure to intervene absent a verdict for Plaintiff on her excessive force

claim(s), Tr. 1423:22–1424:2, the jury proceeded to enter a verdict for all four

individual defendants on Plaintiff’s failure to intervene claims. ECF No. 237 at 2–3.

On her assault and battery claim, the jury awarded Plaintiff $200,000 in

compensatory damages against defendant City of New York. ECF No. 237 at 2. On

her deliberate indifference claims, the jury awarded Plaintiff $1 in nominal

damages, and $100,000 in punitive damages against each individual defendant, for

a total punitive damages award of $400,000. ECF No. 237 at 4.

At Defendants’ request, the Court then directed the jury to answer certain

factual questions relevant to Defendants’ qualified immunity defense by means of a

special interrogatory, which the jury returned on the same day. ECF No. 239.

The jury found that, on the night that Plaintiff was assaulted while in custody,

Plaintiff had “complain[ed] of, or otherwise indicate[d] that she was experiencing

extreme pain,” that all four individual defendants were “aware that the [P]laintiff

had complained of, or was otherwise experiencing, extreme pain,” and that no

individual defendant “reasonably believe[d]—even if he was mistaken—that the

[P]laintiff was not experiencing extreme pain.” ECF No. 239 at 1–2 (emphasis in

original).

While the jury deliberated over the special interrogatory, Defendants

renewed their motions for judgment as a matter of law.6 Defendants acknowledged

that the jury’s verdict had mooted their Rule 50(a) motions on Plaintiff’s excessive

force and failure to intervene claims. Tr. 1503:11–16. However, Defendants then

stated that “with respect to assault and battery and deliberate indifference, we

renew our Rule 50 motion on the same grounds that we raised them before.” Tr.

1503:16–19. Defendants also informed the Court that they planned to file a written

motion to set aside the jury’s compensatory and punitive damages awards as

“excessive and against the weight of the evidence.” Tr. 1503:20–23. Defendants’

Rule 59 motion was fully briefed for the Court on May 12, 2023. ECF Nos. 242,

257, 260.

6 At this time, Plaintiff stated that she, too, was “renewing the motion [she]

made . . . at the 50(a) stage.” Tr. 1503:5. However, Plaintiff’s 50(a) motion for

judgment as a matter of law against the City was rendered moot in light of the fact

that the jury found defendant City of New York liable on Plaintiff’s assault and

battery claim, a point which Plaintiff acknowledged during a video conference held

on February 10, 2023.

ANALYSIS

I. Defendants’ Rule 50 Motions for Judgment as a Matter of Law—

Insufficient Evidence

A. Legal Standard

A court may grant judgment as a matter of law only if “the evidence, viewed

in the light most favorable to the opposing party, is insufficient to permit a

reasonable juror to find in her favor.”

, 136 F.3d 276, 289 (2d Cir. 1998). To that end, the Court must “give deference

to all credibility determinations and reasonable inferences of the jury, and it may

not itself weigh the credibility of witnesses or consider the weight of the evidence.”

, 530 U.S. 133, 151 (2000)

(“[A]lthough the court should review the record as a whole, it must disregard all

evidence favorable to the moving party that the jury is not required to believe.”);

, 240 F.3d 138, 142 (2d Cir. 2001) (“When reviewing

a grant of judgment as a matter of law, we are obliged to take the evidence in the

light most favorable to the party opposing the motion, and must defer to the jury’s

assessment of the evidence and the reasonable inferences drawn from it.”).

For the moving party to prevail, there must be “such a complete absence of

evidence supporting the verdict that the jury’s finding could only have been the

result of sheer surmise and conjecture” or the evidence must be “so overwhelming

that reasonable and fair minded persons could only have reached the opposite

result.” , 10 F.3d 46, 56 (2d Cir.1993);

, 391 F.3d 377, 390 (2d Cir. 2004). In light of this extremely

high standard, judgment as a matter of law under Rule 50 is granted on “rare

occasions.” , 971 F.2d 864, 871 (2d Cir. 1992).

B. Application

i. Assault and Battery 7

7 As a procedural matter, the Court assumes without deciding that

Defendants’ motion for judgment as a matter of law on Plaintiff’s assault and

battery claim is properly before it. After the jury delivered its verdict, Defendants

stated that “with respect to [Plaintiff’s] assault and battery” claim, they were

“renew[ing their] Rule 50 motion on the same grounds” that they had raised

previously. Tr. 1503:16–19. However, at the Rule 50(a) stage, Defendants only

moved to dismiss Plaintiff’s excessive force claims against defendants Camhi and

Laliberte, not her assault and battery claim against the City of New York. Tr.

1315:17–1318:24.

A pre-verdict motion for judgment as a matter of law “must specify the

judgment sought and the law and facts that entitle the movant to the judgment.”

Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(a)(2). A Rule 50(b) motion, in turn, “can be granted only on

grounds advanced in the preverdict motion.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 50 Advisory Committee

Note (2006). It follows, then, that a “Rule 50(a) motion requesting judgment as a

matter of law on one ground but omitting another is insufficient to preserve a

JMOL argument based on the latter.” , 670 F.3d 127, 152

(2d Cir. 2012). On such a posture, the movant’s burden is much higher than it

would be had the motion been properly made at the Rule 50(a) stage; the movant

must demonstrate that judgment as a matter of law is necessary “to prevent

manifest injustice.” at 153; , 17-

Civ.-4259, 2022 WL 4093752, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 7, 2022) (denying a motion for

judgment as a matter of law on Defendant’s counterclaims after Defendant only

moved at the Rule 50(a) stage for judgment as a matter of law on Plaintiff’s claims);

, No. 11-Civ.-1522, 2013 WL 1385205, at *3-4

(S.D.N.Y. Mar. 20, 2013) (concluding that defendants were “procedurally barred”

from seeking judgment as a matter of law on grounds that they failed to raise at the

Rule 50(a) stage). Because the Court concludes that Defendants’ motion fails even

assuming it was properly raised and preserved, it need not reach the question of

whether Defendants failed to preserve its Rule 50 motion to dismiss Plaintiff’s

assault and battery claim.

The Court, viewing the record in the light most favorable to Plaintiff,

, 240 F.3d at 142, concludes that more-than-sufficient evidence exists from

which a reasonable jury could have concluded that Plaintiff was assaulted by one or

more New York City police officers on the night of January 22, 2015. The following

is only some of the evidence in the record that supports this result.

First, Plaintiff herself testified in great detail that she was assaulted by two

police officers on the night of January 22, 2015. Plaintiff testified that while she

was handcuffed to a bench in the juvenile room of the 107th Precinct, two New York

City police officers (namely, defendants Camhi and Laliberte)8 entered the room

and slapped her, pulled her hair, stomped on her feet, choked her, and bent back

her thumb when she failed to provide the officers with information about where her

then-boyfriend Danny Rivera had acquired the heroin that the officers had

recovered from Plaintiff’s apartment earlier that evening. Tr. 1032:24–1037:25.

Plaintiff’s account of her assault was buttressed by testimony from Mr. Rivera, who

was in custody at the 107th Precinct at the same time as Plaintiff, that he heard

Plaintiff scream, Tr. 353:19–355:24, and witnessed that Plaintiff’s wrist was so

8 In light of the jury’s divergent verdicts on Plaintiff’s excessive force claim

and her assault and battery claim, it seems likely to the Court that the jury found

that although Plaintiff was assaulted by one or more employees of the NYPD,

Plaintiff had not met her burden of proving that either defendants Camhi or

Laliberte were her assailants. Because Plaintiff asserted her state assault and

battery claim against the City of New York under the doctrine of

, however, the jury was free to find for Plaintiff on her assault and battery

claim but find for Defendants on Plaintiff’s § 1983 excessive force claim given her

burden of proving personal involvement. The jury’s verdict, therefore, is not

inconsistent—indeed, it reflects the jury’s careful adherence to the Court’s

instructions.

severely injured that NYPD officials could not initially fingerprint her, Tr. 356:4–

15. A reasonable jury could have certainly found from the testimony of these two

witnesses that Plaintiff was assaulted while she was in custody on the night of

January 22, 2015. Although the defendant officers provided contrary testimony

during trial—alleging that Plaintiff in fact suffered a self-inflicted injury when she

repeatedly jammed her thumb against the wall behind her while she was

handcuffed to a bench at the precinct—the jury was, of course, entitled to credit

these lay witnesses’ testimony over Defendants’. , 530 U.S. at 151

(noting that on a Rule 50 motion the court “must disregard all evidence favorable to

the moving party ” (emphasis added)). The

jury was also free to discount Defendants’ version of events in light of contrary

exhibits and testimony—for instance, although Defendants argued that Plaintiff

injured herself when she angrily “flipp[ed] out,” Tr. 129:2–5, the command log that

documented Plaintiff’s condition when she was first processed at the precinct

marked her “mental condition” as “[a]pparently normal,” Tr. 290:22–291:4. Mr.

Rivera also testified that, while he was in a holding cell, he witnessed Plaintiff’s

entry into the 107th Precinct and she looked “perfectly fine.” Tr. 353:14–18.

Photographic evidence also supported the jury’s verdict on this claim.

Plaintiff introduced into evidence several photographs taken roughly twenty-four

hours after her assault showing that her face was bright red, indicating—consistent

with her testimony—that she had been slapped. Tr. 933:20–935:21. Plaintiff also

introduced into evidence a photograph showing dirty footprints on the tops of her

shoes, indicating—consistent with her testimony—that her feet had been stomped

on. Tr. 936:20–937:15. Perhaps most tellingly, Plaintiff introduced a photograph of

her injured hand taken shortly after being released from custody that shows that

her fingernails remained, in the words of counsel for both parties, “perfectly

manicured.” Tr. 1353:13; 1376:13. From this photograph, a reasonable jury

certainly had evidence upon which to find that Plaintiff did not repeatedly jam her

own thumb into a wall while she was in custody as Defendants claim, given the lack

of any chips, scrapes, or other marks on her neatly manicured thumb (or on her

thumb or fingers themselves).

The medical evidence in the record, contrary to Defendants’ assertion,

supports Plaintiff’s version of events. Although Defendants argue that the medical

records in evidence do not indicate that Plaintiff was slapped or choked as she

alleges, Tr. 1315:22–1316:13, those same records also provide ample support for

Plaintiff’s account. To highlight only the most obvious example, the record of her

hospital visit on January 23, 2015, logged at approximately 6:00 a.m., states that

Plaintiff suffered from an “assault.” Tr. 698:8–15.

Similarly, the parties each presented testimony from well-qualified medical

experts, who offered conflicting opinions as to the likeliest source of Plaintiff’s

injuries. Plaintiff’s witness Dr. Mark McMahon, an orthopedic surgeon, Tr. 614:12–

615:1, testified that Plaintiff’s injury, as evidenced by, MRI scans taken

several months after her night in custody, was consistent with her thumb forcibly

being bent backwards as she claimed (and as Defendants had denied), Tr. 641:20–

643:7; 644:3–11; 695:19–696:3. Plaintiff also introduced expert testimony from Dr.

Thomas Scolaris, an orthopedic surgeon who performed surgery on Plaintiff’s left

wrist, that the injuries to Plaintiff’s left wrist were consistent with her allegations

of excessively tight handcuffing. Tr. 786:24–787:8, 796:18–24; Tr. 805:24–806:11.

On the other hand, Defendants’ witness Dr. Salvatore Lenzo, an orthopedic surgeon,

testified that Plaintiff’s injury was instead consistent with her thumb being

repeatedly jammed against a wall. Tr. 878:24–25; 888:16–889:7; 922:23–923:5. The

jury was again free to credit Plaintiff’s expert testimony over Defendants’.

In sum, the Court concludes that there is clearly not “such a complete

absence of evidence supporting the verdict that the jury’s finding could only have

been the result of sheer surmise and conjecture” nor that the evidence on

Defendants’ favor was “so overwhelming that reasonable and fair minded persons

could only have reached the opposite result.” , 10 F.3d at 56. Indeed, the

evidence in the record strongly supports the jury’s finding that one or more NYPD

officers assaulted Plaintiff on the night of January 22, 2015. Therefore, as to

Plaintiff’s assault and battery claim, Defendants’ motion for judgment as a matter

of law is denied.

ii. Deliberate Indifference

The Court similarly concludes that the jury’s finding of liability on Plaintiff’s

claim of deliberate indifference is easily supported by sufficient evidence in the

record when taken in the light most favorable to Plaintiff. , 240 F.3d at

142.

As a threshold matter, several arguments that Defendant made orally at the

Rule 50(a) stage—that the alleged delay in Plaintiff’s medical treatment was “at

most five hours” which “is not a sufficiently lengthy delay under the circumstances

to rise to a constitutional violation,” Tr. 1313:2–5; that no evidence in the record

suggests that Plaintiff’s condition worsened due to the delay in treatment, Tr.

1313:19–24; and that the Court previously “treated this claim as one asserting a

delay of treatment and not a denial of medical treatment,” Tr. 1312:21–23—are best

described as arguments that Plaintiff has failed to state a claim, rather than

arguments that there exists insufficient evidence in the record from which a

reasonable jury could find for Plaintiff on these claims. In any event, at this stage,

the Court finds these arguments unpersuasive for the same reason Judge Kovner

rejected them in her order denying summary judgment on Plaintiff’s claim for

deliberate indifference. , 564 F. Supp. 3d at 88. And because the

arguments that undergird Defendants’ 50(a) motion are nearly identical to those

that Defendants unsuccessfully raised at summary judgment, the law of the case

doctrine “counsels [this C]ourt against revisiting” Judge Kovner’s prior rulings,

given that Plaintiff’s allegations regarding her delay in medical treatment remained

consistent, and Defendants have failed to cite “an intervening change of controlling

law, the availability of new evidence, or the need to correct clear error or prevent

manifest injustice.” , 529 F.3d 478, 490 (2d Cir. 2008) (citation

omitted).

Defendants first argue that Plaintiff’s claim cannot rise to a constitutional

violation because she was left in pain for “at most five hours.” Tr. 1313:2–5;

Defs.’ Motion for Summary Judgment, ECF No. 186 at 31 (“Although plaintiff

alleges that defendants delayed in providing her with medical treatment for a

period of five hours . . . such an alleged delay is not sufficient to support plaintiff’s

deliberate indifference claim.”). However, Judge Kovner earlier held—based on the

evidence developed during pretrial discovery—that a jury could find that “Ms.

Martinez’ pain was sufficiently severe that its treatment qualified as a serious

medical need” as long as it “infer[red] that Ms. Martinez was left in serious,

untreated pain for hours.” , 564 F. Supp. 3d at 104.

, 873 F. Supp. 2d 512, 514 (W.D.N.Y. 2012) (“Severe pain can itself

constitute a serious medical need for Eighth Amendment purposes.”). There were

not material changes in the evidence developed at trial that would warrant a

departure from Judge Kovner’s ruling at the Rule 50(a) stage—indeed, Plaintiff

testified in great detail that she repeatedly begged NYPD personnel for medical

attention while sitting in the juvenile room after her assault because she was

experiencing great pain. Tr. 1041:23–1043:19.

Second, Defendants argue that Plaintiff’s injuries did not worsen as a result

of Defendants’ delay in providing her with medical care. Tr. 1313:19–24;

Defs.’ Motion for Summary Judgment, ECF No. 186 at 31 (arguing same). However,

even if no evidence existed in the record to show that Plaintiff’s injury worsened due

to the delay, such a finding is not necessary for the jury to conclude that Defendants

were deliberately indifferent to her serious medical need, in light of the fact that (as

Judge Kovner previously held) a plaintiff can satisfy this requirement if the jury

finds that she was experiencing extreme pain. , 564 F. Supp. 3d at 104

(“While Ms. Martinez has submitted no evidence that the delay in treatment

worsened her injury, allegations of a ‘condition of urgency’ that ‘may produce ...

extreme pain’ satisfy the objective prong of the analysis.” (quoting

, 613 F. App’x 35, 38 (2d Cir. 2015)).

Third, Defendants argue that the Court previously “treated this claim as one

asserting a delay of treatment and not a denial of medical treatment,” which is true.

Tr. 1312:21–23; , 564 F. Supp. 3d at 104 (“When a detainee’s deliberate

indifference claim involves delay in treatment, not denial of treatment, the analysis

of the medical need focuses on the challenged delay rather than the prisoner’s

underlying medical condition alone in analyzing whether the alleged deprivation is,

in objective terms, sufficiently serious.” (quotation marks omitted and cleaned up)).

But during trial, Plaintiff—consistent with Judge Kovner’s analysis of her claim at

summary judgment—indeed litigated this claim solely as one constituting a delay of

treatment, rather than a denial of treatment. And with good reason: as Defendants

are well aware, there was undisputed evidence presented at trial that Plaintiff was

ultimately taken to Queens General Hospital in the early morning hours of January

23, 2015—but only after officers at the 107th Precinct brought her to Central

Booking, at which time the Central Booking personnel who began processing

Plaintiff determined that she needed immediate medical care. Tr. 1052:21–1053:3.

Defendants do raise two arguments under Rule 50(a) that the evidence in the

record is insufficient for a jury to conclude that the defendant officers were

deliberately indifferent to Plaintiff’s serious medical need: first, that Plaintiff’s

injury was “not sufficiently serious to rise to a constitutional violation,” Tr. 1313:7–

8, and, second, that the medical records in evidence do not support Plaintiff’s

assertion that she was experiencing extreme pain, Tr. 1313:9–18.

Defendants’ first argument fails. The objective prong of the deliberate

indifference to medical need test—that is, whether or not the plaintiff was indeed

experiencing a serious medical need—can be satisfied if the plaintiff is experiencing

a condition that “may produce . . . extreme pain.” , 99 F.3d

550, 553 (2d Cir. 1996). In its special interrogatory, the jury found that Plaintiff

was indeed experiencing extreme pain on January 22, 2015 as a result of her

injuries. This jury finding has ample support in the record, including Plaintiff’s

testimony that she “screamed [at] the top of [her] lungs” during the assault itself

and that she repeatedly asked for medical attention from the defendant officers, Tr.

1037:5; 1041:23–1043:19, as well as Mr. Rivera’s testimony that he could hear

Plaintiff’s screams from elsewhere in the precinct, Tr. 354:21–355:24, that her hand

was visibly injured, 357:17–358:1, that she was uncontrollably crying when he first

saw her after the assault, Tr. 362:15; 363:14–17, that her hand was in so much pain

that she could not initially be processed for fingerprinting, Tr. 356:8–15; 362:10–

363:9, and that she had visible finger marks on her neck, Tr. 397:25.

Finally, Defendants argue that the medical records in evidence do not

support Plaintiff’s assertion that she was experiencing extreme pain, Tr. 1313:9–18,

1314:18–1315:3, since Plaintiff reported to an EMT after she was taken to Central

Booking that she was experiencing a pain level of “six out of ten.” Putting aside the

fact that a person reporting experiencing pain at a level of six out of ten might be

experiencing very severe pain indeed—since a person experiencing pain would

presumably report a level of out of ten—the jury was free to infer from the

other evidence in the record already discussed in this opinion that Plaintiff’s pain

was even more severe in the hours before she was redirected from Central Booking

to the hospital’s emergency room, while she languished at the 107th precinct and

before she ever even saw the medical personnel to whom she reported this pain

metric. Medical testimony in the record also supports a jury finding that Plaintiff’s

pain was severe. For example, Plaintiff’s medical records demonstrate that she was

still taking pain medication and had received an injection of cortisone in her wrist

over a week after her assault, which Dr. McMahon testified “is a sign of how bad the

injury was.” Tr. 634:1–5. Dr. McMahon reached the same conclusion regarding the

severity of Plaintiff’s original injury when he was shown medical evidence that

Plaintiff was still complaining of hand pain two months after her assault, Tr.

635:19–636:10, that Plaintiff was underdoing occupational therapy ten months after

her assault, Tr. 648:14–25, that Plaintiff was seeking neurological treatment over

year after her assault, Tr. 652:20–653:6, and that Plaintiff still complained of pain

and swelling in her hands two years after the assault, Tr. 659:3–8; 668:3–10. While

Defendants argued that these conditions could well have been caused by Plaintiff’s

physically demanding work as a housekeeper, Tr. 1359:10–1360:18, the jury

was, of course, free to credit Plaintiff’s own testimony and that of her expert

witnesses and reject Defendants’.

In sum, the evidence in the record, considered in the light most favorable to

Plaintiff, is plainly sufficient for a jury to find that Plaintiff was experiencing a

serious medical need in custody, and that the defendant officers were deliberately

indifferent to that need. , 136 F.3d at 289. Therefore, with

respect to Plaintiff’s claims of deliberate indifference, Defendants’ Rule 50 motion

on the basis of insufficient evidence is denied.

II. Defendants’ Rule 50 Motions for Judgment as a Matter of Law—

Qualified Immunity

A. Legal Standard

Qualified immunity is a legal doctrine that “shields government officials

performing discretionary functions from liability for civil damages.”

, 494 F.3d 344, 367 (2d Cir. 2007) (citing , 457 U.S.

800, 818 (1982) (quotation marks omitted)). The doctrine “balances two important

interests—the need to hold public officials accountable when they exercise power

irresponsibly and the need to shield officials from harassment, distraction, and

liability when they perform their duties reasonably.” , 555 U.S.

223, 231 (2009). If an official violates a plaintiff’s constitutional or federal statutory

rights, she may nonetheless be entitled to qualified immunity in one of two ways.

First, even if the government official’s conduct is prohibited by federal law,

the official is entitled to qualified immunity “if the plaintiff’s right not to be

subjected to such conduct . . . was not clearly established at the time it occurred.”

, 285 F.3d 201, 210 (2d Cir. 2002); , 494

F.3d at 367 (noting that qualified immunity applies “insofar as [an official’s]

conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of

which a reasonable person would have known”) (citing , 457

U.S. 800, 818 (1982) (quotation marks omitted)); , 691 F.3d 226, 240

(2d Cir. 2012) (noting that the relevant right must have been clearly established “at

the time” that the violation occurred). “To determine whether a right is clearly

established,” a court must consider “(1) whether the right was defined with

reasonable specificity; (2) whether Supreme Court or court of appeals law supports

the existence of the right in question; and (3) whether under preexisting law a

reasonable defendant would have understood that his or her acts were unlawful.”

, 616 F.3d 100, 105 (2d Cir. 2010). , 356 F.3d

481, 490 (2d Cir. 2004) (“[A] right is clearly established if (1) the law is defined with

reasonable clarity, (2) the Supreme Court or the Second Circuit has recognized the

right, and (3) a reasonable defendant would have understood from the existing law

that his conduct was unlawful.”). The relevant case law need not be factually

identical to the case at issue in order to be “clearly established” for purposes of

qualified immunity, and officials “can still be on notice that their conduct violates

established law even in novel factual circumstances” as long as the relevant case

law provides officials with “fair and clear warning” that their conduct is

unconstitutional. , 536 U.S. 730, 741, 746 (2002) (citation omitted).

On the other hand, however, “courts must not define clearly established law at a

high level of generality, since doing so avoids the crucial question of whether the

official acted reasonably in the particular circumstances that he or she faced.”

, 138 S. Ct. 577, 590 (2018) (citation and quotation

marks omitted).

Second, even if government officials violate a plaintiff’s clearly established

rights, they “will nonetheless be entitled to qualified immunity ‘if it was objectively

reasonable for them to believe their acts did not violate those rights.’” , 494

F.3d at 367 (quoting , 23 F.3d 642, 648 (2d Cir. 1994) (cleaned

up)). , , 910 F.3d 65, 69–72 (2d Cir.

2018) (concluding that although the defendant officer violated plaintiff’s clearly

established rights, the officer was qualifiedly immune because “it was objectively

reasonable for him to believe that, given the undisputed facts, his conduct complied

with this clearly established law”).9 However, “if, on an objective basis, it is obvious

9 When considering a qualified immunity defense, the Second Circuit’s

approach to analyzing the “reasonableness” of an officer’s actions has varied, with

some panels of the Court undertaking this analysis when deciding whether the

relevant constitutional right was “clearly established,” and others proceeding with a

separate “reasonableness” analysis after concluding that the underlying

constitutional right was indeed clearly established. , 616 F.3d at 105

(employing the former approach to evaluate whether a right was clearly established

by considering, , “whether under preexisting law a reasonable defendant

would have understood that his or her acts were unlawful”), , 494 F.3d

at 367 (employing the latter approach to consider whether, even if the constitutional

right(s) at issue were clearly established, “it was objectively reasonable for [the

that no reasonably competent officer would have concluded” that his actions were

lawful, the defendant “will not be immune.” , 475 U.S. 335, 341

(1986). The purpose of the doctrine is to “give officials room to act with confidence

in gray areas by absolving from personal liability ‘all but the plainly incompetent or

those who knowingly violate the law.’” , 825 F.3d 89, 99–100 (2d

Cir. 2016) (quoting , 136 S. Ct. 305, 308 (2015)).

The applicability of qualified immunity is a “mixed question of law and fact.”

, 612 F.3d 149, 164–65 (2d Cir. 2010) (citation

omitted). Even if a defendant officer violated a plaintiff’s clearly established

constitutional rights, he is “still entitled to qualified immunity if ‘officers of

reasonable competence could disagree’ on the legality of the action at issue in its

particular factual context.” , 496 F.3d 139, 154 (2d Cir. 2007)

(quoting , 475 U.S. at 341). To that end, “[a] contention that—

notwithstanding a clear delineation of the rights and duties of the respective parties

at the time of the acts complained of—it was objectively reasonable for the official to

believe that his acts did not violate those rights has its principal focus on the

particular facts of the case.” , 374 F.3d 93, 109 (2d Cir.

2004) (quotation marks omitted).

officer-defendants] to believe their acts did not violate those rights”). In light of this

potentially conflicting guidance, and out of an abundance of caution, this Court

considers the reasonableness of the defendant officers’ actions twice, through

different lenses: once when considering whether Plaintiff’s right to receive adequate

care for serious medical needs as a pre-trial detainee was clearly established as of

January 22, 2015, and again when analyzing whether the officer-defendants’

actions were nonetheless objectively reasonable.

Because the applicability of qualified immunity may therefore turn on factual

nuances, factual questions relevant to the defense “must be resolved by the

factfinder”—for example, by special interrogatory. , 374 F.3d at 109. Once

the jury delivers its factual findings, the court must then decide whether the

doctrine of qualified immunity is applicable “on those facts.” ,

332 F.3d 68, 81 (2d Cir. 2003). “The ultimate question of whether it was objectively

reasonable for the officer to believe that his conduct did not violate a clearly

established right, , whether officers of reasonable competence could disagree as

to the lawfulness of such conduct, is to be decided by the court.” , 494 F.3d at

367.

B. Application

i. Qualified Immunity and Deliberate Indifference

As a threshold matter, it is far from clear whether it is ever possible for an

officer to be qualifiedly immune on a deliberate indifference claim once the jury has

found that officer liable. Indeed, several federal appellate courts have concluded

that, unlike in the context of many other constitutional violations, “[a] finding of

deliberate indifference is inconsistent with a finding of good faith or qualified

immunity” because “those deliberately indifferent to the plaintiff’s right could not

show that they had not violated established statutory or constitutional rights of

which a reasonable person would have known.” , 743 F.2d 1372,

1376 (9th Cir. 1984) (cleaned up), , , 475

U.S. 312 (1986); , 93 F.3d 339, 345 (7th Cir. 1996)

(concluding in the Eighth Amendment context that qualified immunity cannot apply

to a claim of deliberate indifference because no one “could reasonably have believed

that he could have deliberately ignored a known threat or danger”);

, 124 F.3d 198, at *4 (6th Cir. 1997) (“[I]t would not make any sense to

permit a prison official who deliberately ignored the serious medical needs of an

inmate to claim that it would not have been apparent to a reasonable person that

such actions violated the law.”). And many district courts have also concluded that

“deliberate indifference and qualified immunity are mutually exclusive.”

, No. CV 18-8305, 2020 WL 6650780, at *8 (C.D. Cal. Oct. 20,

2020) (quoting , 2016 WL 6921128, at *3 (C.D. Cal. May 12,

2016)); , 91 F. Supp. 3d 12, 35 (D. Mass. 2014) (“Some courts have

found that the qualified immunity analysis and the Eighth Amendment deliberate

indifference analysis fold into each other, reasoning that a reasonable officer would

know that conduct amounting to deliberate indifference violates the Eighth

Amendment.”). At least one federal appellate court, however, has suggested that

there may exist some logical ground for a simultaneous finding of deliberate

indifference and qualified immunity, albeit without reaching the issue after

dismissing the plaintiff’s claim on other grounds. , 728 F.2d 1020,

1025 (8th Cir. 1984) (discussing potential application of qualified immunity in

lawsuit alleging that prison officials were deliberately indifferent to plaintiff’s “right

to be reasonably protected from known dangers of attacks by fellow inmates,” which

was “clearly established” at time of alleged prison assault, but affirming grant of

summary judgment for defendants on liability) (citation omitted).

This Court shares the view of the numerous courts cited above that have

suggested or found that, as a logical matter, it may not be possible for two such

findings—liability against a defendant on a deliberate-indifference claim, which is

then vitiated by a defense of qualified immunity—to ever coexist in the same case.

To do so would require a Court to find that even after a jury has determined, based

on legally sufficient evidence, that an officer had the requisite knowledge and

mental state to make him indifferent to a plaintiff’s serious medical

need, that same officer still somehow harbored an that

he was not violating the detainee’s right to receive appropriate medical attention.

Notably, in their motion for summary judgment and in in their oral Rule 50(a)

motions, Defendants argued that they were entitled to qualified immunity on

Plaintiff’s deliberate indifference claim, but in neither instance did they point the

Court to any case, from any jurisdiction, in which, as here, the jury concluded as a

factual matter that (1) the plaintiff was experiencing extreme pain, (2) an

individual defendant actually knew that she was experiencing extreme pain, and (3)

the individual defendant did not “reasonably believe” otherwise—yet the court

nonetheless concluded that the officers’ failure to provide the plaintiff with

appropriate medical care was somehow objectively reasonable. But without clear

guidance from the Second Circuit on this particular question, the Court proceeds

with a standard qualified immunity analysis.

ii. The Law Was Clearly Established

The Court first concludes that Plaintiff’s constitutional right to receive

adequate medical care as a pre-trial detainee had been clearly established under

the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution for decades prior to the night that

she was taken into custody on January 22, 2015. Indeed, the constitutional right in

question “was defined with reasonable specificity,” both the Supreme Court and the

Second Circuit have long recognized this right, and, particularly in light of the

jury’s answers to the Court’s special interrogatory, “a reasonable defendant would

have understood that his or her acts were unlawful” on the facts that the defendant

officers faced on the night of Plaintiff’s detention. , 616 F.3d at 105.

A pre-trial arrestee’s right to adequate medical care has been defined with

specificity through a long-established two-part test.10 First, under the “objective”

prong of the standard, the detainee must demonstrate that she was suffering from a

“sufficiently serious” medical condition, defined as “a condition of urgency, one that

may produce death, degeneration, or extreme pain.” , 657 F.3d 116,

10 Whereas deliberate indifference claims in the pre-trial context are

cognizable under the Fourteenth Amendment, deliberate indifference in the post-

trial context (that is, among detainees who have been convicted of a crime) are

cognizable under the Eighth Amendment. However, the Supreme Court has made

clear that the Eighth Amendment case law provides a constitutional floor for pre-

trial detainees asserting claims of deliberate indifference to medical care, since “the

due process rights of [an arrestee] are at least as great as the Eighth Amendment

protections available to a convicted prisoner.” ,

, 463 U.S. 239, 244 (1983). As such, judicial opinions that analyze Fourteenth

Amendment deliberate indifference claims regularly cross-cite to standards

developed in the Eighth Amendment context, and the Court does the same here.

122 (2d Cir. 2011); , 99 F.3d 550, 553 (2d Cir. 1996). “Factors

relevant to the seriousness of a medical condition include whether a reasonable

doctor or patient would find it important and worthy of comment, whether the

condition significantly affects an individual’s daily activities, and whether it causes

chronic and substantial pain.” , 467 F.3d 263, 280 (2d Cir.

2006) (quotation marks omitted and cleaned up). More specifically, however, a

serious medical need has long been defined as one that “could result in . . . the

unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain.” , 219 F.3d 132, 136

(2d Cir. 2000). Second, under the “subjective” prong of the standard, an officer only

violates the Fourteenth Amendment if—at least according to Second Circuit case

law as of January 22, 2015—the officer was “actually aware” that the pretrial

detainee was suffering from a serious medical condition but nonetheless failed to

take appropriate action. , 581 F.3d 63, 72 (2d Cir. 2009).11

11 When deciding whether a defendant officer violated a plaintiff’s “clearly

established” constitutional right, a court must look to the law as it existed at the

time of the alleged violation. , 691 F.3d at 240. In the present case, Plaintiff

alleges that the defendant officers were deliberately indifferent to her serious

medical needs on January 22, 2015. Prior to that date, the Court of Appeals for the

Second Circuit had concluded that a pre-trial detainee’s Fourteenth Amendment

deliberate indifference claim, like a prisoner’s Eighth Amendment deliberate

indifference claim, turned in part on whether the plaintiff could prove that the

offending official was subjectively aware of her serious medical need and

nonetheless ignored it. , 581 F.3d at 72. Since that date, however, the Court

of Appeals for the Second Circuit has overruled , concluding that a pre-trial

detainee can raise a colorable deliberate indifference claim even “when an official

does not have subjective awareness that the official’s acts (or omissions) have

subjected the pretrial detainee to a substantial risk of harm” as long as the official

“knew or have known” that a certain condition “posed an excessive risk to

health and safety” for a pretrial detainee yet the official failed to act.

, 849 F.3d 17, 35 (2d Cir. 2017) (emphasis added). In other words, since the

The Court concludes that this two-part test, which had existed for at least

two decades on the night of Plaintiff’s assault, , 511 U.S. 825

(1994), was indeed defined “with reasonable specificity” as of 2015, and readily put

these defendant officers on notice as to their constitutional duties when exercising

custody over a pre-trial detainee experiencing a medical emergency. , 616 F.3d

at 105.

Second, both the Supreme Court and the Second Circuit have recognized a

pre-trial arrestee’s right to medical care for injuries or other serious medical needs.

, , 463 U.S. at 244 (“The Due Process Clause . . . require[s] the

responsible government or governmental agency to provide medical care to persons .

. . who have been injured while being apprehended by the police.”); ,

901 F.2d 274 (2d Cir. 1990) (reversing district court’s grant of summary judgment

on pre-trial detainee’s Fourteenth Amendment claim of deliberate indifference to

medical need); , 101 F.3d 845, 856 (2d Cir. 1996) (“[T]he official

custodian of a pretrial detainee may be found liable for violating the detainee’s due

process rights if the official denied treatment needed to remedy a serious medical

night of Plaintiff’s assault, the Second Circuit has loosened the “subjective” prong

for a claim for deliberate indifference, allowing a plaintiff to prevail by proving that

even if the officer was not knowingly indifferent to her medical needs, he was

recklessly so.

In light of the Court’s obligation to consider Defendants’ qualified immunity

defense in relation to the law as it existed at the time of their conduct, it will apply

the standard. The legal distinction between and is not

meaningful, however, in light of the jury’s determination, as reflected in its

responses to the Court’s special interrogatory, that all four defendant officers

subjectively aware that Plaintiff was suffering from extreme pain on January 22,

2015, ECF No. 239 at 1–2, but nonetheless failed to act for nearly five hours.

condition and did so because of his deliberate indifference to that need.”); ,

581 F.3d at 69 (“[A] person detained prior to conviction receives protection against

mistreatment at the hands of prison officials under the Due Process Clause of the

Fifth Amendment if the pretrial detainee is held in federal custody, or the Due

Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment if held in state custody.”). This, too,

supports a finding that the law regarding constitutionally adequate medical care for

pre-trial detainees was clearly established in January 2015.

Third, a reasonable officer would have understood from this case law that

defendants’ conduct on January 22, 2015, as found by the jury, was unlawful. As

outlined above, the case law made clear to any reasonable officer that a pre-trial

arrestee’s Fourteenth Amendment right to adequate medical care is violated if (1)

she is experiencing extreme pain, and (2) the relevant officer(s) actually knew of

this fact yet failed to take appropriate action. In response to the special

interrogatory, the jury found that both of those requirements were present on the

night of Plaintiff’s assault: Plaintiff had complained of extreme pain while she was

custody, and each individual officer was subjectively aware of that pain yet did not

act until they brought her to Central Booking early the next morning. The jury

further found that none of the four defendants “reasonably believe[d]” that the

Plaintiff was in extreme pain while she was in their custody. The Court

concludes that the jury’s findings of fact are readily supported by the trial record.

Thus, the third prong of is also satisfied.

Moreover, while factually identical Supreme Court or Second Circuit case law

need not exist for a right to be clearly established, , 536 U.S. at 741, 746, the

Court notes that the Second Circuit found a strikingly similar set of factual

allegations to state a constitutional claim nearly two decades before the night that

Plaintiff was injured at the 107th Precinct. , 101 F.3d at 850, 857. In

, the Court made clear that an officer violates a pre-trial arrestee’s

Fourteenth Amendment rights when an arrestee experiences a non-lethal medical

emergency and the arresting officers bring the plaintiff to an intermediary NYPD

facility for multiple hours, rather than directly to the hospital; similarly, here,

Defendants delayed Plaintiff’s medical treatment when they brought her to Central

Booking several hours after she first reported experiencing extreme pain, rather

than to a hospital. The plaintiff in , while being arrested, informed his

arresting officers that he was a diabetic and believed he was going into insulin

shock. at 849. The plaintiff alleged that he was “pale, dizzy, perspiring

profusely, trembling uncontrollably, hardly able to talk, and repeatedly losing

consciousness” before the plaintiff “perk[ed] up” after a non-defendant officer

administered an insulin shot. at 857. Yet the arresting officers did not take him

to a hospital, instead processing his arrest and taking him to the barracks. at

849–850. The Court reversed the district court’s grant of summary judgment,

holding that a jury that believed the plaintiff’s account “could infer that [the

defendants] received information, and could see for themselves that [the plaintiff]

was in serious need of immediate medical care and yet denied him such care

because they were deliberately indifferent to that need.” at 857.

In sum, the Court concludes from the foregoing analysis that, as of January

22, 2015, the law around deliberate indifference in the pre-trial context was

“defined with reasonable clarity” in light of the fact that “the Second Circuit ha[d

repeatedly] recognized the right,” and that “a reasonable defendant would have

understood from the existing law” that the defendant officers’ conduct was unlawful.

, 356 F.3d at 490. Plaintiff’s constitutional right to adequate medical care as an

arrestee, which defendants violated, was therefore clearly established on the day of

her assault.

iii. Defendants’ Actions Were Not Objectively Reasonable

The Court further concludes that no reasonable officer could have believed in

the “particular factual context” present to the individual defendants on January 22,

2015, that their conduct did not violate Plaintiff’s Fourteenth Amendment rights.

, 496 F.3d at 154. , 494 F.3d at 368 (“Once the jury has resolved any

disputed facts that are material to the qualified immunity issue, the ultimate

determination of whether the officer’s conduct was objectively reasonable is to be

made by the court.”).

The jury found, as memorialized in its responses to the special interrogatory,

that (1) Plaintiff was experiencing extreme pain, (2) each individual defendant was

specifically aware that Plaintiff was experiencing extreme pain, and (3) no

individual defendant reasonably believed that Plaintiff was experiencing

extreme pain. ECF No. 239 at 1–2. These findings are amply supported by the

record, including Plaintiff’s testimony regarding the extent of her extreme pain,

testimony that certain defendant officers frequently checked on Plaintiff during the

five hours prior to bringing her to Central Booking, Tr. 128:9–23, Plaintiff’s

testimony that these officers waited to bring Plaintiff to Central Booking because

her bruising was still too noticeable, Tr. 1041:7, and testimony by both Plaintiff and

Mr. Rivera that she repeatedly cried out for help and complained of pain after

sustaining her injuries, Tr. 362:15; 363:14–17; 1042:25–1043:3. No reasonable

officer who was subjectively aware that a detainee in his custody was experiencing

extreme pain but deliberately waited five hours to transport her from the 107th

Precinct—and then transported her to Central Booking, and not to a medical

facility—could have believed that he was not violating the detainee’s constitutional

rights. Indeed, Defendants had no difficulty conceding that “it is not okay” for an

officer “to refuse medical treatment to someone in custody who requires medical

treatment and who is asking for medical treatment.” Tr. 172:15–21. Although they

each denied having done so here, the jury found to the contrary, and those

findings—and the specific evidence on which they were based—establish that the

officers’ conduct was not objectively reasonable.

* * *

For these reasons, the Court concludes that the defendant officers are not

entitled to qualified immunity on Plaintiff’s claim of deliberate indifference.

Defendants’ Rule 50(a) motion on this theory is therefore denied.

III. Defendants’ Rule 59 Remittitur Motion

A. Legal Standard

Under Rule 59 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, “[t]he court may, on

motion, grant a new trial on all or some of the issues” after a jury trial “for any

reason for which a new trial has heretofore been granted in an action at law in

federal court.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(a)(1). A motion for a new trial based on excessive

damages is cognizable under this rule. , , 14 F.

Supp. 3d 58, 80 (E.D.N.Y. 2014). If a district court judge concludes that a jury

verdict is excessive, she may either “order[] a new trial without qualification” or

order a new trial “conditioned on the verdict winner’s refusal to agree to a reduction

(remittitur).” , 148 F.3d 149, 165 (2d Cir. 1998) (quoting

, 518 U.S. 415, 433 (1996)).

, 49 F.3d 93, 96 (2d Cir.1995) (“If a district court finds

that a verdict is excessive, it may order a new trial, a new trial limited to damages,

or, under the practice of remittitur, may condition a denial of a motion for a new

trial on the plaintiff's accepting damages in a reduced amount.”).

As a general matter, the standard of review for a Rule 59 motion is “[u]nlike

[that for] a motion for judgment as a matter of law under Rule 50(b)” because “in

considering a motion for a new trial under Rule 59 ‘a trial judge is free to weigh the

evidence himself, and need not view it in the light most favorable to the verdict

winner.’” , 212 F. Supp. 2d 59, 65 (E.D.N.Y. 2002)

(quoting , 163 F.3d 124 (2d Cir. 1998)).

However, the Second Circuit has offered conflicting guidance as to whether this

standard applies to Rule 59 remittitur motions in particular, with the Court at one

point stating in dicta that “[o]n a motion to set aside or reduce a jury verdict for

excessiveness, trial courts . . . are required to view all evidence in the light most

favorable to sustaining the jury’s verdict.” , 711 F.3d 85, 98 n.10 (2d

Cir. 2013).12

Regardless of any favorable inferences that may (or may not) be afforded to a

prevailing plaintiff when reviewing the trial evidence, however, the Second Circuit

has made clear that a jury’s verdict should “rarely be disturbed,” and a Rule 59

remittitur motion, as is true on any motion for a new trial, should therefore only be

granted if the verdict was “seriously erroneous or a miscarriage of justice.”

, 277 F.3d 633, 635 (2d Cir. 2002).

Punitive damages awards are “an integral part of the remedy in a civil rights

action.” , 572 F.2d 52, 54 (2d Cir. 1978). Indeed, because a jury

has “wide discretion” to award punitive damages in a civil rights action, a district

court “may refuse to uphold a punitive damages award” only when the amount is

“so high as to shock the judicial conscience and constitute a denial of justice.”

, 101 F.3d 805, 808 (2d Cir. 1996) (quoting

12 The parties disagree over the applicable standard, with Defendants

arguing that the Court is, as with any Rule 59 motion, free to weigh the evidence,

and Plaintiff arguing that the Court must view the evidence in the light most

favorable to her as the non-movant. Because the Court concludes that Defendants’

remittitur motion fails even under Defendants’ preferred standard, the Court need

not settle this disagreement.

, 850 F.2d 876, 883 (2d Cir. 1988)). To that end, a

district court must look to three “guideposts” when deciding whether a punitive

damages award is excessive: (1) the degree of reprehensibility of the tortious

conduct; (2) the ratio of punitive damages to compensatory damages; and (3) the

difference between this remedy and the civil penalties authorized or imposed in

comparable cases. , 517 U.S. 559, 574–75 (1996)).

, 18 F.4th 383, 390 (2d Cir. 2021) (same). These factors,

however, are “non-exhaustive.” , 18 F.4th at 390 (quoting , 517 U.S.

at 574–75 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (“[T]he Court nowhere says that these three

‘guideposts’ are the guideposts; indeed, it makes very clear that they are

not.”)). Indeed, “in gauging excessiveness,” a court must also be mindful of the dual

purposes served by an award of punitive damages in the civil right context: “to

punish the defendant and to deter him and others from similar conduct in the

future.” , 101 F.3d at 808–09 (quoting , 976 F.2d 118, 121 (2d

Cir. 1992)).13

13 After the jury returned its verdict, Defendants indicated that they would

also submit written briefs moving the Court to set aside the jury’s compensatory

damages award as excessive. Tr. 1503:20–23. However, Defendants ultimately

limited their motion to the jury’s punitive damages award. ECF Nos.

244, 260. The Court therefore considers Defendants’ motion withdrawn as it relates

to Plaintiff’s compensatory damages award.

B. Application

i. Degree of Reprehensibility

The Court must first consider the reprehensibility of each defendant’s

conduct in this action. In , the Supreme Court defined this factor as “perhaps

the most important” in the Court’s analysis of whether the jury’s damages award is

excessive. , 517 U.S. at 575. To guide its consideration on this factor, the

Court must decide whether or not three “aggravating factors” exist with respect to

each defendant: “(1) whether a defendant’s conduct was marked by violence or

presented a threat of violence, (2) whether a defendant’s conduct evinced trickery or

deceit as opposed to mere negligence, and (3) whether the record supports a finding

of intentional malice.” , 18 F.4th at 390. , 101 F.3d at 809

(defining the relevant aggravating factors as “(1) whether a defendant’s conduct was

violent or presented a threat of violence, (2) whether a defendant acted with deceit

or malice as opposed to acting with mere negligence, and (3) whether a defendant

has engaged in repeated instances of misconduct.”).

These factors all weigh against Defendants. First, Defendants’ deliberately

forced Plaintiff to endure a multi-hour delay after sustaining extremely painful

physical injuries in their custody before she was provided with access to any

medical care. The jury concluded that each individual officers knew that Plaintiff

was experiencing extreme pain. Plaintiff testified that she repeatedly begged for

medical care. Nonetheless, the four individual officers let Plaintiff, who had just

been subjected to a violent assault by one or more NYPD officers while in handcuffs,

and over whom the individual defendants had absolute control, remain in pain and

without access to treatment for hours. Even assuming that Defendants’

conduct did not constitute “overt violence,” it certainly entailed “an element of real

and force that could have aroused the jury,” , 101 F.3d at 810

(emphasis added), since Plaintiff had no idea as she sat handcuffed to a bench

whether her pain levels might increase even further, or whether she might suffer

from long term physical damage without the medical care she needed. And for any

person, the protracted denial of access to medical care while in such extreme pain,

even if not an act of overt violence, is a stressful and fear-inducing scenario.

As for the second and third aggravating factors, Plaintiff presented ample

evidence supporting her claim that the defendant officers were motivated by deceit

and malicious intent—indeed, “[t]he reprehensible nature of the officers’ conduct” in

this action included evidence of “steps they took to cover up their misconduct,” and

the jury was entitled to consider “a record that included . . . falsified accounts . . .

and perjured trial testimony.” , 18 F.4th at 391. The jury heard ample

testimony, and saw several trial exhibits, that supported the inference that the

defendant officers in this action not only delayed in providing Plaintiff with

adequate medical care, but did so specifically for the purpose of attempting to cover

up the actions of Plaintiff’s NYPD assailant(s). For example, Plaintiff testified that

the defendant officers repeatedly checked on Plaintiff in the hours after her assault,

Tr. 1040:15–10:41:1, and that Plaintiff overheard the officers say to each other

“she’s too, she’s still bruised” before leaving the room, Tr. 1041:7. The jury also

heard a recording of a phone call made by defendant Camhi to IAB describing

Plaintiff’s self-injuries, which Plaintiff argued—and the jury was free to agree—was

made in a pretextual attempt to create a favorable paper trail to hide the conduct of

Plaintiff’s assailant(s), and presented an array of circumstantial evidence to support

her claim that the officer-defendants intentionally delayed in bringing Plaintiff to

Central Booking to cover up the fact of her assault. In sum, the trial record strongly

supports the inference that each of the defendants acted deliberately indifferent to

Plaintiff’s severe medical need in a manner that was malicious, deceitful, or both. A

jury is clearly entitled to award punitive damages in such a scenario. , 18

F.4th at 392 (“[B]ecause of the deterrent function” of punitive damages awards,

“extra-compensatory damages are warranted where the misconduct was designed to

escape detection.”); , 79 F.3d 33, 35 (7th Cir. 1996)

(describing the special need for punitive damages awards “[w]hen a tortious act is

concealable” since, in the absence of punitive damages, a repeated tortfeasor “will

not be confronted by the full social cost of his activity”).

Defendants argue that the jury’s $100,000 punitive damages award against

each defendant was inappropriate because the defendants were “[n]ot [e]qually

[c]ulpable.”14 Yet the jury heard specific evidence supporting a finding that each of

14 The Court pauses to note the potential ethical quandary into which the

Office of the Corporation Counsel may place itself by making this argument while

representing all four officers. Defense counsel argue that some defendant officers

were more culpable than others—and suggest in their brief that defendant Ryan

was the most blameworthy, and therefore most deserving of punitive damages,

because he checked on Plaintiff after her injury more frequently than the other

defendant officers. ECF No. 244 at 11 (“[I]t cannot be said that each of the

the four defendants engaged in reprehensible conduct related to Plaintiff’s denial of

medical care while in extreme pain—either by intentionally concealing her injuries

for the purpose of covering up the assault committed against her, maliciously

ignoring Plaintiff’s serious injury and cries of extreme pain, or both. For instance,

the jury heard that defendant Ryan personally checked on Plaintiff repeatedly

throughout the night as the officers confided in each other that Plaintiff was still too

injured to be taken to Central Booking. Tr. 1041:2–22. The jury heard that

defendant Laliberte not only checked on Plaintiff at least once but was also

stationed directly outside the juvenile room as Plaintiff languished in pain for hours

without access to medical care. Tr. 1041:1–24. The jury not only learned that

defendant Camhi personally restrained Plaintiff while she sustained her injuries,

Tr. 403:15–24, but it also heard an audio recording of the call that defendant Camhi

made to IAB reporting Plaintiff’s injury as self-inflicted and insisting that her

injury “wasn’t caused by MOS,” Tr. 422:22–423:1—statements that the jury must

have concluded were false in light of its finding on Plaintiff’s state law assault and

battery claim ( that her injuries were in fact caused by New York City police

officers). ECF No. 237 at 2. The jury heard Plaintiff’s testimony that, when she

defendants’ conduct was equally culpable to justify equal punitive damages awards.

. . . [A]t the very least, the awards against defendant DiGennaro, Camhi and

Laliberte must be reduced.”). In their reply, Defendants clarified that they raised

this argument to “demonstrate[] a lack of care by the jury” when it considered

punitive damages as to each defendant. ECF No. 260 at 13. But the Corporation

Counsel represents defendant Ryan and must advocate for him as zealously the

other defendants named in this action. That is especially so in light of the fact that

the Corporation Counsel informed the Court by letter on February 22, 2023 that the

City has not yet decided whether it will indemnify the individual officers to this

action for Plaintiff’s punitive damages award. ECF No. 248 at 3.

attempted to speak through her tears to Mr. Rivera while being fingerprinted and

crying out in pain, defendant DiGennaro did not even acknowledge her complaints

or inspect her wrist to determine whether she required medical attention, but

instead told Plaintiff “not to speak Spanish in there.” Tr. 1045:2–8.

Defendants insist that Plaintiff is somehow estopped from arguing that the

jury could conclude that evidence of a cover-up is relevant to Plaintiff’s deliberate

indifference claims, since in summation, Plaintiff raised this argument to the jury

only when addressing her excessive force claims. ECF No. 260 at 7, 9–11.

Defendants’ argument has two significant flaws.

First, the Second Circuit has made clear that even acts of misconduct which

do not themselves form an independent basis of liability may nonetheless be

relevant to a jury’s assessment of punitive damages if there exists a “nexus”

between that misconduct and other conduct that gave rise to liability. , 18

F.4th at 391 n.3. In , the Court rejected the defendants’ proposition that “a

punitive award cannot rest on conduct independent from the acts upon which

liability was premised,” and concluded that the jury, when awarding punitive

damages, was entitled to consider the elaborate steps that the officers took to cover

up their use of excessive force, even though that cover-up did not itself form the

basis of liability on that claim. Therefore, even assuming that

Plaintiff only asked the jury to award punitive damages because of actions they took

to cover up the unconstitutional use of force in causing her underlying injuries, the

jury was nonetheless entitled to consider those facts when deciding whether to

award punitive damages against the officers whom it found to be deliberately

indifferent to Plaintiff’s medical needs. This is because ample evidence at trial

supports a finding that the officers decided to delay Plaintiff’s access to medical care

for approximately five hours after she was assaulted in hopes of concealing the true

source of her injuries, that they were intentionally inflicted upon Plaintiff by

one or more police officers while she was restrained in handcuffs, in retaliation for

her failure to provide them with information to assist their ongoing narcotics

investigation.

Second, Defendants’ argument misstates the record on which it is premised:

the trial court record does not indicate that Plaintiff ever argued to the jury that

Defendants’ attempts to cover up Plaintiff’s assault should be considered only with

respect to her excessive force claim. First, Plaintiff’s counsel argue to the jury

that Defendants were deliberately indifferent to Plaintiff’s medical need specifically

for the purpose of concealing Plaintiff’s assault. Tr. 1395:9–13 (“And every time a

cop would come in, [Plaintiff] would say help me. I need medical attention. And Ms.

Martinez told you they looked at her and sa[id] oh, is the swelling still there. Oh,

no. It’s still too red. Can’t get you help yet. It’s way too visible now.”). Second, the

Court instructed the jury that it could award punitive damages if it concluded that

an individual defendant’s conduct on January 22, 2015 was “done in a reckless or

call[o]us disregard of, or indifference to, the rights of the injured person,” Tr.

1431:14–16, and that the jury should assess the size of the appropriate punitive

damages award if it concluded that the defendant’s behavior, , involved

acts of “deceit,” or were “motivated by . . . a desire to obtain some type of benefit,”

Tr. 1432:8–10. These instructions as to punitive damages did not differ with

respect to Plaintiff’s various claims, and with respect to her deliberate indifference

claim, the jury had ample evidence upon which to conclude, consistent with the

Court’s instructions, that each officer-defendant acted deceitfully or maliciously in

the five hours Plaintiff spent sitting in pain because he was motivated in that time

to hide the true source of Plaintiff’s injury. The jury concluded that the officer-

defendants, by waiting five hours to bring Plaintiff to Central Booking (at which

point Plaintiff’s escorting officers were directed to bring Plaintiff to the hospital

immediately), were deliberately indifferent to her urgent medical need. In light of

the significant trial evidence that Defendants actively and consciously attempted to

evade detection of Plaintiff’s injuries, the evidence certainly supports the conclusion

that the defendant officers’ delay was motivated by both deceit and a desire to

obtain a benefit—namely, for the individual defendants and/or their fellow officers

not to face discipline or other consequences for having assaulted a handcuffed

detainee in retaliation for her refusal (or, as Plaintiff testified, her inability) to

provide incriminating information to further their investigation into Mr. Rivera’s

drug purchases.

In sum, even when independently weighing the evidence favorable to

Plaintiff against that favorable to Defendants, the Court concludes that the four

officer-defendants’ actions were sufficiently reprehensible to justify the jury’s

punitive damages award for each defendant. The first factor, therefore,

weighs in favor of Plaintiff.

ii. Ratio of Punitive to Compensatory Damages

As a general matter, a court considering whether a punitive damages award

is excessive should consider the size of the award relative to the size of any

compensatory damages that the jury awarded for the same conduct. However, “in a

§ 1983 case in which the compensatory damages are nominal . . . the use of a

multiplier to assess punitive damages is not the best tool.” , 101 F.3d at 811. In

this case, the jury awarded Plaintiff $1 in nominal damages for her deliberate

indifference claims. Both parties agree that the Court need not address this factor

on these facts, ECF Nos. 244 at 8–9; 257 at 19, and the Court therefore considers it

neutral.

iii. Comparison with Punitive Damages Awards in Similar

Cases15

“Courts have often found it helpful in deciding whether a particular punitive

award is excessive to compare it to court rulings on the same question in other

cases.” , 711 F.3d at 104. However, a court’s task is not simply to “balance

the number of high and low awards and reject the verdict . . . if the number of lower

awards is greater,” , 899 F.2d 183, 187 (2d Cir. 1990), because “the

15 Neither party has made any argument to the Court as to the relevance of

the factor regarding comparable civil or criminal sanctions to Defendants’

motion. ECF Nos. 244 at 9; 257 at 20. The Court therefore considers this factor

to be neutral.

factual differences between cases can make it difficult to draw useful comparisons.”

, 711 F.3d at 105. Rather, the court must “focus instead on whether the

verdict lies within the reasonable range.” , 702

F.3d 655, 671 (2d Cir. 2012).

As a threshold matter, the Second Circuit has indicated in police misconduct

cases that a punitive damages award against an individual officer in the range of

$125,000 to $175,000 would be “substantial,” and the Court has implicitly

considered such an award to be a rough upper range for punitive damages against

any one defendant officer. , 711 F.3d at 105. However, since that time, the

Second Circuit made clear in that courts must adjust previous awards for

inflation before comparing those awards with the jury’s award in the case before

them. , 18 F.4th at 393 n.7.

In , an excessive force case, the Court affirmed the district court’s

denial of defendants’ remittitur motion to reduce the jury’s punitive damages

award, including a $250,000 award against one defendant. , 18 F.4th at

393. The Court looked to other Second Circuit cases that concerned “similarly

reprehensible conduct” and concluded that the award fell below punitive damages

awards that the Court had previously upheld those awards were adjusted for

inflation. (concluding that prior Second Circuit decisions had affirmed punitive

damages awards of $438,000 in total against two officer-defendants and $319,000

against one officer-defendant after those awards were adjusted for inflation)

(citations omitted). And even assuming that can be read to set a

presumptive upper-limit for punitive damages awards in police misconduct cases,

that ceiling would be at least $225,000 per officer-defendant in today’s dollars16—

more than double what Ms. Martinez’s jury awarded here.17

In the present case, Court concludes that, when compared against punitive

damages awarded in cases whose facts are comparable to the present case, a

punitive damages award of $100,000 against each officer for their deliberate

indifference unquestionably “lies within the reasonable range” established by those

cases. , 702 F.3d at 671.

The Court looks first to , an excessive force case in which the Second

Circuit sustained the jury’s punitive damages award, including an award of

$250,000 against one officer. The $100,000 awarded against each defendant in this

action is less than half of the $250,000 punitive damages award sustained by the

Second Circuit against the most culpable officer in . Moreover, both cases

16 All relevant totals have been adjusted for inflation using the Bureau of

Labor Statistics’ Inflation Calculator. CPI Inflation Calculator, U.S. Bureau of

Lab. Stat., bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm.

17 In fact, in light of courts’ obligations after to adjust prior

punitive damages awards for inflation when comparing amounts, any presumptive

upper limit set by would be much higher. In , which was decided in

2013, the Court noted that in , 993 F.2d 294, 299 (2d Cir. 1993) it had

twenty years earlier (in 1993) concluded that an award of $125,000 to $175,000

would be “substantial.” , 711 F.3d at 105. In today’s dollars, however, any

ceiling set by the court based on ’s 1993 jury award would be nearly

$400,000, an outcome that is, in any event, more consistent with other Second

Circuit caselaw. , , 18 F.4th at 393 (affirming punitive damages

award of $250,000 against individual defendant officer); , 899 F.2d at 184

(vacating district court’s remittitur of $150,000 punitive damages award in police

misconduct case, an amount equal to over $350,000 in today’s dollars).

involve significant steps taken by the officers to cover up their assault, making

defendants’ actions in both cases especially deserving of punitive damages.18 In

fact, the Court in concluded that the $250,000 punitive damages award

against the most culpable defendant fell within the range set by other comparable

cases “even if we were to ignore that [the officer-defendants] took steps to conceal

their use of excessive force. Taking the officers’ deliberate concealment of evidence

into account only heightens the degree of malice associated with their excessive

force and further confirms that the punitive damages were supported by the record

evidence.” , 18 F.4th at 393–94.

The Court recognizes that Defendants highlight several district court cases in

which awards for punitive damages fell below $100,000 per officer on claims of

deliberate indifference. , No. 13-cv-1154, 2017 WL 11473740

18 In a similar vein, Defendants list in their brief several cases in which

courts ultimately affirmed punitive damages awards smaller than $100,000 per

officer-defendant, even though those cases involved “brutal[] beat[ings]” not present

in this case. ECF No. 244 at 13–14, Even assuming that those cases involved

acts of violence in which the civil rights violations were arguably more extreme than

the ones in this action, the Court does not consider them to be appropriate

comparators in light of the Second Circuit’s guidance in that punitive

damages can be awarded not only when an officer-defendant inflicts egregious

violence, but also when the officer takes steps to intentionally cover up misconduct.

This result is also consistent with the basic legal distinction between compensatory

and punitive damages. By way of analogy, if an officer subjects an arrestee to force

so excessive that it causes severe injuries, but the officer’s actions (though

unreasonable) show little or no ill intent, a jury might properly award the arrestee

high compensatory damages for the injuries she suffered, but low (or no) punitive

damages. Conversely, if an officer subjects an arrestee to excessive force that

ultimately causes less significant physical injuries, but the evidence shows that the

officer acted with substantial malice and intent to inflict harm, a jury would be

within its right to award low compensatory damages and comparatively high

punitive damages.

(D. Conn. Feb. 8, 2017) ($50,000); , No. 7cv148, 2011 WL

674023 (D. Conn. Feb. 16, 2011) ($1,000); , No. 94 Civ.

0476, 2001 WL 604017 (S.D.N.Y. June 1, 2001) ($10,000 and $5,000);

, 49 F. Supp. 2d 170 (W.D.N.Y. 1999) ($15,000 and $10,000). ECF No. 244

at 12–13. These cases all differ from the present case, however, in a critical respect:

they involved no attempts by officers to cover up their misdeeds.

It is also true that published decisions reflect a “relative dearth of punitive

damages awards for claims of deliberate indifference to serious medical needs,”

, 2017 WL 11473740, at *25 (citation omitted). This makes it appropriate

to look to other comparable cases in the area of police misconduct: punitive damages

awarded against officers who attempted officers to cover up misconduct they or

their fellow officers were found to have committed.19 When gauged against those

cases, the Court concludes that the jury’s punitive damages award of

$100,000 per officer falls well within this permissible range.

* * *

In sum, the Court concludes that the jury’s award of $100,000 in punitive

damages against each officer-defendant in this action is not so high as to shock the

judicial conscience. Defendants’ Rule 59 remittitur motion is therefore denied.

19 Defendants, in their reply, challenged Plaintiff’s citations to punitive

damages awards in cases outside the police misconduct context, which Plaintiff

alleged were comparable in other respects. Defs.’ Reply, ECF No. 260 at 15–19

(citing P. Opp., ECF No. 256 at 21–23). In light of the other cases cited , the

Court need not consider the additional authorities proffered by Plaintiff.

CONCLUSION

For the reasons outlined above, Defendants’ remaining post-trial motions are

each denied.

SO ORDERED.

/s/ Nina R. Morrison

NINA R. MORRISON

United States District Judge

Dated: July 19, 2023

Brooklyn, New York