The opinion
[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
FILED
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
No. 10-13514 NOVEMBER 15, 2011
JOHN LEY
CLERK
D. C. Docket No. 6:08-cv-01853-GAP-GJK
SIGNATURE PHARMACY, INC.,
a Florida corporation,
ROBERT STAN LOOMIS,
an individual,
KENNETH MICHAEL LOOMIS,
an individual,
NAOMI LOOMIS,
an individual, et al.,
Plaintiffs-Appellees,
versus
P. DAVID SOARES,
an individual,
CHRISTOPHER B. BAYNES,
an individual,
ALBANY COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S OFFICE,
a political subdivision,
Defendants-Appellants.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Florida
(November 15, 2011)
Before DUBINA, Chief Judge, HILL, Circuit Judge, and GOLDBERG,* Judge.
PER CURIAM:
Appellees Signature Pharmacy, Inc., et al. (“Signature”)1 filed suit against
the Albany County District Attorney’s Office (“Albany DA”); Albany County
District Attorney, P. David Soares (“Soares”); Assistant Albany County District
Attorney, Christopher P. Baynes (“Baynes”); Alex Wright (“Wright”), an officer
with the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation (“MBI”); the City of Orlando; and
Mark Haskins (“Haskins”), an officer with the New York Bureau of Narcotics
Enforcement (“NYBNE”). The claims arise from a raid of Signature’s premises
and the arrest of Signature’s owners and employees in connection with an anabolic
steroids investigation. This appeal addresses the claims against the Appellants
Albany DA, Soares, and Baynes.
Appellees sued Soares and Baynes pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 on claims
of unlawful arrest and unlawful conspiracy, and pursuant to Florida common law
for intentional infliction of emotional distress (“IIED”). Appellees sued Soares
and the Albany DA for injurious falsehood and defamation under Florida common
*
Honorable Richard W. Goldberg, United States Court of International Trade Judge,
sitting by designation.
1
Signature is owned by Robert Stan Loomis, Naomi Loomis, and Kenneth Loomis. Kirk
Calvert and Tony Palladino were Signature employees. We will refer to this group collectively as
“Individual Appellees.”
2
law. Appellees also brought a § 1983 claim against the Albany DA pursuant to
Monell v. N.Y. City Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 98 S. Ct. 2018 (1978),
alleging liability for the actions of its decision maker, Soares, for unlawfully
arresting the Individual Appellees. The Albany DA, Soares, and Baynes moved
for summary judgment on all claims. The district court granted summary judgment
as to the Florida IIED claim, but denied summary judgment as to all other claims.
Soares and Baynes appeal the district court’s denial of summary judgment
on the unlawful arrest claim and contend they are entitled to either absolute or
qualified immunity against the claim. Soares and Baynes also argue that the
district court erred in denying summary judgment on the § 1983 conspiracy claim
because the Appellees failed to allege an underlying constitutional violation.
Finally, the Albany DA appeals the district court’s denial of summary judgment on
the § 1983 Monell claim. After carefully reviewing the record and the parties’
briefs and having the benefit of oral argument, we reverse the district court’s
denial of summary judgment on all claims.
I.
In 2005, the Drug Enforcement Agency (“DEA”) and the Florida Office of
Statewide Prosecutor Anne Wedge-McMillen asked the MBI to assist in an
investigation of Signature, a pharmacy with two locations in central Florida. MBI
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agreed and Wright was assigned as the lead agent on the case. The investigation
focused on potential violations of state and federal laws restricting the prescription
and sale of anabolic steroids and human growth hormones.
Shortly after becoming the lead case agent, Wright attended a briefing on
the case hosted by the DEA in Dallas, Texas, and was introduced to Baynes and
Haskins. Wright, Baynes, and Haskins agreed to share information on Signature
weekly as the investigation progressed. During this time Wright remained in
contact with Baynes and Haskins on the progress of his investigation.
By summer of 2006, Wright and Wedge-McMillen had assembled a
144-page wiretap application and presented it to a Florida state court. The court
approved the wiretap which permitted Wright to monitor Signature’s phone and
fax lines for 60 days. At the conclusion of the 60 days, Wright hosted a meeting at
MBI’s Orlando Office attended by Wedge-McMillen, Baynes, Haskins, and
Albany County District Attorney David Soares, among others. It was the opinion
of those at the meeting that there was evidence from the wiretap indicating that
Signature was involved in the illegal sale of steroids and that it was shipping the
steroids to New York. At the meeting, the parties present agreed that the case
would be prosecuted separately in Florida and New York state courts. The plan
was for Soares and Baynes to secure sealed indictments against the Individual
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Appellees. Meanwhile, Wright was to secure search warrants for Signature’s
premises. Then, when Wright executed the search warrants, the indictments
would be unsealed, and the Appellees would be arrested and transported to New
York.
Following the summer meeting at MBI, Soares, Baynes, Haskins, and
Wright began what the district court described as a “public relations campaign”
with the purpose of “connect[ing] Signature to professional athletes who were
allegedly taking steroids.” The campaign included interviews with local
newspapers in addition to Sports Illustrated and ESPN. The majority of the
statements were allegedly made by Soares and Baynes, though Haskins and
Wright are also alleged to have spoken with the media.
In December 2006 and January 2007, the grand jury in Albany County
Court in Albany County, New York, returned its first indictment against the
Individual Appellees. A week later, the grand jury returned a superceding
indictment. There are several differences between the two documents: the second
indictment dropped one count of criminal possession of a controlled substance,
added one count of criminal diversion of prescriptions, and changed the insurance
fraud count from second degree to third degree. The allegations contained in the
two indictments, however, are materially the same.
5
On February 14, 2007, the New York state court issued warrants for the
Individual Appellees on the grand jury’s first indictment, rather than the
superceding indictment. The reason for this is not contained in the record, but the
parties speculate that it was because the court was somehow unaware of the
superceding indictments. Sometime after securing the New York indictments and
the arrest warrants and before the morning of February 27, 2007, Soares and
Baynes left New York for Florida to participate in arresting the Individual
Appellees.
On the evening of February 26, Wright secured three search warrants—one
for each of Signature’s locations and one for a separate location that housed some
of Signature’s computer servers. The following morning, on February 27, Wright,
Baynes, Soares, Orlando police officers, and DEA agents executed the search
warrants amid a sea of reporters and news crews. During the execution of the
warrants, the Individual Appellees were arrested by Orlando police officers
pursuant to Soares’s and Baynes’s direction that there were valid New York arrest
warrants for the Appellees. Because Soares and Baynes neglected to bring copies
of the New York arrest warrants, the Individual Appellees were not provided with
copies of the warrants until days after the arrests, despite their repeated requests.
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The New York criminal case against the Individual Appellees is ongoing.
Florida elected not to prosecute. No administrative actions were ever taken
against any of the licensed pharmacists who worked for Signature and they all
remain licensed, though they have been unable to find work, allegedly due to the
reputational fallout from the investigation and the press coverage.
As previously mentioned, Signature’s claims in this case include § 1983
claims against Soares and Baynes for unlawful arrest and conspiracy and a §1983
Monell claim against the Albany DA. Soares and Baynes moved for summary
judgment on the basis of absolute or qualified immunity and the Albany DA
moved for summary judgment on the Monell claim. The district court denied both
motions. Soares and Baynes appeal the district court’s denial of immunity on the
§ 1983 claims and the Albany DA asks that this court accept pendant jurisdiction
to hear its appeal of the district court’s denial of summary judgment on the Monell
claims.
II.
A district court order denying a motion for summary judgment on the basis
of immunity from suit is reviewed by this court de novo. Maggio v. Sipple, 211
F.3d 1346, 1350 (11th Cir. 2000). Summary judgment is appropriate where “the
pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together
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with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material
fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.
R. Civ. P. 56(c). When assessing the sufficiency of the evidence in favor of the
nonmoving party, the court must view all the evidence, and all factual inferences
reasonably drawn from the evidence, “in the light most favorable to the
non-moving party.” Hairston v. Gainesville Sun Publ’g Co., 9 F.3d 913, 918
(11th Cir. 1993).
III.
A. Unlawful Arrest
The Appellees allege that Soares and Baynes violated their Fourth
Amendment rights by or “commanding” and “directing” their warrantless arrest.
At the heart of the claim is the allegation that Soares and Baynes instructed Wright
to arrest the Individual Appellees based on deficient arrest warrants for the
Appellees issued by a New York court. The Individual Appellees were arrested
pursuant to Fla. Stat. § 941.14, which allows for warrantless arrests “upon
reasonable information that the accused stands charged in the courts of a state with
a crime punishable by . . . imprisonment for a term exceeding one year.” Soares
and Baynes neglected to bring the New York warrants for the arrest of the
Appellees with them when they traveled from New York to Florida to participate
8
in the raids. These warrants were based upon the original indictment in the New
York case, which had been superceded by a second indictment.
Soares and Baynes argue that the district court erred in denying them
prosecutorial immunity and qualified immunity against the unlawful arrest claim.
The district court concluded that Soares and Baynes had no prosecutorial business
in Florida, but that in directing the arrest of the Appellees, they were acting as
Wright’s “fellow investigative officers.” The court noted that the only
prosecutorial function Soares and Baynes “could have performed in Florida would
have been to assist the Florida State Court in carrying out a demand from New
York to extradite [the Appellees]—a task Soares and Baynes eschewed in favor of
making quick and highly publicized arrests.” The court concluded, “taking all
reasonable inferences in favor of the Plaintiffs, Soares’ and Baynes’ activities on
February 27, 2007 appear to have been focused in significant part on ensuring that
[Appellees’] arrests and the raids would be covered by the media.”
Absolute immunity depends on the function performed by the prosecutor
and not the job title itself. Jones v. Cannon, 174 F.3d 1271, 1281 (11th Cir.
1999). Thus the court examines “the nature of the function performed, not the
identity of the actor who performed it.” Buckley v. Fitzsimmons, 509 U.S. 259,
259, 113 S. Ct. 2606, 2608 (1993). Accordingly, absolute immunity applies to the
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prosecutor’s actions “in initiating a prosecution and in presenting the State’s
case.” Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, 431, 96 S. Ct. 984, 995 (1976).
Even if a prosecutor is denied absolute immunity, a prosecutor may have
qualified immunity when performing a function that is not associated with his role
as an advocate for the state. Jones, 174 F.3d at 1281–82. The defense of qualified
immunity “offers complete protection for government officials sued in their
individual capacities if their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory
or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Vinyard
v. Wilson, 311 F.3d 1340, 1346 (11th Cir. 2002) (quotation marks and citation
omitted). “[T]o receive qualified immunity, an official must first establish that ‘he
was acting within the scope of his discretionary authority when the allegedly
wrongful acts occurred.’” McCullough v. Antolini, 559 F.3d 1201, 1205 (11th Cir.
2009) (quoting Lee v. Ferraro, 284 F.3d 1188, 1194 (11th Cir. 2002)). “If the
official was acting within the scope of his discretionary authority . . . the burden
shifts to the plaintiff to show that the official is not entitled to qualified
immunity.” Skop v. City of Atlanta, 485 F.3d 1130, 1136–37 (11th Cir. 2007). In
evaluating claims of qualified immunity, the Court considers whether (1) the
plaintiff has alleged a violation of a statutory or constitutional right; and (2)
whether the right was “clearly established” at the time of the defendant’s
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misconduct. Id. at 1137. This two-pronged analysis may be done in whatever
order is deemed most appropriate for the case. Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S.
223, 241, 129 S. Ct. 808, 821 (2009).
This court need not determine whether absolute immunity applies because
we conclude from the record that the Appellees have failed to show the violation
of a clearly established right. See Lee v. Ferraro, 284 F.3d 1188, 1195 (11th Cir.
2002) (stating that officials are entitled to immunity for an unlawful arrest claim
so long as there was probable cause or arguable probable cause for the arrest.).
Here it is undisputed that neither Baynes nor Soares physically arrested anyone,
but the allegations are that they directed the officers from the Orlando Police
Department to do so based on pending charges in New York. Fla. Stat. § 941.14
directly authorized the arrest of the Appellees based on the New York felony
charges.
The Appellees devote a substantial part of their briefs to, perhaps justifiably,
complaining about Soares’ and Baynes’ bad behavior—noting that Soares and
Baynes failed to bring the New York warrants (and that they were technically
deficient), arguing that they were obsessed with the media attention and made
defamatory remarks about the Appellees, and claiming they acted crudely on the
flight from Florida to New York while escorting the Appellees back to New York
11
to face charges. Those claims, however, are not tied to the alleged constitutional
deprivation.
The issue regarding the validity of the New York warrants and Soares’s and
Baynes’s failure to bring them with them are not supportive of Appellees’ claim.
Regardless of whether the warrants in New York were valid, it is undisputed that
there were pending felony charges against the Appellees in the state of New York.
Fla. Stat. § 941.14 permits the warrantless arrest of individuals so long as there are
pending felony charges against the person or persons arrested. There is no
requirement under § 941.14 that there be valid arrest warrants in that state as well.
Therefore, the uncontested fact that there were pending felony charges in New
York, with or without the arrest warrants, would have provided a sufficient basis
for the Appellees’ arrest under Florida law.
Likewise, whether it was improper for Soares and Baynes to have been in
Florida, involved in the execution of the search warrants, or to have made
statements to the press is not germane to an unlawful arrest claim. The Appellees
have not raised § 1983 claims for defamation, malicious prosecution, or illegal
search or seizure against the Appellants. Accordingly this court need not discuss
whether Soares’s and Baynes’s decisions to travel to Florida and plant themselves
at the center of the media coverage of the raid is entitled to immunity protection.
12
The question is simply whether Soares and Baynes violated the Individual
Appellees’ clearly established rights by directing their arrest on pending felony
charges. We conclude that they did not. The New York indictments provided
probable cause for the Individual Appellees’ arrests and therefore the district court
erred in denying summary judgment to Soares and Baynes on the unlawful arrest
claim.
B. Unlawful Conspiracy
A § 1983 claim for conspiracy to violate constitutional rights requires
showing that a conspiracy existed and it resulted in the actual denial of some
underlying constitutional right. Grider v. City of Auburn, 618 F.3d 1240, 1260
(11th Cir. 2010). Because Soares and Baynes did not deny Appellees their Fourth
Amendment rights, there is no actionable wrong to support the conspiracy claim.
Thus, Soares and Baynes are entitled to summary judgment on this claim as well.
C. Monell Claim for Unlawful Arrest
Similarly, because we can discern no violation of the Appellees’ Fourth
Amendment rights to be free from unlawful arrest, we conclude that the Monell
claim cannot stand. As pleaded, the claim asserts liability based exclusively on
the alleged Fourth Amendment violations by Soares. Having found no such
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violation, we reverse the judgment of the district court and conclude that summary
judgment in favor of the Albany DA is proper as to this claim.
IV.
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the district court is reversed and the
case is remanded for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion.
REVERSED and REMANDED.
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