United States District Court, D. Connecticut
RULING ON THE COURT'S IN CAMERA DOCUMENT
REVIEW
Hon.
Vanessa L. Bryant United States District Judge
On
March 6, 2019, the Court held a discovery status
teleconference with the parties in this case. During the
teleconference, Plaintiff and the Town Defendants argued for
and against, respectively, production of all complaints,
incident reports, and the like, relating to Defendants
Colangelo and Gompper. Thereafter, the Court ordered the Town
Defendants to review and produce said documents. To the
extent Defendants had legitimate legally supported objections
to production of certain complaints and/or incident reports,
the Court allowed Defendants to submit those complaints and
reports to the Court for in camera review. Accordingly, the
Town Defendants submitted three limited sets of documents to
the Court for in camera review on March 18, 2019, along with
a letter brief arguing against production. For the reasons
discussed below, the Court orders production of only one set
of documents, the Investigative Report regarding Defendant
Gompper.
Discussion
Parties
may obtain discovery regarding any non-privileged matter that
is relevant to any party's claims or defenses and
proportional to the needs of the case. Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(b)(1).
The information sought need not be admissible at trial to be
discoverable. Id.
Here,
Plaintiff sought all disciplinary records and complaints
against Defendants Colangelo and Gompper. “Plaintiffs
[in civil rights cases] are presumptively entitled to
discovery of documents on prior complaints and police
histories of individual defendants because it could yield
relevant information.” Gibbs v. City of New
York, 243 F.R.D. 96, 96 (S.D.N.Y. 2007) (citing King
v. Conde, 121 F.R.D. 180, 198 (E.D.N.Y. 1988);
Hurley v. Keenan, 1984 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16888, at *8
(S.D.N.Y. 1984)). However, plaintiffs are not entitled to
disciplinary records and complaints unrelated to the issues
in the pending case or the truthfulness of potential
witnesses, as such complaints have no relevance to the claims
or defenses. See Gross v. Lunduski, 304 F.R.D. 136,
144 (W.D.N.Y. 2014) (requiring production of
“complaints of similar misconduct”); Sowell
v. Chappius, No. 07-cv-6355, 2010 WL 1404004, at *1
(W.D.N.Y. Mar. 31, 2010) (holding that prior complaints are
discoverable “so long as the complaints are similar to
the constitutional violations alleged in the complaint or are
relevant to the defendant's truth or veracity”);
Henry v. Hess, No. 11 Civ. 2707, 2012 WL 4856486, at
*1 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 12, 2012) (finding “complaints of
misconduct and disciplinary records against a defendant
police officer . . . that are similar to the allegations in
the civil action against him would be subject to
discovery”).
Two of
the sets of documents submitted by the Town Defendants for in
camera review concern Defendant Colangelo's fitness for
duty, the particulars of which are not relevant to the claims
or defenses in this case or Defendant Colangelo's
credibility. Accordingly, Plaintiff is not entitled to these
documents.
A third
set of documents submitted constitute an investigative report
concerning Defendant Gompper from 2018. In May 2018, a Canton
woman emailed a complaint to the Canton Police Department
requesting that Defendant Gompper not respond to any future
calls from her home. The email alleged that Defendant Gompper
previously had a relationship with the woman's daughter,
noting that she had seen photographs of Defendant Gompper in
his police vehicle which he sent the daughter. After the
relationship ended, Defendant Gompper responded to a domestic
disturbance report at the home. His presence reportedly
greatly upset the daughter. This email precipitated an
investigation into potential inappropriate conduct by
Defendant Gompper. The investigation included a number of
interviews and documented relationships between Defendant
Gompper and several women, including another city employee,
and involving communication and conduct while Defendant
Gompper was on duty. Defendant Gompper resigned in October
2018, prior to the conclusion of the investigation.
The
Court finds that these documents are relevant to the claims
and defenses in this case-Plaintiff's equal protection
and malicious prosecution claims in particular. Plaintiff
alleges that Defendants Colangelo and Gompper denied her
police protective services in choosing not to seriously
consider and investigate her sexual assault claim because of
their animus towards women who assert such complaints. The
investigative report at issue is probative of Defendant
Gompper's motivations in handling Plaintiff's
complaint. It is most probative of Defendant Gompper's
credibility and propensity for untruthfulness. Defendant
Gompper represented to the community and the Police
Department that he was executing his responsibilities while
on duty, while at the same time engaging in inappropriate
communications and conduct-including taking and sending
photographs of himself in uniform and in his police vehicle,
abusing his position of trust and misuse of office. In
addition to his misappropriation of public funds, abuse of
office and betrayal of public trust, he was unfaithful to his
spouse. Infidelity usually involves breaking one's
marriage vows and dishonesty with one's partner (and
others), thereby implicating one's character for
truthfulness. The Court recognizes that individuals have a
privacy interest in their personnel files but concludes that
the investigative file is relevant to the case and therefore
must be produced.
Defendant
suggests that the report should not be produced because he
resigned before the investigation was complete and therefore
did not have an opportunity to rebut or grieve the findings
or advocate that it be removed from his file. The report
includes multiple transcripts of interviews with Defendant
Gompper discussing the alleged misconduct. In these
interviews, Defendant Gompper admitted to much of the
conduct. He then proceeded to voluntarily resign from the
police force. This does not render the investigative report
undiscoverable.
Privacy
concerns will be addressed via redaction and limitation on
disclosure of the documents. The report must be designated
for “Attorneys' Eyes Only” and may not be
shown to non-counsel. Additionally, the Court will hold a
teleconference to provide clear instructions regarding
allowable use of the information in the report to address
third-party privacy concerns.
Finally,
Defendant argues that the documentation does not meet the
proportionality standard of Rule 26(b)(1). This argument is
unfounded. The proportionality limitation in Rule 26 concerns
volume as well as the effort involved in complying with a
discovery request. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1),
advisory committee notes. Production of the investigative
report does not implicate either of these concerns.
Defendants have already collected the investigative report,
which is quite short in length, and production will involve
minimal effort on the part of Defendant's counsel.
Conclusion
For the
foregoing reasons, the Court orders Defendants to produce the
2018 investigative report concerning Defendant Gompper with
the “Attorneys' Eyes Only” designation within
7 days of this decision. The Court will enter a calendar
notice on the docket with the date and time of a
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