23-730-cv Pal v. Canepari

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

SUMMARY ORDER

RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING TO A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.

At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the 30th day of September, two thousand twenty-four.

PRESENT: BARRINGTON D. PARKER, BETH ROBINSON, Circuit Judges, VERNON D. OLIVER District Judge. * _____________________________________

Neelu Pal, †

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v. 23-730

Mark Canepari, in his official and personal/individual capacities, Arnault Baker, in his official and personal/individual capacities, Brandon Harris, in his official and personal/individual capacities, Town of Wilton,

Defendants-Appellants,

* Judge Vernon Dion Oliver, of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, sitting by designation. † The clerk’s office is directed to amend the caption as reflected above. John Lynch, in his official and personal/individual capacities, Anna Tornello, in her official and personal/individual capacities, Joseph Bryson, Drew Kennedy, Harry Downs, Wilton Volunteer Ambulance, John Does, A-Z, Jane Does, A-Z, Doe Corporations, 1-50,

Defendants,

Norwalk Hospital,

Consol-Defendant. _____________________________________

FOR PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE: NEELU PAL, pro se, Westport, CT.

FOR DEFENDANTS-APPELLANTS: ANDREW J. GLASS, James N. Tallberg, Karsten & Tallberg, LLC, Rocky Hill, CT.

Appeal from an order of the United States District Court for the District of

Connecticut (Shea, J.)

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED,

AND DECREED that the order of the district court is AFFIRMED.

Appellants Mark Canepari, Arnault Baker, Brandon Harris, police officers with

Wilton Police Department, and the Town of Wilton appeal the district court’s order

denying in part their motion for summary judgment with respect to Appellee Neelu Pal’s

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claims against them for excessive force. 1 Pal v. Canepari,

(March 30, 2023). Pal claims that the officers used excessive force by placing her in

handcuffs that were too tight and then by ignoring her complaints of pain and refusing

to loosen the handcuffs. The district court rejected the Appellants’ qualified-immunity

defense in denying summary judgment as to that claim. The Appellants filed a notice of

interlocutory appeal from the order denying qualified immunity. We assume the parties’

familiarity with the underlying facts, the procedural history of the case, and the issues on

appeal.

On an interlocutory appeal from a denial of qualified immunity, our jurisdiction

is limited to whether the defendant has established the immunity defense as a matter of

law “based on stipulated facts, or on the facts that the plaintiff alleges are true, or on the

facts favorable to the plaintiff that the trial judge concluded the jury might find.”

Soukaneh v. Andrzejewski,

(2d Cir. 2024). 2

The Fourth Amendment governs the reasonableness of how a search or seizure is

conducted. Graham v. Connor,

(1989). We have expressly held that

“excessively tight handcuffing that causes injury can constitute excessive force” under

the Fourth Amendment. Shamir v. City of N.Y.,

(2d Cir. 2015). Qualified

1 In May 2023, Pal filed a notice of cross appeal, which a panel of this Court dismissed as an appeal from a nonfinal order. Therefore, Pal’s cross appeal is not before this panel. 2 In quotations from caselaw and the parties’ briefing, this summary order omits all internal quotation marks, alterations, footnotes, and citations, unless otherwise noted. 3 immunity can shield defendants from constitutional claims where their conduct “does

not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable

person would have known.” White v. Pauly,

, 78–79 (2017). For a right to be

clearly established, “existing precedent must have placed the statutory or constitutional

question beyond debate.” Ashcroft v. al-Kidd,

, 741 (2011). The purpose of the

doctrine is to make sure that officials being sued had “fair warning” that their actions

were unlawful. Hope v. Pelzer,

, 739–40 (2002).

The Appellants primarily contend here that the district court erred because the law

it relied on in denying them qualified immunity was not clearly established at the time

of the alleged excessive force in 2018. Specifically, they contend that in denying their

motion for summary judgment on their qualified immunity defense, the district court

improperly relied on our 2019 decision in Cugini v. City of New York,

(2d Cir.

2019).

We disagree. While the district court did cite to Cugini, a case published after the

incident at issue in this appeal, Cugini itself recognized that before 2018 it was clearly

established that tight handcuffing can constitute excessive force where, as here, the

plaintiff made an explicit verbal complaint.

.

In Cugini, the plaintiff who alleged she had suffered wrist injuries due to

excessively tight handcuffs had reacted as if she was in pain but had not verbally

complained to the officers that her handcuffs were too tight. We explained that the 4 plaintiff could show that the officer reasonably should have known that the use of force

was excessive “if either the unreasonableness of the force used was apparent under the

circumstances, or the plaintiff signaled her distress, verbally or otherwise, such that a

reasonable officer would have been aware of her pain, or both.”

. We concluded

that the plaintiff had made the necessary showing and turned to the question of qualified

immunity.

.

With respect to whether these principles were clearly established at the time of the

2014 incident, we said: “At the time of the plaintiff’s arrest, the use of excessive force in

handcuffing was prohibited by clearly established constitutional law.”

That

conclusion regarding clearly established law was based upon Second Circuit precedent

and, independently, the “consensus . . . among our sister circuits that unduly tight

handcuffing can constitute excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment.”

at

615–16. Although we went on to conclude that it was not clearly established in 2014

whether this general rule applies where the handcuffed individual “exhibited only non-

verbal aural and physical manifestations of her discomfort,”

, we expressly

distinguished that scenario from the then-established caselaw that recognized an

excessive force claim based on overly tight handcuffs in circumstances in which the

individual made “an explicit verbal complaint.”

There is no question in this case that

Pal made repeated explicit verbal complaints. See also Shamir,

(recognizing

potential excessive force claim where officer intentionally and excessively tightened zip 5 ties around plaintiff’s wrists and denied plaintiff’s request to loosen the cuffs after the

plaintiff complained that the handcuffs were “really . . . tight”); Calamia v. City of New

York,

, 1035–36 (2d Cir. 1989) (affirming denial of judgment

notwithstanding the verdict on qualified immunity where plaintiff complained

repeatedly that handcuffs were “cutting into his wrists”).

Accordingly, the law was clearly established at the time of the events at issue in

this case that failing to loosen excessively tight handcuffs when an individual complains

of pain can give rise to a Fourth Amendment excessive force claim. And for purposes of

this appeal, in which we are required to accept the plaintiff’s version of the facts as true,

we accept Pal’s assertions that the handcuffs were too tight and do not credit Officer

Harris’s claim that he double-locked the handcuffs such that they could not tighten. The

district court therefore properly denied Appellants summary judgment on their qualified

immunity defense.

We have considered all of Appellants’ remaining arguments and find them to be

without merit. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the order of the district court.

FOR THE COURT: Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court

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