Iacobucci v. Town of Pembroke
Case Date: 10/04/1999
Court: United States Court of Appeals
Docket No: 97-1586
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For the First Circuit Nos. 97-1485 & 97-1585 RICHARD IACOBUCCI, Plaintiff, Appellee, v. WILLARD BOULTER, Defendant, Appellant. ____________________ No. 97-1586 RICHARD IACOBUCCI, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. WILLARD BOULTER, Defendant, Appellee. APPEALS FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS [Hon. Patti B. Saris, U.S. District Judge] Before Selya, Circuit Judge, Cyr, Senior Circuit Judge, and Lipez, Circuit Judge. J. Russell Hodgdon, with whom Petze & Hodgdon was on brief, for plaintiff. Stephen C. Pfaff, with whom Douglas I. Louison and Merrick, Louison & Costello were on brief, for defendant. October 4, 1999 SELYA, Circuit Judge. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court decided Kolstad v. American Dental Ass'n, 119 S. Ct. 2118 (1999), affording a fresh perspective on the circumstances under which juries may award punitive damages in federal civil rights cases. These cross-appeals require us to revisit the punitive damages threshold in light of Kolstad. After acquitting this responsibility and addressing other pertinent issues, we affirm the judgment below. I. BACKGROUND On the evening of March 26, 1991, Richard Iacobucci, the plaintiff herein, visited the Pembroke Town Hall to videotape a scheduled meeting of the Pembroke Historic District Commission (the Commission). Such forays were mother's milk to Iacobucci, who intermittently filmed sessions of local boards, including the Commission, for a weekly news program that he produced and broadcast via a cable television outlet. On the evening in question, the Commission's stated purpose was to review building applications. The commissioners sat along three sides of a four-sided conference table. As he had done in the past, Iacobucci positioned his tripod at the unoccupied end of the table. Soon after the meeting commenced, the chairman, Otis Hathon, twice asked Iacobucci to move his equipment across the room. Iacobucci declined, explaining that his view of the commissioners' and applicants' faces would be obstructed. Hathon did not suffer rejection gladly; at one point, he extinguished the lights, remarking: "I hope your camera can see in the dark." When this petulance failed to sway Iacobucci, Hathon warned him of the possibility of arrest should he fail to move. That warning, too, fell on deaf ears, prompting a commissioner to alert the local constabulary. Two Pembroke police officers, Flannery and Jenness, responded. They asked Iacobucci to turn off the camera and talk with them in the corridor. Iacobucci replied that he had a right to record the proceedings, that he intended to exercise it, and that he would not converse until the meeting ended. The stalemated officers called their superior, Sergeant Willard Boulter (the principal defendant herein). The meeting adjourned before Sgt. Boulter arrived, presumably because the last applicant had not appeared. Iacobucci packed his gear. He then noticed the commissioners speaking in the hallway with a man carrying a set of plans. Believing that man to be the tardy applicant, Iacobucci retrieved his camera and began filming the group on the assumption that he was witnessing a de facto resumption of the adjourned meeting. Iacobucci persisted despite importunings from some of the commissioners to stop. Sgt. Boulter arrived at that juncture, stepped in front of the lens, and demanded that Iacobucci cease and desist. Iacobucci demurred, sidestepped adroitly, and resumed his journalistic endeavor. This pas de deux continued until Sgt. Boulter gave Iacobucci an ultimatum: sit down or be arrested. When Iacobucci kept filming, Boulter took the camera from him, grabbed his elbow, led him into another room, handcuffed him, and placed him under arrest. The police transported Iacobucci to the station house and charged him with disorderly conduct and disrupting a public assembly. Iacobucci spent about four hours in custody before the authorities released him. When he reclaimed his camera, he discovered that the videotape no longer contained any images and that the sound track was barely audible. The criminal charges eventually were dismissed, but Iacobucci (a law school graduate, although not a practicing attorney) filed a pro se civil action that asserted a golconda of claims against numerous defendants. We need not dwell on the details, because pretrial proceedings winnowed the trialworthy issues to three claims pressed by Iacobucci against Boulter. These included claims under 42 U.S.C. 1983 premised on false arrest and excessive force, respectively, and a state-law claim premised on intentional infliction of emotional distress. The three claims were tried to a jury, which found for Boulter on two of them. On the section 1983 false arrest claim, however, the jury sided with Iacobucci and awarded him $75,000 in compensatory damages and $135,000 in punitive damages. The verdict did not please Boulter. He renewed his earlier motion for judgment as a matter of law and asked, alternatively, for a new trial or for a remittitur. The district court struck the punitive damages, but otherwise denied Boulter's post-trial motions. Both parties now appeal. II. BOULTER'S APPEAL Like all Gaul, Boulter's appeal is divided into three parts. He assails the district court's handling of the section 1983 false arrest claim because the court (1) should not have permitted the claim, if ever properly in the case, to go to trial; (2) improvidently admitted evidence that was both irrelevant and prejudicial; and (3) erred in rejecting a qualified immunity defense. We examine these asseverations seriatim. A. The Status of the Section 1983 False Arrest Claim. The wrangling over this issue breaks down into two subsidiary questions: Was the section 1983 false arrest claim properly pled? If so, did it survive summary judgment? The district court answered both questions affirmatively. So do we. In narrowing the issues immediately prior to trial, a dispute arose concerning what claims were outstanding. Boulter considered only two claims to be zoetic: a section 1983 excessive force claim and a state-law claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress. In contrast, Iacobucci took the position that a section 1983 false arrest claim also remained in the case. After reviewing the complaint and the summary judgment record, the lower court concluded that Iacobucci had adequately pled a section 1983 false arrest claim, and that this claim had not been addressed (let alone terminated) at the summary judgment stage. Consequently, the court allowed Iacobucci to litigate the claim. Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2) requires that a complaint contain a "short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief." The complaint in this case satisfied that undemanding criterion vis- |