The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit's summary of its decision in this action, Carruthers v Colton - 22-3232-cv, is set out below:
"Judgment, entered on November 29, 2022, by the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York (Frederick J. Scullin, Jr., Judge), granting the motion to dismiss Carruthers’s complaint, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), filed by Defendants-Appellees Kimberly Colton, Charles Humphreyville, and Kristen Weston (hereinafter, “Defendants”).
"Carruthers brought claims, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §1983, for malicious prosecution, fabrication of evidence, false arrest, and failure to intervene against Defendants, who are all New York State Troopers.
"The claims arose from Defendants’ alleged participation in a traffic stop of Carruthers’s vehicle on September 4, 2017, in Oneida County, New York, and in his subsequent arrest and prosecution for a felony driving while intoxicated (“DWI”) offense, multiple lesser DWI-related offenses, and a traffic infraction.
"We conclude that the district court correctly dismissed Carruthers’s false arrest claim and the portion of his malicious prosecution claim based on the DWI related charges that were dismissed as part of his guilty plea to the traffic infraction but erred in dismissing Carruthers’s malicious prosecution claim as to the terminated felony charge and his fabrication of evidence claim.
"First, with respect to the false arrest claim, we agree with the district court that Carruthers’s guilty plea to the traffic infraction established probable cause for his arrest and defeats that claim. Second, as to the malicious prosecution claim, the district court correctly held that Carruthers does not have a viable claim as to the DWI-related charges dismissed as part of the negotiated guilty plea.
"We generally assess the favorable termination element of a malicious prosecution claim charge by charge. Applying that rule to the guilty plea context, when a charge is dismissed as part of a negotiated agreement in which the defendant agrees to plead guilty to a different charge, that dismissal does not constitute a favorable termination for the purposes of a malicious prosecution claim. However, even if a guilty plea has been entered into for one or more charges, a favorable termination can be established for another dismissed charge in the same criminal case if the dismissal was unrelated to the plea disposition.
"Thus, Carruthers has a plausible claim as to the terminated felony charge because the amendment of that charge to a misdemeanor (which effectively dismissed the felony charge) does not appear, based upon the complaint, to have been terminated as part of the guilty plea disposition.
"Finally, with respect to the fabrication of the evidence claim, we conclude that Carruthers has adequately alleged particularized facts that, when construed in his favor, could reasonably give rise to the inference that Trooper Colton intentionally fabricated evidence to justify the DWI-related charges.
"Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court as to the false arrest claim and the malicious prosecution claim insofar as it relates to the DWI related charges dismissed as part of the plea agreement, we VACATE the judgment of the district court as to the malicious prosecution claim only as it 3 relates to the terminated felony charge and the fabrication of evidence claim, and we REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion."
Click HERE to access the full text of the Second Circuit's decision in this matter.