Late one evening, members of the Fall River Police Department responded to a report that an armed individual was holding hostages in a residential building. Officers swept the building and found no such activity in what was at that point believed to be a swatting call.
An individual, who was alone in his apartment in the building that night, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging that officers burst into his apartment, pointed weapons at him, struck him multiple times and otherwise roughed him up as his residence was searched without a warrant or exigency for his apartment. He filed a complaint advancing claims of federal and state civil rights violations, assault and battery, the intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligence.
RJA’s Andy Gambaccini represented the Chief of Police and one of the officers in the action. By means of an initial dispositive motion, through which any facts alleged in the complaint have to be taken as true for purposes of the motion, all seven claims against the Chief of Police were dismissed at the outset of the litigation. In addition, four of the seven claims against the officer also were dismissed at that time.
The remainder of the case proceeded to discovery. At the plaintiff’s deposition, he was locked into testimony that made it clear that pursuing the remaining claims against the officer would be unwise on the plaintiff’s part. Prior to filing a dispositive motion based upon that testimony, Gambaccini explained the nature of the forthcoming motion and why the plaintiff had no hope of prevailing. As a consequence of the explanation, the plaintiff and his attorney agreed to dismiss all claims against the officer with prejudice and the officer was removed from the lawsuit.
