Civil Rights: Jury to decide if police retaliated against plaintiff

Where a reasonable juror could conclude that police officers intentionally falsified a police report about a crash involving the plaintiff, in retaliation for his complaints about one of the officers a few months earlier, the plaintiff’s retaliation, conspiracy and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims will be resolved by a jury.

Background

Brandon Williams’ complaint against Steven Stone, John McClanahan and Rodney Van Faussien alleges that, after Williams was involved in a serious  car accident, these defendants jointly retaliated against him by filing a false accident report, because he had accused McClanahan of lying during a criminal trespass trial held a few months earlier. These defendants have filed motions for summary judgment on the three remaining claims for: (1) retaliation; (2) conspiracy and (3) intentional infliction of emotional distress, or IIED. They also raise a qualified immunity defense as to plaintiff’s retaliation claim.

Retaliation

Plaintiff contends that defendants intentionally falsified the police crash report – thwarting plaintiff’s potential civil recovery of damages suffered in the accident – to retaliate against plaintiff for recording McClanahan and accusing him of lying under oath. The three elements of a retaliation claim are: (1) the plaintiff engaged in constitutionally protected activity; (2) the defendants took some action that adversely affected his constitutional rights and (3) there was a causal relationship between the protected activity and the defendants’ conduct.

Because the First Amendment conduct is conceded, and the record reveals that plaintiff engaged in Sixth Amendment protected conduct at both of his trials, defendants’ challenges to the first element of plaintiff’s retaliation claim fail.

The conduct by McClanahan and Van Faussien at the scene of the accident suggests they were hostile towards plaintiff. It appears from the record that Van Faussien and at least one other officer knew about plaintiff’s accusations against McClanahan. And plaintiff’s sworn affidavit states that while he was receiving medical attention inside an ambulance, he saw McClanahan lingering around, looking at and smirking at plaintiff in an apparent attempt to intimidate him. As to Stone, the evidentiary record reveals a factual dispute as to whether the errors contained in his accident report were accidental or intentional.

Finally, the evidentiary record before the court reveals a genuine factual dispute as to whether the three officers were aware that plaintiff had engaged in constitutionally protected activity by the time Stone filed the apparently inaccurate police crash report.

Qualified immunity

To determine whether an officer is entitled to qualified immunity, courts engage in a two-part inquiry. At the first step, the court must determine whether “the facts, taken in the light most favorable to the non-movant, establish that the officer violated a constitutional right.” At the second step, the court must determine whether the constitutional right at issue was “clearly established.” Here, because defendants have failed to demonstrate that plaintiff did not engage in clearly established First and Sixth Amendment conduct, they are not entitled to qualified immunity.

Conspiracy

The evidentiary record reveals genuine factual disputes as to whether the defendant officers: (1) colluded to misrepresent facts in the accident report to limit plaintiff’s recovery of civil damages and (2) falsified the report (an overt act). Therefore, because there is a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether they engaged in a conspiracy, the officers are not entitled to judgment as a matter of law.

Defendants nevertheless contend that plaintiff’s claim is barred by the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine. In response, plaintiff argues that two exceptions to the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine apply in this case: the “personal stake” exception and the “unauthorized acts” exception. Defendants’ reply briefs offer no viable counter to plaintiff’s assertion that there are potentially multiple avenues to prove an exception to the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine.

IIED

Defendants first argue that because they did not retaliate against plaintiff by intentionally or recklessly creating a false report, plaintiff’s claim necessarily fails. However, as explained above, genuine factual disputes regarding whether the officers intentionally falsified the police report prevent this defense from prevailing at the summary judgment stage.

Defendants’ second argument is that their actions were not sufficiently outrageous or intolerable to support an IIED claim under Virginia law. After evaluating the entire course of relevant behavior alleged by plaintiff, reasonable minds could differ as to whether defendants’ intentional acts leveraging their position of power, because of a vendetta in the immediate aftermath of a very serious crash, go far “beyond all possible bounds of decency” and are intolerable in our community.

Defendants’ motions for summary judgment denied.

Williams v. Stone, Case No. 2:22-cv-388, Sept. 4, 2025. EDVA at Norfolk (Davis). VLW 025-3-363. 42 pp.