The case arose from a June 9, 2019 confrontation near Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia. Officer Charmaine Hawkins, assigned to crowd control on a parade route, used what plaintiff Tzvia Wexler described as a choke hold during a dispute over access to a street. Both women sustained minor injuries. When Wexler asked for medical treatment and Hawkins' identifying information, Hawkins retaliated by pursuing escalated charges. Detective James Koenig, relying on Hawkins' account, recommended that Wexler be charged with five crimes, including an aggravated-assault felony. Wexler was detained overnight and released the following morning. The charges were later dismissed.
Wexler sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Pennsylvania law. A jury found for her on every claim and awarded $6,000 in compensatory damages — $4,000 against Hawkins and $2,000 against Koenig — plus $1 million in punitive damages split evenly between the two defendants. The district court, Judge Cynthia M. Rufe of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, denied substantially all post-trial motions but halved the punitive award to $250,000 per defendant. Both sides appealed.
The Third Circuit, in an opinion by Judge Bove joined by Judges Bibas and Porter, reversed entirely as to Koenig. The court held that Koenig had probable cause to recommend the aggravated-assault charge based on what Hawkins told him during her interview: that Wexler had been irate, used a bike to hit her, scratched her face and arm, and grabbed her near the neck, causing throbbing pain. Two written reports corroborated those details. The court applied the any-crime rule drawn from prior Third Circuit precedent — requiring Wexler to show no probable cause existed for any charge at all — and held that no reasonable juror could find she met that burden. The court also rejected Wexler's argument that Koenig's investigation was too cursory, reaffirming that post-hoc claims about investigative deficiencies do not undermine probable cause.
On punitive damages, the court vacated the $250,000 award against Hawkins and reduced it to $12,000 — three times the $4,000 in compensatory damages apportioned to her. Applying the Supreme Court's due-process guideposts from State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Campbell and BMW of N. Am., Inc. v. Gore, the court held that the reprehensibility of Hawkins' conduct was clear but not overwhelming: the physical harm was minor, there was no risk to the general public, Wexler showed no financial vulnerability, and the incident was a single transaction with no pattern of prior misconduct. The jury's maliciousness finding and the district court's observation that Hawkins engaged in a flagrant abuse of authority provided the strongest support for punitive damages, but the court held that support did not justify the 62.5-to-1 ratio the district court had approved.
The court also rejected the district court's characterization of the $4,000 compensatory award as essentially nominal, distinguishing that figure from the $9.05 economic injury at issue in the Sixth Circuit's Romanski decision. The court held that a 4-to-1 ratio — the constitutional marker suggested in State Farm — was the appropriate ceiling on these facts, and that nothing in the record provided the special justification needed to exceed even the single-digit rule of thumb the Third Circuit applied in Washington v. Gilmore. The court also vacated the district court's award of $292,810.23 in attorneys' fees and remanded for reconsideration in light of its holdings.
Craig R. Gottlieb of the City of Philadelphia Law Department argued for the defendants. Thomas B. Malone of The Malone Firm argued for Wexler.