Key Points

  • The Fourth Department held that 42 USC § 1988 imports New York law, which bars "loss of life" or hedonic damages, into Section 1983 death claims, and it vacated those damages, following the Ninth Circuit's Valenzuela decision rather than several federal district courts in New York.
  • The majority dismissed the Monell claim against Erie County, holding that a 2009 CRIPA letter did not show the County consciously ratified deficient psychiatric care in 2012, and dismissed the state negligence claim against the County because the amended notice of claim did not mention medical care.
  • The court denied the deputies qualified immunity on excessive force, holding they violated clearly established law by continuing the face-down, cuffed, masked restraint after the detainee was subdued, but it vacated punitive damages for lack of evidence of malice or callous indifference.
  • The court vacated the Section 1983 attorneys' fee award, the duplicative damages awards produced by an overlapping verdict sheet, and the trial court's sua sponte indemnification ruling, and ordered a new damages trial on the excessive-force claims and the negligence claim against Dee.
  • Justice Ogden dissented in part and would have upheld the Monell and state negligence claims against the County and the punitive damages award.

A New York appeals court ruled Friday that the estate of a man who died after sheriff's deputies restrained him at the Erie County Holding Center in 2012 cannot recover "loss of life" damages under the federal civil rights statute. The court threw out the jury's entire damages award and ordered a new trial on what the estate is owed.

The Appellate Division, Fourth Department, ruled 3-1 in an unsigned memorandum. It also dismissed every claim against Erie County and vacated punitive damages against the five deputies. It left standing excessive-force claims against all five deputies and a negligence claim against Robert Dee, the commanding deputy. Justice Ogden dissented in part. The panel also included Justices Lindley, Curran and Delconte.

The ruling departs from several federal trial courts in New York that have allowed loss-of-life damages, also called hedonic damages, in suits under 42 USC § 1983. The panel followed the Ninth Circuit instead, so the estate cannot recover for the value of the life itself at the retrial.

According to the decision, Richard Metcalf Jr. was arrested in November 2012 after breaking into a business. A local judge ordered a mental health examination at his arraignment, citing his "very [e]rratic behavior." At the holding center he banged his head on the walls and bars of his cell and stabbed himself with a plastic fork. Deputies then took him to the jail infirmary.

There, the court wrote, deputies held him face down with his hands cuffed behind him and put a spit mask on him. He apparently chewed through it, and, according to the deputies, a pillowcase was placed over his head without first removing the mask. When emergency medical technicians finally examined him in the ambulance, his face was "cherry red" and the mask was wrapped tightly around his neck. He was in cardiac arrest and died a few days later.

Richard Metcalf Sr. sued as administrator of the estate. After a February 2024 trial in Supreme Court, Erie County, a jury found the County and the deputies liable under Section 1983 and state negligence law.

On the damages question, the panel noted that Section 1983 does not define the available remedies. Another federal statute, 42 USC § 1988, directs courts to borrow state law unless it conflicts with federal law. New York limits recovery for a death to wrongful death claims under the Estates, Powers and Trusts Law. It does not allow damages for "the dead person's loss of enjoyment of life," as the court put it, quoting a federal decision.

The court found no conflict between that limit and Section 1983. "Here, there is no controlling Supreme Court precedent, nor is there even a Second Circuit case directly addressing the issue," the panel wrote. "We thus align with the Ninth Circuit's decision that state law prohibiting hedonic damages should control." The court quoted the Ninth Circuit's view that such damages "contravene traditional tort law liability rules and cannot be reliably calculated."

The majority also dismissed the federal claim against the County. Under the Supreme Court's Monell decision, that claim required proof that an official policy or custom caused the violation. The estate relied on a 2009 letter issued under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act. The letter had warned the County that holding center staff were deficient in recognizing and treating mentally ill inmates. "The fact that lapses occurred in the past as delineated in the 2009 CRIPA letter does not establish that a similar lapse was consciously ratified by the County years later in 2012," the court wrote.

The state negligence claim against the County failed for a different reason. The estate's amended notice of claim, the filing that must give a municipality enough information to investigate, described excessive force but "makes no mention of medical care," the majority held.

The deputies fared worse on qualified immunity, which shields officials from damages unless they violated clearly established law. Emergency medical technicians testified that Metcalf was not "resisting at all" when they arrived. The court held that the deputies' conduct "crossed that threshold once they continued to apply that force—inter alia, keeping decedent face down, cuffed behind his back, with a spit mask and pillowcase around his head—after decedent had already been sufficiently subdued."

Punitive damages were another matter. "Due to the fact that he was spitting blood, a spit mask was necessary for their protection and, when that failed, they improvised with the pillowcase," the majority wrote. It found "no evidence of malice, evil intent or callous indifference as required for punitive damages." The panel also vacated the Section 1983 fee award because the estate's lawyers had not submitted contemporaneous records or offered any basis for an exception to that requirement.

The court faulted the verdict sheet as well. It asked the jury twice, in identical language, to value Metcalf's pain and suffering at the holding center. The jury returned two identical $15 million awards. "The jury merely assigned the same value twice," the court wrote. It also set aside the trial court's ruling that the County's duty to indemnify the deputies belonged in court rather than in arbitration under a collective bargaining agreement, because the estate never sought that relief.

Justice Ogden would have kept the claims against the County and the punitive damages. The 2009 letter, combined with trial testimony, "established a conscious choice to ignore the problems identified by the CRIPA investigation," Ogden wrote. Ogden said the restraint methods, including the pillowcase that violated holding center policy, "represent a lack of humanity and a lack of sympathy."

Lawyers for the County and three of the deputies included Jennifer C. Persico of Lippes Mathias LLP. Brian M. Melber of Personius Melber LLP represented Dee.

The case returns to Supreme Court, Erie County, for a new trial on damages. That trial is limited to the excessive-force claims against the five deputies and the negligence claim against Dee.