Key Points

  • The Second Circuit recognized Singleton v. City of New York (1980) as overruled by the Supreme Court's 2022 decision in Thompson v. Clark.
  • A New York adjournment in contemplation of dismissal under Criminal Procedure Law Section 170.55 can qualify as a favorable termination for a Section 1983 malicious prosecution claim, and Brill's unconditional ACOD did so.
  • Brill's malicious prosecution claim still failed because her complaint alleged no deprivation of liberty after her arraignment.
  • The district court erred by dismissing unlawful search and false arrest claims sua sponte without notice; Brill may amend those claims, her malicious prosecution claim and her Section 1983 conspiracy claim on remand.
  • Dismissal of the First Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment and Section 1985(3) claims was affirmed without leave to amend, and the judgment was modified so the state-law defamation claims are dismissed without prejudice.

A federal appeals court ruled on Nov. 10 that a New York means of disposing of relatively minor criminal charges, the adjournment in contemplation of dismissal, can satisfy a key element of a federal malicious prosecution suit. The decision sets aside a 1980 precedent that had barred such suits for more than four decades.

Writing for a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman of the Southern District of New York, sitting by designation with Circuit Judges Calabresi and Merriam, held that Singleton v. City of New York cannot stand after the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 decision in Thompson v. Clark. The plaintiff, former animal rescue operator Cristina Brill, won only partial relief: her malicious prosecution claim still failed, but most of her case returns to the trial court for amendment.

An adjournment in contemplation of dismissal, known as an ACOD, lets a New York court hold charges for six months and then, absent new trouble, dismiss them without any finding of guilt. Under Singleton, such a defendant could not show favorable termination, the requirement that a criminal case end in the accused's favor before a malicious prosecution suit under Section 1983 can proceed.

"[T]oday we recognize Singleton as overruled in light of the Supreme Court's subsequent decision in Thompson v. Clark," Liman wrote. Because Thompson defines a favorable termination as one that "end[s] without a conviction," he wrote, an ACOD, "a disposition that involves no conclusion as to a defendant's guilt," can qualify.

Brill, a former employee of the Ulster County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals who later opened her own licensed rescue, alleged that two SPCA peace officers, Christopher West and Adam Saunders, and Eleni Calomiris, a private citizen who ran a competing rescue, falsely accused her of neglecting and torturing animals and selling sick ones. Those statements, she alleged, were used to obtain arrest and search warrants.

West and Saunders, joined by Ulster County Sheriff's Deputy Damon Alberts and Detective Emmett Vedder, arrested Brill and searched her home on Aug. 23, 2021. She was arraigned that October on misdemeanor charges of torturing and abusing animals and selling diseased animals. The case ended with an ACOD in March 2024. Brill alleged that the judge agreed to it only after a prosecutor said the government "could not prove the criminal charges against [Brill] beyond a reasonable doubt."

Brill sued the county, the officers and Calomiris. Only the SPCA officers moved to dismiss, and only some of her claims. U.S. District Judge Anne M. Nardacci of the Northern District of New York nonetheless dismissed the entire complaint with prejudice, holding among other things that the ACOD was not a favorable termination.

Singleton had held that a termination is favorable only if it indicates the accused is not guilty, and it warned that a contrary rule would lead to "fewer prosecutors . . . be[ing] willing to consent to such adjournments." In Thompson, the Supreme Court tied the element to malicious prosecution law as of 1871, when Section 1983 was enacted, and held that a prosecution ending without a conviction is enough. "Thompson requires that we revisit that decision and recognize it as overruled," Liman wrote.

The panel distinguished recent Second Circuit rulings involving a plea deal and a Connecticut diversionary program entered over prosecutors' objection. New York's statute requires the prosecution's consent, and Brill did not have "to give up any liberty in exchange for the dismissal of the charges against her," the court wrote. It did not decide how ACODs conditioned on community service would fare, saying "we have no occasion today to address such scenarios."

Liman rejected the concern that the ruling would discourage prosecutors from agreeing to dismissals, writing that plaintiffs must still prove the absence of probable cause and that "qualified immunity remains a potent backstop." The holding "may have significance only in those cases where a plaintiff can demonstrate an absence of probable cause and where the defendant violated clearly established law," he wrote.

The panel found "nothing to suggest that her unconditional ACOD was anything but a favorable termination under Thompson." But it agreed with the county defendants that the claim failed on another ground. A Section 1983 malicious prosecution claim requires a restraint on liberty after arraignment, and Brill pointed only to her arrest and the arraignment itself. "Neither of those events is alleged to have occurred after her arraignment," Liman wrote.

The panel also faulted the district court for dismissing Brill's unlawful search and false arrest claims sua sponte, meaning on its own initiative, even though no defendant had sought that relief. Brill "had not received any notice of the claims' deficiencies and had no opportunity to respond with potentially curative amendments," the court wrote. Still, both claims failed as pleaded because Brill did not plausibly allege that the warrants lacked probable cause.

The court affirmed dismissal of Brill's First Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment and Section 1985(3) conspiracy claims and held that amending them would be futile. Rescuing animals is not activity the First Amendment protects, the panel held, and her complaint tied no defendant to the loss of her rescue license.

Brill represented herself on appeal. Ulster County, Alberts and Vedder were represented by Michael T. Cook of Cook, Kurtz & Murphy, P.C.

The panel affirmed in part as modified, vacated in part and remanded. On remand, Brill may amend her Section 1983 unlawful search, false arrest, malicious prosecution and conspiracy claims. The panel also modified the judgment so that her state-law defamation claims are dismissed without prejudice to refiling in a court of appropriate jurisdiction, which could be the federal court if she cures her federal claims.