Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-11-2008

Abstract

Plaintiffs-appellants, Susan Roe, Jr. and Jane Doe, Jr. (collectively, the "Plaintiffs"), appeal from a summary judgment entered on September 28, 2006 which was certified and entered as a final partial summary judgment on November 16, 2006, in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (Underhill, J.) in favor of defendant-appellee the City of Waterbury (the "City" or "Waterbury"). The District Court held that the City could not be held liable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for acts of sexual abuse committed by the former Mayor of Waterbury, Philip Giordano ("Giordano" or the "Mayor"), because, although Giordano was a final policymaker, he was not acting in his official capacity when he sexually abused Plaintiffs. The District Court also concluded that the City could not be collaterally estopped from relitigating the issue of whether Giordano was acting under "color of law" when he committed the tortious acts because the Plaintiffs could not show that the color of law issue litigated in Giordano's criminal trial was identical to the color of law issue presented here. The District Court further held that Connecticut's governmental immunity statute barred Plaintiffs' state law claims against the City. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the judgment of the District Court.

Comments

542 F.3d 31 (2008)

Susan ROE, Jr., ppa Atty. Lynn Jenkins, Guardian Ad Litem, and Jane Doe, Jr., ppa Atty. Allison Jacobs, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. The CITY OF WATERBURY, and Philip Giordano, i/o Mayor of the City of Waterbury, Defendants-Appellees.

Docket No. 07-0261-cv. United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued: May 16, 2008.

Decided: September 11, 2008.

New York Law School location: File #3691, Box #153

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