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Eddie Brown, III, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Sears Roebuck
and Co., et al., Defendants-Respondents.
SUPREME COURT OF NEW YORK,
APPELLATE DIVISION, FIRST DEPARTMENT
736 N.Y.S.2d 671; 2002 N.Y. App.
Div. LEXIS 910
January 31, 2002,
Decided
January 31, 2002, Entered
Order, Supreme Court, Bronx
County (Stanley Green, J.), entered June 5, 2000, which, inter alia, granted
the cross motion of defendant City of New York for summary judgment dismissing
the complaint as against it, unanimously affirmed, without costs.
Plaintiff
seeks to recover against the City for false arrest, false imprisonment and
malicious prosecution. At the time of plaintiff's arrest, the arresting officer
was in possession of information provided by Sears Roebuck and Co.
demonstrating, without contradiction, that plaintiff, while employed by
defendant Sears Roebuck, had utilized a credit card number, without
authorization from the holder of the subject credit card, to place an order for
a computer, and that, according to the order form filled out by plaintiff, the
computer was to be picked up by an individual named Freeman. The arresting
officer had also ascertained that a coworker of plaintiff's named Al Freeman
had been arrested and charged with utilizing his position as a Sears Roebuck
sales associate to commit, inter alia, grand larceny through unlawful use of a
credit card. Because these undisputed circumstances would have led a reasonable
person to conclude that it was "more probable than not" that a crime
had been committed by plaintiff, the motion court properly determined as a
matter of law that there was probable cause to support plaintiff's arrest (see,
Parkin v Cornell Univ., Inc., 78 N.Y.2d 523, 529, 577 N.Y.S.2d 227, 583 N.E.2d
939; and see, People v Mercado, 68 N.Y.2d 874, 877, 508 N.Y.S.2d 419, 501
N.E.2d 27, cert denied, 479 U.S. 1095). In view of the fact that there was probable cause to support plaintiff's arrest, and of
the fact that the predicate for plaintiff's arrest did not dissipate at any
relevant point, plaintiff's claims against the City were properly dismissed
(see, Broughton v State, 37 N.Y.2d 451, 373 N.Y.S.2d 87, 335 N.E.2d 310, cert
denied, 423 U.S. 929).
ENTERED: JANUARY 31, 2002
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