Alves v. Massachusetts State Police, et al. (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-001-17)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports. If you find a typographical error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA, 02108-1750; (617) 557-1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us 15-P-1531 Appeals Court DAVID A. ALVES vs. MASSACHUSETTS STATE POLICE & others.[1] No. 15-P-1531. Bristol. November 3, 2016. – January 4, 2017. Present: Agnes, Blake, & Desmond, JJ. Res Judicata. Collateral Estoppel. Judgment, Preclusive effect. Negligence, Police. Practice, Civil, Summary judgment. State Police. Civil action commenced in the Superior Court Department on June 29, 2012. The case was heard by Richard T. Moses, J., on a motion for summary judgment. Sonja L. Deyoe for the plaintiff. Adam R. LaGrassa, Assistant Attorney General, for Massachusetts State Police. BLAKE, J. Following the execution of an anticipatory search warrant, Massachusetts State police officers arrested the plaintiff, David A. Alves, on various charges stemming from the seizure of a package containing approximately twenty-five pounds of marijuana. The charges were subsequently dismissed, whereupon Alves filed a civil suit in the Superior Court asserting Federal civil rights violations against two State police officers, Paul Baker and William Donnelly, and negligence claims against the State police. The officers removed the Federal claims to the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts (Federal District Court), where a magistrate judge allowed Baker’s motion for summary judgment.[2] The State police then filed a motion for summary judgment in the Superior Court, where the State-based claims remained. Relying on the findings of fact made by the magistrate judge in his resolution of the Federal claims, a judge of the Superior Court allowed the motion. Alves now appeals. We agree that the matter is governed by principles of issue preclusion and accordingly affirm. Background. After intercepting a suspicious package addressed to a recipient in Massachusetts, a postal inspector at the processing and distribution center of the United States Postal Service in Providence, Rhode Island obtained a Federal search warrant to search the package.[3] The inspector found approximately twenty-five pounds of marijuana in the package, with an approximate street value of $ 35,000. The inspector contacted Baker, a Massachusetts State police trooper, who obtained an anticipatory search warrant from the Taunton District Court, to be triggered by the acceptance or acquisition of the package, which bore a distinctive tracking number, and was addressed to “John Couture 443 Weir Street, Taunton, MA.” The search warrant authorized the retrieval of the package from “44 [sic] Weir Street . . . [a] […]