Legal Question in Civil Litigation in New York
Wrongful Arrest
My wife and I were arrested for embezzelment. Employed as managers for 5 years. Bad blood and verbal altercations (personal matters) with owner's girlfriend resulted in her stating to several employees she would get us fired. A month later another argument as to whether we worked under her or not resulted in her telling owner that we were stealing. We quit a few days later when the question of owner's girlfriend's title & athority led to a heated conversation with owner. Never was there a question about money or anything else ever brought up. An employee later told us she had accused us of theft and that the police had been called. We consulted atty who called police. Police wanted to question us; atty told them no and to get a warrant or leave us alone. Several days later we were arrested on felony charges. The charges later were dropped to misdemeanor. We have crimminal atty and fully plan on going to trial. We've received much of the discovery papers which are loaded with arithmetical and bookkeeping errors - nothing shows anything missing. All bookkeeping was always done at main office - our positions involved no bookkeeping. It's been 10 months since arrest. After we're found innocent can we sue employer, DA or police?
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Wrongful Arrest
You cannot successfully sue the DA; he enjoys an "absolute privilege," which means he can't be sued for his official acts.
You'r unlikely to succeed in a suit against the police. The police enjoy a privilege which is sometimes absolute and sometimes qualified. I get a headache trying to keep the distinctions straight. Qualified privilege can be lost if the police officer is acting maliciously.
You can sue the (various bodily parts) off the girlfriend. You would be suing for slander (false spoken words causing harm), libel (false written words, note you don't have to prove "harm" for libel since harmfulness is presumed when the words are written), malicious prosecution (causing a prosecution to be commenced knowing it is based on a falsehood and causing the proceeding to be continued knowing of the false basis for it), prima facie tort (wilfully harming another without a legally sufficient reason).
Whether you can sue the employer turns on fact questions. Was the girlfriend acting within the scope of her employment when she made the false report? If so, then the employer is vicariously liable for the acts of the girlfriend. Even if she was acting outside the scope of her employment, if the boyfriend took her at her word in order to continue his sexual relations with her, it gets better and better. The employer gets sued for repeating the defamatory words. You also get to sue for sexual harassment because this becomes the mother of all hostile work environment claims.
Speak to a personal injury-type lawyer. They might even help develop your defense to the criminal proceeding. (In order to sue for mal pros, the criminal proceeding has to be terminated in your favor. Ideally, in fact, the case will not go to the jury, but be dismissed, again, ideally, either at the close of the People's case or, just as well, if the Grand Jury returns No True Bill).
Good luck.
This post is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. It is a comment on the legal question posed by the poster and should not be relied upon unless and until an attorney-client relationship is entered into. Doing so would require signing an engagement letter and depositing a retainer to secure payment of legal fees.
Re: Wrongful Arrest
This is a complicated situation that needs to be properly analyzed to make sense of your questions.
But generally, if you succeed in the defense of the criminal case, you would have a case against your employer and his friend for malicious prosecution.
If the remainder of what you say is accurate, you have a defamation action as well (with a one year statute of limitations so watch the time).
If the books are clean, what are you being charged with?
Related Questions & Answers
Looking for something else?
10,200 active attorneys ready to answer your legal questions today.
Featured Attorneys
Earn additional revenue and grow your business.
