Campbell v. Broome County

── Campbell v. Broome County ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Date: April 09, 2026 Category: General 25-406 Campbell v. Broome County 1 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 2 FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT 3 ------ 4 August Term, 2025 5 (Submitted: October 22, 2025 Decided: April 9, 2026) 6 Docket No. 25-406 7 _______________________________________________________ 8 DAVID JOHN CAMPBELL, 9 Plaintiff-Appellant, 10 - v. - 11 BROOME COUNTY; DAVID HARDER, Broome County Sheriff; MARK 12 HAMILTON, Deputy Sheriff for Broome County; LUCAS FINLEY, 13 Assistant District Attorney for Broome County in his individual capacity; 14 CITY OF BINGHAMTON; JARED M. KRAHAM, Mayor of City of 15 Binghamton, New York; CHIEF JOSEPH ZIKUSKI, Binghamton Police 16 Department; NICHOLAS MUSHALLA, Officer for Binghamton Police 17 Department in his individual capacity; BRYAN SOSTOWSKI, Detective 18 for Binghamton Police Department; UNKNOWN NEW YORK STATE 19 POLICE TROOPER, in his/her individual capacity, 20 Defendants-Appellees.* 21 _______________________________________________________ * The Clerk of Court is instructed to amend the official caption to conform with the above.  1 Before: KEARSE, WESLEY, and KAHN, Circuit Judges. 2 Appeal by plaintiff pro se from a judgment of the United States District Court 3 for the Northern District of New York, Anne M. Nardacci, Judge, sua sponte dismissing his 4 amended complaint brought chiefly under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claiming violations of his rights 5 under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution by defendants Broome 6 County, New York, the City of Binghamton, New York, certain of their respective officials 7 and employees, and an unnamed New York State Police Trooper, and alleging an array of 8 unpleasant or unproductive interactions emanating from plaintiff's ownership and desire 9 to maintain or regain possession of firearms that he had told the authorities he was licensed 10 to possess. The district court sua sponte dismissed the action pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e) 11 principally on the ground that the amended complaint was factually frivolous, and 12 alternatively on the grounds that, as to the events complained of, the amended complaint 13 failed to allege personal involvement of certain individual defendants and failed to allege 14 facts to show a municipal policy, custom, or practice that caused a violation of his rights. See 15 Campbell v. Broome County, 3:23-cv-01337 (AMN/ML), 2025 WL 341926 (N.D.N.Y. Jan. 30, 16 2025). The court denied leave to file a further amended complaint. On appeal, plaintiff 17 contends that his amended complaint was not given fair consideration. 18 This appeal was calendared and submitted in tandem with Campbell v. City of 19 Binghamton, No. 25-409 ("Campbell v. Binghamton II"), which we decide today in a summary -2- 1 order, see ___ F. App'x ___ (2d Cir. April 9, 2026), affirming the dismissal of plaintiff's similar 2 action, Campbell v. City of Binghamton, No. 3:24-cv-00067 (AMN/ML) ("Campbell v. 3 Binghamton I"), that made many of the same allegations against some of the same defendants 4 he sued in the present action. With one exception, we affirm the judgment at issue in the 5 present appeal, largely for the reasons given by the district court in the present action, and 6 in light of our affirmance today in Binghamton II. We vacate and remand only so much of 7 the judgment as dismissed the claim that defendant Nicholas Mushalla--who was not named 8 as a defendant in Binghamton I--violated plaintiff's rights by