Courtemanche v. Noble

── Courtemanche v. Noble ── Court: Court of Appeals for the First Circuit Date: May 28, 2026 Category: General United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit No. 25-1386 JASON COURTEMANCHE, BRETT FORESMAN, JUAN RIOS, and DENNIS WILLIAMS, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. GEOFFREY D. NOBLE, in their official capacity as Superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police, Defendant, Appellant, and MOTOROLA SOLUTIONS, CALLYO 2009 CORP., and SHI INTERNATIONAL CORP., Defendants. APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS [Hon. Margaret R. Guzman, U.S. District Judge] Before Aframe, Lipez, and Howard, Circuit Judges. Jeffrey T. Collins, Special Assistant Attorney General, with whom Andrea Joy Campbell, Attorney General of Massachusetts, Robert Papandrea, and Morgan, Brown & Joy, LLP were on brief, for appellants.  Erik P. Bartenhagen, with whom Bartenhagen Law, PLLC, James L. O’Connor, Jr., Christopher R. Batinsey, and Christopher J. Walton were on brief, for appellees. May 28, 2026  AFRAME, Circuit Judge. Four residents of Worcester County, Massachusetts, (the "plaintiffs") filed this putative class action against Geoffrey D. Noble, in his official capacity as Superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police (the "MSP"), and several private companies. The Superintendent moved to dismiss the claims against him on several grounds, including sovereign immunity and standing. The district court denied his motion in part, prompting the Superintendent to file this interlocutory appeal. We now reverse because the plaintiffs have not alleged an injury in fact with sufficient concreteness or imminence to establish standing. We summarize the allegations in the first amended complaint (the "complaint"), taking all well-pleaded allegations as true and drawing all reasonable inferences in the plaintiffs' favor. Douglas v. Hirshon, 63 F.4th 49, 55 (1st Cir. 2023). We ignore, however, "allegations that are too meager, vague, or conclusory to remove the possibility of relief from the realm of mere conjecture." Id. (citation modified). Since 2017, the MSP has secretly recorded phone conversations between its officers and civilians and then saved those communications to an online database. From March to May of 2022, the MSP recorded the plaintiffs, among others, without their knowledge or consent. The MSP used its recordings to identify various individuals, including the plaintiffs, to propose charges - 3 - in at least 181 criminal cases. The MSP did not notify prosecuting agencies about the recordings made in conjunction with these cases. We refer to the MSP's recording and subsequent concealment of the recordings as the MSP's "record-and-withhold" program. Based on these allegations, the plaintiffs brought nine claims against all the defendants. We focus our discussion on the two that the plaintiffs asserted against the Superintendent, as only they pertain to this appeal. First, the plaintiffs alleged that MSP officers violated the Massachusetts Wiretap Act, Mass. Gen. L. c. 272 § 99, by surreptitiously recording the plaintiffs. Second, they alleged, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, that the MSP violated their rights under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution