This page uses extracted PDF text. Text can misread numbers, dates or table columns. Check the PDF before quoting or interpreting it. Redacted areas remain redacted.
- 11 -
probable cause as an affirmative defense, we look to federal case law analyzing Virginia
malicious prosecution actions for guidance.10
In Johnson v. Ortiz, 721 F. Supp. 3d 418, 425 (E.D. Va. 2024), Johnson pursued both
federal and Virginia malicious prosecution actions. Johnson claimed that the defendant-detective
“[made] false statements to the special grand jury mischaracterizing [the jailhouse informant]’s
description of the crime and how Johnson related to it.” Id. at 429. The district court rejected
Johnson’s contention and found that because the special grand jury and the Commonwealth’s
Attorney decided to indict and prosecute Johnson, this “severed the causal chain between [the
defendant-detective]’s alleged unconstitutional conduct and the plaintiff’s injury.” Id. It also
held that, generally, “[t]he subsequent acts of independent decisionmakers, including
prosecutors, grand juries, and judges, may constitute intervening superseding causes that break
the causal chain between a law enforcement officer’s misconduct and a plaintiff’s unlawful
seizure.”11 Id.
Here, Cline’s complaint alleged that the charges sought by Officer Riley “were based on
the uncorroborated allegations of a mentally unstable individual under psychiatric care, who had
made a multitude of similar sexual assault and abuse allegations against her former friends and
family members.” This is analogous to an allegation of officer misconduct in Johnson, and
similar to the Johnson court’s analysis, we find here that the intervening and superseding
determinations of probable cause—evidence that was presented to the circuit court in appellees’
10 “[The Supreme Court of Virginia] has, over time, looked to federal law to help provide
guiding principles or to exemplify a point.” Elizabeth River Crossings OpCo, LLC v. Meeks, 286
Va. 286, 309 n.4 (2013).
11 The district court also opined that “[a] police officer may remain liable for malicious
prosecution . . . only under certain narrow circumstances, such as when an officer ‘lied to or
misled the prosecutor,’ ‘failed to disclose exculpatory evidence to the prosecutor,’ or ‘unduly
pressured the prosecutor to seek the indictment.’” Johnson, 721 F. Supp. 3d at 429 (quoting
Evans v. Chalmers, 703 F.3d 636, 647-48 (4th Cir. 2012)). Jump to an indexed page (13 of 13)