Price v. City of N.Y. 46 15 Civ. 5871 (KPF) (S.D.N.Y. Jun. 25, 2018) claim, a plaintiff must plead facts giving rise to a plausible inference that (i) the municipality knows "to a moral certainty" that its employees will confront a given situation, (ii) either the situation presents the employees with a difficult choice of the sort that training will make less difficult, or there is a history of employees mishandling the situation, and (iii) the wrong choice by the employee will frequently cause a constitutional deprivation. Walker v. City of New York, 974 F.2d 293, 297-98 (2d Cir. 1992). and this Opinion, place the City on notice of the need to train its employees that viewpoint discrimination is unlawful in forums governed by the Free Speech Clause, including the City's official Twitter accounts. Indeed, the Court hopes that it does. But that does not mean that the City's alleged failure to train — when it had no reason to believe "to a moral certainty" that its failure would result in constitutional violations, see Walker, 974 F.2d at 297 — caused the violation of Plaintiff's First Amendment rights. Plaintiff alleges that "[t]he City's failure to train employees on the proper use of social media carries a high risk that deleting comments or blocking users will cause violations of those users' First Amendment rights." (FAC ¶ 140). This allegation, without more, does not "nudge[ ] [Plaintiff's] claims across the line from conceivable to plausible," Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570, and fails to meet the "rigorous standard of culpability and causation" required to plead municipal liability based upon alleged municipal inaction, Matusick, 757 F.3d at 73; see also Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 ("A pleading that offers 'labels and conclusions' or 'a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.' Nor does a complaint suffice if it tenders 'naked assertion[s]' devoid of 'further factual enhancement.'" (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555, 557)). Plaintiff's bare allegation therefore does not state a claim of deliberate indifference by the City. Finally, although the FAC is not entirely clear, it can be read to suggest that the City should be liable because its employees failed to correct the problem — that is, unblock Plaintiff on Twitter — after Plaintiff made them aware of what had happened. Plaintiff specifically alleges that she lodged complaints with 311, Pierre-Louis, and NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill. (See FAC ¶¶ 141-49). By making these allegations, Plaintiff may be attempting to argue that the City of New York itself undertook the alleged conduct pursuant to a policymaker's adoption or ratification of his subordinates' conduct. See Pembauer, 475 U.S. at 481 ("[M]unicipal liability may be imposed for a single decision by municipal policymakers ... where the decisionmaker possesses final authority to establish municipal policy with respect to the action."); Amnesty Am. v. Town of W. Hartford, 361 F.3d 113, 126 (2d Cir. *47 2006) (recognizing that a superior's awareness of subordinate's unconstitutional conduct imposes municipal liability under Monell based on ratification or deliberate indifference). Even when the Court liberally construes the operative pleading, there is no suggestion that before Brooks, Obe, and Pierre-Louis blocked Plaintiff from the Twitter accounts at issue, the City knew of "[a] pattern of similar *46 constitutional violations by untrained employees." Connick, 563 U.S. at 62. A municipality cannot act with deliberate indifference if it had no reason to believe its employees would engage in the unconstitutional conduct at issue. See DeCarlo v. Fry, 141 F.3d 56, 61 (2d Cir. 1998); Walker, 974 F.2d at 297-98. It may well be that this lawsuit, 47 It is true that Commissioner O'Neill is a "policymaker" for Monell purposes, such that his decisions can bind the City of New York. See N.Y. City Charter § 434; Domenech v. City of New York, 919 F. Supp. 702, 710 & n.1 (S.D.N.Y. 1996). But Plaintiff's bare allegation that she "complained orally to NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill about being blocked on Twitter" is insufficient to show that O'Neill knew that his subordinates blocked Plaintiff for unconstitutional 22

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