Hermit files scratch and sniff lawsuit

COEUR d’ALENE — A scratching noise in the night and its aftermath have caused a kerfuffle between a Catholic hermit and Bonners Ferry police resulting in a lawsuit in federal court.

In the suit filed Tuesday in Coeur d’Alene, Brother Timothy Marie Pida claims that during a traffic stop in Bonners Ferry, a drug-sniffing police dog scratched his 2004 Lexus 330, resulting in damages of $4,644.24 to the car’s paint and metal.

The Bonners Ferry Police Department has balked at the accusation while the city — and its insurance company — rebutted it. Bonners Ferry does not own a drug-sniffing dog, the city and its insurer replied.

After receiving notice that his claim was denied, Brother Pida contacted Idaho Counties Risk Management Program, the city’s insurance carrier, asking the company to reconsider and pony up for repairs. So far, nothing.

According to the lawsuit, Pida was driving home from Spokane on a spring evening two years ago to Eureka, Mont., where he operates a hermitage. While in Spokane he had spent time with the Sisters of Mother Teresa, providing care to “sick and dying people.”

It was twilight and Pida was dressed in the regalia of his profession when he drove on U.S. 95 through Bonners Ferry, where he was stopped for speeding. He was allegedly traveling 53 mph in a 35 mph zone, according to court records.

Audio recordings and footage from a police body camera and patrol car show Officer William Cowell chatted with Pida then returned to his vehicle to write a citation, according to the lawsuit.

Four minutes later, according to the complaint, Cowell is heard making a cellphone call “to an unidentified individual.”

“Are you nearby?” Cowell asks.

Almost 20 minutes later the officer is heard speaking with someone, who has driven up, according to the suit. Cowell thought he had smelled marijuana wafting from the hermit’s car.

“Getting an odor, a faint, faint odor of green, and then an odor of like, cayenne,” Cowell is heard saying, according to the suit. “The guy is … in full Catholic priest, uh yeah, garb.”

Cowell relates to the unidentified person that Pida appears nervous, that he had difficulty finding his driver’s license, that he had mentioned his work helping dying people, and that his brother is a state police officer.

“Things aren’t adding up,” Cowell is heard to say, according to the suit.

Almost a half hour after the stop, Cowell delivers the citation to Pida and then, according to the suit, “the video reveals a sound distinctly reminiscent of nails scratching on a glass or metal surface.”

A short while later, the unidentified person passes by and says, “Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Cowell repeats.

Five months later, Pida hired Wilson Law Firm in Bonners Ferry to file the lawsuit “regarding severe scratches and gouges in the paint of his (Lexus) allegedly caused by a drug-sniffing dog employed by the City of Bonners Ferry.”

Pida alleges that Cowell, while working for the city, acted negligently when he called for a drug dog from an outside agency and allowed the dog to work without his supervision, under the pretense that the Catholic hermit had drugs in his car, based on a “faint, faint odor.”

Pida requests a jury trial and asks for damages exceeding $10,000 to cover scratches, the “bad faith” actions of the defendant and attorney fees.

Because he is a hermit and has taken vows of poverty, Pida asked the court to waive the bond required to file the suit.

Originally filed March 2015 in First District Court, the lawsuit was moved to the federal level this week.