James Hundley v. Romeo Aranas

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: January 12, 2023
• Docket: 21-15757
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JAN 12 2023 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

JAMES DERRICK HUNDLEY, AKA No. 21-15757 Jamee Deirdre Hundley, D.C. No. Plaintiff-Appellant, 3:19-cv-00458-RCJ-WGC

v. MEMORANDUM* ROMEO ARANAS; RENEE BAKER, Warden; DAVID BEQUETTE; UTILIZATION REVIEW PANEL; MICHAEL MINEV; KIM ADAMSON; NAUGHTON; RUSTY DONNELLY; DON POAG; JAMES DZURENDA,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Nevada Robert Clive Jones, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted December 9, 2022 San Francisco, California

Before: GRABER, GOULD, and WATFORD, Circuit Judges.

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. Jamee Deirdre Hundley is a transgender woman incarcerated at Lovelock

Correctional Center (“LCC”) in Nevada—a men’s prison. She filed a pro se

complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in forma pauperis against various prison

officials at LCC and the Nevada Department of Corrections (“NDOC”), alleging

deliberate indifference to her serious medical needs, in violation of her Eighth

Amendment right; alleging violation of her First Amendment right to be free from

retaliation for filing grievances; and alleging violation of her Fourteenth

Amendment right to equal protection. The district court allowed Hundley to

amend her complaint once under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 28 U.S.C.

§ 1915A, then sua sponte dismissed the amended complaint with prejudice for

failure to state a claim.

We review de novo the “district court’s dismissal of a complaint under 28

U.S.C. § 1915A for failure to state a claim.” Nordstrom v. Ryan, 762 F.3d 903,

908 (9th Cir. 2014). To survive this screening, the complaint must “contain

sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible

on its face.” Wilhelm v. Rotman, 680 F.3d 1113, 1121 (9th Cir. 2012) (quoting

Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)). We construe pleadings of pro se

litigants liberally and dismiss them only “if it appears beyond doubt that the

plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him

to relief.” Nordstrom, 762 F.3d at 908 (citation omitted). We review for abuse of

2 discretion the district court’s decision not to grant leave to amend. Sharkey v.

O’Neal, 778 F.3d 767, 774 (9th Cir. 2015).

1. Hundley stated an Eighth Amendment claim of deliberate indifference to

a serious medical need by defendants Aranas and Poag for declining to evaluate

her for sex reassignment surgery (“SRS”) based on NDOC’s alleged blanket policy

against providing SRS to any inmate. Hundley was diagnosed with “severe and

persistent gender dysphoria/transsexualism” in 2012. Gender dysphoria is a

serious medical condition under the Eighth Amendment. Edmo v. Corizon, Inc.,

935 F.3d 757, 785 (2019). “[T]he ‘blanket, categorical denial of medically

indicated surgery solely on the basis of an administrative policy that “one eye is

good enough for prison inmates” is the paradigm of deliberate indifference.’”

Rosati v. Igbinoso, 791 F.3d 1037, 1040 (9th Cir. 2015) (quoting Colwell v.

Bannister, 763 F.3d 1060, 1063 (9th Cir. 2014)). It follows that we should not

accept a blanket prison policy against SRS. Rather, the prison must make an

individualized decision about whether Hundley should have her gender dysphoria

treated by SRS. The district court erred by dismissing this claim, and we reverse

and remand.

2. Hundley stated an equal protection violation under the Fourteenth

Amendment against defendant Bequette, the laundry supervisor, for his refusal to

issue her female undergarments. To state a claim upon which relief can be granted

3 “for a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment a

plaintiff must show that the defendants acted with an intent or purpose to

discriminate against the plaintiff based upon membership in a protected class.”

Furnace v. Sullivan, 705 F.3d 1021, 1030 (9th Cir. 2013) (quoting Barren v.

Harrington, 152 F.3d 1193, 1194 (9th Cir.1998)). Discrimination against an

individual based on a person’s gender identity demands heightened scrutiny.

Karnoski v. Trump, 926 F.3d 1180, 1200–01 (9th Cir. 2019). Here, Hundley

alleges that Bequette denied her female undergarments because she is a

transgender woman. This denial is a violation of her Fourteenth Amendment right

to equal protection under the law. See Serrano v. Francis, 345 F.3d 1071, 1083

(9th Cir. 2003) (holding that a prisoner pleaded sufficient facts to state an equal

protection violation by alleging that a prison official made comments about the

prisoner’s race in denying him the opportunity to present witnesses at a hearing).

The district court erred in dismissing this claim, and we reverse and remand.

3. The district court properly dismissed the claims for monetary damages

that Hundley brought against the defendants in their official capacity. See Hafer v.

Melo, 502 U.S. 21, 27 (1991). On those claims, we affirm.

4. As to the rest of Hundley’s claims, the district court abused its discretion

by dismissing the claims without giving Hundley leave to amend. “A district court

should not dismiss a pro se complaint without leave to amend unless it is

4 absolutely clear that the deficiencies of the complaint could not be cured by

amendment.” Rosati, 791 F.3d at 1039 (internal quotations and citation omitted).

Although given one chance to amend her complaint, Hundley raised these

issues for the first time in her amended complaint, and it is not “absolutely clear”

that an amendment would not cure the deficiencies in her handwritten pro se

complaint. This is especially true because Hundley is now represented by counsel.

Further, at oral argument, Nevada agreed that Hundley should be given an

opportunity to amend her complaint. We vacate and remand the remainder of the

issues in this case with instructions to the district court to allow Hundley to amend

her complaint.

REVERSED IN PART, AFFIRMED IN PART, and VACATED and

REMANDED IN PART. The parties shall bear their own costs on appeal.