Jones v. West Unit R.M.C. Nurse

• Court: District Court, M.D. Florida
• Decided: April 11, 2025
• Docket: 3:24-cv-01320
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA JACKSONVILLE DIVISION

RASHANE L. JONES,

Plaintiff,

v. Case No. 3:24-cv-1320-MMH-SJH

WEST UNIT R.M.C. NURSE,

Defendant. ___________________________

ORDER OF DISMISSAL WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Plaintiff, Rashane L. Jones, an inmate of the Florida penal system, is proceeding on a pro se Civil Rights Complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Doc. 1; Complaint). He names as the sole Defendant a registered nurse at the Reception and Medical Center West Unit. Id. at 2. The only descriptive information he provides is that Defendant’s name is “B. La. . . something.” Id. He contends that on April 3, 2023, multiple officers physically assaulted him. Id. at 5. Following the use of force, officers escorted Jones to medical where he was seen by Defendant. Id. According to Jones, he told Defendant about his injuries, including that “his tooth had been chipped and his lip busted.” Id. Jones contends that Defendant “was very mean and angry,” and did not respond to anything Jones said. Id. She “looked in [Jones’s] mouth adjusting the spit shield and after a once over she just turned around and left, never writing nothing down on paper.” Id. at 5, 12. As Defendant exited the exam room, Jones “screamed that she had not documented his injuries.” Id. at 12.

Subsequently, Jones obtained his medical records which show that Defendant had documented that Jones had “discoloration and swelling noted above left eye, small l[aceration], left upper lip. Unable to measure l[aceration d]ue to pt. unco[]operative and spit shield in place.” Id. Jones contends that the

video footage would show Defendant “looked directly in [his] mouth and the spit shield was indeed maneuvered . . . to view inside [Jones’s] entire mouth,” but Defendant failed to document his chipped tooth or refer him to the dental department to protect the officers who assaulted him. Id.; see id. at 5

(“Defendant did not document [Jones’s] tooth injury nor did she refer [him] to dental.”). Instead, Jones had to submit “a grievance to be seen” which did not occur until “almost three (3) weeks after the injury.” Id. at 12. He requests monetary damages as relief. Id. at 5.

The Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) requires the Court to dismiss this case at any time if the Court determines that the action is frivolous, malicious, fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted or seeks monetary relief against a defendant who is immune from such relief. See 28

2 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B); see also 28 U.S.C. § 1915A.1 As to whether a complaint “fails to state a claim on which relief may be granted,” the language of the

PLRA mirrors the language of Rule 12(b)(6), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and therefore courts apply the same standard in both contexts.2 Mitchell v. Farcass, 112 F.3d 1483, 1490 (11th Cir. 1997); see also Alba v. Montford, 517 F.3d 1249, 1252 (11th Cir. 2008).

To state a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a plaintiff must allege that (1) the defendant deprived him of a right secured under the United States Constitution or federal law, and (2) such deprivation occurred under color of state law. Salvato v. Miley, 790 F.3d 1286, 1295 (11th Cir. 2015); Bingham v.

Thomas, 654 F.3d 1171, 1175 (11th Cir. 2011) (per curiam) (citation omitted); Richardson v. Johnson, 598 F.3d 734, 737 (11th Cir. 2010) (per curiam) (citations omitted). Moreover, under Eleventh Circuit precedent, to prevail in a § 1983 action, a plaintiff must show “an affirmative causal connection

between the official’s acts or omissions and the alleged constitutional

1 Jones did not pay the filing fee or file a request to proceed in forma pauperis, although he did request the Clerk mail him an application to proceed as a pauper. See Notice (Doc. 3). Regardless, the Court is required to review his claims. 2 “To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (citing Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). 3 deprivation.” Zatler v. Wainwright, 802 F.2d 397, 401 (11th Cir. 1986) (citation omitted); Porter v. White, 483 F.3d 1294, 1306 n.10 (11th Cir. 2007).

Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a complaint need only contain “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed. R. Civ. P. (8)(a)(2). In addition, all reasonable inferences should be drawn in favor of the plaintiff. See Randall v. Scott, 610 F.3d 701,

705 (11th Cir. 2010). Nonetheless, the plaintiff still must meet some minimal pleading requirements. Jackson v. BellSouth Telecomm., 372 F.3d 1250, 1262- 63 (11th Cir. 2004) (citations omitted). Indeed, while “[s]pecific facts are not necessary[,]” the complaint should “‘give the defendant fair notice of what

the . . . claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.’” Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 93 (2007) (per curiam) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007)). Further, the plaintiff must allege “enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570. “A claim

has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). While not required to include detailed factual allegations, a complaint must allege “more

than an unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation.” Id.

4 A “plaintiff’s obligation to provide the grounds of his entitlement to relief requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the

elements of a cause of action will not do[.]” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555 (alternation and internal quotations omitted); see also Jackson, 372 F.3d at 1262 (explaining that “conclusory allegations, unwarranted deductions of facts or legal conclusions masquerading as facts will not prevent dismissal”)

(internal citation and quotations omitted). Indeed, “the tenet that a court must accept as true all of the allegations contained in a complaint is inapplicable to legal conclusions[,]” which simply “are not entitled to [an] assumption of truth.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678, 679. In the absence of well-pled facts suggesting a

federal constitutional deprivation or violation of a federal right, a plaintiff cannot sustain a cause of action against the defendant. In assessing the Complaint, the Court must read Jones’s pro se allegations in a liberal fashion. Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520-21 (1972);

Bingham, 654 F.3d at 1175. And, while “[p]ro se pleadings are held to a less stringent standard than pleadings drafted by attorneys and will, therefore, be liberally construed,” Tannenbaum v. United States, 148 F.3d 1262, 1263 (11th Cir. 1998), “‘this leniency does not give a court license to serve as de facto

counsel for a party or to rewrite an otherwise deficient pleading in order to sustain an action.’” Alford v. Consol. Gov’t of Columbus, Ga., 438 F. App’x 837,

5 839 (11th Cir. 2011)3 (quoting GJR Invs., Inc. v. Cnty. of Escambia, Fla., 132 F.3d 1359, 1369 (11th Cir. 1998) (internal citation omitted), overruled in part

on other grounds as recognized in Randall, 610 F.3d at 709). Here, Jones’s Complaint is due to be dismissed pursuant to this Court’s screening obligation. The Eighth Amendment “imposes duties on [prison] officials, who must provide humane conditions of confinement; prison officials

must ensure that inmates receive adequate food, clothing, shelter, and medical care, and must ‘take reasonable measures to guarantee the safety of the inmates.’” Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 832 (1994) (quoting Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 526-27 (1984)). To establish an Eighth Amendment

violation, a prisoner must satisfy both an objective and subjective inquiry regarding a prison official’s conduct. Swain v. Junior, 961 F.3d 1276, 1285 (11th Cir. 2020) (citing Farmer, 511 U.S. at 834) As it relates to medical care, “the Supreme Court has held that prison

officials violate the bar on cruel and unusual punishments when they display ‘deliberate indifference to serious medical needs of prisoners.’” Keohane v. Fla. Dep’t of Corr. Sec’y, 952 F.3d 1257, 1265 (11th Cir. 2020) (quoting Estelle v.

3 The Court does not rely on unpublished opinions as binding precedent; however, they may be cited in this Order when the Court finds them persuasive on a particular point. See McNamara v. GEICO, 30 F.4th 1055, 1060-61 (11th Cir. 2022); see generally Fed. R. App. P. 32.1; 11th Cir. R. 36-2 (“Unpublished opinions are not considered binding precedent, but they may be cited as persuasive authority.”). 6 Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 104 (1976)). Specifically, the Eleventh Circuit has instructed that to establish liability on an Eighth Amendment deliberate

indifference claim, the plaintiff must show: First . . . as a threshold matter, that he suffered a deprivation that was, “objectively, ‘sufficiently serious.’” [Farmer, 511 U.S. at 834].

Second, . . . that the defendant acted with “subjective recklessness as used in the criminal law,” id. at 839, and to do so he must show that the defendant was actually, subjectively aware that his own conduct caused a substantial risk of serious harm to the plaintiff—with the caveat, again, that even if the defendant “actually knew of a substantial risk to inmate health or safety,” he “cannot be found liable under the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause” if he “responded reasonably to the risk.” Id. at 844-45.

Wade v. McDade, 106 F.4th 1251, 1261 (11th Cir. 2024) (enumeration and emphasis omitted);4 see Stalley v. Cumbie, 124 F.4th 1273, 1283 (11th Cir. 2024) (recognizing that to prevail on a deliberate indifference claim, a plaintiff must show that he suffered “an objectively serious medical need,” and that the

4 For decades, the Eleventh Circuit has described a “more than mere negligence” or “more than gross negligence” standard in determining whether an official acted with deliberate indifference to an inmate’s serious medical need. Wade, 106 F.4th at 1255. In Wade, the Eleventh Circuit determined that those standards conflicted with the Supreme Court’s decision in Farmer and clarified that courts in this circuit should apply the “subjective recklessness” standard “as used in the criminal law.” Id. at 1253. The Court notes that the Honorable Adalberto Jordan wrote a concurrence to the majority’s opinion in Wade, finding that to the extent prior Eleventh Circuit deliberate indifference cases are not inconsistent with Wade, “they should continue to be cited as binding precedent.” Id. at 1265 (Jordan, J., concurring). 7 defendant acted with deliberate indifference to that need, meaning that the defendant “(1) had subjective knowledge of a risk of serious harm, (2)

disregarded that risk, and (3) engaged in conduct that amounts to subjective recklessness” (internal quotations and citations omitted)). “As applied in the prison context, the deliberate-indifference standard sets an appropriately high bar.” Swain, 961 F.3d at 1285. Importantly, medical

treatment gives rise to a constitutional violation “only when it is so grossly incompetent, inadequate, or excessive as to shock the conscience or to be intolerable to fundamental fairness.” Hoffer v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 973 F.3d 1263, 1271 (11th Cir. 2020) (quotations omitted). Indeed, the law is well

settled that the Constitution is not implicated by the negligent acts of corrections officials and medical personnel. Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 330-31 (1986); Davidson v. Cannon, 474 U.S. 344, 348 (1986) (“As we held in Daniels, the protections of the Due Process Clause, whether procedural or

substantive, are just not triggered by lack of due care by prison officials.”). Thus, a complaint that a medical provider has been negligent “in diagnosing or treating a medical condition does not state a valid claim of medical mistreatment under the Eighth Amendment.” Bingham v. Thomas, 654 F.3d

1171, 1176 (11th Cir. 2011) (quotations and citation omitted).

8 Jones fails to allege sufficient factual allegations to state a plausible deliberate indifference claim. He contends that Defendant failed to document

his injuries or refer him to see a dentist. Such allegations, without more, simply fail to rise to the level of deliberate indifference. At most, his assertions may suggest negligence, but negligent medical care does not violate the Eighth Amendment.

In light of the foregoing, this case will be dismissed without prejudice for Jones’s failure to state a claim. Jones may refile his claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 with factual allegations sufficient to support a claim for relief if he elects to do so. Notably, pro se litigants are subject to the same law and rules of court

that govern other litigants who are represented by counsel. See Moon v. Newsome, 863 F.2d 835, 837 (11th Cir. 1989). All filings with the Court must be made in accordance with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and this Court’s Local Rules.

Accordingly, it is ORDERED: 1. This case is DISMISSED without prejudice. 2. The Clerk of Court shall enter judgment dismissing this case

without prejudice, terminate any pending motions, and close the file.

9 3. The Clerk of Court shall send Jones a civil rights complaint form and an application to proceed in forma pauperis (prisoner filings) form. If Jones chooses to refile his claims, he may complete and file the appropriate forms. He should not include this case number on any form, as the Clerk will assign a new case number upon receipt. In initiating such a case, Jones should either file a fully completed application to proceed in forma pauperis or pay the $405 filing fee. DONE AND ORDERED at Jacksonville, Florida, this 10th day of April, 2025.

United States District Judge

JAX-3 4/10 Rashane L. Jones, #130829