Kaneakua v. Derr

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: July 14, 2025
• Docket: 23-1587
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JUL 14 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

ELIJAH M. KANEAKUA, No. 23-1587 D.C. No. Plaintiff - Appellant, 1:22-cv-00201-DKW-WRP v. MEMORANDUM* ESTELA DERR; NATHAN KWON,

Defendants - Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii Derrick Kahala Watson, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted June 3, 2025 Honolulu, Hawaii

Before: W. FLETCHER, CHRISTEN, and DESAI, Circuit Judges.

Elijah M. Kaneakua appeals from the district court’s dismissal of his pro se

complaint seeking damages pursuant to Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of

the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971). Kaneakua alleged that

Defendants Dr. Nathan Kwon and Warden Estela Derr failed to treat him for

severe ear pain while he was incarcerated at FDC Honolulu. The key question on

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. appeal is whether Kaneakua’s Eighth Amendment claim that federal prison

officials were deliberately indifferent to his medical needs arises in the same

context as Carlson v. Green, 446 U.S. 14 (1980), one of the three permissible

Bivens contexts. Ziglar v. Abbasi, 582 U.S. 120, 131 (2017).

We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. The parties are familiar

with the facts, so we do not recount them here. We review de novo a district

court’s order granting a motion to dismiss. Watanabe v. Derr, 115 F.4th 1034,

1037 (9th Cir. 2024). We liberally construe pro se pleadings and afford the

petitioner the benefit of any doubt. Ross v. Williams, 950 F.3d 1160, 1173 n.19

(9th Cir. 2020) (en banc). We reverse and remand for further proceedings

consistent with this disposition.

The district court erred by collapsing the two steps of the Bivens inquiry.

See Egbert v. Boule, 596 U.S. 482, 483, 498–99 (2022). Only when a court

“find[s] that a claim arises in a new context” does it “proceed to the second step.”

Hernandez v. Mesa, 589 U.S. 93, 102 (2020). Our precedent is clear that if

Kaneakua’s claim does not present a new Bivens context at step one, “we need not

consider the second step.” Watanabe, 115 F.4th at 1036; Stanard v. Dy, 88 F.4th

811, 818 (9th Cir. 2023).

We are bound by Abbasi, 582 U.S. at 139–40. Applying the Abbasi step-one

factors, Kaneakua’s claim does not present a new Bivens context at step one. See

2 23-1587 Watanabe, 115 F.4th at 1043.

We clarify three points. First, though the district court distinguished the

nature and severity of Kaneakua’s injury, Watanabe explained that such

distinctions are immaterial at step one to whether the claim arises in a new context.

Id. at 1041–42; see also Stanard, 88 F.4th at 817 (“[E]ven assuming that Stanard

received less deficient care than the inmate in Carlson, that difference in degree is

not a meaningful difference giving rise to a new context.”). Second, on appeal,

Defendants frame Kaneakua’s claim as implicating systemic medical management

policies at the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and suggest that this creates a new context

through “the risk of disruptive intrusion by the Judiciary into the functioning of

other branches.” Abbasi, 582 U.S. at 140. This framing mischaracterizes

Kaneakua’s pro se complaint. “[T]he core of his complaint concerns the actions

and state of mind of Defendants in denying him . . . treatment” and does not

“simply challeng[e] a broadly applicable BOP policy.” Stanard, 88 F.4th at 818;

see Watanabe, 115 F.4th at 1040. Third, the need for an outside specialist does not

place this case in a new context. As in both Carlson and Watanabe, the “alleged

official actions include the refusal to transport [Kaneakua] to an outside hospital

and the failure to provide him competent medical attention.” Watanabe, 115 F.4th

at 1039 (citing Carlson, 446 U.S. at 16 n.1).

We remand to the district court to consider qualified immunity in the first

3 23-1587 instance. See Ecological Rts. Found. v. Pac. Lumber Co., 230 F.3d 1141, 1154

(9th Cir. 2000). In doing so, the district court should not consider medical records

that Defendants submitted as evidence at the 12(b)(6) stage. The records were not

incorporated by reference into Kaneakua’s complaint. See Khoja v. Orexigen

Therapeutics, Inc., 899 F.3d 988, 1002–03 (9th Cir. 2018).

REVERSED AND REMANDED.

4 23-1587