(PC) Puckett v. Moreno

District Court, E.D. California·Decided May 15, 2025·No. 2:22-cv-00650·Unknown

Opinion

DURRELL ANTHONY PUCKETT, Case No. 2:22-cv-0650-JDP (P) Plaintiff, v. ORDER D. MORENO, et al., Defendants.

Plaintiff, a state prisoner, alleges that defendants Smith, Haynes, Williams, and Moreno violated his Eighth Amendment rights by refusing to acknowledge that he was suicidal. ECF No. 14 at 3. He also alleges that, in his suicidal state, he started a fire in his cell and defendants violated his Eighth Amendment rights by failing to extricate him promptly. Id. at 3-4. Plaintiff moves for summary judgment. ECF No. 81. Defendants also move for summary judgment, arguing that plaintiff’s claims are contradicted by video evidence showing that defendants appropriately responded to plaintiff each time he started a fire in his cell. ECF No. 91.1 Defendants further claim that they are entitled to qualified immunity. Id. Additionally,

1 Defendants also moved for an extension of time to file their motion for summary judgment, ECF No. 89, which plaintiff did not oppose. I will grant this motion and deem defendants’ motion timely. plaintiff has filed certain motions for fees and settlement conferences. ECF Nos. 82, 88, 90, & 94. I will grant defendants’ motion for summary judgment and deny plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment. I will also deny plaintiff’s miscellaneous motions. Motion for Summary Judgment I. Background In his second amended complaint, plaintiff alleges that, on May 6, 2021, he set a fire in his cell after defendants Smith, Haynes, Moreno, and Williams ignored his claims that he was suicidal and declined to summon a doctor. ECF No. 14 at 3. He claims that once the fire department was summoned, the named defendants purposefully delayed removing him from the cell. Id. at 3-4. A video of the incident shows the following.2 On May 6, 2021, at approximately 5:23 p.m., plaintiff set a fire inside his cell. The cell block appeared empty, with inmates inside their cells and no correctional officers roaming. The flames appeared to die down approximately four minutes later, but smoke continued to billow from plaintiff’s cell door. At this point, the cell block’s fire alarm started blinking and correctional officers entered the cell block. At 5:28 p.m., an officer looked into plaintiff’s cell, and he and another officer immediately returned with a bucket full of water. At 5:29 p.m., these officers threw the water into plaintiff’s cell to extinguish the fire. At 5:32 p.m., another officer approached plaintiff’s cell, looked inside, and then exited. At 5:33 p.m., seven officers approached plaintiff’s cell and peered inside; it appeared that the fire had re-ignited. An officer remained at plaintiff’s door while other correctional officers moved other inmates out of the cell block. At 5:38, flames and smoke could no longer be seen coming from plaintiff’s cell, and at approximately 5:39 p.m., the fire department entered the cell block. Officers continued evacuating inmates while firefighters assessed the scene. At 5:43 p.m., the cell block was empty, with only two firefighters inside watching plaintiff’s cell. By 6:00 p.m.,

2 The video provided by defendants does not contain audio. the smoke had dissipated. A correctional officer approached plaintiff’s cell and looked inside, then walked away. The cell block remained empty, with plaintiff still inside his cell, until 6:33 p.m., when three correctional officers approached plaintiff’s cell. The officers looked inside the cell, and appeared to be speaking with plaintiff. At least one officer remained at plaintiff’s cell door until 6:38 p.m. The cell block remained empty, with officers periodically walking through the block, until 6:51 p.m., when officers began bringing back the previously evacuated inmates. At 7:04 p.m., an officer returned to plaintiff’s cell, peered inside, and then walked away. All previously evacuated inmates were returned to their cells by 7:08 p.m., and correctional officers exited the cell block. Smoke appeared to start building in the cell block again at 7:17 p.m., and officers returned to the cell block at 7:32 p.m. Two officers surrounded plaintiff’s cell and used a flashlight to look into it. One officer threw a bucket of water into plaintiff cell at 7:33 p.m. Officers again evacuated the other inmates from the cell block, while other officers surveilled plaintiff’s cell. The fire department returned to the cell block at 7:42 p.m., and a firefighter approached plaintiff’s cell. Officers and the fire department continued to surveil the cell block, and at 7:53 p.m. the fire department began unraveling a hose and approaching plaintiff’s cell. At 7:54 p.m., with plaintiff still inside his cell, firefighters hosed down the cell, pointing the hose underneath the cell door, around the cell door frame, and inside the food slot. A few minutes later, the fire department began squeegeeing the water into drains, and the cell block emptied again. At 8:15 p.m., five officers extracted plaintiff from his cell. Written evidence sheds additional light on the incident. Defendant Smith, via declaration, stated that plaintiff was housed in the Restricted Housing Unit (“RHU”) on the date of the incident, and had been housed there since 2015. ECF No. 91-6 at 2. The RHU houses inmates who cannot be placed into the general population due to safety concerns. Id. According to Smith, plaintiff had a long history of assaulting staff, and correctional staff were more vigilant than usual around plaintiff due to his history. Id. Over the past nine years, plaintiff had been found guilty of assaulting, battering, or threatening officers over seventy times, and he had a history of biting staff. Id. At least two correctional officers had had portions of their fingers bitten off by plaintiff. Id. Smith states that when plaintiff set the initial fire, officers asked him to submit to restraints and to exit his cell many times, but he refused. Id. Smith claims that plaintiff refused to exit for two and a half hours, during which time he threatened to throw feces and urine at staff and to attack staff who came near his cell. Id. He states that staff continually checked on plaintiff during the event, and that there was no need to extract him from his cell on an emergency basis at any point. Id. at 3. He states that no correctional staff attempted to harm plaintiff by delaying his removal from his cell. Id. In plaintiff’s deposition, he testified that he set two fires in his cell on May 6, 2021, because he was feeling suicidal, and officers refused to pull him out of his cell. ECF No. 100 at 7-9. He indicated that at the start of the fire, he was willing to submit to being restrained and taken out of his cell, but he later changed his mind because he believed proper precautions were not being taken. Id. at 9. He stated that he was under “statewide security precautions” that required him to be given a sergeant, a camera, and two officers in order to be escorted from his cell, and a bite mask would be used. Id. Initially, he was okay leaving his cell, but when he saw Smith did not have a camera with him, he refused to exit the cell. Id. He stated that he feared for his safety if he left the cell without the proper precautions because Moreno and Williams had threatened to beat him up if he left the cell. Id. at 9-10. Plaintiff denied threatening the staff when they approached his cell and insisted that he begged to exit his cell. Id. at 19-20. Plaintiff admitted that he had set fire to his cell at least ten times, and that during at least five of these incidents, he assaulted or threatened to assault staff who attempted to remove him from his cell. Id. at 49. He acknowledged that he had a history of stabbing officers and throwing feces, urine, and water at them, and that he made officers aware of his violent tendencies. Id. at 51-53. He indicated that he liked to make officers “work” to get him out of his cell. Id. at 51. He admitted that he has spit at and bitten officers numerous times. Id. at 53-54.

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