(PC) Wilson v. High Desert State Prison

Opinion

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 11 CHRISTOPHER JOHN WILSON, No. 2:25-cv-0309 CSK P 12 Plaintiff, 13 v. ORDER 14 HIGH DESERT STATE PRISON, et al., 15 Defendants. 16 17 Plaintiff, a state prisoner proceeding in forma pauperis, filed a second amended complaint. 18 Plaintiff’s second amended complaint is now before the Court. (ECF No. 21.) In his second 19 amended complaint, plaintiff asks the Court to use pages from his first amended complaint to 20 provide a basis for his second amended complaint. (Id. at 5.) Plaintiff was recently injured, 21 requiring surgery to his right arm, and he is right-handed. (Id. at 4.) On July 9, 2025, plaintiff 22 filed a document informing the Court that because his injury began to heal by the time plaintiff 23 was sent to Great Basin Orthopedics in Reno, surgery could not be performed. (ECF No. 22 at 1.) 24 Plaintiff is unable to straighten his arm and must still contend with the pain. (Id.) 25 As plaintiff was previously informed, “an amended complaint must be complete in itself 26 without reference to any prior pleading.” (ECF No. 20 at 9 (citing Local Rule 220; see Ramirez 27 v. Cnty. of San Bernardino, 806 F.3d 1002, 1008 (9th Cir. 2015).) “Once plaintiff files an 28 amended complaint, the original or prior pleading is superseded and treated as non-existent.” 1 (ECF No. 20 at 9 (citation omitted).) 2 Therefore, plaintiff’s reference to pages included in his first amended complaint, which is 3 now superseded, are insufficient and improper. In addition, because some of the pages plaintiff 4 requested to be incorporated are duplicates of the pages in his second amended complaint, it 5 would be inappropriate to include those pages (i.e. pages 1, 2 and 40). Similarly, the last page he 6 seeks to incorporate is the signature page from the first amended complaint, and it would be 7 confusing to include page 40. Thus, the Court would not recommend incorporating pages 1, 2 8 and 40 because they are already part of plaintiff’s second amended complaint. 9 Also, within plaintiff’s second amended complaint is plaintiff’s notice concerning an 10 unrelated excessive force incident that resulted in the injuries impacting plaintiff’s ability to 11 write. (ECF No. 21 at 4.) This notice is not properly included in plaintiff’s second amended 12 complaint. 13 Therefore, in light of plaintiff’s current medical challenges, the Court directs the Clerk of 14 the Court to provide plaintiff with copies of pages 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 from plaintiff’s second 15 amended complaint, without the Court’s ECF filing banner, along with copies of pages 13, 14, 38, 16 and 39 from plaintiff’s first amended complaint (ECF No. 19), without the Court’s ECF filing 17 banner. Plaintiff shall review the pages, place them in the proper order, and determine whether 18 these pages constitute the second amended complaint he wishes to file. If so, plaintiff shall re-file 19 the second amended complaint as a single, complete document within thirty days from the date of 20 this order. As noted above, plaintiff’s second amended complaint must be complete, without 21 requests to use or refer to other documents. 22 Finally, plaintiff is cautioned that failure to comply with this order will result in the Court 23 screening plaintiff’s June 4, 2025 second amended complaint as written, except that the Court 24 will strike plaintiff’s statement: “Please use pages 1, 2, 13, 14, 38, 39, 40 for basis of second 25 amended complaint.” (ECF No. 21 at 5). 26 Accordingly, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that: 27 1. The Clerk of the Court is directed to send plaintiff copies of pages 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 from 28 plaintiff’s second amended complaint (ECF No. 21), without the Court’s ECF filing banner, along 1 || with copies of pages 13, 14, 38, and 39 from plaintiffs first amended complaint (ECF No. 19), 2 || without the Court’s ECF filing banner. 3 2. Within thirty days from the date of this order, plaintiff shall re-submit his second 4 || amended complaint as a single, complete document. Failure to comply with this order will result 5 || in the Court screening plaintiff's second amended complaint as filed with the Court on June 4, 6 || 2025, and will strike the request to use pages from his first amended complaint. 7 g Dated: July 21, 2025 YY 2 Spo 9 CHI SOO KIM 10 UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE 11 || /Awils0309.refile 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28