Williams 124345 v. Winget

District Court, D. Arizona·Decided March 6, 2020·No. 2:19-cv-05096·Unknown

Opinion

WO KM DaJuan Williams, No. CV 19-05096-PHX-MTL (CDB) Plaintiff, v. ORDER David Winget, et al., Defendants.

On September 5, 2019, Plaintiff DaJuan Williams, who is confined in the Arizona State Prison Complex-Eyman, filed a pro se “Motion for Leave to File Excess Pages for Complaint,” a Motion for Temporary Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunction, and an Application to Proceed In Forma Pauperis, and lodged a 54-page civil rights Complaint pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. In a September 17, 2019 Order, the Court granted the Application to Proceed; denied the Motion to File; denied the Motion for Temporary Restraining Order; took no action on the Motion for Preliminary Injunction; and gave Plaintiff 30 days to file a Complaint containing no more than 30 pages. On October 15, 2019, Plaintiff filed a Complaint. In a January 15, 2020 Order, the Court dismissed the Complaint with leave to amend. On January 24, 2020, Plaintiff filed a First Amended Complaint (Doc. 16). The Court will order Defendants Winget, Tribolet, Verdugo, Valencia, Villanueva, Cornejo, and Lopez to answer the excessive force claims in Counts One through Seven of the First Amended Complaint and will dismiss the remaining claims and Defendants without prejudice. The Court will also deny without prejudice Plaintiff’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction (Doc. 5). I. Statutory Screening of Prisoner Complaints The Court is required to screen complaints brought by prisoners seeking relief against a governmental entity or an officer or an employee of a governmental entity. 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(a). The Court must dismiss a complaint or portion thereof if a plaintiff has raised claims that are legally frivolous or malicious, that fail to state a claim upon which relief may be granted, or that seek monetary relief from a defendant who is immune from such relief. 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(b)(1)–(2). A pleading must contain a “short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2) (emphasis added). While Rule 8 does not demand detailed factual allegations, “it demands more than an unadorned, the- defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). “Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice.” Id. “[A] complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Id. (quoting Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). A claim is plausible “when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id. “Determining whether a complaint states a plausible claim for relief [is] . . . a context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial experience and common sense.” Id. at 679. Thus, although a plaintiff’s specific factual allegations may be consistent with a constitutional claim, a court must assess whether there are other “more likely explanations” for a defendant’s conduct. Id. at 681. But as the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has instructed, courts must “continue to construe pro se filings liberally.” Hebbe v. Pliler, 627 F.3d 338, 342 (9th Cir. 2010). A “complaint [filed by a pro se prisoner] ‘must be held to less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted by lawyers.’” Id. (quoting Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007) (per curiam)). II. First Amended Complaint Plaintiff names the following Defendants in his 21-count First Amended Complaint: Sergeants Winget and Bernardo Villanueva; Correctional Officers (CO) II Tribolet, Verdugo, Valencia, Ruben Cornejo, and Jose Lopez; COs III Michael A. Kinney, Plancarte, Shy, and Rowley; CO IV Eva K. Sheridan; Deputy Warden Panann Days; Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) Director David Shinn; Captain J. Silves; Medical Providers Joan Grafton, Natalya Weigel, and Adolfo Oritz; and Maintenance Employees Taylor and Aventniti. Plaintiff seeks money damages and declaratory and injunctive relief. III. Discussion A. Counts One through Four Plaintiff alleges that between May and October 2018, Defendants Winget (Count One), Tribolet (Count Two), Verdugo (Count Three), and Valencia (Count Four) violated his Eighth Amendment rights when, in retaliation for Plaintiff assaulting staff, each Defendant used derogatory and offensive slurs towards Plaintiff and engaged in excessive force by “banging the gurney in which [Plaintiff] was strapped and secured to face down, in shackles and handcuffs, into walls and structures and attempting to br[eak] [Plaintiff’s] arm when [Plaintiff’s] elbow was slammed into and caught on the bars of the wing gate.” (Doc. 16 at 5, 6, 7, 8.) Plaintiff also claims each Defendant “forcefully applied contaminated, unsanitary, and bio-hazardous clippers to [Plaintiff’s] face and ‘force shav[ed Plaintiff] and . . . denied [him] basic human necessities by refusing to provide [Plaintiff with] food[,] . . . a mattress[,] . . . hygiene items[,] . . outdoor recreation[,] . . . showers[,] . . . cleaning supplies[,] . . . hair or nail clippers[,] . . . [and] water during outdoor recreation in temperatures in excess of 100 [degrees].” (Id.) Plaintiff claims each Defendant also manufactured evidence, falsified official reports, and caused a hostile environment by condoning all of the above actions. (Id.) 1. Retaliation A viable claim of First Amendment retaliation contains five basic elements: (1) an assertion that a state actor took some adverse action against an inmate (2) because of (3) that prisoner’s protected conduct, and that such action (4) chilled the inmate’s exercise of his First Amendment rights (or that the inmate suffered more than minimal harm) and (5) did not reasonably advance a legitimate correctional goal. Rhodes v. Robinson, 408 F.3d 559, 567-68 (9th Cir. 2005). The plaintiff has the burden of demonstrating that his exercise of his First Amendment rights was a substantial or motivating factor behind the defendants’ conduct. Mt. Healthy City School Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 287 (1977); Soranno’s Gasco, Inc. v. Morgan, 874 F.2d 1310, 1314 (9th Cir. 1989). Plaintiff claims he was retaliated against for assaulting a detention officer. Assault is not protected conduct and Plaintiff therefore fails to state a retaliation claim. 2. Verbal Harassment “‘Verbal harassment or abuse . . . is not sufficient to state a constitutional deprivation under 42 U.S.C. ' 1983.’” Oltarzewski v. Ruggiero, 830 F.2d 136, 139 (9th Cir. 1987) (quoting Collins v. Cundy, 603 F.2d 825 (10th Cir. 1979)); see also, McFadden v. Lucas, 713 F.2d 143, 146 (5th Cir. 1983) (mere threatening language and gestures do not, even if true, amount to constitutional violations); Johnson v. Glick, 481 F.2d 1028, 1033 n.7 (2d Cir. 1973) (t

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Williams 124345 v. Winget, (D. Ariz. 2020).

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