Rhonshawn Jackson v. Jeffrey Beard, et al

Filing

NOT PRECEDENTIAL PER CURIAM OPINION Coram: RESTREPO, SCIRICA and FISHER, Circuit Judges. Total Pages: 10.

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NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
___________
No. 17-1192
___________
RHONSHAWN JACKSON,
Appellant
v.
JEFFREY A. BEARD; SHIRLEY M. SMEAL; SUPT. LAWLER; DEPUTY ECKARD;
CONNIE GREEN; MAJOR WAKEFIELD; LT. STEVENS; DIANE LANE; DR. A
REIS; C.O. CATES; C.O. SEMPLE; C.O. PYLE; C.O. WILLIAMS; VERNON
SPELLMAN; C/O LONG; C.O. CLARK; C.O. MCCLOSKEY; C/O MCCOY; C.O.
DONALDSON; CO SHROYER; C.O. DUNKLE; SUPT MURRAY; SUPT DIDDY;
SUPT SOUTHERS; GIMBLE; TONYA HEIST
____________________________________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. Civil No. 3-11-cv-01431)
District Judge: Honorable Edwin M. Kosik
____________________________________
Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
August 1, 2017
Before: RESTREPO, SCIRICA and FISHER, Circuit Judges
(Opinion filed August 4, 2017)
_________
OPINION*
_________
PER CURIAM

*

This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not
constitute binding precedent.

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Rhonshawn Jackson appeals pro se from the District Court’s adverse judgment in
his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action. We will affirm.
I.
Jackson initiated this action in 2011 against various employees of the
Pennsylvania Department of Corrections—mostly officials at SCI-Huntingdon and SCICamp Hill—asserting a litany of constitutional claims arising from his alleged
mistreatment at these institutions. This controversy started, according to Jackson’s
amended complaint, on March 19, 2009, when he “was involved in [an] assault on
several guards which incited a riot at SCI-Houtzdale.” He alleged that he was transferred
the next day to the Restricted Housing Unit at SCI-Huntingdon, and that Defendants “put
into motion a ‘campaign of retaliation and harassment.’”
Jackson’s 27-page complaint contains a slew of allegations—many failing to
identify which Defendants were involved in claimed violations and when the alleged
violations occurred. In brief summary, Jackson claimed that various Defendants
assaulted him; destroyed his property; issued falsified disciplinary reports; denied him
meals, showers, and recreation; improperly handled his grievances; retaliated against him
for filing grievances; failed to provide him medical treatment; and “generally subjected
him to psychological torture.”
Two years into the litigation, acting pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
12(b)(6), the District Court dismissed all but six of Jackson’s claims—these six
concerning alleged mistreatment at SCI-Huntingdon between June 2010 and January
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2011:1 two excessive-force claims; a retaliation claim; a denial-of-meals claim; a failureto-protect claim, and a due-process grievance-obstruction claim.
By order entered on July 5, 2016, the District Court awarded summary judgment
on five of these six remaining claims, rejecting them on their merits. It denied summary
judgment, however, on the failure-to-protect claim—characterizing it as “colorable”2—
and referred it to the Magistrate Judge to conduct an evidentiary hearing to determine
whether Jackson had properly exhausted it.3 After an evidentiary hearing, the Magistrate
Judge issued a Report and Recommendation concluding that he had not, and
recommending that judgment be entered on this sole remaining claim. The District Court
adopted the Report and Recommendation by order entered on October 25, 2016, and
directed the clerk to close the case. Following the District Court’s denials of Jackson’s
motions for reconsideration, this timely appeal ensued.
II.
We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. On appeal, Jackson challenges
various aspects of the evidentiary hearing, and the District Court’s subsequent entry of
judgment before receiving his objections to the Report and Recommendation. He also

1

Jackson alleged that he was transferred to SCI-Camp Hill in January 2011.
In this claim Jackson alleged that various Defendants told other dangerous inmates that
Jackson was a snitch.
3
The District Court opined that, while Jackson could “not bring a [freestanding] due
process claim based upon alleged interference with his grievances, these
allegations [] preclude summary judgment on the Defendants’ affirmative defense of
failure to exhaust.”
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challenges the District Court’s summary-judgment order, and its earlier order dismissing
some of his retaliation claims under Rule 12(b)(6).
The evidentiary hearing
We will first address the claims related to the evidentiary hearing and the District
Court’s subsequent entry of judgment, as they are the thrust of Jackson’s appeal. We
“review the determination of a failure to exhaust [following an evidentiary hearing] de
novo,” but will “accept the Court’s factual conclusions unless clearly erroneous.” Small
v. Camden County, 728 F.3d 265, 268 (3d Cir. 2013) (internal citations omitted).
The Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) requires that a prisoner exhaust
available administrative remedies before filing suit, see 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a), and this
“exhaustion requirement applies to all inmate suits about prison life, whether they
involve general circumstances or particular episodes, and whether they allege excessive
force or some other wrong.” Porter v. Nussle, 534 U.S. 516, 532 (2002). DC-ADM 804,
which governs the grievance and appeals process in Pennsylvania correctional
institutions, provides for a three-step process,4 and a prisoner must follow each of these
steps to properly exhaust his administrative remedies under the PLRA. See Booth v.
Churner, 206 F.3d 289, 299 (3d Cir. 2000) (noting that plaintiff “did not take full

The three stages are: “Initial Review (DC–ADM–804 Part VI.B), which addresses the
inmate’s filed grievance; the first appeal from the Initial Review, known as Appeal to
Facility Manager (DC–ADM–804 Part VI.C); and a second and final appeal, the Appeal
to Secretary's Office of Inmate Grievances and Appeals (DC–ADM–804 Part VI.D).”
Spruill v. Gillis, 372 F.3d 218, 232 (3d Cir. 2004).
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advantage of the administrative procedures available to him” in failing to use steps two
and three of DC–ADM 804).
Defendants argued below in their motion for summary judgment that Jackson
failed to exhaust his administrative remedies with respect to the six claims that made it to
the summary-judgement stage because he never reached the final stage of review. In
support of their motion, they submitted a record of all the grievances Jackson filed during
the timeframe relevant to these claims, showing that he never reached the final stage for
any of these grievances. They also submitted the affidavit of Connie Green, Assistant to
the Superintendent at SCI-Huntingdon, who stated that she “processed every grievance []
Jackson [] filed while he was at SCI-Huntingdon,” and that “[a]t no time did [she]
sabotage or fail to process any grievance or appeal filed by [] Jackson[.]”
While Jackson alleged that various Defendants had obstructed his access to the
grievance system, the Magistrate Judge found these allegations incredible at the
evidentiary hearing, observing that “prison officials actually went out of their way to
assist and accommodate Jackson.” The Magistrate Judge found no obstruction,
concluding that Jackson’s “failure to fully complete the grievance process was consistent
with [his] longstanding grievance history, which is marked by multiple grievances which
were never fully exhausted,” and that a “review of the actual grievances submitted by
Jackson while housed at SCI-Huntingdon between November 2010 and January 2011,
contradicts his claim of denial of access to the grievance process.”

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Jackson re-asserts this generic obstruction claim on appeal, contending that
“[t]hroughout this entire litigation . . . defendants . . . obstructed his grievances from
being filed by ripping them up, throwing them away, or just flatout ignoring them [and]
not responding to them.” In support of this contention, he cites his own affidavit and the
declarations of other prisoners he submitted below in opposition to Defendants’ motion
for summary judgment. But none of these documents5—or any other record evidence—
shows that the Magistrate Judge’s exhaustion findings were “clearly erroneous.” Small,
728 F.3d at 268. The Magistrate Judge found incredible Jackson’s testimony that he was
obstructed from filing grievances, and Jackson has pointed to nothing that would warrant
our disturbing this finding.6
Jackson also argues that the Magistrate Judge’s resolution of the exhaustion
question violated the Seventh Amendment because “[his] retaliation/obstruction claim

These documents mostly provide support for Jackson’s factual accounts of the
underlying incidents with prison staff, but do not address the dispositive issue in this
appeal—whether Defendants prevented Jackson from reaching the final stage of review.
Jackson argues on appeal that “none of [his] favorable evidence [and] witness
declarations were even considered or mentioned in the [Report and Recommendation] by
[the] Magistrate [Judge] after [the] evidentiary hearing.” While it appears that the
Magistrate Judge did not specifically reference this evidence (mainly unpersuasive
prisoner declarations), the Magistrate Judge relied on other evidence that amply
supported his findings.
6
This same analysis applies with equal force to Jackson’s November 2010 denial-ofmeals claim, and we thus affirm the rejection of this claim on this ground. See Christ the
King Manor, Inc. v. Sec’y U.S. Dep’t of Health & Human Servs., 730 F.3d 291, 321 (3d
Cir. 2013) (“[W]e can affirm on any basis supported by the record.”) (internal citation
omitted).
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[was] intertwined with his exhaustion issue.” While Seventh Amendment problems may
arise when “facts relating to his exhaustion of administrative remedies or [a] failure to
exhaust are at all intertwined with the merits of [a plaintiff’s] claims,” Small, 728 F.3d at
270, there was no such problem here. The District Court dismissed Jackson’s grievancerelated retaliation claims under Rule 12(b)(6) three years before the evidentiary hearing,
and for reasons unrelated to his failure to exhaust them.
Jackson’s last argument related to the evidentiary hearing is that the District Court
erred by adopting the Magistrate Judge’s Report and Recommendation before his
objections were due. It appears that the District Court adopted the Report and
Recommendation the same day Jackson’s objections were due (October 24, 2016),
having not received them. Jackson claims that he mailed his objections on October 21,
2016, though the District Court stated that it never received them. We need not resolve
this timeliness dispute because Jackson appended a copy of his objections to his motion
for reconsideration, and they are meritless. He essentially advanced in these objections
the same unconvincing arguments he now asserts on appeal.
The Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal
We exercise plenary review over the District Court’s dismissal under Rule
12(b)(6), W. Penn Allegheny Health Sys., Inc. v. UPMC, 627 F.3d 85, 97 (3d Cir. 2010),
and ask whether the complaint contains “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

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(2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). Jackson
challenges the Court’s dismissal of three of his retaliation claims.
First, he argues that the District Court erred by dismissing his April 27, 2009
retaliation claim, in which he alleged that various Defendants denied him dinner because
he refused their sexual advances. Because Jackson did not file his complaint until August
2011, this claim is plainly time-barred by Pennsylvania’s two-year statute of limitations
applicable to § 1983 claims.7 Kach v. Hose, 589 F.3d 626, 634 (3d Cir. 2009).
He next argues that the District Court erred by dismissing his November 2010
retaliation claim, in which he alleged that various Defendants told other inmates he was a
snitch because of his grievance activity. The District Court did not dismiss this claim; it
treated it as a failure-to-protect claim, and ultimately concluded (after the evidentiary
hearing) that Jackson had not exhausted it. Jackson did not style this claim as a
retaliation claim in his complaint.8 Nor did he object to the District Court’s
characterization of it as a failure-to-protect claim. Indeed, in his brief in opposition to
Defendants’ motion for summary judgment, he styled the claim as such, and cited a
failure-to-protect case to support it. He cannot now argue, for the first time on appeal,

7

While the District Court appears to have dismissed this claim on the basis that Jackson
had failed to allege a protected activity, “we can affirm on any basis supported by the
record.” Christ the King Manor, Inc., 730 F.3d at 321.
8
He claimed that various Defendants “insinuate[d] that [he] was a ‘snitch’ . . . to highly
dangerous prisoners who, in turn, threatened, ridiculed, humiliated, and assaulted [him].”
He never used the term “retaliation”—or any comparable term—to alert the Court that he
was attempting to assert a retaliation claim.
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that the District Court improperly dismissed (or mistreated) this claim. See DIRECTV
Inc. v. Seijas, 508 F.3d 123, 125 n.1 (3d Cir. 2007).
Finally, he argues that the District Court erred by dismissing his confiscation-ofproperty claim, arguing that “this was not a regular deprivation of property claim[;] this
was a retaliatory act employed by the defendants to deter [him] from filing any further
grievances [and] reporting any future abuses.” While Jackson alleged in his complaint
that Defendants retaliated against him by confiscating his mail and books, he did not
allege any underlying protected activity—an essential element of retaliation, Rauser v.
Horn, 241 F.3d 330, 333 (3d Cir. 2001)—that might support such a claim. In other
words, he did not state a plausible claim to relief.9
The award of summary judgment
We exercise plenary review over the District Court’s award of summary judgment,
Giles v. Kearney, 571 F.3d 318, 322 (3d Cir. 2009), which Jackson challenges on
procedural grounds. He argues that the “Court provided Affirmative Defenses for
defendants during Summary Judgment”—claiming that Defendants failed to oppose five
of his claims, “[y]et the court ruled in [their] favor on [] unopposed [or] unchallenged
claim[s].” But Defendants addressed two of these claims in their motion for summary

9

While Jackson argues for the first time on appeal that Defendants retaliated against him
for filing grievances, our review of the District Court’s dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) is
limited to “judging the sufficiency of a pleading[.]” W. Penn Allegheny Health Sys. Inc.,
627 F.3d at 98.
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judgment, and the other three in their motion to dismiss, and Jackson has not argued that
the District Court erred substantively by dismissing them. We thus detect no error.
Conclusion
Jackson has identified no error in any of the District Court’s rulings. We will thus
affirm its judgment.10

We perceive no error in the District Court’s denials of Jackson’s motions for
reconsideration. Jackson failed to demonstrate any of the grounds that might support
reconsideration: “(1) an intervening change in the controlling law; (2) the availability of
new evidence that was not available when the court granted the motion for summary
judgment; or (3) the need to correct a clear error of law or fact or to prevent manifest
injustice.” Max’s Seafood Cafe ex rel. Lou-Ann, Inc. v. Quinteros, 176 F.3d 669, 677
(3d Cir. 1999).
10

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