Castillo v. Hogan et al

Filing 8

ORDER re 1 Complaint filed by Michael Castillo, ( Amended Pleadings due by 3/13/2015) Signed by Judge Alvin W. Thompson on 1/26/2015.(Payton, R.)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF CONNECTICUT
MICHAEL CASTILLO,
Plaintiff,
v.
CASE NO. 3:14-1166 (AWT)
HOGAN, ET AL.,
Defendants.
ORDER
The plaintiff, who is currently incarcerated at MacDougallWalker Correctional Institution in Suffield, Connecticut, filed
this Complaint pursuant 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Correctional
Officers Hogan, Cossette, Pereira, Johnson, Cummings, Franklin,
Demoria, Avery, Debueno, Granatta, Santini, Kelly, Papoosha,
Mulligan and Faraci, Lieutenants Smith, Wilkins, Mollin, Ebele,
Wardens Alves and Brighthaupt, Grievance Coordinators Petterson,
Crandall, Captain Watson and Baker, Deputy Wardens Agers and
Powers, Counselor Supervisor Garcia, Counselors Albino and
Moore, Correctional Officers John Doe #1, John Doe #2 and John
Doe #3, Lieutenant John Doe #1 and Lieutenant John Doe # 2, Jane
Doe #1, Jane Doe #2, Jane Doe #3, Jane Doe #4, Nurse Vickie
Garcia, Nursing Supervisor C. Durato, Medical Supervisor B.
Stewart, Medical Grievance Coordinator Sheryl Estrom, Michael
Lajoie, Forest, Ricardo Ruiz, S. Brown, Fitzner and K. Butricks.
Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(b), the court must review
prisoner civil complaints against governmental actors and

“dismiss ... any portion of [a] complaint [that] is frivolous,
malicious, or fails to state a claim upon which relief may be
granted,” or that “seeks monetary relief from a defendant who is
immune from such relief.”

Id.

Although detailed allegations

are not required, “a complaint must contain sufficient factual
matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is
plausible on its face.
A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads
factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable
inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct
alleged.”

Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (internal

quotation marks and citations omitted).

A complaint that

includes only “‘labels and conclusions,’ ‘a formulaic recitation
of the elements of a cause of action’ or

‘naked assertion[s]’

devoid of ‘further factual enhancement,’ ” does not meet the
facial plausibility standard.

Id. (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v.

Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 557 (2007)).

Although courts still

have an obligation to liberally construe a pro se complaint, see
Harris v. Mills, 572 F.3d 66, 72 (2d Cir. 2009), the complaint
must include sufficient factual allegations to meet the standard
of facial plausibility.

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I.

Failure to Comply with Federal Rule 8
The first defect with the Complaint is that it does not

comply with Rule 8's pleading requirements.

Rule 8(a)(2), Fed.

R. Civ. P., requires that a complaint contain “a short and plain
statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to
relief.”

Rule 8(d)(1) provides that “[e]ach allegation must be

simple, concise and direct.”

The purpose of Rule 8 is “to

permit the defendant to have a fair understanding of what the
plaintiff is complaining about and to know whether there is a
legal basis for recovery.”

Ricciutti v. New York Trans. Auth.,

941 F.2d 119, 123 (2d Cir. 1991) (citation omitted).

In

addition, “the rule serves to sharpen the issues to be litigated
and to confine discovery and the presentation of evidence at
trial within reasonable bounds.”

Powell v. Marine Midland Bank,

162 F.R.D. 15, 16 (N.D.N.Y. 1995) (citation and quotation
omitted).

The plaintiff’s statement of his claim “should be

short because “[u]nnecessary prolixity in a pleading places an
unjustified burden on the court and the party who must respond
to it because they are forced to select the relevant material
from a mass of verbiage.”

Salahuddin v. Cuomo, 861 F.2d 40, 42

(2d Cir. 1988) (quoting 5 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal
Practice and Procedure § 1281, at 365 (1969)).
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When a litigant does not comply with Rule 8's requirements,
the court may strike any portion of the complaint that is
redundant or immaterial pursuant to Rule 12(f), Fed. R. Civ. P.
Alternatively, it may dismiss the complaint in its entirety in
those cases “in which the complaint is so confused, ambiguous,
vague, or otherwise unintelligible that its true substance, if
any, is well disguised.”

Saluddin, 861 F.2d at 42.

In Saluddin

for example, the Second Circuit, found “no doubt” that
plaintiff’s complaint, which “span[ned] 15 single-spaced pages
and contain[ed] explicit descriptions of 20-odd defendants,
their official positions, and their roles in the alleged denials
of Salahuddin’s rights, failed to comply with Rule 8's
requirement of a “short and plain statement.”

Id. at 43.

Accordingly, the court stated that “the district court was
within the bounds of discretion to strike or dismiss the
complaint for noncompliance with Rule 8.”

Id.

In this case, the plaintiff’s Complaint is neither “short
and plain” nor “simple, concise and direct.”

The Complaint

consists of forty-six single-spaced, typed pages containing 487
paragraphs.

The Complaint refers to a time period from January

2011 to January 2014, and includes at least five different
claims involving forty-nine defendants.
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A.

Claim One - Medical Treatment

The plaintiff alleges that in January 2011 at Cheshire
Correctional Institution, he became ill with a severe nasal
infection.

The plaintiff claims that defendants Officers John

Doe #1, John Doe #2, Lieutenants John Doe # 1 and John Doe #2,
Jane Doe #1, Jane Doe #2, Jane Doe #3 and Nurse Vickie Garcia,
failed to either treat him for his condition or arrange for
treatment of the condition.
On February 17, 2011, defendants Hogan, Johnson, Smith and
John Doe #3 placed the plaintiff in the restrictive housing unit
in connection with an investigation into gang activity.

The

plaintiff was held in the restrictive housing unit for a week.
Although the plaintiff repeatedly complained about his medical
condition, none of these defendants attempted to arrange for
medical treatment for the plaintiff.
Dr. Ruiz examined the plaintiff on March 7, 2011 and
diagnosed him as suffering from allergies.

Dr. Ruiz ordered x-

rays and prescribed medication to treat the plaintiff’s
condition. The plaintiff complained about his condition and the
fact that the medication was not helping to treat the condition,
but defendant Ruiz failed to listen to the plaintiff.

The

plaintiff made defendants Durato, Stewart, Brown, Estrom and
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Jane Doe #3 aware of his medical condition, but they failed to
take action to arrange for or provide medical treatment.
Dr. O’Halloran examined the plaintiff on July 19, 2012 and
diagnosed him as suffering from a severe nasal infection.

He

prescribed medication which successfully cured the plaintiff’s
infection.
B.

Claim Two - Retaliation

On February 24, 2011, defendants Hogan, Johnson, and Smith
escorted the plaintiff into a room to be questioned about gang
activity.

The plaintiff denied all knowledge of any misconduct,

invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to answer any questions
and refused to cooperate in the investigation.

Defendants

Hogan, Johnson, and Smith informed the plaintiff that he would
regret his decision not to cooperate and threatened to make the
plaintiff’s time in prison difficult.

Defendants Hogan, Johnson

and Smith then sent the plaintiff back to the restrictive
housing unit.
At some point after the plaintiff’s release from
restrictive housing to general population, defendant Faraci
called the plaintiff to the property room and the plaintiff was
told that he had to send his religious necklace home.

The

plaintiff had never had an issue with his religious necklace in
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the past.

Defendant Feraci suggested that the reason the

plaintiff could not keep his religious necklace was because he
had made other correctional officials angry.

Defendants Baker,

Agers and Alves refused to take corrective action after being
informed of the confiscation of the plaintiff’s necklace.
The plaintiff was initially not permitted to have a job
after his release from the restrictive housing unit.

On

February 28, 2011, defendant Baker arranged for the plaintiff to
start working as a barber again.
In early March 2011, defendants Cummins and Franklin
informed the plaintiff he was moving to another unit.

The

plaintiff was upset because it meant he would lose his job.
Defendants Cummings and Franklin suggested that the move had
been ordered in retaliation for the plaintiff’s failure to
cooperate in the investigation by defendants Hogan, Johnson and
Smith.

Defendant Baker subsequently moved the plaintiff back to

his old housing unit and permitted him to work as a barber
again.
Two weeks later, defendants Demoria and Cummings moved the
plaintiff back to a different housing unit.

Defendant

Brighthaupt agreed with the move and the decision not to give
the plaintiff a job.
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Officers subsequently moved the plaintiff to a different
housing unit.

The plaintiff signed up for education courses,

but officers denied him placement in the courses.

The plaintiff

failed to receive responses to his grievances from defendants
Powers or Petterson.
In July 2012, officers placed the plaintiff in the
restrictive housing unit.

Defendants Avery and Debueno packed

and processed the plaintiff’s property.

They told him that he

would have to send one of his electronic devices home.

The

plaintiff chose to send his Game Boy device home and keep his
Nintendo.
On July 9, 2012, the plaintiff was released from the
restrictive housing unit and found that several items of
personal property were missing from his cell.

Defendant Feraci

suggested that he might have discarded some of the plaintiff’s
property due to grievances filed by the plaintiff against his
co-workers.
C.

Legal Mail

During the plaintiff’s confinement in the restrictive
housing unit, he received two boxes of legal documents related
to his criminal trial.

Defendants Crandall and Granatta

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reviewed the documents to make sure no contraband was present
and told the plaintiff he must chose one box to put in storage.
Plaintiff’s attorneys attempted to retrieve a box of legal
documents that had been placed in storage pursuant to an
arrangement with the plaintiff, but prison officials denied them
access to the documents.

Defendant Santini later informed the

plaintiff that no one had picked up the box and that the
plaintiff must dispose of it or it would be destroyed.
had been opened and was half empty.

The box

Plaintiff’s attorneys

attempted again to pick up the box, but prison officials denied
them access to it.

Defendants Moore and Watson refused to

document the damage to the box of legal documents.
In April 2013, defendants Hogan, Brighthaupt, Mollin, Kelly
and Papoosha met with the plaintiff about a letter sent in an
envelope marked legal mail.

Because the mail was not legal mail

and due to an alleged threat made by the plaintiff, defendant
Hogan issued an order to send the plaintiff to segregation.

The

plaintiff claims that intelligence officers and other
correctional officers continually harassed him, shook down his
cell and left his cell in disarray.
On several occasions in January 2014, defendant Forest
refused to permit the plaintiff to call the legal investigator
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his attorney had hired.

Defendant Garcia also refused the

plaintiff’s requests to make legal calls to the investigator.
Defendant Garcia had opened plaintiff’s legal mail on one
occasion in June 2013 outside of the plaintiff’s presence.
The plaintiff claims that on January 16, 2014, prison
officials at Cheshire transferred him to MacDougall Correctional
Institution.

He claims that the transfer was made due to his

attempts to file grievances about his legal mail.
D.

Religious Beliefs

On April 24, 2013, when the plaintiff arrived in the
restrictive housing unit, defendants Mollin and Mulligan
performed a strip-search of the plaintiff.

At that time, the

plaintiff was wearing his religious necklace.

Defendant Mollin

ordered the plaintiff to remove the necklace, but the plaintiff
refused.

Defendant Mulligan issued the plaintiff a disciplinary

ticket for refusing to remove his religious necklace.

Defendant

found the plaintiff guilty after a disciplinary hearing.
On October 4, 2013, defendant Wilkins and Pereira performed
a strip-search of the plaintiff and ordered him to remove his
religious necklace.

When the plaintiff refused to remove the

necklace, defendant Pereira issued the plaintiff a disciplinary
ticket.

The plaintiff received a hearing and presented evidence
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to show that the necklace was an important part of his sincerely
held religious beliefs.
hearing officer.

Defendant Ebele was the disciplinary

The plaintiff pleaded guilty without prejudice

because he knew defendant Ebele would not rule in his favor.
E.

Disciplinary Reports

In April 2013, the plaintiff received a hearing on the
disciplinary report that had been issued by defendant Mulligan
because he refused to take off his religious necklace.

The

plaintiff presented evidence to show that the necklace was an
important part of his sincerely held religious beliefs.
Defendant Jane Doe #4 was the disciplinary hearing officer.

She

spoke to defendant Brighthaupt after the plaintiff had presented
his evidence.

She then informed the plaintiff that defendant

Brighthaupt had pressured her and she must find him guilty.
The plaintiff appealed the guilty finding.

Defendant

Lajoie upheld the finding.
In October 2013, defendant Wilkins ordered that the
plaintiff be sent to the restrictive housing unit after taking
cookies from the plaintiff’s pocket.

The plaintiff received a

disciplinary report for failing to return to his unit and for
challenging defendant Wilkins’ authority and a disciplinary
report for refusing to remove his religious necklace.
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Defendant

Moore was the plaintiff’s advocate for both disciplinary
tickets, but refused to review the videotape of the incident.
Defendants Cossette and Ebele denied the plaintiff due process
during the disciplinary hearing.
without prejudice.

Defendant Ebele found the plaintiff guilty

and imposed numerous sanctions.
guilty finding.

The plaintiff pleaded guilty

The plaintiff appealed the

Defendant Brighthaupt upheld the finding and

sanctions.
F.

Failure to Process Grievances

The plaintiff generally asserts that defendants Petterson,
Crandall, Estrom, Durato, Brown, Stewart, Fitzner and Powers
either ignored or failed to process his grievances according to
Department of Correction Administrative Directives.

The

plaintiff alleges that this conduct denied him access to courts.
II.

Failure to Comply with Joinder Rule
The plaintiff’s multiple allegations involve claims of

conditions of confinement, access to courts, confiscation of
property and legal documents, deprivation of a prison job,
adequacy of administrative remedies, interference with religious
practices and beliefs, violations of procedural due process,
unauthorized opening of legal mail and retaliatory conduct by
prison officials.

The plaintiff contends that the defendants
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have violated the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth and
Fourteenth Amendments as well as the Religious Land Use and
Institutionalized Persons Act, (“RLUIPA”) 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc, et
seq.

In addition to claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the

plaintiff alleges that the defendants have violated 42 U.S.C. §§
1985 and 1986.

The plaintiff also asserts state law claims.

The multiple claims included in the Complaint are not all
related to each other and involve different defendants.
Thus, the Complaint also fails to comply with the
requirements of Fed. R. Civ. P. 20 governing party joinder.
Rule 20(a)(2) permits the joinder of multiple defendants in a
single action if two criteria are met: (1) the claims “aris[e]
out of the same transaction, occurrence, or series of
transactions and occurrences”; and (b) “any questions of law or
fact common to all defendants will arise in the action.”
R. Civ. P. 20(a)(2).

Fed.

What will constitute the same transaction

or occurrence under the first prong of Rule 20(a) is approached
on a case by case basis.”

Kehr ex rel. Kehr v. Yamaha Motor

Corp., U.S.A., 596 F. Supp. 2d 821, 826 (S.D.N.Y. 2008)
(citation omitted).

As the Second Circuit has observed in the

Rule 13 context,1 whether a counterclaim arises out of the same

1

“In construing the term ‘transaction or occurrence’ under
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transaction as the original claims depends upon the logical
relationship between the claims and whether the “essential facts
of the various claims are so logically connected that
considerations of judicial economy and fairness dictate that all
the issues be resolved in one lawsuit.”

Harris v. Steinem, 571

F.2d 119, 123 (2d Cir. 1978).
The plaintiff’s various conditions of confinement claims,
religious practice claims, procedural due process claims, access
to courts claims, retaliation claims, medical claims and
grievance procedure claims all occurred at Cheshire over a
three-year period.

These different claims, however, do not all

“aris[e] out of the same transaction, occurrence or series of
transactions and occurrences.

Fed. R. Civ. P. 20(1)(2).

Thus,

Complaint also fails to comply with Rule 20.2
The Second Circuit has expressed a preference for

Rule 20, many courts have drawn guidance from the use of the
same term in Rule 13(a), applying to compulsory counterclaims.”
Barnhart v. Town of Parma, 252 F.R.D. 156, 160 (W.D.N.Y. 2008)
(citation omitted); see also 7 Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R.
Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1653 (3d ed.).
2
In addition to the fact that the claims in the Complaint
do not all arise out of the same transaction or occurrence and
do not all involve common questions of law and fact, each claim
will require different witnesses and documentary proof and a
jury might be confused and the defendants would be prejudiced by
the inclusion of these disparate claims in a single action. See
Morris v. Northrup Grumman Corp., 37 F. Supp. 2d 556, 580
(E.D.N.Y. 1999); German v. Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., 896
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adjudicating cases on their merits.

Thus, it will generally

find failure to grant leave to amend a complaint an abuse of
discretion where the sole ground for dismissal is that the
complaint does not constitute a short and concise statement or
comply with the rules governing joinder.

See e.g., Saluhuddin,

861 F.2d at 42.
Conclusion
Accordingly, the plaintiff is hereby directed to file an
amended complaint that complies with Rules 8 and 20 of the
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

The Clerk shall send the

plaintiff an amended complaint form and a copy of the Complaint
[Doc. No. 1] with this order.
The plaintiff’s amended complaint should only include ONE
claim and shall be filed on the amended complaint form.

The

plaintiff may pursue his other claims in separate actions.
The plaintiff shall clearly and concisely state his claim
and explain how each defendant is involved in the claim.

If the

amended complaint fails to comply with the instructions in this
order or the amended complaint form or the requirements of Rules
8 and 20 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the action

F. Supp. 1385, 1400 (S.D.N.Y. 1995).
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will be subject to dismissal with prejudice.

The amended

complaint will be due in forty-five days.
It is so ordered.
Signed this 23rd day of January 2015, at Hartford,
Connecticut.
________/s/AWT______________
Alvin W. Thompson
United States District Judge

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