Loftis v. Wengler et al
Filing
45
MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER. Defendant Martin's Motion to Dismiss 37 is GRANTED. Because Plaintiff (who is represented by counsel) has not requested leave to amend his complaint a third time, this case is DISMISSED with prejudice for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 1915(e)(2)(B) & 1915(g). Signed by Judge Edward J. Lodge. (caused to be mailed to non Registered Participants at the addresses listed on the Notice of Electronic Filing (NEF) by (st)
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF IDAHO
KIRK LOFTIS,
Case No. 1:12-cv-00359-EJL
Plaintiff,
MEMORANDUM DECISION AND
ORDER
v.
TIM WENGLER, THOMAS KESSLER,
JOSEPH CARDONA, ALEC
THACKER, DAN LAMBERT, DR.
DAVID AGLER, DR. STANDER,
CAPT. C. PENN, ZARA MARTIN,
CORIZON, and CCA,
Defendants.
Plaintiff is a prisoner in the custody of the Idaho Department of Correction (IDOC)
and is represented by counsel in this civil rights action alleging violation of Plaintiff’s
Eighth Amendment right to adequate prison medical care. Now pending before the Court
is Defendant Martin’s Motion to Dismiss Pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6). (Dkt. 37.) As the
Court noted in its Order dated May 28, 2013, Defendant Martin is the only remaining
Defendant against whom Plaintiff may proceed. (Dkt. 35 at 3-4.) Plaintiff claims
Defendant Martin violated the Eighth Amendment by failing to ensure that Plaintiff
received adequate medical treatment for a broken wrist.
MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER - 1
Having carefully reviewed the record, the Court finds that the parties have
adequately presented the facts and legal arguments in the briefs and record and that the
decisional process would not be significantly aided by oral argument. Therefore, the
Court shall decide this matter on the written motions, briefs and record without oral
argument. D. Idaho L. Civ. R. 7.1(d). Accordingly, the Court enters the following Order
granting Defendant Martin’s Motion and dismissing this case with prejudice.
FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS
The events giving rise to Plaintiff’s claims occurred while Plaintiff was
incarcerated at the Idaho Correctional Center (ICC), a prison operated by a private
company under contract with the IDOC. In the Second Amended Complaint, Plaintiff
alleges that in late 2010, he “fell on any icy exercise yard, breaking his left wrist and
injuring his left thumb.” (Sec. Am. Compl., Dkt. 32-2 & 40, at ¶ 12.) Medical staff did
not “immediately treat” Plaintiff’s injuries, but later gave him over-the-counter pain
medication and an ace bandage. (Id. at ¶ 13.) X-rays were taken in January 2011, but
Plaintiff was not given any diagnosis. (Id. at ¶ 15.)
Because Plaintiff was still in pain six months later, medical staff took another set
of X-rays, but Plaintiff again did not receive a diagnosis. (Id. at ¶ 16.) A cat scan was
performed sometime after the second X-ray, and it was not until ten months after the
injury that “someone at ICC medical admitted to the Plaintiff that his wrist was broken.”
(Id. at ¶ 17.) Plaintiff continued to suffer delays in his medical treatment despite filing
MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER - 2
numerous grievances. Plaintiff states that he “complained of his situation to Defendant
Zara Martin to no avail.” (Id. at ¶ 20.)
Plaintiff alleges that at the time giving rise to Plaintiff’s claims, Defendant Martin
“was employed by the [IDOC] as a contract monitor. Martin was under a duty to see that
prisoners receive reasonably adequate medical care. Martin was under a duty to
investigate and report violations of IDOC’s contracts . . . as well as other violations of the
law that occur within those contracts.” (Id. at ¶ 6.)
The Second Amended Complaint contains no other specific allegations against
Defendant Martin.
DISCUSSION
1.
Standard of Law Applicable to a Motion to Dismiss
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) requires “a short and plain statement of the
claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief,” in order to “give the defendant fair
notice of what the ... claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.” Bell Atlantic Corp. v.
Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007) (internal quotation marks omitted). While a
complaint attacked by a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss “does not need detailed factual
allegations,” it must set forth “more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic
recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.” Id.
To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter,
accepted as true, to “state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Id. at 570. A claim
has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to
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draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged. Id.
at 556. The plausibility standard is not akin to a “probability requirement,” but it asks for
more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully. Id. Where a complaint
pleads facts that are “merely consistent with” a defendant's liability, it “stops short of the
line between possibility and plausibility of ‘entitlement to relief.’ “ Id. at 557 (alteration
omitted).
The Supreme Court has identified two “working principles” that underlie this
dismissal standard. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). “First, the tenet that a
court must accept as true all of the allegations contained in a complaint is inapplicable to
legal conclusions.” Id. “Rule 8 marks a notable and generous departure from the
hyper-technical, code-pleading regime of a prior era, but it does not unlock the doors of
discovery for a plaintiff armed with nothing more than conclusions.” Id. at 678–79.
Second, only a complaint that states a plausible claim for relief survives a motion to
dismiss. Id. at 679. “Determining whether a complaint states a plausible claim for relief
will . . . be a context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial
experience and common sense.” Id.
2.
Standard of Law for Section 1983 Claims
Plaintiff brings his claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the civil rights statute. To state
a claim under § 1983, a plaintiff must allege a violation of rights protected by the
Constitution or created by federal statute proximately caused by conduct of a person
acting under color of state law. Crumpton v. Gates, 947 F.2d 1418, 1420 (9th Cir. 1991).
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Section 1983 is “‘not itself a source of substantive rights,’ but merely provides ‘a method
for vindicating federal rights elsewhere conferred.’” Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386,
393-94 (1989) (quoting Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137, 144 n.3 (1979)).
Prison officials are generally not liable for damages in their individual capacities
under § 1983 unless they personally participated in the alleged constitutional violations.
Taylor v. List, 880 F.2d 1040, 1045 (9th Cir. 1989); see also Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 677
(“[E]ach Government official, his or her title notwithstanding, is only liable for his or her
own misconduct.”). “A defendant may be held liable as a supervisor under § 1983 ‘if
there exists either (1) his or her personal involvement in the constitutional deprivation, or
(2) a sufficient causal connection between the supervisor’s wrongful conduct and the
constitutional violation.’” Starr v. Baca, 652 F.3d 1202, 1207 (9th Cir. 2011) (quoting
Hansen v. Black, 885 F.2d 642, 646 (9th Cir. 1989)). This causal connection “can be
established by setting in motion a series of acts by others, or by knowingly refusing to
terminate a series of acts by others, which the supervisor knew or reasonably should have
known would cause others to inflict a constitutional injury.” Id. at 1207-08 (internal
quotation marks, citation, and alterations omitted).
Even if a plaintiff is able to show a violation of a constitutional right under § 1983,
a defendant may still be entitled to dismissal on the basis of qualified immunity. The
doctrine of qualified immunity protects state officials from personal liability for on-thejob conduct so long as the conduct is objectively reasonable and does not violate an
inmate’s clearly-established federal rights. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818
MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER - 5
(1982). Contrarily, a state official may be held personally liable in a § 1983 action if he
knew or should have known that he was violating a plaintiff’s clearly-established federal
rights. Id. True to its dual purposes of protecting state actors who act in good faith and
redressing clear wrongs caused by state actors, the qualified immunity standard “gives
ample room for mistaken judgments by protecting all but the plainly incompetent or those
who knowingly violate the law.” Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U.S. 224, 229 (1991) (internal
quotation marks omitted).
A qualified immunity analysis consists of two prongs: (1) whether, “[t]aken in the
light most favorable to the party asserting the injury, . . . the facts alleged show the
[defendant’s] conduct violated a constitutional right”; and (2) whether that right was
clearly established. Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201 (2001), modified by Pearson v.
Callahan, 555 U.S. 223 (2009). Addressing the two prongs of the test in this order is
often beneficial, but it is not mandatory. Courts may “exercise their sound discretion in
deciding which of the two prongs of the qualified immunity analysis should be addressed
first in light of the circumstances in the particular case at hand.” Pearson, 555 U.S. at
236.
To determine whether the right was clearly established, a court turns to Supreme
Court and Ninth Circuit law existing at the time of the alleged act. Osolinski v. Kane, 92
F.3d 934, 936 (9th Cir. 1996). In the absence of binding precedent, the district courts
should look to available decisions of other circuits and district courts to ascertain whether
the law is clearly established. Id.
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The inquiry of whether a right was clearly established “must be undertaken in
light of the specific context of the case, not as a broad general proposition.” Saucier, 533
U.S. at 201. For the law to be clearly established, “[t]he contours of the right must be
sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand” that his conduct violates
that right. Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640 (1987). It is not necessary that the
“very action in question has previously been held unlawful,” but “in the light of preexisting law the unlawfulness must be apparent” to the official. Id. “The relevant,
dispositive inquiry is whether it would be clear to a reasonable officer that his conduct
was unlawful in the situation he confronted.” Saucier, 533 U.S. at 202 (citing Wilson v.
Layne, 526 U.S. 603, 615 (1999)). Application of qualified immunity is appropriate
where “the law did not put the [defendant] on notice that his conduct would be clearly
unlawful.” Id.
3.
Eighth Amendment Standard of Law
Plaintiff asserts that Defendant Martin’s actions violated the Eighth Amendment’s
prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The Eighth Amendment requires that
prisoners receive minimally adequate medical care, and prison officials or prison medical
providers can be held liable if their “acts or omissions [were] sufficiently harmful to
evidence deliberate indifference to serious medical needs.” Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S.
97, 106 (1976). “Because society does not expect that prisoners will have unqualified
access to health care, deliberate indifference to medical needs amounts to an Eighth
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Amendment violation only if those needs are ‘serious.’” Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U.S.
1, 9 (1992).
The Ninth Circuit has defined a “serious medical need” in the following ways:
failure to treat a prisoner’s condition [that] could result in
further significant injury or the unnecessary and wanton
infliction of pain[;] . . . [t]he existence of an injury that a
reasonable doctor or patient would find important and worthy
of comment or treatment; the presence of a medical condition
that significantly affects an individual’s daily activities; or the
existence of chronic and substantial pain . . . .
McGuckin v. Smith, 974 F.2d 1050, 1059-60 (9th Cir. 1992) (internal citations omitted),
overruled on other grounds, WMX Techs., Inc. v. Miller, 104 F.3d 1133 (9th Cir. 1997)
(en banc).
A conclusion that a defendant acted with deliberate indifference requires that the
plaintiff show both “a purposeful act or failure to respond to a prisoner’s pain or possible
medical need and . . . harm caused by the indifference.” Jett v. Penner, 439 F.3d 1091,
1096 (9th Cir. 2006). To exhibit deliberate indifference, a prison official “must both be
aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn that a substantial risk of serious
harm exists, and he must also draw the inference.” Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 837
(1994). In the medical context, deliberate indifference can be “manifested by prison
doctors in their response to the prisoner’s needs or by prison guards in intentionally
denying or delaying access to medical care or intentionally interfering with the treatment
once prescribed.” Estelle, 429 U.S. at 104-05 (footnotes omitted).
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Non-medical prison personnel are generally entitled to rely on the opinions of
medical professionals with respect to appropriate medical treatment of an inmate.
However, if “a reasonable person would likely determine [the medical treatment] to be
inferior,” the fact that an official is not medically trained will not shield that official from
liability for deliberate indifference. Snow v. McDaniel, 681 F.3d 978, 986 (9th Cir. 2012);
see also McGee v. Adams, 721 F.3d 474, 483 (7th Cir. 2013) (stating that non-medical
personnel may rely on medical opinions of health care professionals unless “they have a
reason to believe (or actual knowledge) that prison doctors or their assistants are
mistreating (or not treating) a prisoner.”) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Differences in judgment between an inmate and prison medical personnel
regarding appropriate medical diagnosis and treatment are not enough to establish a
deliberate indifference claim. Sanchez v. Vild, 891 F.2d 240, 242 (9th Cir. 1989). “[T]o
prevail on a claim involving choices between alternative courses of treatment, a prisoner
must show that the chosen course of treatment ‘was medically unacceptable under the
circumstances,’ and was chosen ‘in conscious disregard of an excessive risk’ to the
prisoner’s health.” Toguchi v. Chung, 391 F.3d 1051, 1058 (9th Cir. 2004) (alteration
omitted) (quoting Jackson v. McIntosh, 90 F.3d 330, 332 (9th Cir. 1996)).
Mere indifference, medical malpractice, or negligence will not support a cause of
action under the Eighth Amendment. Broughton v. Cutter Labs., 622 F.2d 458, 460 (9th
Cir. 1980) (per curiam). A mere delay in treatment does not constitute a violation of the
Eighth Amendment unless the delay causes further harm. McGuckin, 974 F.2d at 1060. If
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medical personnel have been “consistently responsive to [the inmate’s] medical needs,”
and there has been no showing that the medical personnel had “subjective knowledge and
conscious disregard of a substantial risk of serious injury,” there is no Eighth Amendment
violation. Toguchi, 391 F.3d at 1061.
The Eighth Amendment does not provide a right to a specific treatment. See
Forbes v. Edgar, 112 F.3d 262, 267 (7th Cir. 1997) (“[The plaintiff] is not entitled to
demand specific care. She is not entitled to the best care possible. She is entitled to
reasonable measures to meet a substantial risk of serious harm to her.”). And there is no
constitutional right to an outside medical provider of one’s own choice. Roberts v.
Spalding, 783 F.2d 867, 870 (9th Cir. 1986) (“A prison inmate has no independent
constitutional right to outside medical care additional and supplemental to the medical
care provided by the prison staff within the institution.”).
4.
Analysis
Plaintiff has not sufficiently alleged that Defendant Martin personally participated
in his allegedly inadequate medical care or that Martin is subject to supervisory liability.
See Taylor, 880 F.2d at 1045; Starr, 652 F.3d at 1207. Rather, Plaintiff “tenders naked
assertions devoid of further factual enhancement.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (internal
quotation marks and alteration omitted). Plaintiff alleges only that he complained of the
“situation” to Defendant Martin. (Sec. Am. Compl. at ¶ 20.) He does not detail what
information he told Martin about his medical care or when he brought that information to
her attention, nor does he assert that Martin had any authority to alter the treatment he
MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER - 10
was receiving from prison medical personnel. Plaintiff has also not alleged that Martin is
medically trained, and there is nothing in the Second Amended Complaint to plausibly
suggest that a reasonable person in Martin’s position would have determined that
Plaintiff’s treatment was inferior. See Snow, 681 F.3d at 986. For these reasons, Plaintiff
has not plausibly alleged that Defendant Martin violated the Eighth Amendment.
Plaintiff has also not shown that clearly established law would have put a
reasonable prison contract monitor on notice that failing to act on the information
Plaintiff provided would be unlawful. See Saucier, 533 U.S. at 202. Plaintiff argues that
“any lay person understands that a broken bone needs immediate attention.” (Response to
Mot. to Dismiss, Dkt. 42, at 4.) However, as noted above, Plaintiff does not describe what
Plaintiff actually told Martin about his medical care, or when he did so. Was it before or
after he was diagnosed with a broken bone? Was it a general complaint that he was being
denied adequate medical care, or was it a specific and detailed request for assistance? The
Second Amended Complaint contains no answers.
Therefore, even assuming that Martin should have responded to Plaintiff’s
communication by investigating his claims of inadequate medical treatment, Martin is
entitled to qualified immunity. Plaintiff’s allegations do not support an inference that
Martin was plainly incompetent or knowingly violated Plaintiff’s Eighth Amendment
right to adequate medical care. See Hunter, 502 U.S. at 229.
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ORDER
IT IS ORDERED:
1.
Defendant Martin’s Motion to Dismiss (Dkt. 37) is GRANTED.
2.
Because Plaintiff (who is represented by counsel) has not requested leave to
amend his complaint a third time, this case is DISMISSED with prejudice
for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. See 28 U.S.C.
§§ 1915(e)(2)(B) & 1915(g).
DATED: January 14, 2014
Honorable Edward J. Lodge
U. S. District Judge
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