Taylor v. Hull et al

Filing 119

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER:IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the motion of defendants Heather Paul and Pamela Yancey to dismiss or, alternatively, for summary judgment [Doc. # 78 ] is denied. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that plaintiffs motion to amend his response to defendants motion [Doc. # 115 ] is moot. Signed by District Judge Carol E. Jackson on 3/5/15. (JAB)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI
EASTERN DIVISION
SAMUEL LEWIS TAYLOR,

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Plaintiff,
vs.
DAVID NULL, et al.,
Defendants.

Case No. 4:13-CV-1065-CEJ

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
This matter is before the Court on the motion of defendants Heather Paul and
Pamela Yancey to dismiss for failure to state a claim, pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P.
12(b)(6), or, alternatively, for summary judgment, pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 56.
The issues are fully briefed.
I. Background
Plaintiff Samuel Lewis Taylor, a Missouri prisoner, brings this action pursuant
to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming violation of his Eighth Amendment right against cruel
and unusual punishment by corrections officers and nurses at the Potosi
Correctional Center (PCC). Plaintiff alleges that on June 3, 2012, he was assaulted
by several corrections officers, resulting in injuries to his head, face, teeth, and
middle finger.

Plaintiff was taken to the prison medical center where defendant

Yancey, a nurse employed by Corizon, Inc., “refused to provide medical attention to
[plaintiff’s] middle finger in which [sic] was quite swollen.” Complaint, p. 15 [ECF
Doc. # 1].

On June 5, 2012, after plaintiff submitted a medical service request,

defendant Paul, also a Corizon nurse, came to plaintiff’s cell. However, defendant

Paul “refused to come to [the] door to examine [plaintiff’s] injuries or give [him]
any pain medications or refer [him] to the doctor.” Id.
In the complaint, plaintiff asserts a claim of excessive force against the
corrections officers. His claim against defendants Paul and Yancey is that they were
deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs.

Paul and Yancey move to

dismiss or, alternatively, for summary judgment on the sole ground that plaintiff
failed to exhaust available prison administrative remedies prior to filing suit.
II. Discussion
A. Section 1983’s Exhaustion Requirement
Paul and Yancey assert that plaintiff’s § 1983 claims against them fail
because he did not exhaust his intra-prison administrative remedies before filing
suit. A prisoner’s § 1983 claim for deliberate indifference to his medical needs may
only proceed if the prisoner has first exhausted all of his available intra-prison
administrative remedies. 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a); Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199, 211
(2007); Leach v. Moore, 240 F. App’x 732, 733 (8th Cir. 2007) (per curiam).
Where, as here, a prisoner asserts multiple claims, he may only proceed in
federal court on the claims that have been exhausted. However, “exhaustion is not
per se inadequate simply because an individual later sued was not named in the
grievances.” Jones, 549 U.S. at 219 (emphasis added). Rather, “it is the prison’s
requirements, and not the [Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA)], that define the
boundaries of proper exhaustion.” Id. at 218. Thus, to decide whether a specific
claim against a specific defendant was properly exhausted, the Court must look to
the prison’s grievance policy, and the facts, to determine: (1) the steps in the
policy and whether the prisoner completed all of them; (2) whether the policy

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requires the prisoner to identify a specific defendant in his grievance and, if so,
whether he did; and (3) how specific the allegations in a grievance must be (and
how specific they were in the grievance the prisoner filed) to constitute exhaustion
of a particular claim later raised in a § 1983 suit against a specific defendant.
A prison’s grievance policy may be ambiguous regarding the steps in the
process, whether a prisoner is required to name every alleged perpetrator in his
grievance, and how specific the prisoner must be about his claims. Likewise, what
a prisoner in a particular instance did or failed to do with regard to any of those
exhaustion inquiries might also be unclear. The “failure to exhaust is an affirmative
defense under the PLRA, and . . . inmates are not required to specially plead or
demonstrate exhaustion in their complaints.” Id. at 216. Instead, “the defendant
has the burden to plead and to prove” a failure to exhaust. Nerness v. Johnson,
401 F.3d 874, 876 (8th Cir. 2005) (per curiam) (citation omitted). Therefore, Paul
and Yancey bear the burden to plead and to prove that plaintiff did not follow all of
the steps in the PCC’s grievance procedure, or that plaintiff was required to name
Paul and Yancey in his grievance but he failed to do so, or that plaintiff’s grievance
did not encompass claims of deliberate indifference to his medical needs.
B. The PCC Grievance Procedure
The Missouri Department of Corrections (MDOC) has a uniform grievance
procedure for all Missouri prisons, including PCC. The MDOC procedure consists of
three stages.

At the first stage, a prisoner presents his complaint by filing an

Informal Resolution Request (IRR) within 15 days of the circumstances giving rise
to the complaint. The IRR is then reviewed and a written response is given to the
prisoner. At the second stage, a prisoner who is dissatisfied with the response to

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the IRR may file an Offender Grievance within seven days of the conclusion of the
entire IRR review process. The grievance is then reviewed and a written response
is provided to the prisoner. Finally, at the third stage, a prisoner who is dissatisfied
with the response to the grievance may file an Offender Grievance Appeal within
seven days of the conclusion of the entire grievance review process. The appeal is
then reviewed and a written response is provided to the prisoner.

Copies of the

IRR, the grievance, and the appeal, as well as the prison’s response to each, are
retained by the prison.
The MDOC procedure does not require, explicitly or implicitly, that a prisoner
identify by name every prison official who was involved in an alleged violation of his
rights.

See Jones, 549 U.S. at 219.

Likewise, the MDOC procedure does not

require a prisoner to file separate IRRs for each claim against each prison official
arising out of an “alleged incident”; a prisoner need only state “the subject of the
complaint” in the IRR.

[Doc. #79-1, at 52]

The MDOC procedure contemplates

that a single IRR might describe an “alleged incident” that is of such complexity
that the IRR spans more than six pages. Such an incident might, of course, involve
claims against more than one prison official, and for more than one violation of the
prisoner’s rights. Moreover, a grievance officer, not the prisoner, determines if a
particular complaint is so complex that it warrants filing multiple IRRs, instead of a
single IRR. Thus, the MDOC procedure anticipates that a prisoner may file a single
IRR that identifies by name multiple perpetrators (though he is not required to) and
describes multiple injurious acts.

A prisoner who files such an IRR has properly

exhausted each of his claims against each perpetrator for § 1983 purposes once he

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has completed all three stages of the MDOC procedure and received a written
response to his appeal.
C. Motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim
The purpose of a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules
of Civil Procedure is to test the legal sufficiency of the complaint.

The factual

allegations of a complaint are assumed true and construed in favor of the plaintiff,
“even if it strikes a savvy judge that actual proof of those facts is improbable.” Bell
Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 556 (2007) (citing Swierkiewicz v.
Sorema N.A., 534 U.S. 506, 508 n.1 (2002)); Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319,
327 (1989) (“Rule 12(b)(6) does not countenance . . . dismissals

based on a

judge’s disbelief of a complaint’s factual allegations”); Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S.
232, 236 (1974) (a well-pleaded complaint may proceed even if it appears “that a
recovery is very remote and unlikely”). The issue is not whether the plaintiff will
ultimately prevail, but whether the plaintiff is entitled to present evidence in
support of his claim. Id. A viable complaint must include “enough facts to state a
claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Bell Atlantic Corp., 550 U.S. at 570; see
also id. at 563 (“no set of facts” language in Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45–46
(1957), “has earned its retirement.”). “Factual allegations must be enough to raise
a right to relief above the speculative level.” Id. at 555.
Plaintiff alleges that he filed all of his claims, including his deliberate
indifference claims, via a single IRR, and that he “completed the entire issues from
IRR through grievance appeal.”

Complaint, pp. 2–3 (capitalization removed).

Thus, the complaint alleges facts that are sufficient to plausibly maintain that

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plaintiff fully exhausted his claims of deliberate indifference against Paul and
Yancey. Therefore, the motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) is denied.
D. Motion for summary judgment
Rule 56(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides that summary
judgment shall be entered if the moving party shows “that there is no genuine
dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to a judgment as a
matter of law.” In ruling on a motion for summary judgment the court is required
to view the facts in the light most favorable to the non-moving party and must give
that party the benefit of all reasonable inferences to be drawn from the underlying
facts. AgriStor Leasing v. Farrow, 826 F.2d 732, 734 (8th Cir. 1987). The moving
party bears the burden of showing both the absence of a genuine issue of material
fact and its entitlement to judgment as a matter of law. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby,
Inc., 477 U.S. 242 (1986); Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475
U.S. 574, 586–87 (1986).

Once the moving party has met its burden, the non-

moving party may not rest on the allegations of his pleadings but must set forth
specific facts, by affidavit or other evidence, showing that a genuine issue of
material fact exists. United of Omaha Life Ins. Co. v. Honea, 458 F.3d 788, 791
(8th Cir. 2006) (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(e)).

Rule 56 “mandates the entry of

summary judgment, after adequate time for discovery and upon motion, against a
party who fails to make a showing sufficient to establish the existence of an
element essential to that party’s case, and on which that party will bear the burden
of proof at trial.” Celotex Corporation v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322 (1986).
Paul and Yancey assert that plaintiff never filed an IRR that specifically
named them or that presented claims of deliberate indifference to his medical

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needs. Paul and Yancey also argue that, even if plaintiff did file an IRR, he failed to
exhaust his administrative remedies by not completing all three steps of the MDOC
procedure. Plaintiff states that he filed a single IRR that contained all of the claims
he asserts in this suit, including those against Paul and Yancey. He also states that
he proceeded from the filing of that IRR through each of the three steps of the
MDOC procedure.
The record before the Court includes an incomplete copy of a June 7, 2012,
IRR and a copy of a document that refers to Paul’s failure to examine plaintiff or
refer him to a doctor when she went to his cell. There is also a copy of an internal
Corizon memorandum that refers to an IRR plaintiff filed concerning the events on
June 3, 2012. The memorandum addresses plaintiff’s interactions with defendant
Paul on June 3 and June 5 and her evaluation of his claimed injuries.

Also,

documents have been submitted showing that review of the June 7 IRR was
completed on July 11, 2012, and that plaintiff timely filed a grievance on July 18.
Additionally, there is a written response to the grievance from the PCC
superintendent stating that plaintiff was “seen by medical” and that the “medical
staff noted no injuries” on him. [Doc. #48-1] That statement supports plaintiff’s
assertion that the June 7 IRR described his complaints that the PCC medical
personnel were deliberately indifferent to his medical needs. Based on its review of
the above documents, the Court finds that there is a genuine dispute as to whether
plaintiff’s IRR included deliberate indifference complaints against defendants Yancey
and Paul and whether plaintiff filed a timely grievance.
With respect to the grievance appeal, plaintiff states in a declaration that he
is unable to produce a copy because his prison cell was searched on June 23, 2013,

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and many of his legal documents were taken from him and not returned.
Declaration, p. 2 [ECF Doc. # 113-1].

When a party opposing a motion for

summary judgment “shows by affidavit or declaration that, for specified reasons,
[he] cannot present facts essential to justify his opposition, the court may . . . deny
[the motion].” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(d)(1). In the grievance, plaintiff wrote that he
would like to “[c]ontinue this complaint to the next stage of the grievance
procedure.” This statement lends credence to plaintiff’s claim that he did pursue
the appeal but he no longer has evidence of it.

The Court finds that there remains

a genuine issue of material fact as to whether plaintiff fully exhausted his
administrative remedies with respect to the claims asserted against Yancey and
Paul.
Accordingly,
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the motion of defendants Heather Paul and
Pamela Yancey to dismiss or, alternatively, for summary judgment [Doc. #78] is
denied.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that plaintiff’s motion to amend his response to
defendants’ motion [Doc. #115] is moot.
___________________________
CAROL E. JACKSON
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Dated this 5th day of March, 2015.

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