Widi v. Strafford County et al
Filing
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ORDER denying 2 defendants' Motion to Dismiss. So Ordered by Judge Steven J. McAuliffe.(lat) Modified on 9/5/2014 to remove the three slashes. (jab).
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
David J. Widi, Jr.,
Plaintiff
v.
Case No. 13-cv-536-SM
Opinion No. 2014 DNH 187
Strafford County, Raymond Bower,
Warren Dowaliby, Bruce Pelkie,
Grace Weisgarber, Jon Forcier,
and Scott Chabot,
Defendants
O R D E R
Pro se plaintiff, David Widi, currently has three civil
cases pending in this forum challenging the conditions of his
confinement at either state or federal correctional facilities.
In this case, he brings claims arising out of an incident that
occurred while he was being held at the Strafford County House of
Corrections.
He asserts that defendants employed excessive force
against him and were then deliberately indifferent to his serious
medical needs.
Defendants move to dismiss Widi’s complaint on grounds that
it fails to set forth the essential elements of any viable
claims.
For the reasons stated, defendants’ motion to dismiss is
necessarily denied.
Standard of Review
When ruling on a motion to dismiss under Fed. R. Civ. P.
12(b)(6), the court must “accept as true all well-pleaded facts
set out in the complaint and indulge all reasonable inferences in
favor of the pleader.”
Cir. 2010).
SEC v. Tambone, 597 F.3d 436, 441 (1st
Although the complaint need only contain “a short
and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is
entitled to relief,” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2), it must allege each
of the essential elements of a viable cause of action and
“contain 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 (2009) (citation and internal
punctuation omitted).
In other words, “a plaintiff’s obligation to provide the
‘grounds’ of his ‘entitlement to relief’ requires more than
labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the
elements of a cause of action will not do.”
Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007).
Bell Atl. Corp. v.
Instead, the facts alleged in
the complaint must, if credited as true, be sufficient to
“nudge[] [plaintiff’s] claims across the line from conceivable to
plausible.”
Id. at 570.
If, however, the “factual allegations
in the complaint are too meager, vague, or conclusory to remove
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the possibility of relief from the realm of mere conjecture, the
complaint is open to dismissal.”
Tambone, 597 F.3d at 442.
Discussion
Accepting the facts alleged in Widi’s complaint as true - as
the court must at this stage - the relevant background is as
follows.
During the course of his detention at the Strafford
County House of Corrections, Widi became involved in what he
calls a “minor verbal disagreement” with a corrections officer.
Complaint (document no. 1-2) at 5.
As a consequence, he was
transferred to a “dry cell,” with no running water or
ventilation.
As part of Widi’s transfer, corrections officers
apparently intended to subject him to a strip search - a search
that Widi says would have taken place in view of other inmates
and at least one female officer.
Widi claims he “refused to
strip off his clothes in the presence of a female officer and
other inmates.”
Id.
In response, says Widi, corrections
officers repeatedly sprayed him with pepper spray, covering his
face, hands, and clothing, in a manner he claims amounted to the
use of excessive force.
Id. at 6.
He also alleges that although
two corrections officers “had the ability and sufficient time to
intervene,” they elected not to do so.
Id.
He claims the
chemical irritant got in his eyes and respiratory system,
“causing him to choke and cough up mucus membrane and blood
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through his mouth and nasal passages.”
Id.
And, because he was
confined to a “dry cell,” he could not wash his face, eyes,
hands, or clothing.
According to Widi, he complained on several occasions to
corrections officers that he was in distress, but he says his
pleas for help were ignored.
And, because he was not permitted
to wash his face and eyes, he says he suffered an asthma attack,
causing him to feel as though he were suffocating.
But, rather
than render some assistance, the corrections officers taunted
him, “joking and laughing at his pain and suffering.”
Id. at 7.
Widi says he was “forced to endure these conditions for hours
until [a corrections officer] had Mr. Widi moved to another
cell.”
Id.
Still, says Widi, his repeated pleas that he be
allowed to take a shower and have a clean set of clothing fell on
deaf ears.
Consequently, he “continued to experience difficulty
breathing from the pepper spray and developed rashes on his
body.”
Id. at 8.
According to Widi, “[t]hese conditions
persisted for five days until Mr. Widi was taken to another
facility.”
Id.
He claims that he “was videotaped entering that
facility and staff verified on that video that Mr. Widi arrived
covered in pepper spray.”
Id.
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Defendants’ argument in support of their motion to dismiss
is as simple as it is unpersuasive.
They assert that,
“[p]laintiff fails to state a claim for relief because he admits
he was refusing orders from corrections officers and because
correctional authorities do not violate rights by deploying
pepper spray when an inmate refuses orders.”
Memorandum (document no. 2-1) at 2.
Defendants’
Of course, to say that Widi
was pepper-sprayed for refusing to comply with an order issued by
a corrections officer tells only part of the (alleged) story.
It
omits, for example, Widi’s claim that he suffered serious medical
distress as a consequence and, yet, his pleas for help were
ignored.
It also fails to address Widi’s claim that he was
forced to remain in chemically-soaked clothing for five days
because corrections officers allegedly “agreed to make him
suffer.”
Complaint, at 8.
Defendants’ motion to dismiss requires little further
discussion.
Their assertion that the use of pepper spray on a
recalcitrant inmate does not violate the Eighth Amendment
overstates the governing legal precedent by a fair margin.
See,
e.g., Burns v. Eaton, 752 F.3d 1136, 1140 (8th Cir. 2014)
(collecting cases in which summary judgment for defendants was
denied on “excessive force claims based on pepper spraying [that]
involved no warning this force would be used, no apparent purpose
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other than inflicting pain, use of unnecessary ‘super-soaker’
quantities of the chemical, refusal to allow the victim to wash
off the painful chemical for days, and/or use of additional
physical force.”).
Whether one or more of the defendants employed excessive
force will, of course, turn on whether their treatment of Widi
was, under the factual circumstances, malicious and sadistic that is, imposed “for the very purpose of causing harm,” (as Widi
alleges) - or whether it was part of “a good-faith effort to
maintain or restore discipline.”
312, 320-21 (1986).
Whitley v. Albers, 475 U.S.
See generally Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U.S.
1, 6-7 (1992) (“[W]e hold that whenever prison officials stand
accused of using excessive physical force in violation of the
Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, the core judicial inquiry
is that set out in Whitley: whether force was applied in a goodfaith effort to maintain or restore discipline, or maliciously
and sadistically to cause harm.”).
Defendants’ brief responses to Widi’s claim that they were
deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs are equally
unavailing.
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This is a motion to dismiss, so Widi’s account of the
relevant facts is necessarily assumed to be accurate.
Given that
required assumption, the court cannot conclude, as a matter of
law, that his complaint fails to state any viable claims against
defendants.
Accordingly, their motion to dismiss (document no.
2) is denied.
SO ORDERED.
____________________________
Steven J. McAuliffe
United States District Judge
September 5, 2014
cc:
David J. Widi, Jr., pro se
Corey M. Belobrow, Esq.
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