KUNST v. TAYLOR et al
Filing
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MEMORANDUM OPINION. Signed by Chief Judge Jerome B. Simandle on 11/5/2012. (dmr)(n.m.)
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY
STEPHEN S. KUNST
Plaintiff,
HON. JEROME B. SIMANDLE
Civil No. 10-1608 (JBS/AMD)
v.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
ERIC TAYLOR, et al.,
Defendants.
SIMANDLE, Chief Judge:
Presently before the court is an unopposed motion to dismiss
the complaint [Docket Item 17] brought by Defendants Aramark,
Inc. (“Aramark”), Aramark Correctional Services LLC (“ACS”), and
ACS’s Dietician Carey. Plaintiff Kunst alleges that Defendants
violated his Eighth Amendment rights by serving meals in an
unsanitary manner and by failing to provide adequate calories at
meals, while Plaintiff was a prisoner in the Camden County
Correctional Facility (“CCCF”).1 [Docket Item 1 at 16-17.] The
1
This case, for a time, was consolidated with several other
nearly identical actions brought by pretrial detainees [Docket
Item 7], but the cases ultimately were unconsolidated when the
Court was unable to obtain pro bono counsel to represent all
plaintiffs jointly. [Docket Item 16.] The Court recently granted
eight nearly identical motions to dismiss brought by Aramark, ACS
and Dietician Carey. Cook v. Taylor, No. 10-2643, 2012 WL 4959519
(D.N.J. Oct. 16, 2012). However, because pretrial detainees are
protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, rather than the Eighth
Amendment, the Court elected to consider this case separately.
For more factual background common to these cases, see
Simmons v. Taylor, No. 10-1192, 2012 WL 3863792, at *1-*2 (D.N.J.
Sept. 5, 2012).
Court finds as follows:
1. The Plaintiff, proceeding pro se, was a prisoner in CCCF
from October 6, 2009 through at least March 25, 2010. [Compl. ¶
5.] The moving Defendants provided and supervised food services
at the facility. [Compl. ¶¶ 12-14 at 3-4.] Plaintiff alleges the
moving Defendants violated his Eighth Amendment rights under the
U.S. Constitution, and Plaintiff seeks relief pursuant to 42
U.S.C. § 1983. [Compl. at 16-18.] His complaint includes other
claims against other defendants, not relevant for present
purposes.
2. Specifically, Plaintiff alleges that food trays often had
dirt, hair, dried food or “other foreign objects” on them and
that the trays were cracked, allowing substances to collect along
the cracks and emit odors (“Unsanitary Meal Service”). [Compl. ¶¶
36(a)-(c) at 9-10.] Plaintiff also alleges that meals differed
from the posted menus and that the substitutions provided too few
calories and that Dietician Carey signed off on the substitutions
(“Failure to Provide Proper Caloric Intake”). [Compl. ¶¶ 36(a)(g) at 10-11.] As an example of calorie deprivation, Plaintiff
describes a meal that differed from the listed menu. The menu
described one meal as including two slices of bread, 1/2 cup of
peas, 10 oz. of “Meat, Mac & Tomatoes,” 1 cup of baked beans, 1/2
cup of carrotslaw, two sandwich cookies, margarine, salt and
pepper, and a fruit drink; the detainees actually received two
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slices of bread, four spoonfuls of peas, eight spoonfuls of
macaroni and cheese with meat sauce, and four spoonfuls of
pudding. [Compl. ¶ 36(g)(iii)-(iv) at 11.]
3. Plaintiff asserts generally that he suffered “serious
emotional and physical injuries” as well as “measurable monetary
damages” but does not allege facts supporting those conclusions.
[Compl. ¶ 39 at 13.] Plaintiff does not allege facts that he
suffered damage or injury from the actions of the moving
Defendants.
4. Soon after Plaintiff filed his complaint, the Court, sua
sponte, dismissed all Eighth Amendment claims brought by the 11
similarly situated plaintiffs, including Plaintiff Kunst. [Docket
Item 7.] All 11 plaintiffs had filed nearly identical complaints,
with nearly identical paragraph numbering and pagination, most
asserting claims under both the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
Plaintiff Kunst was the only plaintiff who had been sentenced;2
all other plaintiffs were pretrial detainees and thus the Eighth
Amendment was inapplicable to them. It was an oversight by the
Court to include Plaintiff Kunst’s Eighth Amendment claims among
the others being dismissed from the pretrial detainees’
complaints. Plaintiff did not challenge this ruling. Neither was
the oversight detected by Defendants, who later filed a motion to
2
Plaintiff’s complaint states that “Plaintiff is sentenced
to a 364,” meaning a sentence of just less than one year. [Compl.
¶ 36(a) at 13.]
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dismiss; such a motion would have been unnecessary had Defendants
realized all of Plaintiff’s claims against them had been
dismissed with prejudice.
5. Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(a), this Court may, sua
sponte, correct “a mistake arising from oversight or omission
whenever one is found in a[n] . . . order . . . .” Therefore, the
Court will disregard the Order dismissing the claims and
reconsider Plaintiff’s Eighth Amendment claims on the merits.
However, as explained below, the motion to dismiss the claims
against the moving Defendants will be granted.
6. In reviewing a motion to dismiss pursuant to Fed. R. Civ.
P. 12(b)(6), the Court must “accept all factual allegations as
true and construe the complaint in the light most favorable to
the plaintiff.” Phillips v. Cnty. of Allegheny, 515 F.3d 224, 231
(3d Cir. 2008) (quoting Pinker v. Roche Holdings Ltd., 292 F.3d
361, 374 n.7 (3d Cir. 2002)). To survive a motion to dismiss, a
complaint must allege, in more than legal boilerplate, facts
about the conduct of each defendant giving rise to liability.
Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007); Fed. R.
Civ. P. 8(a) and 11(b)(3). The factual allegations must present a
plausible basis for relief, meaning something more than the mere
possibility of legal misconduct. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S.
662, 681 (2009).
7. The Eighth Amendment protects prisoners from cruel and
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unusual punishment, and applies to the States through the Due
Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Wilson v. Seiter, 501
U.S. 294, 297 (1991), however not all inadequacies of prison
conditions amount to constitutional violations. Guinn v. Rispoli,
323 Fed. Appx. 105, 108 (3d Cir. 2009). To establish a violation
of the Eighth Amendment, a prisoner must allege that “(1) the
deprivation [is], objectively, sufficiently serious, and (2) the
[defendant] posses[es] a sufficiently culpable state of mind in
acting deliberately indifferent to the inmate’s safety.” Id. See
also Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 834 (1994) (reciting the
“objective” inquiry of whether the deprivation is “sufficiently
serious” and the subjective requirement of the defendant’s
“deliberate indifference” to the inmate’s health or safety);
Wilson, 501 U.S. at 297 (“only the unnecessary and wanton
infliction of pain implicates the Eighth Amendment”) (internal
quotation marks omitted) (emphasis in original).
8. Plaintiff’s Complaint here fails both prongs of the
inquiry. Certainly insufficient nutrition could be grounds for a
constitutional violation, see, e.g., Robles v. Coughlin, 725 F.2d
12, 15 (2d Cir. 1983) (“the Eighth Amendment prohibition against
cruel and unusual punishment does require that prisoners be
served ‘nutritionally adequate food that is prepared and served
under conditions which do not present an immediate danger to the
health and well being of the inmates who consume it.’”) (quoting
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Ramos v. Lamm, 639 F.2d 559, 571 (10th Cir. 1980), however
Plaintiff does not state a claim here of a sufficiently serious
deprivation of nutrition. Plaintiff provides two examples of
meals that diverged from the published menu, but does not assert
facts to show that the substituted meals provided insufficient
nutrition, nor how frequently meals served diverged from the menu
in the first place. Neither does Plaintiff plead facts of any
injury or ill consequences from the meal substitutions or the
cleanliness of the food trays. On their face, the substitutions
and food trays may have confounded Plaintiff’s expectations, but
they do not, in the constitutional sense, represent excessive
cruelty or an intolerable affront to fundamental fairness or
human dignity. See, e.g., 24 C.J.S. Criminal Law § 2197 (2012).
9. Additionally, Plaintiff asserts no facts to suggest
Defendants’ were deliberately indifferent to Plaintiff’s health
or safety. The Complaint merely states that the substitutions
were “approve[d]” by ACS’s dietician [Compl. ¶ 36(f) at 10], but
provides no description of Defendants’ behavior that suggests
“wanton” infliction of punishment. The Complaint contains no
assertion, or supporting facts, of Defendants’ “knowing
disregard” of a substantial risk of serious harm to the Plaintiff
on either Eighth Amendment claim. Farmer, 511 U.S. at 281.
10. Therefore, Plaintiff fails to state a claim upon which
relief may be granted. The Court will grant the motion to dismiss
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the Eighth Amendment claims against Defendants Aramark, ACS and
Dietician Carey.
11. The accompanying Order will be entered.
November 5, 2012
Date
s/ Jerome B. Simandle
JEROME B. SIMANDLE
Chief U.S. District Judge
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