GAY v. MR. EARL
Filing
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OPINION filed. Signed by Judge Mary L. Cooper on 11/2/2011. (eaj)
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY
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MR. MAURICE GAY,
Plaintiff,
v.
MR. EARL,
Defendant.
Civil Action No. 11-1319 (MLC)
OPINION
COOPER, District Judge
Plaintiff, Maurice Gay, a prisoner confined at New Jersey
State Prison in Trenton, New Jersey, seeks to bring this action
in forma pauperis pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging
violations of constitutional rights.
Based on his affidavit of
indigence and the absence of three qualifying dismissals within
28 U.S.C. § 1915(g), the Court will grant Plaintiff’s application
to proceed in forma pauperis pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a) and
order the Clerk of the Court to file the Complaint.
The Court
will review the Complaint to determine whether it should be
dismissed as frivolous or malicious, for failure to state a claim
upon which relief may be granted, or because it seeks monetary
relief from a defendant who is immune from such relief.
I.
BACKGROUND
The following factual allegations are from the Complaint and
are accepted as true for purposes of this review.
Plaintiff
alleges that Mr. Earl, a prison barber, gave Plaintiff a bad
haircut, “leaving all kinds of patches”, and then laughed at him.
II.
STANDARDS FOR A SUA SPONTE DISMISSAL
This Court must dismiss, at the earliest practicable time,
claims asserted by prisoners that are frivolous, are malicious,
fail to state a claim, or seek monetary relief from a defendant
who is immune from such relief.
See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2); 28
U.S.C. § 1915A; 42 U.S.C. § 1997e.
In determining the sufficiency
of a pro se complaint, the Court must construe it liberally in
the plaintiff’s favor.
Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520-21
(1972); United States v. Day, 969 F.2d 39, 42 (3d Cir. 1992).
The Court must “accept as true all of the allegations in the
complaint and all reasonable inferences that can be drawn
therefrom, and view them in the light most favorable to the
plaintiff.”
Morse v. Lower Merion Sch. Dist., 132 F.3d 902, 906
(3d Cir. 1997).
A complaint is frivolous if it “lacks an arguable basis
either in law or in fact.”
Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319,
325 (1989) (interpreting predecessor of § 1915(e)(2), the former
§ 1915(d)).
The standard for evaluating whether a complaint is
“frivolous” is an objective one.
Deutsch v. United States, 67
F.3d 1080, 1086-87 (3d Cir. 1995).
A complaint must also comply with the pleading requirements
of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
Rule 8(a)(2) requires
that a complaint contain “a short and plain statement of the
claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief”.
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A
complaint must plead facts sufficient at least to “suggest” a
basis for liability.
(3d Cir. 2004).
Spruill v. Gillis, 372 F.3d 218, 236 n.12
“Specific facts are not necessary; the statement
need only ‘give the defendant fair notice of what the ... claim
is and the grounds upon which it rests.’” Erickson v. Pardus, 551
U.S. 89, 93 (2007) (citations omitted).
While a complaint ... does not need detailed factual
allegations, a plaintiff’s obligation to provide the
“grounds” of his “entitle[ment] to relief” requires more
than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation
of the elements of a cause of action will not do, see
Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 286 . . . (1986) (on a
motion to dismiss, courts “are not bound to accept as
true a legal conclusion couched as a factual
allegation”). Factual allegations must be enough to
raise a right to relief above the speculative level[.]
Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007) (citations
omitted).
The Twombly pleading standard applies in the context of a
§ 1983 civil rights action.
See Phillips v. County of Allegheny,
515 F.3d 224, 234 (3d Cir. 2008) (“we decline at this point to
read Twombly so narrowly as to limit its holding on plausibility
to the antitrust context”).
Context matters in notice pleading. Fair notice under
Rule 8(a)(2) depends on the type of case -- some
complaints will require at least some factual
allegations to make out a “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.” Indeed, taking Twombly and the
Court’s contemporaneous opinion in Erickson v. Pardus,
127 S.Ct. 2197 (2007), together, we understand the
Court to instruct that a situation may arise where, at
some point, the factual detail in a complaint is so
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undeveloped that it does not provide a defendant the
type of notice of claim which is contemplated by
Rule 8. Put another way, in light of Twombly, Rule
8(a)(2) requires a “showing” rather than a blanket
assertion of an entitlement to relief. We caution that
without some factual allegation in the complaint, a
claimant cannot satisfy the requirement that he or she
provide not only “fair notice,” but also the “grounds”
on which the claim rests.
Phillips, 515 F.3d at 232 (citations omitted).
When assessing the sufficiency of any civil complaint, a
court must distinguish factual contentions — which allege conduct
on the part of a defendant that, if true, would satisfy one or
more elements of the claim asserted — from “[t]hreadbare recitals
of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory
statements.”
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949 (2009).
Although the Court must assume the veracity of the facts asserted
in the complaint, it is “not bound to accept as true a legal
conclusion couched as a factual allegation.”
Id. at 1950.
Thus,
“a court considering a motion to dismiss can choose to begin by
identifying pleadings that, because they are no more than
conclusions, are not entitled to the assumption of truth.”
[D]istrict courts should conduct a two-part analysis.
First, the factual and legal elements of a claim should
be separated. The District Court must accept all of
the complaint’s well-pleaded facts as true, but may
disregard any legal conclusions. Second, a District
Court must then determine whether the facts alleged in
the complaint are sufficient to show that the plaintiff
has a “plausible claim for relief.” In other words, a
complaint must do more than allege the plaintiff's
entitlement to relief. A complaint has to “show” such
an entitlement with its facts. See Phillips, 515 F.3d
at 234-35. As the Supreme Court instructed in Iqbal,
Id.
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“[w]here the well-pleaded facts do not permit the court
to infer more than the mere possibility of misconduct,
the complaint has alleged-but it has not
‘show[n]’-‘that the pleader is entitled to relief.’”
This “plausibility” determination will be “a
context-specific task that requires the reviewing court
to draw on its judicial experience and common sense.”
Fowler v. UPMC Shadyside, 578 F.3d 203, 210-11 (3d Cir. 2009)
(citations omitted).
III.
SECTION 1983 ACTIONS
A plaintiff may have a cause of action under 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983 for certain violations of constitutional rights.
To state
a claim for relief under § 1983, a plaintiff must allege, first,
the violation of a right secured by the Constitution or laws of
the United States and, second, that the alleged deprivation was
committed or caused by a person acting under color of state law.
West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42, 48 (1988); Piecknick v.
Pennsylvania, 36 F.3d 1250, 1255-56 (3d Cir. 1994).
IV.
ANALYSIS
The Eighth Amendment prohibits the states from inflicting
“cruel and unusual punishments” on those convicted of crimes.
Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U.S. 337, 344-46 (1981).
An Eighth
Amendment claim includes both an objective component, whether the
deprivation of a basic human need is sufficiently serious, and a
subjective component, whether the officials acted with a
sufficiently culpable state of mind.
294, 298 (1991).
Wilson v. Seiter, 501 U.S.
The objective component is contextual and
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responsive to “contemporary standards of decency.”
McMillian, 503 U.S. 1, 8 (1992).
Hudson v.
This component requires that
the deprivation sustained by a prisoner be sufficiently serious,
for only “extreme deprivations” are sufficient to make out an
Eighth Amendment claim.
Id. at 9.
The subjective component
follows from the principle that “‘only the unnecessary and wanton
infliction of pain implicates the Eighth Amendment.’”
See Farmer
v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 834 (1994) (quoting Wilson, 501 U.S. at
297 (internal quotation marks, emphasis, and citations omitted));
Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U.S. 337, 345 (1981).
What is necessary
to establish an unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain varies
according to the nature of the alleged constitutional violation.
Hudson, 503 U.S. at 5.
The subjective component requires that
the state actor have acted with “deliberate indifference,” a
state of mind equivalent to a reckless disregard of a known risk
of harm.
See Farmer, 511 U.S. at 835; Wilson, 501 U.S. at 303.
“Intentional harassment of even the most hardened criminals
cannot be tolerated by a civilized society.”
468 U.S. 517, 528 (1984).
Hudson v. Palmer,
The Eighth Amendment protects
prisoners against calculated harassment.
Id. at 530.
However,
mere verbal harassment does not give rise to a constitutional
violation.
See McBride v. Deer, 240 F.3d 1287, 1291 n.3 (10th
Cir. 2001) (taunts and threats do not violate Eighth Amendment);
Oltarzewski v. Ruggiero, 830 F.2d 136 (9th Cir. 1987) (vulgar
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language); Rivera v. Goord, 119 F.Supp.2d 327, 342 (S.D.N.Y.
2000) (verbal harassment does not violate inmate’s constitutional
rights); Prisoners’ Legal Ass’n v. Roberson, 822 F.Supp. 185
(D.N.J. 1993); Murray v. Woodburn, 809 F.Supp. 383 (E.D. Pa.
1993); Douglas v. Marino, 684 F.Supp. 395 (D.N.J. 1988).
Allegations that prison personnel have used threatening language
and gestures also are not cognizable claims under § 1983.
Collins v. Cundy, 603 F.2d 825 (10th Cir. 1979) (defendant
laughed at prisoner and threatened to hang him).
But threatening
language coupled with the threatening use of a weapon and
outrageous conduct by prison personnel may indicate a
constitutional deprivation.
Douglas, 684 F.Supp. at 398
(brandishing butcher knife in close proximity to prisoner and
threatening to kill him may amount to constitutional violation);
see also Northington v. Jackson, 973 F.2d 1518 (10th Cir. 1992)
(gun was put to prisoner’s head); Burton v. Livingston, 791 F.2d
97 (8th Cir. 1986) (guard threatened to shoot prisoner).
Plaintiff here has alleged that a prison barber deliberately
gave him a bad haircut and then laughed at him.
These facts
establish neither a serious deprivation of a basic human need nor
an unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain.
Taken as true,
this incident does not rise to the level of an Eighth Amendment
violation.
See, e.g., Figel v. Stasewich, 2007 WL 1032371, at
*11 (W.D. Mich. Mar. 30, 2007) (deliberate infliction of bad
haircut does not violate constitutional rights).
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V.
CONCLUSION
The Complaint will be dismissed, pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
§§ 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) and 1915A(b)(1), for failure to state a
claim.
The Court will issue an appropriate order and judgment.
s/ Mary L. Cooper
MARY L. COOPER
United States District Judge
Dated:
November 2, 2011
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