Cruz-Berrios v. Puerto Rico Department of Correction and Rehabilitation et al
Filing
120
OPINION AND ORDER: The Court DENIES 118 Plaintiff's Motion for Relief from Judgment Pursuant to F.R.C.P. 59(e). Signed by Judge Raul M. Arias-Marxuach on 5/22/2020. (mrr)
Case 3:16-cv-03155-RAM Document 120 Filed 05/22/20 Page 1 of 8
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
JOSÉ JULIÁN CRUZ-BERRIOS,
Plaintiff,
v.
CIVIL NO. 16-3155 (RAM)
PUERTO RICO DEPARTMENT OF
CORRECTION AND REHABILITATION,
ET AL.,
Defendants.
OPINION AND ORDER
RAÚL M. ARIAS-MARXUACH, United States District Judge
Pending before the Court is Plaintiff’s Motion for Relief
from Judgment Pursuant to F.R.C.P. 59(e) (“Motion for Relief”)
(Docket
No.
118)
and
Defendants’
Response
in
Opposition
to
Plaintiff’s Motion for Reconsideration (“Response”) (Docket No.
118) (Docket No. 119). For reasons set forth below, the Court
DENIES the Motion for Relief at Docket No. 118.
I.
PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Plaintiff José Julián Cruz-Berrios (“Plaintiff”) is an inmate
with Type-2 Diabetes Mellitus residing at Puerto Rico Department
of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s (“PRDC”) Institutional Complex
#501 in Bayamón, Puerto Rico. (Docket No. 2 ¶ 3.1). On December
16, 2016, he filed suit against the Secretary of Corrections of
the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and other PRDC officials as well
as Manuel Quilichini as Chief Executive Officer of Correctional
Case 3:16-cv-03155-RAM Document 120 Filed 05/22/20 Page 2 of 8
Civil No. 16-3155 (RAM)
Health
Services
Corp.
2
(“CHSC”),
the
former
health
services
contract provider to PRDC, and Dr. Gladys Quiles, who worked for
CHSC at Complex #292 in Bayamón, Puerto Rico. Id. ¶¶ 3.2-3.27. In
his Complaint, Plaintiff included claims arising under 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the United States
Constitution
and
the
Court’s
federal
question
subject
matter
jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1343. Id. ¶ 2.1. Lastly,
he also invoked the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico’s Constitution and
Laws and the Court’s supplemental jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §
1367(a) as to state law claims. Id. ¶ 2.6.
On November 27, 2019, Defendants filed a Motion for Summary
Judgment alleging that the Complaint should be dismissed for
failure
to
exhaust
administrative
remedies.
(Docket
No.
98).
Plaintiff filed an opposition closely followed by Defendants’
reply. (Docket Nos. 112 and 115, respectively). On March 25, 2020,
this Court granted the Motion for Summary Judgment and issued a
Judgment dismissing all of Plaintiff’s claims for failing to file
reconsiderations to his administrative requests and thus failing
to exhaust available remedies. (Docket Nos. 116 and 117).
On May 12, 2020, Plaintiff filed a Motion for Relief alleging
that his suit could not be dismissed because the grievance process
had become unavailable when prison administrators failed to comply
with their own grievance procedure. (Docket No. 118). Defendants
filed their Response to the same on May 14, 2020. (Docket No. 119).
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3
II.
LEGAL STANDARD
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not provide for the
filing of motions for reconsideration. Therefore, a motion which
asks “the court to modify its earlier disposition of a case because
of an allegedly erroneous legal result is brought under Fed. R.
Civ. P. 59(e).” Marie v. Allied Home Mortg. Corp., 402 F.3d 1, 7
(1st Cir. 2005). The First Circuit considers a reconsideration “an
extraordinary remedy which should be used sparingly.” U.S. ex rel.
Ge v. Takeda Pharm. Co., 737 F.3d 116, 127 (1st Cir. 2013)
(internal quotation omitted) (emphasis added). Hence, a court may
grant one only if there is a “manifest error of law, [...] newly
discovered evidence, or in certain other narrow situations [such
as a change in controlling law].” United States v. Peña-Fernández,
394 F.Supp.3d 205, 207 (D.P.R. 2019) (quotation omitted).
Further, “[w]hen the motion simply regurgitates contentions
that were previously made and rejected, the movant has no legal
basis to insist upon reconsideration.” Liu v. Mukasey, 553 F.3d
37, 39 (1st Cir. 2009) (emphasis added). A reconsideration does
“not provide a vehicle for a party to undo its own procedural
failures.” Peña-Fernández,
394
F.Supp.3d
at
207
(quotation
omitted). Hence, it “is not properly grounded in a request for a
district court to rethink a decision it has already made, rightly
or wrongly.” Joan Oquendo v. Costco Wholehouse Corporation, 2020
WL 2457545, at *1 (D.P.R. 2020) (quotation omitted).
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Civil No. 16-3155 (RAM)
4
III. ANALYSIS
In his Motion for Relief, Plaintiff posits that Defendants
failed to comply with rules prescribed in Regulation No. 8583, the
“Regulation to Address the Application for Administrative Remedies
Filed
by
Members
of
the
Correctional
Population”
(the
“Regulation“) which governs prison grievance procedures in Puerto
Rico. (Docket No. 118 at 4). He contends that Defendants failed to
abide by two rules: (1) Rule XII-5, when they failed to provide
him with a copy of at least three of his requests within ten (10)
days after he filed them; and (2) Rule XIII-4, when they failed to
provide him with a response to his requests within the twenty-day
deadline provided by the Rule and instead answered the requests
two (2) years later. Id. Plaintiff thus alleges that he “exhausted
the administrative remedies however Defendant failed to comply
with
its
own
Regulations.”
Id.
Which
makes
the
remedies
“unavailable” and his claim should not be dismissed for failure to
exhaust.
Id.
at
5.
Finally,
he
requests
to
“summons
[sic]
Defendants who are currently responsible for Plaintiff’s health
treatment.” Id.
In their Response, Defendants state that the Court already
addressed the issues being presented by Plaintiff in his Motion
for Relief. (Docket No. 119 at 2-3). They also aver that it should
be
denied
because
Plaintiff
failed
to
present
any
change
in
controlling law, manifest error of law or a clear legal error. Id.
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Civil No. 16-3155 (RAM)
5
at 4. Defendants also posit that Plaintiff’s request to summon
Defendants he believes are responsible for his health woes is also
unjustified because Plaintiff already had three (3) years to summon
those he deemed “responsible for his alleged damages.” Id.
The Court agrees with Defendants. Plaintiff failed to show in
its Motion for Relief a manifest error of law, newly discovered
evidence
or
any
other
circumstance
which
would
warrant
reconsideration of the Court’s Opinion and Order at Docket No.
116. See Peña-Fernández, 2019 WL 3716472, at *2. In its Opinion
and Order, the Court already addressed that even if Defendants
answered Plaintiff’s Request No. B-860-17, Request No. B-687-17,
and Request No. B-686-17 in an untimely manner, Plaintiff still
failed to file a reconsideration for any of them within the
required timeframe after receiving the response. (Docket No. 116
at 13-14). Although the Court recognizes that some circumstances
permit that an administrative remedy become “not capable of use,”
they are not present here. In Ross v. Blake, the United States
Supreme Court defined such exceptions as:
First, an administrative procedure is unavailable when
it operates as a simple dead end—with officers unable or
consistently unwilling to provide any relief to
aggrieved inmates. Next, an administrative scheme might
be so opaque that it becomes, practically speaking,
incapable of use—i.e., some mechanism exists to provide
relief, but no ordinary prisoner can navigate it. And
finally, a grievance process is rendered unavailable
when prison administrators thwart inmates from taking
advantage of it through machination, misrepresentation,
or intimidation.
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Civil No. 16-3155 (RAM)
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Ross v. Blake, 136 S. Ct. 1850, 1853–54 (2016). Moreover, only
decisions that are not binding on this District, have determined
that untimely responses to an inmate’s requests are sufficient to
prove that a grievance process was unavailable. See Shifflett v.
Korszniak, 934 F.3d 356, 365 (3d Cir. 2019); see also Brown v.
Valoff, 422 F.3d 926, 943 n.18 (9th Cir. 2005); Powe v. Ennis, 177
F.3d 393, 394 (5th Cir. 1999). Neither the First Circuit, nor any
court within the circuit, has determined that an untimely response
by prison administrators is sufficient to justify a prisoner's
failure to exhaust administrative remedies.
Plaintiff claims, without more, that “Defendant in a likely
retaliation
manner
and/or
a
complete
disregard
for
Plaintiff
health and right did not comply to their part on the exhaustion
process.” (Docket No. 118 at 5). However, the grievance process on
the record clearly shows otherwise. The administrative process did
not operate as a “simple dead-end,” it was not so opaque as to
become “incapable of use” nor did Plaintiff present any evidence
that prison administrators attempted to thwart his attempts to use
the grievance procedure. See Ross, 136 S. Ct. at 1853–54. First,
the grievance procedure was not opaque considering that Plaintiff
filed five (5) requests between 2015-2017, which the Court already
addressed in its Opinion and Order. (Docket No. 116 at 13-14).
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Civil No. 16-3155 (RAM)
7
Second, the record plainly shows that the process was not a
dead-end because the officers attempted to abide by the Regulation.
Plaintiff states that responses to his Requests Nos. B-868-17, B687-17, and B-687-17 were all untimely notified to him on November
2019. (Docket No. 118 at 3). However, the record reflects that
prison administrators and the evaluator did address Plaintiff’s
requests within the timeframe allotted by the Regulation. (Docket
No. 106-1 at 4). The Certification of Administrative Remedies
(“Certification”) filed alongside Defendants’ Motion for Summary
Judgment shows that the evaluator attempted to inform Plaintiff of
the outcome of the three above-mentioned requests in a timely
manner, yet Plaintiff failed to answer the call at his section to
receive the responses. Id. This was also already addressed in the
Court’s Opinion and Order. (Docket No. 116 at 13). 1
Third,
as
highlighted
by
Defendants’
Response,
Plaintiff
failed on multiple occasions to address why he did not answer the
evaluator’s calls. (Docket No. 119 at 3). Similarly, Plaintiff
failed to present any evidence explaining if he attempted to
follow-up on the pending grievance procedures. He therefore failed
to evince how Defendants thwarted his attempt to navigate the
grievance
procedure.
Thus,
his
allegations
of
“unavailable”
remedies, which could potentially excuse his failure to exhaust
1
The other two requests filed by Plaintiff, Requests Nos. Q-032-15 and B-259915, were answered and notified to him on a timely basis. The Court already
addressed this in its Opinion and Order. (Docket No. 116 at 14).
Case 3:16-cv-03155-RAM Document 120 Filed 05/22/20 Page 8 of 8
Civil No. 16-3155 (RAM)
failed
at
the
8
summary
judgment
stage.
Cf.
Robinson
v.
Superintendent Rockview SCI, 831 F.3d 148, 154 (3d Cir. 2016)
(holding
that
institution’s
administrative
personnel
remedies
failed
to
were
timely
unavailable
respond
to
when
inmate’s
grievance per procedural rules and when they repeatedly ignored
his follow-up requests for a decision on his claim).
Lastly, as the Court is affirming its decision to dismiss the
case at bar, it need not address Plaintiff’s request for permission
to summon Defendants who are allegedly responsible for his health
treatment. Having previously addressed Plaintiff’s arguments at
Docket No. 116, the Court AFFIRMS its Opinion and Order granting
summary
judgment
against
Plaintiff
and
dismissing
all
claims
against Defendants (Docket Nos. 116 and 117).
IV.
CONCLUSION
For the reasons set forth above, the Court DENIES Plaintiff’s
Motion for Relief from Judgment Pursuant to F.R.C.P. 59(e) (Docket
No. 118).
IT IS SO ORDERED.
In San Juan, Puerto Rico, this 22nd day of May 2020.
S/ RAÚL M. ARIAS-MARXUACH
United States District Judge
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