Haleem v. Quinones et al

Filing 93

ORDER granting in part 70 Motion to Sever. Signed by Magistrate Judge Joel C. Hoppe on 10/3/18. (kld)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA
Harrisonburg Division
MATEEN HALEEM,
Plaintiff,
v.
DR. MOISES QUINONES et al.,
Defendants.

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Civil Action No. 5:17-cv-00003
MEMORANDUM OPINION & ORDER
By:

Joel C. Hoppe
United States Magistrate Judge

Plaintiff Mateen Haleem filed this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that three
remaining Defendants violated Haleem’s constitutional rights while he was detained at the
Middle River Regional Jail (“MRRJ”) from August through September 2015, and again from
August through November 2016. See generally Second Am. Compl. 1–10, ECF No. 49. More
specifically, Haleem alleges that: (1) Defendant Dr. Moises Quinones, a physician under contract
to provide medical care at MRRJ, “deliberately failed to provide” Haleem with his prescription
pain and antiepileptic medications for six weeks in 2015, see id. ¶¶ 13–14; (2) Defendants
Carlston Vandevander and David Gregory, both MRRJ correctional officers at all times relevant
to the action, repeatedly doused Haleem’s eyes with pepper spray, “used [his] head as a battering
ram,” and broke his finger “one day” sometime after August 2016, see id. ¶¶ 6, 27–35; and (3)
Vandevander’s and Gregory’s conduct on that day was in retaliation for Haleem filing
“numerous grievances about cold and rotten food” and “the failure to receive his medication”
while he was detained at MRRJ, see id. ¶¶ 27–28, 40–41. Haleem seeks compensatory and
punitive damages against each Defendant in his individual capacity. See id. at 1, 23–24.
Discovery is ongoing and a jury trial is set to begin on April 1, 2019. See Sched. Order 1, ECF
No. 66.

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The matter is now before the Court on Defendant Quinones’s motion seeking to “sever[]
for purposes of discovery and trial” Haleem’s § 1983 claim against him “from the claims
asserted against” Defendants Vandevander and Gregory, arguing that he was misjoined as a
defendant. Mot. to Sever, ECF No. 70; see Br. in Supp. 4–5 (citing Fed. R. Civ. P. 20, 21), ECF
No. 71. Haleem “does not contest severance,” although he “believes that judicial economy may
be served by trying all [remaining] Defendants in one case.” See Pl.’s Resp. Br. 1 n.1, ECF No.
87. Defendants Vandevander and Gregory also do not object to severance. ECF Nos. 82, 86. The
nondispositive pretrial motion is before me under 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(A). Sched. Order 2.
“A district court [has] broad discretion in ruling on a requested severance under Rule 21”
of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Hanna v. Gravett, 262 F. Supp. 2d 643, 647 (E.D. Va.
2003) (citing Saval v. BL Ltd., 710 F.2d 1027, 1031–32 (4th Cir. 1983)). While Rule 21 does not
set out a standard “for determining misjoinder, courts have uniformly held that parties are
misjoined” when they do not meet the prerequisites for permissive joinder under Rule 20(a). Id.
(collecting cases). As relevant here, Rule 20(a) provides that persons
may be joined in one action as defendants if: (A) any right to relief is asserted
against them jointly, severally, or in the alternative with respect to or arising out
of the same transaction, occurrence, or series of transactions or occurrences; and
(B) any question of law or fact common to all defendants will arise in the action.
Fed. R. Civ. P. 20(a)(2)(A)–(B) (2017). “The requirements for permissive joinder are liberally
construed in the interest of convenience and judicial economy in a manner that will secure the
just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of the action.” Dillon v. BMO Harris Bank, N.A., 16
F. Supp. 3d 605, 615 (M.D.N.C. 2014) (quotation marks omitted). “The ‘transaction or
occurrence’ test” in particular “is designed to permit all reasonably related claims for relief by or
against different parties to be tried in a single proceeding[,] . . . . thereby preventing multiple
lawsuits.” Advamtel, LLC v. AT&T Corp., 105 F. Supp. 2d 507, 514 (E.D. Va. 2000) (citing
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Saval, 710 F.2d at 1031). This determination is made on a case-by-case basis, id. at 513, and
typically permits joinder so long as all the claims against different parties arise out of events that
“have a ‘logical relation to one another,’” Tinsley v. Streich, 143 F. Supp. 3d 450, 459 (W.D. Va.
2015) (quoting Stephens v. Kaiser Found. Health Plan of the Mid-Atl. States, Inc., 807 F. Supp.
2d 375, 379 (D. Md. 2011)).
Quinones argues that Haleem’s § 1983 deliberate-indifference claim against the doctor
“involve[s] discreet questions of law and fact wholly distinct from the factual and legal issues”
underlying Haleem’s § 1983 excessive-force and retaliation claims against the two jail officers.
Br. in Supp. 4–5. This position is persuasive, especially considering that the Second Amended
Complaint makes very clear that Dr. Quinones was under contract as an MRRJ physician only
“[d]uring the 2015 time period” and therefore he could not have been personally involved in
anything that happened to Haleem during his “second stint at MRRJ from August 2016 through
November 2016,” including the alleged officers-on-detainee assault that occurred sometime
during that three-month period. Second Am. Compl. ¶¶ 4, 13, 15, 18–19, 21; see Order, ECF No.
39. Indeed, the only allegations in any way linking these three Defendants and the events
underlying Haleem’s two “stints” at MRRJ are that: (1) Defendants Vandevander and Gregory
were correctional officers at this jail “at all times relevant” to Haleem’s claims; (2) in August
2015, Haleem filed a grievance informing MRRJ medical staff that he had not received his
medications; (3) upon returning to MRRJ in August 2016, Haleem “began to submit numerous
grievances about cold and rotten food, to the point that Defendants Vandevander and Gregory . .
. targeted him as a ‘trouble maker’” and told Haleem that “‘he would get it’” if he “kept
submitting grievances,” which Haleem did anyway; and (4) the officers later beat Haleem in
retaliation for filing “grievances for what he perceived [to be] unconstitutional conditions of

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confinement,” including jail officials’ failure to administer his prescription medication. See
Second Am. Compl. ¶¶ A, 6, 18, 21, 27, 41. The mere fact that Vandevander and Gregory
happened to be employed as officers at MRRJ “[d]uring the 2015 time period,” see id. ¶¶ 4, 6, is
not enough to establish a logical connection between Dr. Quinones’s alleged denial of medical
care during that time and the officers’ alleged retaliatory use of excessive force one year later—
especially given the months-long gap between Haleem’s two terms of detention. See Sanders v.
Rose, 576 F. App’x 91, 95 (3d Cir. 2014) (concluding that a former pretrial detainee’s allegations
that he signed his name as “‘Mickey Mouse’ to show his displeasure at having been denied
library access” by a jail counselor, that the jail counselor “expressed anger about someone
‘disrespecting her’ by signing ‘Mickey Mouse,’” and that the detainee was “brutally beaten” by
several jail officers who “sang the ‘Mickey Mouse’ song as they dragged him to another cell,”
and that these events all occurred on a single day, satisfied Rule 20(a)(2)’s permissive joinder
standard).
Quinones also argues that severance is warranted because “the witness testimony and any
other evidence [that Haleem] may rely upon to support the excessive force and retaliation claims
necessarily would be different from the evidence that he will need to support the deliberate
indifference claims asserted” against the jail physician. Br. in Supp. 5. This concern is legitimate,
and Haleem does not contest it. See Pl.’s Resp. Br. 1 n.1. Thus, separate trials are necessary.
Nonetheless, given the nature of Haleem’s claims and allegations against current or former
officials at one jail, keeping the matters together for pretrial purposes under one scheduling
order, ECF Nos. 66, 74; see also ECF No. 68 (parties’ Rule 26(f) Report), better serves the
“interest of convenience and judicial economy in a manner that will secure the just, speedy, and

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inexpensive determination of the action,” Dillon, 16 F. Supp. 3d at 615–16. See Fed. R. Civ. P.
42(b).
Accordingly, Defendant Quinones’s motion to sever, ECF No. 70, is hereby GRANTED
IN PART. Plaintiff’s § 1983 claims against all remaining Defendants shall be joined in this
action through the close of discovery and the resolution of any dispositive motions. See Sched.
Order 1. If necessary, separate trials will be scheduled during the week of April 1, 2019, for the
claim against Defendant Quinones and the claim or claims against Defendants Vandevander and
Gregory.
It is so ORDERED.
ENTER: October 3, 2018

Joel C. Hoppe
U.S. Magistrate Judge

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