Grant v. Doe et al

Filing 10

ORDER DISMISSING CASE signed by Judge Pamela Pepper on 7/26/2018. 2 Plaintiff's MOTION for leave to proceed without prepayment of filing fee GRANTED; agency having custody of plaintiff to collect $343.81 balance of filing fee from plainti ff's prison trust account under 28 USC §1915(b)(2). 8 Plaintiff's MOTION to appoint counsel DENIED. Case DISMISSED under 28 USC §§1915(e)(2)(B) and 1915A(b)(1) for failure to state a claim; Clerk of Court to document that plaintiff has incurred "strike" under §§1915(g). (cc: all counsel, via mail to Jason Grant and Warden at Columbia Correctional Institution)(cb)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN
______________________________________________________________________________
JASON GRANT,
Plaintiff,
v.

Case No. 18-cv-379-pp

ROBERT DE YOUNG, CARA A. SCHMIDT,
JOHN DOE and JANE DOE,
Defendants.
______________________________________________________________________________
ORDER GRANTING THE PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR LEAVE TO PROCEED
WITHOUT PREPAYMENT OF THE FILING FEE (DKT. NO. 2), DENYING
WITHOUT PREJUDICE HIS MOTION TO APPOINT COUNSEL (DKT. NO. 8),
SCREENING THE COMPLAINT (DKT. NO. 1) AND DISMISSING THE CASE
______________________________________________________________________________
The plaintiff is a state prisoner who is representing himself. He filed a
complaint under 42 U.S.C. §1983, alleging that the defendants violated his civil
rights by failing to deal adequately with his mental health conditions. Dkt. No.
1. This decision resolves the plaintiff’s motion for leave to proceed without
prepayment of the filing fee, dkt. no. 2, and his motion to appoint counsel, dkt.
no. 8, and screens his complaint, dkt. no. 1.
I.

Motion for Leave to Proceed without Prepayment of the Filing Fee
(Dkt. No. 2)
The Prison Litigation Reform Act applies to this case because the plaintiff

was in custody when he filed his complaint. 28 U.S.C. §1915. The law allows a
court to give an incarcerated plaintiff the ability to proceed with his case
without prepaying the case filing fee, if he meets certain conditions. One of

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those conditions is that the plaintiff pay an initial partial filing fee. 28 U.S.C.
§1915(b).
The court ordered the plaintiff to pay an initial partial filing fee of $6.19.
Dkt. No. 6. The court received that fee on March 29, 2018. The court will grant
the plaintiff’s motion to proceed without prepayment of the filing fee, and will
allow the plaintiff to pay the remainder of the filing fee over time in the manner
explained at the end of this decision.
II.

Screening the Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint
A.

Federal Screening Standard

The law requires the court to screen complaints brought by prisoners
seeking relief against a governmental entity or officer or employee of a
governmental entity. 28 U.S.C. §1915A(a). The court must dismiss a complaint
if the plaintiff raises claims that are legally “frivolous or malicious,” that fail to
state a claim upon which relief may be granted, or that seek monetary relief
from a defendant who is immune from the relief. 28 U.S.C. §1915A(b).
To state a claim, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter,
accepted as true, “that is plausible on its face.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662,
678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)).
“A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that
allows a court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for
the misconduct alleged.” Id. (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556).
To state a claim under 42 U.S.C. §1983, a plaintiff must allege that 1)
someone deprived him of a right secured by the Constitution or laws of the
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United States; and 2) that person was acting under color of state law.
Buchanan-Moore v. Cty. of Milwaukee, 570 F.3d 824, 827 (7th Cir. 2009)
(citing Kramer v. Vill. of N. Fond du Lac, 384 F.3d 856, 861 (7th Cir. 2004));
see also Gomez v. Toledo, 446 U.S. 635, 640 (1980). The court gives a pro se
plaintiff’s allegations, “however inartfully pleaded,” a liberal construction. See
Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007) (quoting Estelle v. Gamble, 429
U.S. 97, 106 (1976)).
B.

The Plaintiff’s Allegations

The plaintiff alleges—and the Wisconsin Department of Corrections
(DOC) Inmate Locator Service (https://appsdoc.wi.gov) confirms—that he
entered the Wisconsin prison system in 2011. Dkt. No. 1 at 3. The plaintiff says
that he has an extensive history of mental illness and disorder, and claims that
the DOC knew this. Id. Before going to prison, a court had ordered the plaintiff
to undergo mental health treatment. Id. On November 3, 2011 (while the
plaintiff was at Dodge Correctional Institution, https://appsdoc.wi.gov),
defendant Cara A. Schmidt conducted a mental health screening for the
plaintiff. Id. The plaintiff alleges that Schmidt did not adequately screen him
during the intake process. Id.
The DOC released the plaintiff (from Oakhill Correctional Institution,
https://appsdoc.wi.gov) three years later, in November 2014. Id. The plaintiff
says that the DOC failed to treat “a serious need and disease . . . .” Id. He
alleges that this failure led to his arrest seven days after his release, followed
by criminal charges. Id. at 3-4. The plaintiff says that defendant Jane Doe
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social worker at Oakhill failed to detect that the DOC was releasing “an inmate
with a known mental disease in the community to shift [sic] for himself,
without medication, treatment, [or] the mean[s] to acquire medication.” Id. at 4.
The plaintiff alleges that this same Jane Doe defendant failed to notify
Supervision Authority about his extensive mental health history. Id.
The plaintiff says that on April 19, 2017, he “was deemed not guilty by
reason of mental disease.” Id. The Wisconsin Circuit Court Access Program
shows that on November 19, 2014—about a week after the DOC released him
from Oakhill—the State filed a complaint against the defendant in Walworth
County Circuit Court, alleging first-degree intentional homicide, strangulation
and suffocation and false imprisonment. State v. Jason L. Grant, Case No.
2014CF000471, Walworth County Circuit Court, available at
https://wcca.wicourts.gov. That docket shows that on November 18, 2017, the
plaintiff entered a plea of not guilty because of mental disease or defect, and
that on May 5, 2017, the judge ordered the plaintiff committed to the
Department of Health Services for sixty years. Id.
The plaintiff asserts that the DOC released him into the community
without treating his “multi-faceted psychosis,” which he characterizes as a
“serious disease and need.” Dkt. No. 1 at 4. He says that the NGI verdict in
Case No. 2014CF000471 shows that he had a serious mental illness. Id. He
alleges that the fact that the DOC released him without adequate mental health
treatment led to his five-and-a-half-year revocation sentence and his sixty-year
mental health commitment. Id. Finally, he alleges that the Warden at Dodge
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failed to implement an adequate mental health screening process. Id. The
plaintiff asks the court to award him money for “the physical, mental, and
emotionally [sic] suffering, from the incarceration.” Id. at 5.
C.

The Court’s Analysis

The plaintiff has named four defendants: the warden of Dodge (whom he
identifies as “John Doe”), Robert DeYoung, Cara A. Schmidt and “Jane
Doe/Social Worker.” Id. at 1. The court assumes, given the facts he has
alleged, that the plaintiff is trying to sue the person who was the warden of
Dodge in 2011, the year defendant Schmidt screened him at intake into Dodge.
The plaintiff describes Robert De Young as a “psych supervisor” at Dodge; the
court suspects that he is referring to Dr. Robert De Young, a psychologist with
the DOC. See, e.g., Kaufman v. Hamblin, Case No. 12-cv-87-bbc, 2012 WL
2571245 at *1 (W.D. Wis. July 2, 2012). The plaintiff has explained that
defendant Schmidt conducted his mental health intake screening at Dodge in
November 2011. And he has explained that Jane Doe/Social Worker was the
person who allowed him to be released from Oakhill in 2014, knowing that he
was mentally ill.
The Eighth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits the state from
subjecting prisoners to cruel and unusual punishment. The Supreme Court
has held that the amendment protects inmates from more than “physically
barbarous punishments.” Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 102 (1976) (citations
omitted). The Court has stated that punishments that are “incompatible with
‘the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing
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society’” also violate the Eighth Amendment. Id. (quoting Trop v. Dulles, 356
U.S. 86, 101 (1958)). This means that the government has an “obligation to
provide medical care for those whom it is punishing by incarceration.” Id. at
103. When a prison official shows “deliberate indifference to serious medical
needs of prisoners,” that official violations the Eighth Amendment. Id. at 104.
“A claim of deliberate indifference to a serious medical need contains
both an objective and a subjective component.” Greeno v. Daley, 414 F.3d 645,
653 (7th Cir. 2005) (citing Estelle, 429 U.S. at 104). First, a prisoner must
show “that his medical condition is ‘objectively, sufficiently serious.’” Id.
(quoting Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 834 (1994)). Second, the plaintiff
must show that the prison officials “acted with a ‘“sufficiently culpable state of
mind.”’” Id. “The officials must know of and disregard an excessive risk to
inmate health; indeed they must ‘both be aware of facts from which the
inference could be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm exists’ and
‘must also draw the inference.’” Id. (quoting Farmer, 511 U.S. at 837).
The plaintiff says that he suffers from a grave mental illness, or illnesses,
and has for a long time. The Walworth County judge found the defendant not
guilty of extremely serious charges because of his mental illness, so this court
has no reason to disagree that the plaintiff has satisfied the first, objective
prong of the deliberate indifference test. He has alleged that he had a serious
medical need.
The plaintiff has not stated sufficient facts to satisfy the second,
subjective prong of the deliberate indifference test. The plaintiff alleges that the
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warden of Dodge in 2011 did not “implement an adequate mental health
screening process.” Dkt. No. 1 at 4. He does not explain why his mental health
screening was inadequate. He does not explain how a mental health screening
in November 2011 could have predicted that there was a serious risk of harm
to the plaintiff, or that he would commit a homicide in 2014, or how the warden
could have known that whatever screening process was in place would not
predict that outcome. Similarly, the plaintiff does not explain why defendant
Schmidt’s screening was not adequate, or how she could have known from a
mental health screen that the plaintiff posed a serious risk of killing someone
four years into the future. The plaintiff makes no allegations against defendant
De Young. That he mentions De Young, however, implies that the plaintiff
received mental health treatment while he was at Dodge; if so, he cannot
establish that De Young knew that there was a risk that the plaintiff would
commit a homicide after his release, or that De Young deliberately disregarded
that risk. The same is true for Jane Doe/Social Worker. The plaintiff has not
alleged that the social worker knew that there was a risk that he would commit
a homicide, or that she disregarded it.
The Constitution requires prison officials to take care of the plaintiff’s
health needs. It does not require them to cure the plaintiff of any mental
illness. It does not require them to prevent the plaintiff from harming after he
has been released from their care. The plaintiff has not stated a deliberate
indifference claim against these defendants, and the court will dismiss his
case.
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III.

The Plaintiff’s Motion to Appoint Counsel (Dkt. No. 8)
The plaintiff has asked the court to appoint a lawyer to represent him.

Dkt. No. 8. Because the court is dismissing the plaintiff’s case, the court will
deny this motion as moot.
IV.

Conclusion
The court GRANTS the plaintiff's motion for leave to proceed without

prepayment of the filing fee. Dkt. No. 2.
The court DENIES the plaintiff’s motion for counsel. Dkt. No. 8.
The court ORDERS that this case is DISMISSED under 28 U.S.C.
§§1915(e)(2)(B) and 1915A(b)(1) because the complaint fails to state a claim for
which the court can grant relief. The court will enter judgment accordingly.
The Clerk of Court will document that the plaintiff has incurred a “strike”
under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g).
The court ORDERS that the agency having custody of the plaintiff must
collect from his institution trust account the $343.81 balance of the filing fee
by collecting monthly payments from the plaintiff's prison trust account in an
amount equal to 20% of the preceding month's income credited to the plaintiff’s
trust account and forwarding payments to the clerk of court each time the
amount in the account exceeds $10 in accordance with 28 U.S.C. §1915(b)(2).
The agency must clearly identify the payments by the case name and number.
If the plaintiff transfers to another county, state or federal institution, the
transferring institution must forward a copy of this order, along with the
plaintiff's remaining balance, to the receiving institution.
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This order and the judgment to follow are final. A dissatisfied party may
appeal this court’s decision to the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit by
filing in this court a notice of appeal within 30 days of the entry of judgment.
See Fed. R. of App. P. 3, 4. This court may extend this deadline if a party timely
requests an extension and shows good cause or excusable neglect for not being
able to meet the 30-day deadline. See Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(5)(A).
In some cases, a party may ask this court to alter or amend its judgment
under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e) or ask for relief from judgment
under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b). Any motion under Federal Rule of
Civil Procedure 59(e) must be filed within 28 days of the entry of judgment. The
court cannot extend this deadline. See Fed. R. Civ P. 6(b)(2). Any motion under
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) must be filed within a reasonable time,
generally no more than one year after the entry of the judgment. The court
cannot extend this deadline. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(b)(2).
The court expects parties to review closely all applicable rules and
determine, what, if any, further action is appropriate in a case.
Dated in Milwaukee, Wisconsin this 26th day of July, 2018
BY THE COURT:
________________________________________
HON. PAMELA PEPPER
United States District Judge

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