Giles v. Davis

1

OSSIE GILES, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. RON DAVIS; G. FORNCROOK, A.W.; J. ARNOLD, Cpt.; R. SHELTON, Lt.; J. SANGMASTER, Sgt.; A. MAXFIELD, CC2; Y. SAMARA, CDO; R. BLOOMFIELD, A.W., Defendants-Appellees, F. JAUGAN, C.O.; J. CARTWRIGHT, C.O.; M. VOONG, C.O.A.; R. PEARL, Psychologist, Defendants-Appellees, and M. NELSON, Defendant.

No. 21-15466

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit

January 9, 2023

NOT FOR PUBLICATION

Submitted January 5, 2023 ^[**] San Francisco, California

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California D.C. No. 4:18-cv-07466-YGR Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, District Judge, Presiding Before: HAWKINS, S.R. THOMAS, and McKEOWN, Circuit Judges.

MEMORANDUM ^[*]

Ossie Giles, a California state prisoner proceeding pro se, appeals the district court's order granting summary judgment for the defendants in his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action alleging that prison officials violated his First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights. We review the district court's determination that Giles failed to exhaust administrative remedies and the district court's grant of summary judgment de novo, Nunez v. Duncan 591 F.3d 1217, 1222 (9th Cir. 2010), and we may affirm on any ground supported by the record, Simmons v. G Arnett, 47 F.4th 927, 932 (9th Cir. 2022). We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.

The district court properly dismissed Giles's claim that prison officials denied his grievance appeals in violation of his First Amendment rights. The Prison Litigation Reform Act requires prisoners to "exhaust such administrative remedies as are available" before filing a complaint in federal court. Merchant v. Corizon Health, Inc., 993 F.3d 733, 742 (9th Cir. 2021) (internal quotation marks omitted). By Giles's own admission, he did not exhaust administrative remedies on this claim.

The district court properly granted summary judgment on Giles's First Amendment claim based on allegations that prison officials retaliated against him for filing a grievance against a correctional officer. A prisoner asserting a retaliation claim must show that prison officials took an adverse action against him because of his protected conduct, that the adverse action chilled his "exercise of his First Amendment rights," and that "the action did not reasonably advance a legitimate correctional goal." Shepard v. Quillen, 840 F.3d 686, 688 (9th Cir. 2016) (quoting Rhodes v. Robinson, 408 F.3d 559, 567-68 (9th Cir. 2005)). Giles did not submit evidence indicating that the prison officials knew about his grievance or evidence linking the prison officials' conduct to the grievance. He therefore cannot show that the prison officials took adverse action against him because he filed the grievance.

The district court also properly granted summary judgment on Giles's Eighth Amendment claims related to his placement in administrative segregation and the alleged failure of prison officials to correct falsities in the rules violation report that resulted in his placement in administrative segregation. Giles asserts that he suffered from anxiety and sleep deprivation because of his time in administrative segregation. But Giles cannot establish an Eighth Amendment claim based on his conditions of confinement because he provided no evidence that his time in administrative segregation "involve[d] the wanton and unnecessary infliction of pain" or was "devoid of legitimate penological purpose." Morgan v. Morgensen, 465 F.3d 1041, 1045 (9th Cir. 2006). Further, Giles cannot show that prison officials acted with deliberate indifference by failing to correct the rules violation report because he provided no evidence that prison officials knew of his anxiety and sleep deprivation or that they knew placing him in administrative segregation posed "an excessive risk to [his] health and safety." See Colwell v. Bannister, 763 F.3d 1060, 1066 (9th Cir. 2014) (quoting Toguchi v. Chung, 391 F.3d 1051, 1057 (9th Cir. 2004)).

Finally the district court properly granted summary judgment on Giles's due process claims related to his placement in administrative segregation and the alleged failure of prison officials to correct falsities in the rules...