Hardin v. Poole

CHARLIE L. HARDIN, Plaintiff, v. KATY POOLE, et al., Defendants.

No. 1:19CV674

United States District Court, M.D. North Carolina

March 21, 2022

RECOMMENDATION OF UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

JOI ELIZABETH PEAKE, UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

This action is based on a pro se civil rights Complaint [Doc. #2] filed under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 by Plaintiff Charlie L. Hardin, a prisoner of the State of North Carolina. Plaintiff raises claims against a number of Defendants stemming from uses of force against him on December 26, 2018 as well as related events. The Complaint named fourteen Defendants, eleven of which were served or waived service. They are: Katy Poole, Queen Gerald, Captain Covington, Lt Mungo, Sgt. Locklear, Officer Wiley, Officer Neil, Officer Douglass, Officer Adams, and Officer Beatha. Those eleven Defendants have filed a Motion for Summary Judgment [Doc #59]. Following the filing of that Motion, a dispute arose between the parties over Defendants providing Plaintiff with video footage of the use of force incidents described in the Complaint. In a recent Order [Doc. #75], the Court concluded that the issue was resolved and that Plaintiff was provided and allowed to view all of the relevant footage that existed.^[1] Therefore, the Court ordered Plaintiff to file any Response to the Motion for Summary Judgment by January 28, 2022. He did not do so and Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment is now before the Court for a ruling.

I. Summary Judgment Standard

Summary judgment is appropriate when no genuine issue of material fact exists. A genuine issue of fact exists if the evidence presented could lead a reasonable fact-finder to return a verdict in favor of the non-moving party. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255 (1986). A court considering a motion for summary judgment must view all facts and draw all reasonable inferences from the evidence before it in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. Id. The proponent of summary judgment “bears the initial burden of pointing to the absence of a genuine issue of material fact.” Temkin v. Frederick County Comm'rs, 945 F.2d 716, 718 (4th Cir. 1991) (citing Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322 (1986)). If the movant carries this burden, then the burden “shifts to the non-moving party to come forward with facts sufficient to create a triable issue of fact.” Id. at 718-19 (citing Anderson, 477 U.S. at 247-48). A mere scintilla of evidence supporting the non-moving party's case is insufficient to defeat a motion for summary judgment. See, e.g., Shaw v. Stroud, 13 F.3d 791, 798 (4th Cir. 1994); see also Anderson, 477 U.S. at 248 (non-moving party may not rest upon mere allegations or denials).

II. Parties' Facts

Plaintiff's unsworn Complaint alleges that on December 26, 2018, Defendant Wiley punched him in the face with handcuffs several times, causing Plaintiff to then try to protect himself from Defendant Wiley. (Complaint, § V.) Plaintiff was eventually handcuffed from behind and taken from the cell block to a receiving area. (Id.) The Complaint alleges that Defendants Neil, Beatha, White, Adams, Douglass, Locklear, Mungo, and Covington then “continue[d] to assault [Plaintiff] all the way” to the receiving area. (Id.) The Complaint also alleges that Defendant Neil packed up Plaintiff's property without proper documentation and stole it. (Id.) The Complaint further alleges that Defendants Poole and Gerald knew of these events, but let Defendant Neil assault Plaintiff and steal his property. (Id.) It also goes on to claim that Defendant Wiley's alleged assault on Plaintiff was premeditated entrapment to induce Plaintiff to retaliate so that Defendant Wiley could press criminal charges against him. (Id.) Finally, the Complaint alleges that Defendant Covington forced Plaintiff to bend over in the receiving area so that Defendant Covington could see his anal area, which Plaintiff found “degrading and demeaning.” (Id.)^[2]

As for Defendants, they do not directly introduce any affidavits or other sworn statements regarding the events on December 26, 2018. Instead, they introduce documents from the files of the North Carolina Department of Public Safety, including Plaintiff's prison disciplinary record and the incident report and witness statements from the day in question. The latter documents indicate that Plaintiff engaged in a verbal altercation with guards before Defendant Wiley told him to “cuff up.” (Defendants' Memorandum [Doc. #60], Ex. C.) After initially disregarding the command, he appeared to comply. (Id.) However, after Defendant Wiley put handcuffs on one of Plaintiff's hands, Plaintiff turned and struck Defendant Wiley in the face with an unknown object. (Id.) Defendant Wiley then subdued Plaintiff, and he and other officers transported Plaintiff from his cell block to an area where Plaintiff and Defendant Wiley received a medical exam and were photographed. (Id.) Medical reports indicate minor injuries to both Plaintiff and Defendant Wiley, with photographs displaying more serious injuries to Defendant Wiley than to Plaintiff. (Id., Exs. C-E.) Defendants also present North Carolina's prison grievance policy and records of prison grievances filed by Plaintiff following the incident. (Id., Exs. F-I.) Those will be discussed in more detail below.

III. Discussion

As an initial matter, the Court notes that it informed Plaintiff in a Roseboro Letter [Doc. #61] that uncontested motions are ordinarily granted and that a failure to respond to Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment could cause the Court to consider Defendants' contentions as uncontested and to grant summary judgment in their favor. Despite the Letter and the Court's later Order to file any response and supporting evidence by January 28, 2022, Plaintiff failed to file any response. Therefore, Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment is unopposed, and Plaintiff has presented no actual evidence in this matter. This does not automatically mean the Motion will be granted, Gardendance, Inc. v. Woodstock Copperworks, Ltd., 230 F.R.D. 438, 448 (M.D. N.C. 2005), and the Court therefore will consider the Motion on the merits and determine whether any issue of material fact remains as to any claim upon which relief may be granted.

Here, Plaintiff sues Defendants in both their official and individual capacities. Defendants correctly point out that official capacity claims raised under § 1983 against state officials are generally claims against the state itself. Hafer v. Melo, 502 U.S. 21, 25 (1991). The Supreme Court has held that “state officials, sued for monetary relief in their official capacities” are not “persons” subject to suit under § 1983. Id. (citing Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 491 U.S. 58 (1989)); see also Waste Management Holdings, Inc. v. Gilmore, 252 F.3d 316, 329 (4th Cir. 2001) (citing Alden v. Maine, 527 U.S. 706, 727-28 (1999)) (“The Supreme Court has recognized that the doctrine of sovereign immunity under the Eleventh Amendment extends beyond the literal text of the Eleventh Amendment to prevent a state from being sued by one of its own citizens without its consent.”). Thus, Plaintiff's official capacity claims seeking damages should be dismissed.

Regarding Plaintiff's individual capacity claims, Defendants' initial argument in favor of summary judgment is that Plaintiff failed to properly exhaust his administrative remedies. Under the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PLRA), “[n]o action shall be brought with respect to prison conditions under section 1983 of this title, or any other Federal law, by a prisoner confined in any jail, prison, or other correctional facility until such administrative remedies as are available are exhausted.” 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). Exhaustion is mandatory and the Court cannot waive that requirement. Porter v. Nussle, 534 U.S. 516, 524 (2002). Nevertheless, lack of exhaustion is an affirmative defense, Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199, 216 (2007), which must be asserted by Defendants. As for what constitutes exhaustion, a plaintiff must complete the administrative review process within the applicable institution according to the rules of the institution where an incident occurs. Id. at 218. If Plaintiff contends that administrative remedies were not “available, ” he must “show that a grievance procedure was not ‘available, '” by “adduc[ing] facts showing that he was prevented, through no fault of his own, from availing himself of that procedure.” Graham v. Gentry, 413 F. App'x. 660, 663 (4th Cir. 2011).

The Complaint states through the checking of two boxes that Plaintiff filed a grievance concerning the facts related to this case and that the grievance process was completed. (Complaint, § IV.) The process within North Carolina's prisons is governed by the Administrative Remedy Procedure (ARP) of the North Carolina Department of Public Safety, Moore v. Bennette, 517 F.3d 717, 721 (4th Cir. 2008), which Defendants attach as Exhibit I to their Memorandum supporting their Motion. Under the ARP, an inmate must complete three steps of review in order to fully exhaust a prison grievance. Id.; (Defendants'

Memorandum Ex. I. § .0310.) Defendants submit the sworn Declaration of Kimberly D. Grande, the Executive Director of the North Carolina Inmate Grievance Resolution Board (Defendants' Memorandum, Ex. H.). She states that she reviewed grievances filed by Plaintiff to find all grievances for which he completed the required three steps of review between the dates of December 26, 2018, and February 1, 2021. (Id. ¶ 10.) There are eleven such grievances, and she includes those grievances and the denials of the grievances as exhibits to her Declaration. None of them concern the subject matter of the Complaint before the Court. (Id.,...