Pittman v. Long

1

EMANUEL PITTMAN, Plaintiff, v. JEFF LONG, ROLAND JACKSON, MITCHELL, WEAVER, DEAN WILLIAMS, ORIN, BARNES, VASQUEZ, DORSEY, and JANE OR JOHN DOE, Defendants.

Civil Action No. 23-cv-00291-PAB-KAS

United States District Court, D. Colorado

August 23, 2024

RECOMMENDATION OF UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

Kathryn A. Starnella United States Magistrate Judge

This matter is before the Court on Defendants' Motion to Dismiss Under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) [#50]^[1](the “Motion”). Plaintiff filed a Response [#52] in opposition to the Motion [#50], Defendant filed a Reply [#53], and Plaintiff filed a Surreply [#54].^[2]The Motion [#50] has been referred to the undersigned for a Recommendation pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B), Fed.R.Civ.P. 72(b)(1), and D.C.COLO.LCivR 72.1(c)(3). See [#51]. The Court has reviewed the briefs, the entire case file, and the applicable law. For the reasons stated below, the Court respectfully RECOMMENDS that the Motion [#50] be GRANTED.

I. Background^[3]

Plaintiff is a convicted and sentenced state prisoner, and he proceeds in this matter as a pro se litigant.^[4]Second Am. Compl. [#19] at 3. He alleges that, since mid-July 2022, Defendants have denied him the purportedly required four hours of social time seven days per week and minimum three hours of outside exercise time, in violation of Administrative Regulation (“AR”) 600-09. Id. at 7. He claims he received fifty hours of out-of-cell time between July 2022 and May 2023, but he also provides a detailed list of his out-of-cell exercise time for that same period, which equates to seventy hours. See id. at 8-9, 13. He states that he has been in the close custody Management Control Unit (formerly referred to as Administrative Segregation), where he is confined to his cell for 24 hours a day when not receiving his time out under AR 600-09, that he could not see out his window, that no sunlight came in through the window, that no programs were provided, that the library “might come with 3 books every 2 months or none,” that the showers were “hardly ever cleaned,” that people were “banging on the walls and doors all night,” that the lights were dimmed but never off, and that “staff shine [a] flashlight in [his] face.” Id. at 7. As a result of these general conditions, Plaintiff states that he is enduring “emotional imbalances w[h]ere [he] argue[s] with [him]self & staff,” his hallucinations have gotten worse, and he has high blood pressure, frequent headaches and dizzy spells. Id. at 7-8. He identifies his pre-existing mental health disorders as post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, and intermittent explosive disorder. Id. at 6, 8.

Plaintiff seeks “$1,000,000 against each defendant jointly and severally,” as well as “nominal damages and punitive damages in the amount of $1,000,000 against each defendant.”^[5]Id. at 31. In the present Motion [#50], Defendants seek dismissal of all claims asserted by Plaintiff.

II. Standard of Review

Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) permits dismissal of a claim where the plaintiff has “fail[ed] to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.” The Rule 12(b)(6) standard tests “the sufficiency of the allegations within the four corners of the complaint after taking those allegations as true.” Mobley v. McCormick, 40 F.3d 337, 340 (10th Cir. 1994). “A complaint must contain ‘enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.'” Santa Fe All. for Pub. Health & Safety v. City of Santa Fe, 993 F.3d 802, 811 (10th Cir. 2021) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). “When the complaint includes ‘well-pleaded allegations, a court should assume their veracity and then determine whether they plausibly give rise to an entitlement to relief.'” Carraway v. State Farm & Cas. Co., No. 22-1370, 2023 WL 5374393, at *4 (10th Cir. Aug. 22, 2023) (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 679 (2009)).

“A pleading that offers labels and conclusions or a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do .... [n]or does a complaint suffice if it tenders naked assertion[s] devoid of further factual enhancement.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (internal quotation marks omitted). “[D]ismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) is appropriate if the complaint alone is legally insufficient to state a claim.” Brokers' Choice of Am., Inc. v. NBC Universal, Inc., 861 F.3d 1081, 1104-05 (10th Cir. 2017). “The court's function on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion is not to weigh potential evidence that the parties might present at trial[.]” Sutton v. Utah State Sch. for the Deaf & Blind, 173 F.3d 1226, 1236 (10th Cir. 1999).

III. Analysis

A. Eighth Amendment

Plaintiff asserts violations of his civil rights by each Defendant based on conditions of his confinement. Second Am. Compl. [#19] at 7-10. Defendants, against whom only individual capacity claims remain, see Order [#26], argue that they are entitled to qualified immunity. See Motion [#50] at 12-13.

A qualified immunity defense “protects government officials from civil liability so long as ‘their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.'” Arnold v. City of Olathe, 35 F.4th 778, 788 (10th Cir. 2022) (quoting Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009)). “[Q]ualified immunity protects ‘all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.'” City of Tahlequah v. Bond, 595 U.S. 9, 12 (2021) (per curiam) (quoting District of Columbia v. Wesby, 583 U.S. 48, 63 (2018)). To determine whether qualified immunity applies, the Court considers (1) whether “the officers' alleged conduct violated a constitutional right,” and, if so, (2) whether “it was clearly established at the time of the violation, such that every reasonable official would have understood, that such conduct constituted a violation of that right.” Wise v. Caffey, 72 F.4th 1199, 1205 (10th Cir. 2023) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).

“The Eighth Amendment requires jail officials to provide humane conditions of confinement by ensuring inmates receive the basic necessities of adequate food, clothing, shelter, and medical care and by taking reasonable measure to guarantee the inmates' safety.” Craig v. Eberly, 164 F.3d 490, 495 (10th Cir. 1998) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “To hold a jailer personally liable for violating an inmate's right to humane conditions of confinement, a plaintiff must satisfy two requirements, consisting of an objective and subjective component.” Id. First, the deprivation at issue must be sufficiently serious, which is analyzed based on the severity and duration of the deprivation. Id. Second, the jail official must have a “sufficiently culpable state of mind,” which is analyzed under a standard of “deliberate indifference to inmate health and safety.” Id. “Deliberate indifference” occurs where the official “knows of and disregards an excessive risk to inmate health and safety; the official must both be aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm exists, and he must also draw the inference.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

Prison “conditions may be restrictive and even harsh without violating constitutional rights.” Ledbetter v. City of Topeka, 318 F.3d 1183, 1188 (10th Cir. 2003) (internal quotation marks omitted). For example, in Sperry v. Wildermuth, No. 16-3222-SAC, 2020 WL 7770932, at *1, *4 (D. Kan. Dec. 30, 2020), rev'd on other grounds by Sperry v. Wildermuth, No. 21-3009, 2022 WL 946936 (10th Cir. Mar. 30, 2022), the incarcerated plaintiff asserted that he had been placed in administrative segregation for seventeen months (about six months longer than the period at issue here for Plaintiff), where he was kept in 24-hour lockdown with no human interaction, among other restrictions. “Starting from the position that ‘restrictive and even harsh' conditions are not unconstitutional,” the court held that the plaintiff had failed to meet his “burden of alleging conditions sufficiently serious so as to deprive him of the minimal civilized measure of life's necessities or subject him to a substantial risk of serious harm.” Sperry, 2020 WL 7770932, at *4 (citing Ajaj v. United States, 293 Fed.Appx. 575, 582-84 (10th Cir. 2008)) (holding that conditions of confinement which included “lockdown 23 hours per day in extreme isolation,” “indefinite confinement,” and “limited ability to exercise outdoors” were not constitutionally infirm). In other words, the plaintiff had “failed to allege that he has been deprived of life's basic necessities or that he has been subjected to a substantial risk of serious harm.” Sperry, 2020 WL 7770932, at *4.

Here Plaintiff states that, since mid-July 2022, Defendants have denied him the purportedly required four hours of social time per day and minimum three hours of outside exercise time. Second Am. Compl. [#19] at 7. Plaintiff alleges that he has received fifty hours of out-of-cell time between July 2022 and May 2023; however, he also provides a detailed list of his out-of-cell exercise time for the same period, which equates to seventy hours. See id. at 8-9, 13. Plaintiff further states that he has been in the close custody Management Control Unit, where he is confined to his cell for 24 hours a day, he cannot see out the window, no sunlight comes through the window, no programs are provided, the library “might come with 3 books every 2 months or none,” the showers are rarely cleaned, people are “banging on the walls and doors all night,” the lights are dimmed but never turned off, and staff shine a flashlight in his face. Id. at 7. However, Plaintiff has not alleged that he was deprived of basic necessities such as food, clothing,...