Shariff v. Coombe

655 F.Supp.2d 274

Abdul SHARIFF, Mark Bartley, Jamal Stephenson, David Gobern, Lewis Purcell, Sam Johnson, Terence Stevens, Stephen Gowins, and Abdul Suluk, Plaintiffs, v. Philip COOMBE, Commissioner of New York State Department of Correctional Services; Glen Goord, Acting Commissioner of New York State Department of Correctional Services; Cristopher Artuz, Superintendent of Green Haven Correctional Facility; Gail Haponic, Acting Deputy of Administration of Green Haven Correctional Facility; Roger Maines, Supervisor of Green Haven Correctional Facility; M. Muller, Maintenance Supervisor of Green Haven Correctional Facility, individually and in their official capacities, and the State of New York, Defendants.

No. 96 Civ. 3001(BSJ).

United States District Court, S.D. New York.

August 7, 2009.

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Abdul Shariff, Stormville, NY, pro se.

James I. Meyerson, New York, NY, for Plaintiffs.

Bruce A. Brown, Assistant Attorney General, New York, NY, for Defendants.

Opinion & Order

BARBARA S. JONES, District Judge.

Plaintiffs, eight¹ disabled inmates who depend on wheelchairs for mobility, bring this action against the State of New York and six individuals employed by the New York State Department of Correctional Services in an administrative capacity. Plaintiffs seek both injunctive and monetary relief for conditions affecting disabled inmates at the Green Haven Correctional Facility and have asserted claims pursuant to: (1) Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA"), 42 U.S.C. § 12131 et seq.; (2) Title V of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 ("Rehabilitation Act"), 29 U.S.C. § 794 et seq.; (3) § 70 of the New York State Correction Law; and (4) the First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Before the Court is Defendants' Renewed Motion for Partial Summary Judgment pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56. For the reasons set forth below, Defendants' Motion is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs' Fourth Amended Complaint, dated September 29, 1998,² alleges that Plaintiffs Abdul Shariff ("Shariff"), Mark Bartley ("Bartley"), Jamal Stephenson ("Stephenson"), David Gobern ("Gobern"), Lewis Purcell ("Purcell"), Terence Stevens ("Stevens"), Stephen Gowins ("Gowins"), and Abdul Suluk ("Suluk") are all inmates who are or have been incarcerated at Green Haven Correctional Facility ("Green Haven"), a prison operated by the New York State Department of Correctional Services ("DOCS"). (Fourth Am. Compl. ¶ 11.) Due to disability or other impairment, Plaintiffs are all wheelchair-bound individuals. (Fourth Am. Compl. ¶ 12-13.) The individual Defendants are or were high-level officials of DOCS or supervisory officials with responsibilities at Green Haven. (Fourth Am. Compl. ¶¶ 17-20.)

Plaintiffs allege that a variety of conditions at Green Haven interfere with their desire to be "independent functioning human being[s]" as well as "productive citizen[s] and resident[s] of the Greenhaven community." (Fourth Am. Compl. ¶ 23.) Included among the conditions Plaintiffs complain of are: (1) the potholes and broken concrete in the A & B, C & D, E & F, G & H, and visiting-room yards; (2) the inaccessibility of the basketball courts; (3) the inaccessibility of certain common bathrooms throughout Green Haven; (4) the lack of accessible weights or equipment in the gym; (5) the inaccessibility of certain telephones; (6) the inaccessibility of water fountains throughout Green Haven; (7) the height of the food service counter in the Unit for the Physically Disabled ("UPD"); (8) the existence of impediments to meaningful library access; (9) hazardous conditions in the guardhouse/shacks in the recreation yards; (10) the inaccessibility of the family reunion site; (11) the inaccessibility of the tier-hearing room; (12) the frequently out of service elevator in Building-12; and (13) the pavement in the gate corridor. (Fourth Am. Compl ¶¶ 25-30, 33, 35-37, 39-40, 42-43, 56, 59, 65, 73.) Plaintiffs also allege that several of these conditions have caused them to suffer physical injuries, either due to alleged falls from wheelchairs because of broken concrete or potholes at various locations within Green Haven (Fourth Am. Compl. ¶¶ 47, 49, 50, 62, 70, 74, 76), from an alleged fall in a bathroom that was not wheelchair accessible (Fourth Am. Compl. ¶ 54), or from a spill from a food-serving counter that was too high for wheelchairbound individuals (Fourth Am. Compl. ¶ 31).

On the basis of these factual allegations, Plaintiffs' Fourth Amended Complaint sets forth the following claims: (1) Defendants' conduct violates Plaintiffs' rights under the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and the First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution; (2) Defendants' conduct violates Plaintiffs' rights under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the ADA, 29 U.S.C. § 794, et seq.; and (3) Defendants' conduct violates Plaintiffs' rights under § 70 of the Correction Law of the State of New York. (Fourth Am. Compl. ¶¶ 83-91.) Plaintiffs assert their claims against the individual Defendants in both their individual and official capacities.

On June 20, 2002, the Court issued a Memorandum and Order (the "Order of June 20, 2002") addressing Defendants' First Motion for Partial Summary Judgment. In that Order, the Court dismissed, with prejudice: (1) all claims by Plaintiffs Bartley, Gobern, Johnson, Purcell, Stevens, and Suluk for injunctive relief; (2) all claims for injunctive relief as to the condition of the A & B yard; (3) all claims against the State of New York and the six individual Defendants in their official capacities for monetary relief pursuant to § 1983; (4) all claims against the six individual Defendants in their individual capacities pursuant to the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act; and (5) all claims against all Defendants under § 70 of the New York State Correction Law. The Court denied the remainder of Defendants' Motion without prejudice to renewal. With respect to portions of Defendants' Motion, the Court explicitly reserved decision and identified issues for additional briefing by the parties in a second round of dispositive motions.

Now before the Court is this requested second round of dispositive motions, in which Defendants seek dismissal of Plaintiffs' claims pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56. As set forth below, Defendants' Motion is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part.³

LEGAL STANDARD

Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides that a court shall grant a motion for summary judgment "if the pleadings, the discovery and disclosure materials on file, and any affidavits show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). "The party seeking summary judgment bears the burden of establishing that no genuine issue of material fact exists and that the undisputed facts establish her right to judgment as a matter of law." Rodriguez v. City of New York, 72 F.3d 1051, 1060-61 (2d Cir.1995). The substantive law governing the case will identify those facts that are material and "[o]nly disputes over facts that might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law will properly preclude the entry of summary judgment." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). In determining whether a genuine issue of material fact exists, a court must resolve all ambiguities and draw all reasonable inferences against the moving party. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co., Ltd. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986). "If, as to the issue on which summary judgment is sought, there is any evidence in the record from any source from which a reasonable inference could be drawn in favor of the nonmoving party, summary judgment is improper." Chambers v. TRM Copy Centers Corp., 43 F.3d 29, 37 (2d Cir.1994).

DISCUSSION

I. Exhaustion of Administrative Remedies

A. Relation Back

Defendants assert that certain of Plaintiffs' claims must be dismissed due to Plaintiffs' failure to exhaust their administrative remedies. As amended by the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1996 ("PLRA"), 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a) provides that "[n]o action shall be brought with respect to prison conditions under section 1983 . . . or any other Federal law, by a prisoner . . . until such administrative remedies as are available are exhausted." Courts have interpreted this "exhaustion requirement" not to apply retroactively, but rather to pertain only to actions filed after the enactment of the PLRA, which was signed into law on April 26, 1996. See Salahuddin v. Mead, 174 F.3d 271 (2d Cir.1999).

In this case, Plaintiff Shariff filed his initial pro se complaint before April 26, 1996.⁴ In that Complaint, Shariff asserted claims against Defendants Coombe and Artuz based on the "unsafe and discriminatory situations . . . wheelchair bound inmates had to endure" at Green Haven. (Compl. ¶ 2.) Shariff particularly complained that the A & B yards, the visitingroom yard, and the bathrooms, telephones, and water fountains throughout the facility were hazardous or inadequate to address the needs of wheelchair-bound inmates. (Compl. ¶ 3.) All subsequent amended complaints—adding Plaintiffs Bartley, Stephenson, Gobern, Purcell, Johnson, Stevens, Gowins, and Suluk and additional allegations regarding the adequacy of the Green Haven facility⁵—were filed after April 26, 1996. Thus, the question is whether Plaintiffs are required by the PLRA to exhaust their administrative remedies with respect to the allegations added after the filing of Shariffs initial Complaint.

To determine whether Plaintiffs' addition of allegations and parties relates back to Shariff's...