Opinion
2:21-cv-00415
04-25-2022
SEMAJ CARTER, Plaintiff, v. FNU LEFEVERE and JOHN AND JANE DOES 1-3, Defendants.
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
PATRICIA L. DODGE UNITED STATE MAGISTRATE JUDGE
I. Recommendation
It is respectfully recommended that Defendant FNU Lefevere's Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff's Second Amended Complaint (ECF No. 23) be DENIED.
II. Report
A. Relevant Procedural History
Plaintiff, Semaj Carter (“Carter”), brings this civil rights action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Carter commenced this action in March 2021 by filing a Complaint (ECF No. 1) against the Allegheny County Jail (“ACJ”), FNU Lefevere (“Lefevere”), and John/Jane Does 1 (Correctional Officers), and John/Jane Does 2 (Prison Medical Personnel). After ACJ and Lefervere filed a Motion to Dismiss (ECF No. 4), Carter sought and was granted leave to amend his complaint.
In his Amended Complaint (ECF No. 15) Carter added John/Jane Does 3 (the supervisory employees of ACJ). ACJ and Lefevere again moved to dismiss (ECF No. 16) and Carter again sought leave to amend, which was granted on December 21, 2021. Carter subsequently filed a Second Amended Complaint (ECF No. 22) which removed ACJ as a defendant but continued to name Lefevere and the various John/Jane Does as defendants. The Second Amended Complaint asserts Eighth Amendment claims for failure to provide sanitary living conditions and failure to provide adequate medical care as well as an equal protection claim under the Fourteenth Amendment. Among other relief, Carter seeks compensatory and punitive damages and attorneys' fees. See ECF No. 22, p. 10.
Presently pending is Lefevere's Motion to Dismiss (ECF No. 23) the claim asserted against him in the Second Amended Complaint. This motion has been fully briefed (ECF Nos. 24, 26) and is ripe for disposition.
B. Facts Alleged in Complaint
Carter asserts Eighth Amendment claims in Count I and II against the various Doe Defendants. With respect to his claim in Count I, he alleges that he was not provided with sanitary living conditions. He claims that he was forced to use dirty utensils, denied access to a toothbrush and shower, and was subjected to other unhygienic and unsanitary living conditions, including an insect infestation, failure to provide him with toothpaste or soap and limited access to clean water, see ECF No. 22, ¶¶ 19, 20, 22, 23, 25. Carter also alleges in Count II that he has asthma but was denied medically necessary breathing treatments. See ECF No. 22, ¶ 28.
Lefevere's motion does not address Carter's claims against the unrepresented Does and those claims will not be discussed here.
The sole claim against Lefereve is set forth in Count III of the Second Amended Complaint. Carter alleges that Lefevere, a correctional officer at the ACJ, subjected him to unequal treatment based on Carter's race. He also claims that John/Jane Does 3 allowed Lefevere to engage in this unlawful conduct and ratified, endorsed, acquiesced to, or approved of it. See ECF No. 22, ¶ 58.
Specifically, Carter alleges that Lefevere told Carter that “[Lefevere's] job was to make [Carter's] life miserable” and that “[Carter] will be in jail for 20 years.” ECF No. 22, ¶ 13. Carter filed a grievance in which he asserted that Lefevere's treatment of him was rooted in racial discrimination and subjected him to unequal treatment based on race. Carter, who is African American, alleges that Caucasian inmates were treated more favorably than him. According to Carter, Caucasians were “not disciplined for similar and/or worse offenses than those allegedly committed by the Plaintiff.” ECF No. 22, ¶ 14. Such offenses included, but were not limited to, the possession of contraband. See ECF No. 22, ¶ 15. Further, the grievance that he filed on or about October 10, 2019, based on this alleged disparate treatment was never addressed. See ECF No. 22, ¶¶ 13, 16, 17. Thus, he alleges that Lefevere's conduct (and that of John/Jane Does 3) violated his right to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.
C. Standard and Scope of Review
A motion to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) tests the legal sufficiency of the complaint. See Kost v. Kozakiewicz, 1 F.3d 176, 183 (3d Cir. 1993). In deciding a motion to dismiss, the court is not opining on whether the plaintiff will be likely to prevail on the merits; rather, the plaintiff must only present factual allegations sufficient “to raise a right to relief above the speculative level.” Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 556 (2007) (citing 5 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1216, pp. 235-236 (3d ed. 2004)). See also Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009)). A complaint should only be dismissed pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) if it fails to allege “enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570 (rejecting the traditional 12(b)(6) standard established in Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41 (1957)). In making this determination, the court must accept as true all well-pled factual allegations in the complaint and view them in a light most favorable to the plaintiff. See U.S. Express Lines Ltd. v. Higgins, 281 F.3d 383, 388 (3d Cir. 2002).
While a complaint does not need detailed factual allegations to survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must provide more than labels and conclusions. See Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555. A “formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.” Id. (citing Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 286 (1986)). Moreover, a court need not accept inferences drawn by a plaintiff if they are unsupported by the facts as set forth in the complaint. See California Pub. Employee Ret. Sys. v. The Chubb Corp., 394 F.3d 126, 143 (3d Cir. 2004) (citing Morse v. Lower Merion Sch. Dist., 132 F.3d 902, 906 (3d Cir. 1997)). Nor must the Court accept legal conclusions disguised as factual allegations. See Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555. See also McTernan v. City of York, Pennsylvania, 577 F.3d 521, 531 (3d Cir. 2009) (“The tenet that a court must accept as true all of the allegations contained in a complaint is inapplicable to legal conclusions.”).
Expounding on the Twombly/Iqbal line of cases, the Third Circuit has articulated the following three-step approach:
First, the court must ‘tak[e] note of the elements a plaintiff must plead to state a claim.' Second, the court should identify allegations that, ‘because they are no more than conclusions, are not entitled to the assumption of truth.' Finally, ‘where there are well-pleaded factual allegations, a court should assume their veracity and then determine whether they plausibly give rise to an entitlement for relief.'Burtch v. Milberg Factors, Inc., 662 F.3d 212, 221 (3d Cir. 2011) (quoting Santiago v. Warminster Twp., 629 F.3d 121, 130 (3d Cir. 2010)). This determination is “a context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial experience and common sense.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679.
When ruling upon a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), the Court must “generally consider only the allegations in the complaint, exhibits attached to the complaint, matters of public record, and documents that form the basis of a claim.” Lum v. Bank of Am., 361 F.3d 217, 222 n.3 (3d Cir. 2004) (citing In re Burlington Coat Factory Sec. Litig., 114 F.3d 1410, 1426 (3d Cir. 1997). The Court may consider facts and make inferences where it is appropriate. At the same time, “any pleading must still contain sufficient factual allegations that, when accepted as true, ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.'” Heffley v. Steele, 2019 WL 5092127, at *4 (W.D. Pa. Oct. 11, 2019), aff'd, 826 Fed.Appx. 227 (3d Cir. 2020) (citations omitted). See also Baez v. Mooney, 2021 WL 816013, at *3 (W.D. Pa. Feb. 8, 2021), report and recommendation adopted, 2021 WL 808726 (W.D. Pa. Mar. 3, 2021).
D. Discussion
Carter's claims are brought under 42 U.S.C. §1983. Solely at issue here is Count III, the only count that asserts a claim against Lefevere (as well as John/Jane Does 3) for violations of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Lefevere argues in his motion to dismiss that Carter has not set forth sufficient facts to support a claim that his equal protection rights were violated by Lefevere.
Section 1983 “provides a cause of action against state actors who violate an individual's rights under federal law.” Filarsky v. Delia, 566 U.S. 377, 380 (2012). Section 1983 does not create substantive rights but instead “provides only remedies for deprivations of rights established elsewhere in the Constitution or federal laws.” Kneipp v. Tedder, 95 F.3d 1199, 1204 (3d Cir. 1996). “To state a claim under § 1983, a plaintiff must allege the violation of a right secured by the Constitution and laws of the United States, and must show that the alleged deprivation was committed by a person acting under color of state law.” West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42, 48 (1988).
A plaintiff must plead a defendant's personal involvement in the alleged deprivation of his constitutional right. See, e.g., Rode v. Dellarciprete, 845 F.2d 1195, 1207 (3d Cir. 1988). That is because, as stated in the text of § 1983 itself, only a person who “subjects, or causes to be subjected” another person to a civil rights violation can be held liable under § 1983. Thus, each defendant can be held liable only for his or her own conduct. See, e.g., id.; see also Parkell v. Danberg, 833 F.3d 313, 330 (3d Cir. 2016).
The Equal Protection Clause provides that no state shall “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” U.S. Const. Amend. XIV, § 1. “This is not a command that all persons be treated alike but, rather, ‘a direction that all persons similarly situated should be treated alike.'” Artway v. Attorney General of State of N.J., 81 F.3d 1235, 1267 (3d Cir. 1996), quoting City of Cleburne, Tex. v. Cleburne Living Center, 473 U.S. 432, 439 (1985). See also United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456 (1996) (Equal Protection Clause prohibits decision to prosecute based on an unjustifiable standard such as race, religion, or other arbitrary classification).
To establish a violation of the Equal Protection Clause, a plaintiff must ordinarily allege “that he was treated differently than other similarly situated inmates, and that this different treatment was the result of intentional discrimination based on his membership in a protected class.” Mack v. Warden Loretto FCI, 839 F.3d 286, 305 (3d Cir. 2016) (citing Hassan v. City of New York, 804 F.3d 277, 294 (3d Cir. 2015)). To the extent Carter attempts to “state a claim under [a class of one theory], [he] must allege that (1) the defendant treated him differently from others similarly situated, (2) the defendant did so intentionally, and (3) there was no rational basis for the difference in treatment.” Phillips v. County of Allegheny, 515 F.3d 224, 243 (3d Cir. 2008) (quoting Hill v. Borough of Kutztown, 455 F.3d 225 (3d Cir. 2006)). Thus, at the pleading stage, an inmate must allege facts specific to his case that would support an inference that unlawful considerations played a part in his disparate treatment.
Lefevere is a correctional officer employed at the Allegheny County Jail where Carter was incarcerated at all times pertinent to this litigation. According to the allegations in the Second Amended Complaint, Lefevere, a Caucasian, told Carter, who is African American, that his job was to make Carter's life miserable. Carter then alleges that Caucasian inmates were treated more favorably than he was as they were not disciplined for “similar and/or worse offenses” than those allegedly committed by Carter. Thus, the disparate treatment of Carter is alleged to include different, and more severe, discipline than that applied to Caucasian inmates. Based on Carter's allegations about Lefevere's statements to him, it can be inferred that this was done intentionally.
Thus, Carter alleges that he was treated differently than other inmates and that this alleged difference in treatment was because of his race. Carter claims that he was punished more severely than Caucasian inmates for the same offenses and, by inference, that there was no rational basis for any purported difference in the discipline he received. Although far from conclusive, these allegations are minimally sufficient to implicate purposeful discrimination at the pleading stage.
Thus, Defendant's motion to dismiss Carter's equal protection claim should be denied.
III. Conclusion
For reasons stated herein, it is respectfully recommended that the Court deny Lefevere's Motion to Dismiss (ECF No. 23).
In accordance with the applicable provisions of the Magistrate Judges Act, 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B)&(C), and Rule 72.D.2 of the Local Rules of Court, the parties have fourteen (14) days from the date of the service of this Report and Recommendation to file written objections thereto. The failure to file timely objections will constitute a waiver of their appellate rights. The failure to file timely objections will constitute a waiver of the right of appeal.