Opinion
Civil Action CV-2021-0346
11-06-2023
MARK GRAHAM, Plaintiff, v. KEVIN JOYCE, JOHN COSTELLO, ARMOR CORRECTIONAL HEALTHCARE SERVICES, INC., and EDITH WOODWARD, Defendants.
ORDER
John O'Neil, Jr. Justice, Maine Superior Court
Before the Court is Defendants Armor Correctional Health Services, Inc. ("Armor Health") and Edith Woodward, PA-C's (collectively, "Armor Providers") motion seeking either dismissal by way of res judicata or summary judgment pursuant to M.R. Civ. P. 56 on Plaintiff Mark Graham's 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim alleging Eighth Amendment violations. For the following reasons, Plaintiffs complaint is DISMISSED.
Armor Providers properly raised res judicata in its answer filed December 14, 2021. See M.R. Civ. P. 8(c).
I. BACKGROUND
Plaintiff is currently a resident of Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino, California, but he has previously been a resident of Riverview Psychiatric Center in Augusta, Maine, a semiregular inmate of Cumberland County Jail in Portland, Maine, and he was briefly an inmate of the Maine State Prison in Warren, Maine. Armor Health is a third-party healthcare provider that the Cumberland County Jail ("CCJ") contracts with to provide medical services to its inmates. Defendant Woodward is a licensed physician assistant employed by Armor Health who has treated patients at correctional facilities since 2001 and at the CCJ since 2007.
On September 16, 2021, Plaintiff filed a complaint alleging claims against CCJ medical personnel for professional negligence and seeking relief, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, for violations of his Eighth Amendment rights. See Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 104-05 (1976) (extending Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment to the delivery of medical care to incarcerated individuals). Specifically, Plaintiff asserts that medical personnel at the CCJ intentionally drugged his food and water, ignored his complaints that those drugs were causing him brain injuries, negligently treated and diagnosed his ailments, treated his medical needs with "deliberate indifference," and intentionally placed him in a segregated housing unit as punishment for seeking mental health treatment.
On December 7, 2021, Armor Providers filed a motion to dismiss Plaintiffs complaint in its entirety. On March 21, 2022, the Court granted Armor Providers' motion to dismiss the professional negligence claim but concluded that Plaintiff had sufficiently pled the § 1983 claim. On April 28, 2023, Armor Providers filed the instant motion seeking summary judgment and reasserting res judicata. Plaintiff did not file an opposition and the time to do so has long expired.
On May 17, 2023, the Court received a letter from Plaintiffs mother stating that he had requested she communicate that he was unavailable to proceed because he was incarcerated, deemed mentally incompetent, and awaiting placement at a mental health hospital. On June 6, 2023, the Court requested Armor Providers' position on the letter from Plaintiffs mother. On June 21,2023, Armor Providers responded to the Court stating that they were not opposed to a fair and reasonable stay of proceedings so long as Plaintiff provided proof that he was in fact incapacitated and unable to proceed. Plaintiff then filed five handwritten letters with the Court over July and August of 2023 requesting a three-to-six-month "hold" on the proceedings, reasoning that he needed more time to ready his case because he lost three months of preparation due to his arrest and mental health diagnosis, and he lacks access to pencils, paper, and the mail.
On June 24, 2023, the Court received a second, largely identical letter from Plaintiff's mother.
On August 30, 2023, the Court issued an order setting the matter for oral argument, offering Plaintiff the option of participating by Zoom, and noting that if Plaintiff was seeking a continuance or another form of relief, the Court would require medical documentation demonstrating why court participation would be inappropriate given his diagnosis. On October 11, 2023, Plaintiff filed a letter with the Court explaining that he was unable to participate in the hearing because he was incarcerated at Patton State Hospital, but nonetheless wanted the Court to rule on Armor Providers' motion, taking into consideration his arguments in opposition of Defendants Kevin Joyce and John Costello's motion for summary judgment. On October 20,2023, the Court held a hearing at which Armor Providers offered oral argument on their pending motion and Plaintiff did not appear.
The Court declines to consider Plaintiffs opposition to Defendants Joyce and Costello's motion for summary judgment in the instant determination. Plaintiffs time to respond to Armor Providers' motion already expired.
The Court declines to further delay judgment on the present motion considering Plaintiff was given the opportunity to be heard, he is plainly capable of communicating with the Court, he has failed to provide medical documentation demonstrating the need for a continuance or any other form of accommodation, and he is no longer requesting the Court "hold" the proceedings.
Importantly, this is not the first time Plaintiff has brought these claims against Armor Providers. On March 14,2022, Plaintiff filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine alleging, in relevant part, that Armor Providers had drugged Plaintiffs food and water at the CCJ, confined him to a segregated housing unit against his will, "ignored his sick call requests, and failed to provide him mental health and medical services." Def. Armor Providers' Ex. P (federal complaint), at 6-14, 23. On March 20, 2022, Magistrate Judge John C. Nivison issued a decision counselling dismissal of Plaintiff s complaint. Graham v. Costello, et al., No, 2:22-CV-00070-JDL, 2022 WL 951711, at *1-2, (D. Me. March 30, 2022), report and rec. adopted, 2:22-CV-00070-JDL, 2022 WL 1963640 (D. Me. June 6, 2022). On June 6, 2022, Chief Judge Jon D. Levy issued an order affirming Magistrate Nivison's recommended dismissal. Id.
For the purpose of this Order, the Court need only consider one of the many examples from Armor Providers of lawsuits Plaintiff filed against them in federal court. See Def. Armor Providers' Mot. Summ. J. 4 n.1.
The Court now turns to whether Plaintiffs current claim is barred by res judicata.
II. DISCUSSION
"In determining the preclusive effect of a federal court judgment, federal law controls." Cutting v. Down East Orthopedic Assocs., EM., 2021 ME 1, ¶ 11,244 A.3d 226 (citation omitted). Plaintiffs March 2022 complaint was dismissed by the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine; therefore, federal principles of res judicata govern the instant case. See Graham, 2022 WL 951711, at * 1-2, report and rec. adopted, 2022 WL 1963640.
Pursuant to federal law, "a final judgment on the merits of an action precludes the parties from relitigating claims that were raised or could have been raised in that action." Cooper v. Principi, 71 Fed.Appx. 73,74 (1st Cir. 2003). For such claims to be precluded, three elements must be satisfied: "(1) the earlier suit resulted in a final judgment on the merits, (2) the causes of action asserted in the earlier and later suits are sufficiently identical or related, and (3) the parties in the two suits are sufficiently identical or closely related." Airframe Sys., Inc. v. Raytheon Co., 601 F.3d 9, 14 (1st Cir. 2010). A plaintiffs pro se status does not change this analysis. See Cooper, 71 Fed.Appx. at 74-75 (affirming dismissal of a pro se plaintiffs complaint on res judicata grounds).
In this case, for the reasons discussed below, all three elements of federal claim preclusion are satisfied. Accordingly, the Court dismisses Plaintiffs instant complaint as barred.
a. Final Judgment on the Merits
Federal law is clear that a dismissal for failure to state a claim constitutes a final judgment for the purposes of res judicata. See Andrews-Clarke v. Lucent Techs., 157 F.Supp.2d 93, 99 (D. Mass. 2001) (citing 2 James Wm. Moore, Moore's Federal Practice,¶ 12.34[6][a] (3d ed. 1997)); see also Isaac v. Schwartz, 706 F.2d 15, 17 (1st Cir. 1983) (concluding that dismissal for failure to state a claim was a final judgment on the merits).
Magistrate Judge Nivison reviewed Plaintiffs March 2022 complaint pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A and then issued a recommended decision counseling dismissal, which Chief Judge Levy later affirmed, after concluding that Plaintiffs allegations of being drugged were frivolous and that the remainder of his complaint, which asserted Eighth Amendment violations pursuant to § 1983, failed to state a plausible claim for relief.
Consequently, the U.S. District Court's dismissal of Plaintiff s complaint constitutes a final judgment on the merits for the purposes of res judicata. See West v. Litscher, 209 Fed.Appx. 557, 560 (7th Cir. 2006) (rejecting the plaintiffs argument that the state claims at issue "were not decided on the merits when they were screened out under § 1915 A").
b. Sufficient Identity Between the Causes of Action
"The First Circuit applies a transactional approach to determine whether the causes of action in the earlier and later suits are identical." Cichocki v. Mass. Bay Cmty. Coll., 199 F.Supp.3d 431, 440 (D. Mass. 2016), affd, No. 16-2195 (1st Cir. Feb. 20, 2019) (citation omitted). "The court must examine the nucleus of operative facts in both the earlier and later claims: although a set of facts may give rise to multiple counts based on different legal theories, if the facts form a common nucleus that is identifiable as a transaction or series of related transactions, then those facts represent one cause of action." Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
Plaintiff s March 2022 arises out of the same nucleus of operative facts as the instant complaint; indeed, both concern Plaintiffs claims that staff drugged his food and water and that he has received no medical or mental health treatment and was instead punitively confined to a segregated housing unit. This Court and the U.S. District Court have construed these allegations to assert § 1983 claim for Eighth Amendment violations. See Order, No. CV-21-346, at *2, 8-9 (Mar. 21,2022); Graham, 2022 WL 951711, at *1-2, report and rec. adopted, 2022 WL 1963640.
Thus, the instant action is amply similar to the Federal Complaint to warrant its preclusion.
c. Sufficient Identity Between the Parties in the Two Suits
The final element of res judicata-whether there is sufficient identity between the parties in the earlier and later suits-is handily satisfied. Armor Health and Defendant Woodward were named as defendants in both the instant action and Plaintiffs March 2022 complaint. Compare Def. Armor Providers' Ex. P (federal complaint), at 4-6, with Pl.'s Compl., at 1. Accordingly, there is sufficient identity between the parties in both suits to warrant preclusion of the instant suit.
III. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, Plaintiffs complaint is DISMISSED with prejudice as barred by the principles of res judicata. The clerk is directed to incorporate this Order into the docket by reference pursuant to M.R. Civ. P. 79(a).
Entered on the Docket: 11/7/23