Opinion
21-55113
11-08-2022
VADIM STANLEY MIESEGAES, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CLIFF ALLENBY, official capacity as Director of the State Hospital; JASON BLACK, in individual capacity; GARTH PURCELL, in individual capacity; EDMUND G. BROWN, Jr., Governor of the State of California, official capacity, Defendants-Appellees.
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
Submitted November 4, 2022 [**] San Francisco, California
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California D.C. No. 2:15-cv-01574-CJC-RAO Cormac J. Carney, District Judge, Presiding
Before: WALLACE, O'SCANNLAIN, and FERNANDEZ, Circuit Judges.
MEMORANDUM [*]
Plaintiff Vadim Stanley Miesegaes, incarcerated at the California Department of State Hospitals Atascadero facility, appeals from an order granting Defendants' motion for summary judgment, seeking review of that order and a prior screening order dismissing some of Miesegaes's other claims. As the facts are known to the parties, we repeat them only as necessary to explain our decision.
I
Miesegaes failed to state a claim against Defendants Campos, Wagoner, Lockhart, and Kalem (the "Advocate Defendants"). In the Fourth Amended Complaint, the only factual allegation pleaded against the Advocate Defendants is that two such Defendants said their contract does "not include the ability to prosecute or initiate legal proceedings." Miesegaes asserts they were mistaken. Even if they were, this sole allegation, no matter how liberally construed, does not suffice as a "statement . . . showing that [Miesegaes] is entitled to relief" on his grandiose claim that the Advocate Defendants are willfully "neglecting to protect and observe," resulting in Miesegaes "being deprived of his substantive due process and equal protection of law rights as well as the rights of the patients to receive equal rights as prisoners to be free from cruel and unusual punishment." See Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2); 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii); see also Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) ("[T]he tenet that a court must accept as true all of the allegations contained in a complaint is inapplicable to legal conclusions. Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice.").
II
The district court also properly dismissed Miesegaes's defamation-plus claim. Miesegaes failed to plead the first element of defamation: falsity. Even now, Miesegaes does not contend that he never made the statements that Defendant Donahue ascribed to him. Instead, he denies that he ever actually planned "to escape." Whether Miesegaes was ultimately cleared of having actually planned to escape is not the same question as whether he made the statements that Donahue recorded.
Miesegaes appears in his opening brief to challenge the dismissal of the defamation-plus claim only as to Donahue. To the extent Miesegaes appeals the dismissal as to any other Defendant, the claim fails for additional reasons. As for Defendants Black and Purcell, Miesegaes failed to allege facts supporting his theory that Donahue's alleged publication motivated Black or Purcell to "punish" him or that either Defendant inflicted upon him any "harm or disability"-let alone a harm that "significantly exceed[ed] or was independent of the inherent discomforts of confinement." See Demery v. Arpaio, 378 F.3d 1020, 1030 (9th Cir. 2004). As for Defendants Landrum and Persons, vicarious liability is unavailable in this § 1983 action. See Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 676.
III
The district court correctly concluded on summary judgment that Miesegaes's failure-to-protect claim was time-barred. Miesegaes alleges he was attacked most recently in September 2012. Yet Miesegaes brought this action on March 4, 2015, and he did not add the failure-to-protect claim until he filed his Second Amended Complaint more than another year later, on March 21, 2016. As the district court observed, then, "[a]bsent tolling, the claim is time-barred." See Cal. Civ. P. Code § 335.1.
And Miesegaes is not entitled to tolling. In a different, earlier lawsuit, Miesegaes filed a complaint, dated March 14, 2013, containing "a claim for failure to protect pursuant to Section 1983 and alleg[ing] that Defendant Purcell failed to ensure [Miesegaes's] safety with respect to . . . attacks by the same patient." The district court thus correctly concluded that Defendants' "evidence of [Miesegaes's] prior filings is sufficient to rebut the presumption of lack of legal capacity as of March 14, 2013[,] at the latest." Because "the statute of limitations begins to run immediately after a disability period ends," see Cabrera v. City of Huntington Park, 159 F.3d 374, 378 (9th Cir. 1998), Miesegaes's failure-to-protect claim, raised for the first time in his March 21, 2016 Second Amended Complaint, was time-barred.
Nor, on this record, does the doctrine of equitable tolling further extend the limitations period. Because "the 2013 action was dismissed for [Miesegaes's] failure to file a timely and proper request to proceed in forma pauperis," the relevant Defendants were not previously on notice of these claims. And given the dismissal on procedural grounds, Miesegaes "was not precluded from re-filing the action with a proper request." Moreover, Miesegaes failed to demonstrate why Defendants would not be prejudiced by his dilatoriness, and he provided no evidence of reasonableness or good faith.
IV
The district court properly granted Defendants' motion for summary judgment regarding Miesegaes's Equal Protection claim. Even when viewing the record in the light most favorable to Miesegaes, no reasonable juror could conclude that differentiating individuals deemed incompetent to stand trial ("IST") from other patients was a "suspect classification[]" or that such differentiation burdened any of Miesegaes's "fundamental rights." See Kahawaiolaa v. Norton, 386 F.3d 1271, 1277 (9th Cir. 2004). "When," as here, "no suspect class is involved and no fundamental right is burdened, we apply a rational basis test to determine the legitimacy of the classifications." See id. at 1277-78. We agree with the district court that there is a rational basis undergirding the system Miesegaes challenges, including "[b]ecause IST patients' stays are longer when they are housed in mixed units, housing IST patients separately from other patients is rationally related to the state's interest in rapidly restoring IST patients to competency to stand trial."
The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.
[*] This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
[**] The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).