Opinion
Civil Action No. 07-5315 (RBK).
December 5, 2007
Juan Paulino, Pro Se, #92354, Burlington County Jail, Mt. Holly, NJ.
OPINION
Plaintiff Juan Paulino, currently confined at the Burlington County Jail in Mt. Holly, New Jersey, seeks to bring this actionin forma pauperis pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging violations of his constitutional rights. Based on his affidavit of indigence and the absence of three qualifying dismissals within 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g), the Court will grant Plaintiff's application to proceed in forma pauperis pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a) and order the Clerk of the Court to file the Complaint.
At this time, the Court must review the Complaint to determine whether it should be dismissed as frivolous or malicious, for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted, or because it seeks monetary relief from a defendant who is immune from such relief. For the following reasons, the Complaint will be dismissed, without prejudice.
BACKGROUND
Plaintiff names only the Burlington County Jail as a defendant. He seeks to sue based on an incident on March 16, 2007 that occurred at the jail. In particular, Plaintiff states that he was assaulted by three inmates while walking on "E-Wing." As a result of the assault, Plaintiff suffered swelling to the right side of his head, and serious cuts that required stitches. His left leg was broken in three places, and now requires a rod and screws to "keep it together." His leg injury is permanent and will affect him long term. He cannot stand for long periods, cannot run, and walks with a limp.
Plaintiff states that the jail administration delayed necessary treatment by not allowing him to go to the hospital immediately; rather, he was kept in the jail clinic for six days and treated with Motrin. Plaintiff also claims that the jail failed to protect him from the assault.
DISCUSSION
A. Standard of Review
This Court must dismiss, at the earliest practicable time, certain in forma pauperis and prisoner actions that are frivolous, malicious, fail to state a claim, or seek monetary relief from a defendant who is immune from such relief. See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2) (in forma pauperis actions); 28 U.S.C. § 1915A (actions in which prisoner seeks redress from a governmental defendant); 42 U.S.C. § 1997e (prisoner actions brought with respect to prison conditions).
In determining the sufficiency of a pro se complaint, the Court must be mindful to construe it liberally in favor of the plaintiff. See Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520-21 (1972);United States v. Day, 969 F.2d 39, 42 (3d Cir. 1992). The Court must "accept as true all of the allegations in the complaint and all reasonable inferences that can be drawn therefrom, and view them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff." Morse v. Lower Merion School Dist., 132 F.3d 902, 906 (3d Cir. 1997). The Court need not, however, credit a pro se plaintiff's "bald assertions" or "legal conclusions." Id.
A pro se complaint may be dismissed for failure to state a claim only if it appears "`beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief.'" Haines, 404 U.S. at 521 (quoting Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46 (1957)); Milhouse v. Carlson, 652 F.2d 371, 373 (3d Cir. 1981). Where a complaint can be remedied by an amendment, a district court may not dismiss the complaint with prejudice, but must permit the amendment. See Alston v. Parker, 363 F.3d 229 (3d Cir. 2004); see also Denton v. Hernandez, 504 U.S. 25, 34 (1992); Grayson v. Mayview State Hospital, 293 F.3d 103, 108 (3d Cir. 2002) (dismissal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)); Shane v. Fauver, 213 F.3d 113, 116-17 (3d Cir. 2000) (dismissal pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(c)(1)); Urrutia v. Harrisburg County Police Dept., 91 F.3d 451, 453 (3d Cir. 1996).
B. Section 1983 Claims
A plaintiff may have a cause of action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for certain violations of his constitutional rights. Section 1983 provides in relevant part:
Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory . . . subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress. . . .
Thus, to state a claim for relief under § 1983, a plaintiff must allege, first, the violation of a right secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States and, second, that the alleged deprivation was committed or caused by a person acting under color of state law. See West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42, 48 (1988); Piecknick v. Pennsylvania, 36 F.3d 1250, 1255-56 (3d Cir. 1994).
C. Plaintiff Has Not Named Proper Defendants.
Plaintiff names only the "Burlington County Jail" as a defendant. However, a jail is not a "person" for purposes of a § 1983 suit. See Mitchell v. Chester County Farms Prison, 426 F. Supp. 271, 274 (D.C. Pa. 1976); see also Marsden v. Federal BOP, 856 F. Supp. 832, 836 (S.D.N.Y. 1994) (county jail not an entity amenable to suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983); Powell v. Cook County Jail, 814 F. Supp. 757, 758 (N.D. Ill. 1993) (Cook County Jail not a "person" under § 1983); McCoy v. Chesapeake Correctional Center, 788 F. Supp. 890, 893-94 (E.D. Va. 1992) (local jail not a "person" under § 1983).
The proper parties in Plaintiff's suit would be the state actors whom Plaintiff believes actually violated his rights. If Plaintiff does not know the exact identity of the proper defendants who were personally involved in the alleged violations against him, he may plead "John Doe" and/or "Jane Doe" as defendants. Courts within this circuit have permitted "fictitious-defendant pleading." See Rolax v. Whitman, 175 F. Supp.2d 720, 728 (D.N.J. 2001) (citing Hindes v. F.D.I.C., 137 F.3d 148, 155 (3d Cir. 1998)) (other citations omitted), aff'd, 53 Fed. Appx. 635 (3d Cir. 2002). The use of fictitious defendants is permitted until the plaintiff has had an opportunity to conduct discovery. See White v. Fauver, 19 F. Supp.2d 305, 312 n. 8 (D.N.J. 1998). However, "fictitious parties must eventually be dismissed, if discovery yields no identities."Hindes v. F.D.I.C., 137 F.3d 148, 155 (3d Cir. 1998).
Because Plaintiff has failed to name a proper defendant, his complaint will be dismissed, without prejudice. Plaintiff will be permitted to file a motion to reopen, which shall include an amended complaint naming proper defendants, and correcting any further deficiencies, as set forth in this Opinion.
D. Plaintiff's Claims
Liberally construing the complaint, Plaintiff alleges a failure to protect claim, and a failure to provide medical care claim against the jail. It is unclear whether or not Plaintiff was a pretrial detainee, or convicted inmate at the time of the incident.
1. Failure to Protect
The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, applicable to the individual states through the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibits the states from inflicting "cruel and unusual punishments" on those convicted of crimes. See Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U.S. 337, 344-46 (1981). Under the Eighth Amendment, prison officials have a duty to provide humane conditions of confinement, including adequate food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and personal safety. See Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 832 (1994); Young v. Quinlan, 960 F.2d 351, 364 (3d Cir. 1992). Accordingly, prison officials must take reasonable measures "to protect prisoners from violence at the hands of other prisoners."Farmer, 511 U.S. at 833 (1994) (internal quotations omitted). "Being violently assaulted in prison is simply `not part of the penalty that criminal offenders pay for their offenses against society.'" Id. at 834 (quotingRhodes v. Chapman, 452 U.S. 337, 347 (1981)).
To successfully state a claim for violation of the Eighth Amendment, an inmate must satisfy both the objective and subjective components of such a claim. The inmate must allege a deprivation which was "sufficiently serious," and that in their actions or omissions, prison officials exhibited "deliberate indifference" to the inmate's health or safety. See Farmer, 511 U.S. at 834; Wilson v. Seiter, 501 U.S. 294, 305 (1991); Nami v. Fauver, 82 F.3d 63, 67 (3d Cir. 1996).
In the context of a failure-to-protect claim, the inmate must show that he was "incarcerated under conditions posing a substantial risk of harm," Farmer, 511 U.S. at 833, and that prison officials knew of and disregarded the excessive risk to inmate safety, Id. at 837. "A pervasive risk of harm may not ordinarily be shown by pointing to a single incident or isolated incidents, but it may be established by much less than proof of a reign of violence and terror." Riley v. Jeffes, 777 F.2d 143, 147 (3d Cir. 1985). "Whether . . . prison official[s] had the requisite knowledge of a substantial risk is a question of fact subject to demonstration in the usual ways, including inference from circumstantial evidence, and a fact finder may conclude that . . . prison official[s] knew of a substantial risk from the very fact that the risk was obvious." Farmer, 511 U.S. at 842. Deliberate indifference is more than a mere lack of ordinary due care, however; it is a state of mind equivalent to a reckless disregard of a known risk of harm. See Farmer, 511 U.S. at 834.
Here, Plaintiff does not allege facts which suggest that defendants were informed of a specific risk of harm to himself or other inmates, Nami, 82 F.3d at 67-68; Young, 960 F.2d at 362, or that "a substantial risk of inmate attacks was longstanding, pervasive, well-documented" or otherwise obvious to them, so that the defendants should have prevented the attack from occurring in the first instance. Farmer, 511 U.S. at 842; accord Hamilton v. Leavy, 117 F.3d 742, 747-48 (3d Cir. 1997); Ingalls v. Florio, 968 F. Supp. 193, 199-200 (D.N.J. 1997). However, the Court will allow Plaintiff to address these deficiencies in his motion to reopen and requisite amended complaint. 2. Medical Care Claim
The Court notes that even if Plaintiff was a pretrial detainee at the time of the incident, the complaint, as submitted, does not allege facts indicating that the acts against Plaintiff by unknown defendants subjected him to "punishment," in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520 (1979).
The Eighth Amendment proscription against cruel and unusual punishment requires that prison officials provide inmates with adequate medical care. See Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 103-04 (1976). In order to set forth a cognizable claim for a violation of his right to adequate medical care, an inmate must allege: (1) a serious medical need; and (2) behavior on the part of prison officials that constitutes deliberate indifference to that need. Id. at 106.
To satisfy the first prong of the Estelle inquiry, the inmate must demonstrate that his medical needs are serious. "Because society does not expect that prisoners will have unqualified access to health care, deliberate indifference to medical needs amounts to an Eighth Amendment violation only if those needs are `serious.'" Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U.S. 1, 9 (1992). Serious medical needs include those that have been diagnosed by a physician as requiring treatment or that are so obvious that a lay person would recognize the necessity for doctor''s attention, and those conditions which, if untreated, would result in lifelong handicap or permanent loss. See Monmouth County Correctional Institutional Inmates v. Lanzaro, 834 F.2d 326, 347 (3d Cir. 1987), cert. denied, 486 U.S. 1006 (1988).
The second element of the Estelle test requires an inmate to show that prison officials acted with deliberate indifference to his serious medical need. "Deliberate indifference" is more than mere malpractice or negligence; it is a state of mind equivalent to reckless disregard of a known risk of harm. See Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 837-38 (1994). Furthermore, a prisoner's subjective dissatisfaction with his medical care does not in itself indicate deliberate indifference. See Andrews v. Camden County, 95 F.Supp.2d 217, 228 (D.N.J. 2000); Peterson v. Davis, 551 F.Supp. 137, 145 (D. Md. 1982), aff'd, 729 F.2d 1453 (4th Cir. 1984). Similarly, "mere disagreements over medical judgment do not state Eighth Amendment claims." White v. Napoleon, 897 F.2d 103, 110 (3d Cir. 1990). "Courts will disavow any attempt to second-guess the propriety or adequacy of a particular course of treatment . . . [which] remains a question of sound professional judgment. Implicit in this deference to prison medical authorities is the assumption that such informed judgment has, in fact, been made." Inmates of Allegheny County Jail v. Pierce, 612 F.2d 754, 762 (3d Cir. 1979) (internal quotation and citation omitted). Even if a doctor's judgment concerning the proper course of a prisoner's treatment ultimately is shown to be mistaken, at most what would be proved is medical malpractice and not an Eighth Amendment violation. See Estelle, 429 U.S. at 105-06; White, 897 F.2d at 110.
"Where prison authorities deny reasonable requests for medical treatment, however, and such denial exposes the inmate `to undue suffering or the threat of tangible residual injury,' deliberate indifference is manifest. Similarly, where `knowledge of the need for medical care [is accompanied by the] . . . intentional refusal to provide that care,' the deliberate indifference standard has been met." Monmouth County Corr. Inst. Inmates v. Lanzaro, 834 F.2d at 346 (citations omitted). Under certain circumstances, non-medical supervisors may be liable under § 1983 for the failure to provide adequate medical care.Compare Durmer v. O'Carroll, 991 F.2d 64, 69 (3d Cir. 1993) (summary judgment properly granted to prison warden and state commissioner of corrections, the only allegation against whom was that they failed to respond to letters from prisoner complaining of prison doctor's treatment decisions) with Sprull v. Gillis, 372 F.3d 218, 236 (3d Cir. 2004) (a non-physician supervisor may be liable under § 1983 if he knew or had reason to know of inadequate medical care).
Here, Plaintiff's allegations are sufficient enough to withstand sua sponte dismissal at this screening stage of the litigation. However, as noted, Plaintiff does not name proper defendants.
CONCLUSION
Based on the foregoing, Plaintiff's complaint will be dismissed, without prejudice. See Alston, 363 F.3d at 234 n. 7 (stating that with a complaint that makes "little sense," District Court could have dismissed complaint without prejudice, to permit Plaintiff to amend the complaint). The Court notes that "generally, an order which dismisses a complaint without prejudice is neither final nor appealable because the deficiency may be corrected by the plaintiff without affecting the cause of action." Martin v. Brown, 63 F.3d 1252, 1257-58 (3d Cir. 1995) (quoting Borelli v. City of Reading, 532 F.2d 950, 951 (3d Cir. 1976)). In this case, if Plaintiff can correct the deficiencies of his complaint, he may file a motion to reopen these claims in accordance with the attached Order.