Opinion
No. 2: 11-cv-0045 KJN P
09-06-2011
ANDREW RAMIREZ, Plaintiff, v. D. SWINGLE, et al., Defendants.
ORDER
Plaintiff is a state prisoner, proceeding without counsel, with a civil rights action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. On July 21, 2011, plaintiff filed a motion requesting that the court direct prison officials to make copies of volumes 9, 10 and 11 of plaintiff's medical records. Plaintiff states that he requires a court order in order to obtain copies of documents that exceed 100 pages.
In this action, plaintiff alleges that he received inadequate medical care. Under these circumstances, documents from plaintiff's medical records are relevant to this action. Plaintiff is entitled to collect evidence in support of his claims. However, it is unclear that every document in volumes 9, 10 and 11 of plaintiff's medical records is relevant to this action. It is also unclear how many pages of documents each volume contains.
Plaintiff does not allege that he has sought to review his medical files by way of an Olson review or otherwise followed prison procedures to request access to his medical files.If plaintiff were to review his medical records, there appears no reason why he could not mark the pages he requires copies of. It is possible that the pages he seeks from these volumes may not exceed 100 pages. If plaintiff seeks more than 100 pages of documents, it is unclear why he could not then request a court order for copies of these documents. Accordingly, plaintiff's motion for copies of volumes 9, 10 and 11 of his medical files is denied without prejudice. Plaintiff may renew this motion if he is able to demonstrate that he cannot obtain copies of documents from his medical files by way of an Olson review or other prison procedures.
An Olson review is a review of a prisoner's central or medical files mandated by In re Olson, 37 Cal.App.3d 783, 112 Cal.Rptr. 579 (1974).
On August 5, 2011, plaintiff filed a motion requesting that prison officials be ordered to make copies of documents exceeding 100 pages. This motion does not identify any particular documents exceeding 100 pages that plaintiff requires copies of. Accordingly, this motion is denied as not well supported.
Accordingly, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that plaintiff's motions for court ordered copies (Dkt. Nos. 23 and 24) are denied without prejudice.
KENDALL J. NEWMAN
UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE