RAYMOND WHITALL V. STEPHANIE PHAN, No. 19-16397 (9th Cir. 2020)
Annotate this Case
Download PDF
FILED NOT FOR PUBLICATION SEP 15 2020 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT RAYMOND RICHARD WHITALL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. U.S. COURT OF APPEALS No. 19-16397 D.C. No. 3:17-cv-05889-CRB MEMORANDUM* STEPHANIE TRAN PHAN, M.D., Primary Care Physician, CDCR; et al., Defendants-Appellees, and A. NEWTON; et al., Defendants. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California Charles R. Breyer, District Judge, Presiding Submitted September 8, 2020** Before: TASHIMA, SILVERMAN, and OWENS, Circuit Judges. California state prisoner Raymond Richard Whitall appeals pro se from the * 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). district court’s summary judgment in his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action alleging deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review de novo. Albino v. Baca, 747 F.3d 1162, 1168 (9th Cir. 2014) (en banc). We reverse and remand. The district court granted summary judgment for failure to exhaust administrative remedies on Whitall’s morphine discontinuation claim. However, defendants concede in their answering brief that summary judgment on this claim was in error, because the record shows that Whitall’s grievance regarding his morphine discontinuation claim was cancelled, and a prison administrator informed him that this claim would be addressed in another grievance. See Brown v. Valoff, 422 F.3d 926, 935 (9th Cir. 2005) (“[A] prisoner need not press on to exhaust further levels of review once he has . . . been reliably informed by an administrator that no remedies are available.”). We reverse the judgment and remand for further proceedings on this claim only. We do not consider matters not specifically and distinctly raised and argued in the opening brief. See Padgett v. Wright, 587 F.3d 983, 985 n.2 (9th Cir. 2009). REVERSED and REMANDED. 2 19-16397
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
