-JS ALI-X v. HAYMAN et al, No. 1:2010cv04666 - Document 2 (D.N.J. 2010)
Court Description: OPINION. Signed by Judge Jerome B. Simandle on 11/8/10. (bdk, )
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-JS ALI-X v. HAYMAN et al Doc. 2 NOT FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY KASEEM ALI-X, Plaintiff, v. GEORGE HAYMAN, et al., Defendants. : : : : : : : : : Civil Action No. 10-4666 (JBS) OPINION APPEARANCES: Plaintiff pro se #260516 South Woods State Prison 215 Burlington Road South Bridgeton, NJ 08302 SIMANDLE, District Judge Plaintiff Kaseem Ali-X, a prisoner confined at South Woods State Prison, seeks to bring this action in 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 Dockets.Justia.com granted, or because it seeks monetary relief from a defendant who is immune from such relief. I. BACKGROUND The following factual allegations are taken from Plaintiff s Complaint and are accepted as true for purposes of this review. Plaintiff states that he is a non-smoker who is sensitive to tobacco smoke. Plaintiff alleges that he suffers from high-blood pressure and high cholesterol. Plaintiff alleges that he was subjected to cruel and unusual punishment due to second hand smoke exposure at South Woods State Prison. Plaintiff alleges that he suffers from pain and nausea, migraine headaches, and dizziness as a result of involuntarily inhaling tobacco smoke from his cell mate and other inmates. He complains that inmates smoke indoors in the cells and the dayroom and outside near the exercise equipment where the wind blows the smoke into the exercise area. Plaintiff alleges that he informed Defendants that he is a non-smoker but he was placed in cell #37 with an inmate named Anthony who was a smoker. Plaintiff states that Anthony s constant smoking in the cell caused him constant pain and nausea, migraine headaches, and dizziness. He alleges that he and Anthony had a confrontation regarding the issue of smoking. Anthony was removed from the cell due to the confrontation and was replaced by another smoker named Samir. 2 Plaintiff alleges that he has received no response to past remedy forms, but he does not describe the exact nature of the remedy requests or provide copies. He requests relief from this Court in the form of sanctions, injunctive relief, compensation for damages, court costs, and attorney fees. II. STANDARDS FOR A SUA SPONTE DISMISSAL 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. 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). A complaint is frivolous if it lacks an arguable basis either in law or in fact. Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 325 (1989) (interpreting the predecessor of § 1915(e)(2), the 3 former § 1915(d)). The standard for evaluating whether a complaint is frivolous is an objective one. Deutsch v. United States, 67 F.3d 1080, 1086-87 (3d Cir. 1995). In addition, any complaint must comply with the pleading requirements of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Rule 8(a)(2) requires that a complaint contain a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief. A complaint must plead facts sufficient at least to suggest a basis for liability. 218, 236 n.12 (3d Cir. 2004). Spruill v. Gillis, 372 F.3d Specific facts are not necessary; the statement need only give the defendant fair notice of what the ... claim is and the grounds upon which it rests. Erickson v. Pardus, 127 S.Ct. 2197, 2200 (2007) (citations omitted). While a complaint ... does not need detailed factual allegations, a plaintiff s obligation to provide the grounds of his entitle[ment] to relief requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do, see Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 286, 106 S.Ct. 2932, 92 L.Ed.2d 209 (1986) (on a motion to dismiss, courts are not bound to accept as true a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation ). Factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level ... . Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 1964-65 (2007) (citations omitted). The Supreme Court has demonstrated the application of these general standards to a Sherman Act conspiracy claim. In applying these general standards to a § 1 [conspiracy] claim, we hold that stating such a claim 4 requires a complaint with enough factual matter (taken as true) to suggest that an agreement was made. Asking for plausible grounds to infer an agreement does not impose a probability requirement at the pleading stage; it simply calls for enough fact to raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence of illegal agreement. And, of course, a well-pleaded complaint may proceed even if it strikes a savvy judge that actual proof of those facts is improbable, and that a recovery is very remote and unlikely. ... It makes sense to say, therefore, that an allegation of parallel conduct and a bare assertion of conspiracy will not suffice. Without more, parallel conduct does not suggest conspiracy, and a conclusory allegation of agreement at some unidentified point does not supply facts adequate to show illegality. Hence, when allegations of parallel conduct are set out in order to make a § 1 claim, they must be placed in a context that raises a suggestion of a preceding agreement, not merely parallel conduct that could just as well be independent action. The need at the pleading stage for allegations plausibly suggesting (not merely consistent with) agreement reflects the threshold requirement of Rule 8(a)(2) that the plain statement possess enough heft to sho[w] that the pleader is entitled to relief. A statement of parallel conduct, even conduct consciously undertaken, needs some setting suggesting the agreement necessary to make out a § 1 claim; without that further circumstance pointing toward a meeting of the minds, an account of a defendant s commercial efforts stays in neutral territory. ... Twombly, 127 S.Ct. at 1965-66 (citations and footnotes omitted). The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has held, in the context of a § 1983 civil rights action, that the Twombly pleading standard applies outside the § 1 antitrust context in which it was decided. See Phillips v. County of Allegheny, 515 F.3d 224, 234 (3d Cir. 2008) ( we decline at this point to read Twombly so narrowly as to limit its holding on plausibility to the antitrust context ). 5 Context matters in notice pleading. Fair notice under Rule 8(a)(2) depends on the type of case -- some complaints will require at least some factual allegations to make out a showing that the pleader is entitled to relief, in order to give the defendant fair notice of what the ... claim is and the grounds upon which it rests. Indeed, taking Twombly and the Court s contemporaneous opinion in Erickson v. Pardus, 127 S.Ct. 2197 (2007), together, we understand the Court to instruct that a situation may arise where, at some point, the factual detail in a complaint is so undeveloped that it does not provide a defendant the type of notice of claim which is contemplated by Rule 8. Put another way, in light of Twombly, Rule 8(a)(2) requires a showing rather than a blanket assertion of an entitlement to relief. We caution that without some factual allegation in the complaint, a claimant cannot satisfy the requirement that he or she provide not only fair notice, but also the grounds on which the claim rests. Phillips, 515 F.3d at 232 (citations omitted). More recently, the Supreme Court has emphasized that, when assessing the sufficiency of any civil complaint, a court must distinguish factual contentions -- which allege behavior on the part of the defendant that, if true, would satisfy one or more elements of the claim asserted -- and [t]hreadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949 (2009). Although the Court must assume the veracity of the facts asserted in the complaint, it is not bound to accept as true a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation. Id. at 1950. Thus, a court considering a motion to dismiss can choose to begin by identifying pleadings that, because they are no more than conclusions, are not entitled to the assumption of truth. 6 Id. Therefore, after Iqbal, when presented with a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, district courts should conduct a two-part analysis. First, the factual and legal elements of a claim should be separated. The District Court must accept all of the complaint's well-pleaded facts as true, but may disregard any legal conclusions. Second, a District Court must then determine whether the facts alleged in the complaint are sufficient to show that the plaintiff has a plausible claim for relief. In other words, a complaint must do more than allege the plaintiff's entitlement to relief. A complaint has to show such an entitlement with its facts. See Phillips, 515 F.3d at 234-35. As the Supreme Court instructed in Iqbal, [w]here the well-pleaded facts do not permit the court to infer more than the mere possibility of misconduct, the complaint has alleged-but it has not show[n] - that the pleader is entitled to relief. This plausibility determination will be a context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial experience and common sense. Fowler v. UPMC Shadyside, 578 F.3d 203, 210-11 (3d Cir. 2009) (citations omitted). Rule 10(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides: A party must state its claims ... in numbered paragraphs, each limited as far as practicable to a single set of circumstances. ... If doing so would promote clarity, each claim founded on a separate transaction or occurrence ... must be stated in a separate count or defense. Where a complaint can be remedied by an amendment, a district court may not dismiss the complaint with prejudice, but must permit the amendment. 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 7 pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(c)(1)); Urrutia v. Harrisburg County Police Dept., 91 F.3d 451, 453 (3d Cir. 1996). III. SECTION 1983 ACTIONS 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. West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42, 48 (1988); Piecknick v. Pennsylvania, 36 F.3d 1250, 1255-56 (3d Cir. 1994). IV. ANALYSIS Plaintiff alleges that the defendants have violated his rights under the Eighth Amendment, to be free from cruel and unusual punishment, by exposing him to excessive levels of environmental tobacco smoke ( ETS ). The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, applicable to the individual states through the Fourteenth 8 Amendment, prohibits the states from inflicting cruel and unusual punishments on those convicted of crimes. Chapman, 452 U.S. 337, 344-46 (1981). Rhodes v. This proscription against cruel and unusual punishments is violated by the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain contrary to contemporary standards of decency. Helling v. McKinney, 509 U.S. 25, 32 (1993). It is well settled that the treatment a prisoner receives in prison and the conditions under which he is confined are subject to scrutiny under the Eighth Amendment. Id. at 31. To state a claim under the Eighth Amendment, an inmate must allege both an objective and a subjective component. Seiter, 501 U.S. 294, 298 (1991). Wilson v. The objective component mandates that only those deprivations denying the minimal civilized measure of life s necessities ... are sufficiently grave to form the basis of an Eighth Amendment violation. Helling v. McKinney, 509 U.S. at 32 (quoting Rhodes, 452 U.S. at 346). This component requires that the deprivation sustained by a prisoner be sufficiently serious, for only extreme deprivations are sufficient to make out an Eighth Amendment claim. Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U.S. 1, 9 (1992). Specifically with respect to the type of claim asserted here, the Supreme Court has held that a prisoner satisfies the objective prong of an Eighth Amendment claim by showing that, beyond a scientific and statistical inquiry into the seriousness of the potential harm and the likelihood that such injury to 9 health will actually be caused by exposure to ETS, the Eighth Amendment requires a court to assess whether society considers the risk that the prisoner complains of to be so grave that it violates contemporary standards of decency to expose anyone unwillingly to such a risk. Atkinson v. Taylor, 316 F.3d 257, 262 (3d Cir. 2003) (quoting Helling v. McKinney, 509 U.S. 25, 36 (1993) (emphasis in original)). The subjective component requires that the state actor have acted with deliberate indifference, a state of mind equivalent to a reckless disregard of a known risk of harm. See Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 835 (1994); Wilson, 501 U.S. at 303. [A] prison official cannot be found liable under the Eighth Amendment for denying an inmate humane conditions of confinement unless the official knows of and disregards an excessive risk to inmate health or safety; the official must both be aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm exists, and he must also draw the inference. Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. at 837. Plaintiffs allegations here are not sufficient to state a claim. Plaintiff fails to allege the time period during which he has been assigned to share a cell with a smoker and he fails to allege the number of cigarettes the cell mate has smoked while Plaintiff was in the same cell. Cf. Helling (finding that an allegation that cell mate smokes five packs a day is sufficient to state a claim); Atkinson v. Taylor (allegations that prisoner shared a cell with constant smokers for many months stated a 10 claim). In addition, allegations similar to Plaintiff s allegations that other prisoners smoke in the dayroom or outside near the exercise area have been held insufficient to state a claim under the Eighth Amendment. See, e.g., Brown v. U.S. Justice Dept., 271 Fed.Appx. 142, 144, 2008 WL 857556, *2 (3d Cir. April 1, 2008) (collecting cases), cert. denied, 129 S.Ct. 317 (2008); Griffin v. DeRosa, 153 Fed.Appx. 851, 853, 2005 WL 2891102 (3d Cir. 2005) (collecting cases); Wilson v. Hofbauer, 113 Fed.Appx. 651 (6th Cir. 2004) (allegations of failure to enforce non-smoking policy and to move prisoner to less smokefilled area of prisons are not sufficient to state a claim). Moreover, Plaintiff s allegations fail to suggest deliberate indifference. Although he alleges that he has sought formal and informal relief from the appropriate administrative officials, he fails to describe the nature of the grievances or the factual nature of the information contained in them. Plaintiff does not allege enough information to support the requirements to establish deliberate indifference. Plaintiff does not allege the levels of his exposure or how long of a time period the alleged exposure has occurred over. Thus, the facts alleged do not establish a constitutional violation related to alleged exposure to ETS. Claiming constant exposure without alleging concrete facts to support the statement does not enough establish an extreme violation. As such, Plaintiff s Complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. 11 V. CONCLUSION For the reasons set forth above, the Complaint would shall be dismissed, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) and 1915A(b)(1), for failure to state a claim.1 However, because it is conceivable that Plaintiff may be able to supplement his pleading with facts sufficient to state a claim, the Court will grant Plaintiff leave to file an amended complaint.2 An appropriate order follows. s/ Jerome B. Simandle Jerome B. Simandle United States District Judge Dated: November 8, 2010 1 The Court notes that [g]enerally, 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. ... The dispositive inquiry is whether the district court s order finally resolved the case. 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)) (other citations omitted). In this case, if Plaintiff can correct the deficiencies of his Complaint, he may file a motion to re-open these claims in accordance with the court rules. 2 Plaintiff should note that when an amended complaint is filed, the original complaint no longer performs any function in the case and cannot be utilized to cure defects in the amended [complaint], unless the relevant portion is specifically incorporated in the new [complaint]. 6 Wright, Miller & Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1476 (2d ed. 1990) (footnotes omitted). An amended complaint may adopt some or all of the allegations in the original complaint, but the identification of the particular allegations to be adopted must be clear and explicit. Id. To avoid confusion, the safer course is to file an amended complaint that is complete in itself. Id. 12
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