Childs v. Miller, No. 12-6075 (10th Cir. 2013)
Annotate this CasePro se Petitioner prisoner Terry Lee Childs appealed a district court's dismissal of his civil rights case filed under 42 U.S.C. 1983. Petitioner was housed at the James Crabtree Correctional Center (JCCC) in Helena, Oklahoma, but he was formerly housed at the Lawton Correctional Facility (LCF) in Lawton. Petitioner filed his complaint asserting that defendants, who were all employees of LCF, violated state and federal law by delaying the refilling of his asthma medication prescription in May 2008 in retaliation against him for exercising his federal constitutional right to file administrative grievances about his medical care. Defendants moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), or, in the alternative, for summary judgment under Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). The magistrate judge recommended that defendants' motion to dismiss be granted with respect to Petitioner's two state-law claims. But the magistrate judge concluded that Petitioner's federal claim for retaliation for exercising his First Amendment rights was not conclusory and recommended that it be allowed to proceed. Petitioner filed objections to the recommendation, as did defendants. The district court disagreed with the magistrate judge's recommendation as to the federal claim and entered an order granting defendants' motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) as to all three claims. The district court ultimately granted Petitioner four extensions of time to file his amended complaint, but gave him a final deadline of February 1, 2012, and warned him not to expect any further extensions of time. On February 9, 2012, Petitioner filed an untimely proposed amended complaint and requested a fifth extension of time. Defendants opposed the motion. The district court determined that Petitioner failed to correct the defects in his existing retaliation claim and had also added a new claim (without leave of court) based on seventeen pages of new factual allegations. The court denied Petitioner's motion for a fifth extension of time and his motion to file his proposed amended complaint, and entered a judgment of dismissal. Petitioner appealed the dismissal of his original complaint. Finding no abuse of discretion, the Tenth Circuit affirmed.
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.