Ali-X v. All the Emps. of Mail Room Staffs
| Decision Date | 25 April 2014 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 12-3147 (JBS/KMW) |
| Parties | KASEEM ALI-X, Plaintiff, v. ALL THE EMPLOYEES OF MAIL ROOM STAFFS, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey |
HONORABLE JEROME B. SIMANDLE
APPEARANCES:
Mr. Kaseem Ali-X
N.J.S.P.
Pro Se Plaintiff
Alex Joseph Zowin, Esq.
Lucy Elizabeth Fritz, Esq.
State of New Jersey
Office of the Attorney General
Hughes Justice Complex
Attorneys for Defendant Christopher Holmes
I. INTRODUCTION
Plaintiff Kaseem Ali-X, who is representing himself, asserts claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that mail room employees in South Woods State Prison ("SWSP") opened his properly-marked incoming legal mail outside of his presence andthat SWSP administrators allowed subordinates to discard his written complaints about the opening of his mail. This matter comes before the Court on Defendant Christopher Holmes' motion to dismiss [Docket Item 18], Plaintiff's motion to stay [Docket Items 22] adjudication of the motion to dismiss until he can conduct discovery, and Plaintiff's motion to stay/amend his complaint [Docket Item 25].
Claims against Defendant Holmes in his official capacity will be dismissed with prejudice because, in his official capacity, he is not a person amenable to suit under § 1983 and is entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity. Claims against Defendant Holmes in his individual capacity will proceed because Plaintiff has satisfied the pleading standards under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a). Plaintiff's motion to amend his complaint will be granted.
II. BACKGROUND
Plaintiff Kaseem Ali-X, who is currently incarcerated at New Jersey State Prison, brought this action against Defendants Christopher Holmes, Karen Balicki, and All the Employees of Mail Room Staffs. Balicki and Holmes are sued in their individual and official capacities. The mail room employees are sued in their individual capacities. The Defendants are employees ofSouthwoods State Prison ("SWSP"), where Plaintiff was previously incarcerated, and Plaintiff's allegations describe events that occurred while he was at SWSP.
Plaintiff alleges that mail room employees opened his properly marked, incoming legal mail outside his presence on May 24, 2010; June 12, 2010; July 9, 2010; July 23, 2010; August 13, 2010; March 27, 2011; July 11, 2011; September 27, 2011; and September 30, 2011. [Docket Item 11 (Am. Compl.) ¶ 6(a).) He also alleges that mail room employees took his legal papers on April 2, 2011; July 11, 2011; September 27, 2011; and September 30, 2011. (Id. ¶ 6(b).)
Plaintiff alleges that Defendant Balicki, a SWSP administrator, allowed the unlawful mail-opening to occur because her subordinates had a known and customary practice of discarding Inmate Remedy System Forms ("IRSFs"). (Id. ¶ 6(c).) Plaintiff also alleges that Balicki failed to intervene when Plaintiff mailed her copies of the unprocessed IRSFs and informed her about the unlawful conduct during wing representative meetings. (Id. ¶ 6(c).)
Defendant Holmes, also a SWSP administrator, allegedly allowed subordinates' known practice of processing certain ISRFs and discarding others. (Id. ¶ 6(d).) Plaintiff alleges that he mailed copies of the unprocessed ISRFs to Defendant Holmes andinformed Holmes of the problems when Holmes toured the prison. (Id. ¶ 6(d).)
Plaintiff seeks compensatory damages and punitive damages for each instance of unlawfully opened mail and costs of suit. (Id. ¶ 7.)
The Court issued an order on June 8, 2012 [Docket Item 2] allowing, inter alia, Plaintiff's First Amendment claims against the mail room employees to proceed past an initial screen pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915. The June 8, 2012 Order mandated that "within 180 days after entry of this Order, Plaintiff shall file an amended complaint identifying by name the fictitious defendants who are alleged to have engaged in a pattern and practice of opening his properly-marked legal mail outside of his presence. . . ." [Docket Item 2 at 4.]
Because Plaintiff could not identify the mail room employees despite his reasonable efforts, the Court issued an Order [Docket Item 8] permitting Plaintiff to file an amended complaint naming the Administrator of South Woods State Prison as a nominal Defendant and naming the unidentified mail room employees as Defendants John Does 1-10.
Plaintiff then submitted a motion to file an Amended Complaint. [Docket Item 9.] The Amended Complaint named Defendants Karen Balicki, Christopher Holmes, and Jane Doe andJohn Doe of the SWSP mail room staff. The Court issued an order allowing Plaintiff to file the Amended Complaint and noting that "[a]fter the named Defendants are served and respond to the Amended Complaint, Plaintiff will have the opportunity in due course to seek discovery of the identities of the John Doe Defendants and to promptly thereafter propose a Second Amended Complaint that names them." [Docket Item 10 at 3.]
Holmes was served [Docket Item 14], but Balicki's summons was returned unexecuted [Docket Item 13].
Holmes then filed a motion to dismiss [Docket Item 18] the Amended Complaint, and Plaintiff filed two motions to stay [Docket Items 22 & 25].
In his motion to dismiss, Defendant Holmes argues that, in his official capacity, he is not amenable to suit under § 1983 and is barred from suit by the Eleventh Amendment; claims against him in his individual capacity fail because of his lack of personal involvement; he cannot be held liable under respondeat superior; Plaintiff has not pled the dates when he complained to Holmes about the mail room staff's behavior and whether he complained after the last incident of mail-opening; and Plaintiff's claims are moot because Plaintiff is no longer at SWSP.
In opposition [Docket Item 20], Plaintiff argues that he adequately alleged Holmes' personal involvement by pleading that Holmes allowed the known, customary practice of discarding IRSFs to continue and failed to respond after Plaintiff informed him, via mail and in person, about his unprocessed ISRFs; Plaintiff cannot provide exact dates because his notes were lost; discovery would show the exact dates when Holmes visited Plaintiff's unit and, thus, when Plaintiff personally complained; and his claims are not moot because he could be transferred back to SWSP during his life sentence.
In reply [Docket Item 21], Defendant Holmes argued that the issue is not whether Plaintiff could be transferred back to SWSP, but whether there is a reasonable likelihood that he would be transferred back.
In Plaintiff's first motion to stay, he sought a stay of adjudication of the motion to dismiss until he could conduct discovery. In Plaintiff's second motion to stay, he sought a stay until the Court adjudicated an attached request to amend his complaint.
Defendant Holmes also opposed Plaintiff's first motion to stay, arguing that, if he is entitled to qualified immunity, then he should not be subject to the discovery process. Holmes opposed Plaintiff's motion to stay/amend on the grounds that amendment would be futile.
III. MOTION TO DISMISS
Defendant Holmes' motion to dismiss will be granted in part and denied in part. Claims against Holmes in his official capacity will be dismissed with prejudice; claims against him in his individual capacity will proceed.
A complaint will survive a motion to dismiss if it contains "sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (citation omitted). Although a court must accept as true all factual allegations in a complaint, that tenet is "inapplicable to legal conclusions," and "[a] pleading that offers labels and conclusions or a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do." Id.
A "district court ruling on a motion to dismiss may not consider matters extraneous to the pleadings" except that a "document integral to or explicitly relied upon in the complaint may be considered . . . ." In re Burlington Coat Factory, 114 F.3d at 1426 (citations omitted).
As a preliminary matter, the Court "must determine whether the [Plaintiff's] claims are moot because 'a federal court has neither the power to render advisory opinions nor to decide questions that cannot affect the rights of litigants in the casebefore them.'" Sutton v. Rasheed, 323 F.3d 236, 248 (3d Cir. 2003) (quoting Preiser v. Newkirk, 422 U.S. 395, 401 (1975)). "An inmate's transfer from the facility complained of generally moots the equitable and declaratory claims." Sutton, 323 F.3d at 248. But a transfer does not moot claims for damages: "plaintiffs' claims for damages remain despite their transfer out of the [prison unit] . . . ." Id. at 249.
In this case, Plaintiff seeks damages and, therefore, his claims are not moot.1
Plaintiff's claims against Defendant Holmes in his official capacity will be dismissed with prejudice because he is a New Jersey state employee and both § 1983 and the Eleventh Amendment prohibit suits against state employees in their official capacities. "A state, its agencies, and its actors in theirofficial capacities are not persons who may be sued under § 1983." Smith v. New Jersey, 908 F. Supp. 2d 560, 563 (D.N.J. 2012); see also Will v. Michigan Dep't of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 71 (1989) (). "Individual state employees sued in their official capacity are also entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity because 'official-capacity suits generally represent only another way of pleading an action' against the state." Betts v. New Castle Youth Dev. Ctr., 621 F.3d 249, 254 (3d Cir. 2010) (quoting Hafer v. Melo, 502 U.S. 21, 25 (1991)).
Claims against Holmes in his individual capacity are, however, permissible under § 1983 and the Eleventh...
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