Bruin v. White
| Decision Date | 12 March 2021 |
| Docket Number | CIVIL ACTION NO. 5:16-cv-00105-TBR |
| Parties | BRANDON R. BRUIN PLAINTIFF v. RANDY WHITE et al. DEFENDANTS |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Kentucky |
Before the Court are motions for summary judgment and leave to file excess pages by numerous Defendants in this action. [DN 163]. Plaintiff responded. [DN 165]. Defendants replied. [DN 166]. The motions are ripe for adjudication. For the reasons stated below, the motion for leave to file excess pages is granted, and the motion for summary judgment is granted in part and denied in part.
Bruin is a convicted prisoner currently incarcerated at Eastern Kentucky Correctional Complex. His claims in this action, however, concern his incarceration at the Kentucky State Penitentiary ("KSP"). Bruin filed a series of complaints, supplemental complaints, and amendments to complaints whereby he raises numerous claims against more than forty defendants. Several of these defendants have been terminated from the action. His claims generally arise from seven separate events: (1) the cutting of his dreadlocks; (2) being assaulted by another inmate; (3) the denial of a "Vegan/Ital" diet; (4) excessive force during a cell extraction; (5) allegedly deficient medical care regarding high blood pressure, headaches, and numbness; (6) claims arising from Plaintiff's fasting and hunger strike; and (7) alleged interference with Plaintiff's access to the courts and medical records.
On initial review [DN 48] of the complaint [DN 1] pursuant to § 1915A, the Court allowed the following claims to continue: (1) Bruin's First Amendment free-exercise and Fourteenth Amendment due-process and equal-protection claims arising out of the May 2016 cutting of his dreadlocks and refusal to allow Bruin to send the cut dreadlocks home against Defendants Charles Crick, Roger Mitchell, James Smith, James R. Beeler, and Randy White in their official capacities for injunctive relief and in their individual capacities for damages and injunctive relief; and (2) Bruin's Eighth Amendment failure-to-protect claim arising out of an assault by another inmate in June 2016 against Defendants Bruce Von Dwingelo, Jill Roberts, and Micah Melton in their individual capacities for damages.
On initial review [DN 97] of Bruin's first wave of amended and supplemental complaints [DNs 20, 23, & 26], the Court allowed the following claims to continue: (1) the First Amendment free-exercise and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act claims regarding denial of a "Vegan/Ital Diet" against Defendants Melton, White, Terry Griffith, and Charles "Aaron" Davis in their official capacities for injunctive relief and in their individual capacities for damages and injunctive relief; (2) the First Amendment free-exercise claim regarding the cutting of dreadlocks against Defendant John Gibbs in his official capacity for injunctive relief and in his individual capacity for damages and injunctive relief and the RLUIPA claim regarding the cutting of dreadlocks against Defendants Charles Crick, Mitchell, James Smith, Beeler, White, Belt, Skyla Grief, Melton, Griffith, and Gibbs in their official capacities for injunctive relief and in their individual capacities for damages and injunctive relief; (3) the Eighth Amendment excessive-force claims regarding the July 30/August 1, 2016 cell extraction against Defendants Jonathan Ruch and Griffith in their individual capacities for damages; and (4) the Eighth Amendment claim of deliberate indifference to a serious medical need regarding Plaintiff's claims of untreated highblood pressure, migraine headaches, loss of vision, tingling in limbs/fingers/toes, and episodes of loss of consciousness against Defendants Davis, Karen Vickery, and Shastine Tangilag in their individual capacities for damages and injunctive relief.
On initial review [DN 112] of Bruin's second wave of amended and supplemental complaints [DNs 34, 54, 57, & 89] this Court allowed the following claims to continue: (1) the First Amendment free-exercise claim regarding the May 2016 cutting of dreadlocks against Defendant Duncan; (2) the various First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment claims and state-law medical negligence claims arising from a "Religious Fast" Plaintiff began on December 14, 2016, which turned into a hunger strike requiring multiple cell extractions for blood work and eventual forced hydration in January 2017 against Defendants White, Ramey, Neely, Raines, Bruce Bauer, Grief, Burkett, Edmonds, Mitchell, James Smith, Michael Alexander, Inglish, Ruch, Corley, Lauren N. Hawkins, Rodriguez, Coombs, Hope, Beeler, and Von Dwingelo; and (3) the Eighth Amendment excessive-force claims against Defendants Swank and DeBoe, the Eighth Amendment failure-to-protect claim against Defendant Grief, the First Amendment free-exercise claim against Defendants Coombs and Rodriguez, and the retaliation claims against Defendants Rodriguez, Coombs, DeBoe, Swank, and Grief. The Court also dismissed Plaintiff's claims for injunctive relief, official capacity claims for damages, and all RLUIPA claims. [DN 112 at 5; 14].
On motion for summary judgment by Defendants Karen (Vickery) Ramey, Kelly Neely, Nancy Raines, Charles Davis, and Bruce Bauer, the Court also dismissed Eighth Amendment and state law claims against them and terminated them as parties. [DN 165]. Currently before the Court is the Motion for Summary Judgment filed by Defendants Michael Alexander, James Beeler, Denise Burkett, Jesse Coombs, James Corley, Charles Crick, Paul Duncan, John Gibbs, Skyla Grief, Lauren Hawkins, Jeffery Hope, Brendan Inglish, Micah Melton, Roger Mitchell, JillRoberts, Gage Rodriguez, James Smith, Christopher Swank, Bruce Von Dwingelo and Randy White. [DN 163]. These defendants have also filed a motion for leave to file excess pages. Id.
Defendants here have moved to the court for leave to exceed the page limit under Local rule 7.1(d) as regards their memorandum in support of their motion for summary judgment. [DN 163 at 1]. Defendants submit that there are twenty (20) of them, there are multiple claims they must address, and they have a desire to combine their individual motions for summary judgment for expediency. Id. The Court finds the parties justified in their need to exceed the page limits. The Plaintiff has not opposed this motion. Thus, the motion to exceed page limits is granted.
Summary judgment is appropriate where "the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). In determining whether summary judgment is appropriate, a court must resolve all ambiguities and draw all reasonable inferences against the moving party. See Matshushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587 (1986).
"[N]ot every issue of fact or conflicting inference presents a genuine issue of material fact." Street v. J.C. Bradford & Co., 886 F.2d 1472, 1477 (6th Cir. 1989). The test is whether the party bearing the burden of proof has presented a jury question as to each element in the case. Hartsel v. Keys, 87 F.3d 795, 799 (6th Cir. 1996). The plaintiff must present more than a mere scintilla of evidence in support of his position; the plaintiff must present evidence on which the trier of fact could reasonably find for the plaintiff. See id. (citing Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 252 (1986)). The plaintiff may accomplish this by "citing to particular parts of materials inthe record" or by "showing that the materials cited do not establish the absence . . . of a genuine dispute." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)(1). Mere speculation will not suffice to defeat a motion for summary judgment, Monette v. Electronic Data Sys. Corp., 90 F.3d 1173, 1177 (6th Cir. 1996).
The Prison Litigation Reform Act ("PLRA") bars a civil rights action challenging prison conditions until the prisoner exhausts "such administrative remedies as are available." 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a); Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199, 211 (2007) (). To exhaust administrative remedies, prisoners must complete the administrative review process in accordance with the deadlines and other applicable procedural rules established by state law. Jones, 549 U.S. at 218-19. "Proper exhaustion demands compliance with an agency's deadlines and other critical procedural rules." Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. 81, 90 (2006). "[F]ailure to exhaust administrative remedies under the PLRA is an affirmative defense that must be established by the defendants." Napier v. Laurel Cty. Ky., 636 F.3d 218, 225 (6th Cir. 2011) (citing Jones, 549 U.S. at 204).
The Court considers the claims in the order outlined in Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment. First are Bruin's First Amendment claims against Charles Crick, Roger Mitchell, James Smith, James Beeler, Randy White, John Gibbs, and Paul Duncan stemming from Bruin'sdreadlocks being cut on May 27, 2016. In its first initial review of this action, the Court set forth Bruin's allegations surrounding the May 27, 2016 cutting of Bruin's dreadlocks as follows:
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