Chavarriaga v. State

• Decision Date: 16 November 2015
• Docket Number: No. 14–2044.,14–2044.
• Citation: 806 F.3d 210
• Parties: Alexandra CHAVARRIAGA, Appellant v. State of NEW JERSEY DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS; Attorney General New Jersey; New Jersey Commissioner of Corrections; Corrections Sergeant Brown; John Doe # 1; John Doe # 2; Jane Doe; Marcus Wair; Philip Sheppard; John Doe # 3; John Doe # 4; Various Unknown Corrections Employees Assigned to the Special Investigations Division of the Department Of Corrections.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

806 F.3d 210

Alexandra CHAVARRIAGA, Appellant v. State of NEW JERSEY DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS; Attorney General New Jersey; New Jersey Commissioner of Corrections; Corrections Sergeant Brown; John Doe # 1; John Doe # 2; Jane Doe; Marcus Wair; Philip Sheppard; John Doe # 3; John Doe # 4; Various Unknown Corrections Employees Assigned to the Special Investigations Division of the Department Of Corrections.

No. 14–2044.

United States Court of Appeals,Third Circuit.

Argued June 18, 2015.

Filed: Nov. 16, 2015.

Fredric J. Gross, Esq., Mt. Ephraim, NJ, Noel C. Crowley, Esq. [Argued], Crowley & Crowley, Morristown, NJ, Attorneys for Appellant.

Dianne M. Moratti, Esq., Daniel M. Vannella, Esq. [Argued], Lisa A. Puglisi, Esq., Office of Attorney General of New Jersey Department of Law & Public Safety Division of Law Richard J. Hughes Justice Complex, Trenton, NJ, Attorneys for Appellees.

BEFORE: AMBRO, FUENTES, and GREENBERG, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

GREENBERG, Circuit Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

This matter comes on before this Court on an appeal in a case in which a former inmate in the custody of the New Jersey Department of Corrections (“NJDOC”), now the appellant, Alexandra Chavarriaga, claims that correctional officers violated her constitutional rights when, without proper authorization, they took her from one place of confinement to another where they denied her potable water, clothing, and sanitary napkins and related medications and subjected her to an unlawful body cavity search. The District Court on March 27, 2014, granted three defendants' motion for summary judgment and dismissed appellant's remaining claims against the other defendants, as it held that she did not demonstrate that there were issues of material fact requiring the Court to deny the summary judgment motion and appellant's complaint did not allege facts constituting a cause of action. Chavarriaga v. New Jersey, Civ. No. 12–4313, 2014 WL 1276345 (D.N.J. Mar. 27, 2014) (“Chavarriaga ”).

We will affirm the District Court's March 27, 2014 order granting summary judgment under Fed.R.Civ.P. 56 to defendants former New Jersey Attorney General Jeffery S. Chiesa, New Jersey Commissioner of Corrections Gary M. Lanigan, and Correctional Sergeant Janice Brown, and, with the significant exceptions that we discuss below, we will affirm the order dismissing the action pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) as to the remaining defendants, the NJDOC, John Doe # 1, John Doe # 2, John Doe # 3, John Doe # 4, Jane Doe, Marcus Wair, Philip Sheppard, and Various Unknown Corrections Employees. Appellant sued Chiesa in his official and individual capacity but she sued the other defendants only in their individual capacities.¹ The defendants other than the NJDOC, Chiesa, and Lanigan are NJDOC correctional officers. We reach our result even though only Chiesa, Lanigan, and Brown were served with process and have been the only defendants participating in this case.² We also will affirm the Court's denial of appellant's cross-motion for partial summary judgment against Lanigan, Brown, and the NJDOC and its denial of appellant's motion for sanctions against the participating defendants' counsel arising from what appellant considers was their obstruction of the discovery process. In addition, we will affirm the Court's denial of appellant's motion for class action certification as moot, but do so without prejudice to appellant renewing the motion on the remand for which we are providing. Finally, we will remand the case to the District Court for further proceedings that can go forward only if appellant is able to amend her complaint to name real persons as defendants.

II. STATEMENT OF JURISDICTION

The District Court had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, , and , and we have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

III. STANDARD OF REVIEW

We exercise plenary review over a district court's grant of summary judgment. Blackhawk v. Pennsylvania, 381 F.3d 202, 206 (3d Cir.2004). A court may grant a motion for summary judgment if, after it considers all probative materials of record, with inferences drawn in favor of the non-moving party, the court is satisfied that there are no genuine issues of material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 330, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2556, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986); Brooks v. Kyler, 204 F.3d 102, 105 n. 5 (3d Cir.2000). A dispute over an issue is “genuine” only if a reasonable jury could find in the non-movant's favor on that issue. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 247–48, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2510, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). But the party opposing a motion for summary judgment “must do more than simply show that there is some metaphysical doubt as to the material facts.” Big Apple BMW, Inc. v. BMW of N. Am., Inc., 974 F.2d 1358, 1363 (3d Cir.1992) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Rather, that party must point to specific factual evidence showing that there is a genuine dispute on a material issue requiring resolution at trial. See Celotex, 477 U.S. at 323–24, 106 S.Ct. at 2551.

We also exercise plenary review over a district court's dismissal of a complaint under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim. Pension Trust Fund for Operating Eng'rs v. Mortg. Asset Securitization Transactions, Inc., 730 F.3d 263, 268 (3d Cir.2013); Allah v. Seiverling, 229 F.3d 220, 223 (3d Cir.2000). When considering a motion to dismiss a complaint under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim, “[f]irst, the court must take note of the elements a plaintiff must plead to state a claim.” Malleus v. George, 641 F.3d 560, 563 (3d Cir.2011) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Then the court must determine if a claim has facial plausibility, a threshold that can be reached only when a plaintiff pleads factual content—as opposed to mere conclusions—allowing the court to “draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009). Although the court “must accept the allegations in the [c]omplaint as true, [it is] not compelled to accept unsupported conclusions and unwarranted inferences, or a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation.” Morrow v. Balaski, 719 F.3d 160, 165 (3d Cir.2013) (quoting Baraka v. McGreevey, 481 F.3d 187, 195 (3d Cir.2007)) (internal quotation marks omitted).

IV. BACKGROUND

A. Factual Allegations

Appellant alleged in her final amended complaint, which we usually simply call “the complaint,” that defendants subjected her to cruel and unusual punishment and denied her equal protection and due process of law in violation of 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983, , and , the United States Constitution, and parallel New Jersey state law.³ In addition, appellant claimed that defendants did not follow mandated state-law procedures in making the body cavity search of her. When we consider these allegations, we view them in a light most favorable to appellant. Appellant alleged that in 2010 and 2011, while she was in NJDOC custody, custodial personnel placed her at different times in the Garrett House, a residential community release program, the New Jersey State Prison (“NJSP”), and the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility (“EMCF”), and that they unlawfully transferred her three times from the Garrett House to the other facilities. Appellant remained in NJDOC custody until March 25, 2013, when she completed her sentence.

Appellant alleged in her complaint that she was subjected to constitutional violations on three separate occasions in 2010 and 2011, during the times that she was being transferred to the EMCF from the Garrett House and, while en route, the custodial personnel temporarily housed her in a cell at the NJSP. Indeed, she alleged that certain of the transfers in themselves denied her due process and equal protection of the law. Beyond the transfers, she alleged that the first violation occurred on April 7, 2010, when custodial personnel first removed her from the Garrett House for two alleged infractions of NJDOC rules and she was held unclothed at the NJSP overnight in cell South–l–GG–12, a cell that she characterizes as a “Psychiatric Unit.” (J.A. 23, 24, 75.) But that allegation is somewhat tangential to her case as she does not focus on the events surrounding her first removal from the Garrett House.

Rather, the case centers on appellant's allegations concerning constitutional violations from which she claims to have suffered after having been transferred from the Garrett House during her second confinement at the NJSP from May 31, 2011, to June 2, 2011. She asserted in her complaint that on this occasion the correctional personnel transferred her from the Garrett House in retaliation for a suit she had brought against detectives in the Somerset County prosecutor's office arising from her claim that they used excessive force in arresting her. (J.A. 77.) She claimed that defendants John Doe # 1 and John Doe # 2 made the second transfer on May 31, 2011, when they drove her from the Garrett House to the NJSP without lawful authority and that when they arrived at the NJSP, Sergeant Brown, a NJDOC supervisor, “ordered all of [her] clothing removed, whereupon [her] clothing was taken from her.” (J.A. 79.) She asserted that Brown assigned her to cell South–l–GG–12, where she remained unclothed and was allegedly visible from time to time to “male staff and prisoners” for the next three days. (J.A. 81.) Appellant alleged that defendant Jane Doe entered her cell during that three-day period and made a painful and unjustified manual body cavity search of her rectum and vagina. (J.A. 79–80.) Appellant also alleged that the plumbing in her cell was not working and, as a result, she was not provided with potable water during this three-day period, and that when she asked for drinking water the correctional officers told her to drink from the cell's toilet bowl. (J.A. 80.) Further, she...