Davis v. Prison Health Servs.

• Decision Date: 10 May 2012
• Docket Number: No. 10–2690.,10–2690.
• Citation: 679 F.3d 433
• Parties: Ricky DAVIS, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. PRISON HEALTH SERVICES; Ms. Scharfnaar; Officer Kast; Lieutenant Decline; John Doe[s], Defendants–Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

679 F.3d 433

Ricky DAVIS, Plaintiff–Appellant,

v.PRISON HEALTH SERVICES; Ms. Scharfnaar; Officer Kast; Lieutenant Decline; John Doe[s], Defendants–Appellees.

No. 10–2690.

United States Court of Appeals,Sixth Circuit.

Argued: April 18, 2012.

Decided and Filed: May 10, 2012.

ARGUED:Joshua A. Block, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, New York, New York, for Appellant. Kevin R. Himebaugh, Office of the Michigan Attorney General, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellees. ON BRIEF:Joshua A. Block, Leslie D. Cooper, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, New York, New York, Michael J. Steinberg, Kary L. Moss, American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, Detroit, Michigan, Miriam J. Aukerman, American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, for Appellant. Thomas L. Leonard, Office of the Michigan Attorney General, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellees.

Before: GIBBONS and SUTTON, Circuit Judges; DUGGAN, District Judge. ^*

OPINION

JULIA SMITH GIBBONS, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff-appellant Ricky Davis brought this pro se action against defendants-appellees Prison Health Services, Health Unit Manager (unknown) Scharfnaar, Public Works Supervisor (unknown) Decline, Corrections Officer (unknown) Kast, and “John Doe[s],” alleging that he was improperly removed from his employment in a prison public-works program because of his sexual orientation. The district court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1915(e)(2), 1915A and 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(c), finding that Davis had failed to allege that he was treated differently from other similarly-situated prisoners and that his claim was barred by the Supreme Court's decision in Engquist v. Oregon Department of Agriculture. For the reasons that follow, we reverse the district court's decision and remand the case for further proceedings.

I.

Ricky Davis, who was an inmate at the Florence Crane Correctional Facility in Coldwater, Michigan at the time the underlying events took place, filed a pro se complaint against the defendants on October 4, 2010. Davis claimed that he was removed from his public-works employment because of his sexual orientation, in violation of his rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.¹ The complaint and attached exhibits contained the following alleged facts in support of this claim.

Davis is an insulin-dependent diabetic, who was hired to participate in an off-site public-works program administered by the prison. He was screened and medically cleared for this assignment by prison health officials. Although there were other insulin-dependent diabetic inmates who participated in the public-works program, Davis claimed that he was the only gay person in the program. Moreover, he alleged that because of his sexual orientation, the public-works officers supervising his work crew treated him differently than other inmates, ridiculed and belittled him, and “ma[d]e a spectacle” of him when they brought him back to the correctional facility after a public-works assignment. He further alleged that these officers did not want to strip search him because he was a homosexual and that they would make “under the breath” remarks when selected to do so.

Prison Health Services provided the public-works officers supervising off-site work crews with packets of honey in case a diabetic prisoner experienced low blood sugar while working. On December 2, 2009, Davis was working in an off-site detail of the public-works program when he complained that he thought he was suffering from low blood sugar. Defendant Officer Kast allegedly refused to hand a honey packet directly to Davis but instead handed the packet to another inmate to give to Davis—an act that Davis felt evinced an animus toward or discomfort with him as an openly gay man.² After receiving the honey, Davis asserts that he returned to work and finished the remainder of his shift. Defendant Lieutenant Decline had Davis fill out a medical health care request and meet with a nurse upon his return to the correctional facility.

Davis claimed that the nurse who examined him determined that his blood sugar levels were normal and that the episode had been a “false alarm.” Despite this fact and the fact that he had never previously experienced a low blood sugar episode while on a public-works assignment, the prison health unit manager, Defendant Scharfnaar, ordered that Davis be removed from the public-works program. Scharfnaar reportedly told Davis that he was being removed because he was a diabetic and that she “wasn't going to be responsible if something happened to [Davis] while [he was] out on work assignment.” Davis alleged that the public-works officers persuaded Scharfnaar to use concerns about his diabetic condition as a pretext for removing him from the public-works program. Davis further claimed that other similarly situated non-homosexual, insulin-dependant diabetic inmateswere allowed to continue working in the public-works program.

Davis filed a grievance to contest the decision to remove him from the program. The grievance response stated that:

While out on public works assignment, grievant complained of his “sugar” being low causing the PW [public works] Officer to return the PW group to the facility. Custody concerns of reoccurrence and disruption to the work group, possible security risk in the public by the remainder of the group while the officer is attending to grievant's medical condition caused the medical provider to restrict him to facility grounds work. Grievant admitted to HUM he is non-compliant with diabetic recommendation.

Davis filed an appeal of this initial (Step I) decision in Step II of the grievance process, asserting that it was not true that his condition forced the work detail to return to the correctional facility early and that he never admitted he was non-compliant with his diabetic recommendations. Despite these assertions, Davis's administrative appeals were denied.

Having exhausted his administrative remedies, Davis filed a pro se complaint in the district court, alleging that he was removed from his public-works position because he is homosexual, in violation of his rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and naming Prison Health Services, Scharfnaar, Kast, Decline, and “John Doe[s]” as defendants. The district court screened the complaint pursuant to the Prison Litigation Reform Act and dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1915(e)(2), 1915A and 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(c). The district court dismissed Davis's equal protection claim on two grounds. First, the district court concluded that the claim failed under a rational basis review because Davis failed to identify other prisoners who were similarly situated in all relevant respects. The district court found that Davis failed “to identify any other diabetic prisoner who caused an incident requiring the work crew to return to the facility prematurely so that he could receive medical treatment,” apparently crediting the grievance response's version of the incident and not Davis's assertion that the work crew did not return to the facility early and that he finished his shift after receiving the honey packet. Next, the district court held that even if Davis had shown he was treated differently than other similarly-situated diabetics, Davis's claim was barred by the Supreme Court's decision in Engquist v. Oregon Department of Agriculture, 553 U.S. 591, 603–05, 128 S.Ct. 2146, 170 L.Ed.2d 975 (2008). The district court interpreted Engquist to bar all claims involving the application of rational basis scrutiny to employment decisions and other discretionary decision-making, and it found that Engquist applied to the “subjective discretionary decisions” made by prison officials in determining whether to employ particular prisoners on public-works crews.

II.

This court reviews de novo a district court's decision to dismiss a complaint pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1915(e)(2) and 1915A(b). Hill v. Lappin, 630 F.3d 468, 470 (6th Cir.2010). The dismissal standard under these two statutes is the same standard that this court uses to evaluate dismissals under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). Id. at 470–71. A prisoner's pro se complaint is to be read liberally, Stanley v. Vining, 602 F.3d 767, 771 (6th Cir.2010), and when judging the sufficiency of a complaint, this court “accept[s] as true all non-conclusory allegations in the complaint and determine[s] whether they state a plausible claim for relief.” Delay v. Rosenthal Collins Group, LLC, 585 F.3d 1003, 1005 (6th Cir.2009) (citing Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949–50, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009)).

Davis argues that the district court erred in dismissing his complaint at the pleading stage because he has sufficiently alleged facts that, when taken as true, state a plausible claim that he was removed from his public-works employment because of the defendants' anti-gay animus. The defendants argue that the district court properly dismissed Davis's complaint because Davis has failed to plausibly allege that the defendants' decision to remove him from the program was not rationally related to a legitimate government purpose.

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment “protects against invidious discrimination among similarly-situated individuals or implicating fundamental rights.” Scarbrough v. Morgan Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 470 F.3d 250, 260 (6th Cir.2006). Because this court has not recognized sexual orientation as a suspect classification, Davis's claim is governed by rational basis review. Id. at 261. Under this test, a “ ‘plaintiff may demonstrate that the government action lacks a rational basis ... either by negativing every conceivable basis which might support the government action, or by demonstrating that the challenged government action was motivated by animus or ill-will.’ ” Id. (quoting Warren v. City of Athens, 411 F.3d 697, 711...